Kari Konkola & Glenn Sunshine. Skeptic. Volume 7, Issue 2, Spring 1999.
A Historical Perspective on a Very Old Problem
Long viewed as the basis for modern theories of biological evolution, the ideas of Charles Darwin have recently begun to have a significant impact in psychology as well. In the last two decades, interest in innate, evolution-produced behavioral traits in humans and “other animals” has spread through academia and reached a level where even critics of this approach—such as Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard—are now forced to describe it as the hottest field of science. Advocates of the Darwinian approach naturally use even more optimistic language. The Spectator of London headlined its review of a recent neo-Darwinian book “A Revolution Under Way” and The New Yorker described this field as “the territory on which the coming century’s debate about human nature will be held.” The optimism seems well justified because the belief in innate traits is rapidly becoming part of popular culture. Indeed, one can hardly open a newspaper without finding a headline announcing the discovery of yet another gene-controlled behavior. Most readers are now familiar with the “fat gene,” the “gay gene,” and the “happiness gene’
Many religious readers have reacted to this Darwinian revival with a mixture of concern and criticism. This attitude is understandable because Darwin’s theory of the origins of life contrasts sharply with traditional Christian ideas, and many advocates of evolutionary psychology are openly hostile to religion. Yet, this mutual antagonism may not be entirely warranted; in fact, seen from a different point of view, the new psychological Darwinism is actually one of the more religious fields in modem academia. To understand why, we will look at some findings of evolutionary psychology from a historical perspective to argue that these ideas are neither new nor as opposed to traditional religion as is commonly assumed.
The Received History of Evolutionary Psychology
According to the current view, evolutionary psychology has its roots in the 19th century when Darwin’s work created a surge of interest in the study of innate behaviors. This original enthusiasm abated in the 1930s with the rise of cultural determinism—a trend helped by the tremendous influence of Margaret Mead’s now-discredited 1928 book, Coming of Age in Samoa (see Skeptic, Vol. 5,No. 3). The view of human nature as totally malleable dominated in the behavioral sciences through the 1950s and 1960s, thanks to the popularity of B. F. Skinner’s theories of environmental conditioning. The revival of interest in genetic influences began with the work of ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz’s On Aggression (1966), Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape (1967) and, especially, E. 0. Wilson’s Sociobiology (1975). Spurred by these pioneers, ethologists and evolutionary biologists have in the last two decades collected so much evidence to support the existence of innate influences on behavior that even their staunchest critics now have to acknowledge a certain validity of their argument The rise to the bestseller list of books such as Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal (1994), Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works (1997), and E. 0. Wilson’s Consilience (1998) shows how the neo-Darwinian view of human nature is now becoming the dominant paradigm. Indeed, Wilson’s work maybe a harbinger of the future, because he argues that evolutionary psychology should become the unifying clearinghouse field of all behavioral sciences since it explicitly focuses on understanding human nature.
For a historian of early modern religion, this “standard” view of the origins of evolutionary psychology is chronologically restricted and departmentally insular. Far from being a 19th-century innovation of Darwin, the idea that human nature contained innate drives similar to those in animals was a central element of the traditional Christian view of human nature. According to the religious view—taught from every pulpit in early modern Europe—people consisted of a rational mind and an animal part variously called “the flesh,” “concupiscence” “sensual appetite,” or “the old Adam.” This dualistic psychology grew directly out of early modern interpretation of the Bible: at creation God had made the animal part of human nature obedient to the rational mind, but in the Fall the “beast in man” revolted, and life became an endless struggle to control our animal desires. (For examples of the “animal in man” idea in the writings of influential early modern theologians see Preston, 1633,58; Baxter, 1830,111,109; Raw let, 1686, 7; and, for the Catholic period, Colet, 1873,22.)
The failure to notice that Christianity also believed human nature contains an “animal part” is surprising and has caused evolutionary psychologists to overlook a large cache of evidence relevant to their research. The reason for this loss is that the religious preoccupation with the innate influences was not just an insignificant historical curiosity. Late medieval and early modern Christianity held the “flesh” (i.e., the innate drives) to be the ultimate cause of most of the sins people committed. The resulting need to subdue the flesh/drives to control sins forced theologians to study the drives in great detail and to systematize their observations into what can best be called a surprisingly sophisticated psychological theory. This psychological system then became the core of English practical theology. Modem evolutionary psychologists thus are by no means the first scholars in Western history to investigate how the animal part of our nature influences our thinking and behavior; Christianity did this centuries ago, and the religious “research” had a vast influence on early modem mores and values. Drastic differences in terminology make comparing the modem and early modem views of the animal part of human nature difficult, but it is dear that there are many similarities. We will focus on two: their views on the mechanism through which the less rational parts of human nature influence behavior, and their views on the drive to dominate.
A Deeper Historical View
The powerful influence of genes on behavior is a central theme of evolutionary psychology. Bestselling authors such as Wright and Pinker have used the Darwinian approach to explain just about all human activities as manifestations of innate, evolution-produced traits. Yet genes are not believed to control behavior directly. The drives “manipulate” people by creating attitudes and pleasures which influence rational decision-making, and thus behavior. In Pinker’s words: “Sexual desire is not people’s strategy to propagate their genes. It’s people’s strategy to attain the pleasures of sex, and the pleasures of sex are the genes’ strategy to propagate themselves” (1997,44).
In religious psychology the “flesh” controlled behavior through the sinful passions, which were usually summed up as the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, anger, greed, gluttony, lechery and sloth. These passions influenced all parts of the mind: emotions, thoughts, fantasies, memory, and what is commonly called “rational thinking.” The most powerful parts of this influence were passions’ ability to bring up thoughts and to determine what people felt as instinctively pleasant As can be seen, the religious view of the flesh exercising its influence by making its goals feel pleasant, and thus creating in us a desire to gratify them, is very similar to Pinker’s view of genes controlling people by creating natural pleasures. The similarity is so dose that the “sinful passions” of early modem religion can best be described as the psychological manifestations of the drives identified by evolutionary biologists. (For religious psychology of the passions/drives see Parsons, 1585,32,334 ff.; Bernard, 1628.)
Modern writers rarely address the point explicitly, but they assume that, though the intensity of the desires (i.e., how people subjectively experience the drives) can vary over the short term; over the long term the innate drives are a constant force in human nature. This assumption differs drastically from the early modem view that the power of drives could wax and wane; gratification, especially, was thought to make them grow slowly stronger and to gain ever more influence over the rational part of the mind. The divines justified this view by appealing to common sense: did proud people become less proud when they received accolades or promotions, or greedy people less greedy when they became wealthy? The answer to these questions was regarded as self-evident; the passions grew when they were fed (Preston, 1635, 16; Perkins, 1608, 13).
The variability of passions together with their perceived influence over ail parts of the mind combined to produce a commonplace of religious psychology. people might be able to keep a weak drive from influencing their behavior, but they had practically no chance of controlling a drive that had grown powerful. A strong passion either used the feeling of pleasure to manipulate “rational thinking” to justify gratification of its desires, or it simply overpowered the efforts of the will to resist it. This helplessness points to another similarity between early modem and modem observations of hereditary influences: modem evolutionary psychologists have been criticized for determinism because they regard genes as so powerful that there is little room for a free will which could overcome the innate programming controlling behavior. Indeed, in The Moral Animal Robert Wright described people not trained to detect and control their genes as little more than string puppets of their innate desires (1994, 34). This mode m determinism parallels early modern religious psychology, though the similarities are masked by differences in terminology: where Wright talks of helpless “string puppets” of genes, early modem Christianity spoke of “slaves to sin’ In the religious view; this condition was caused by “original sin,” the innate, out-of-control animal desires inherited from our primordial parents, Adam and Eve. (For the “psychological effects” of original sin, see Burgess, 1658; a summary of these effects can be found in Smyth, 1610,45-48.)
The agreement between early modem and modem observers of human nature is intriguing, because modem religious conservatives have been among the fiercest critics of evolutionary psychologists’ view of people as helpless “string puppets” of their genes (Colson, 1998, 80;Yancey, 1998,76-77.) A historian finds this position rather astounding, especially for a Protestant. After all, the idea that the will is not free was one of the central themes of the Reformation!
Parallels Between Religious and Evolutionary Psychology
One of the more robust findings of evolutionary psychology is that, aside from the sexual drive, the most powerful motivating force in many animals—including humans—is an innate desire to dominate (de Waal, 1989,187-191). Evolutionary psychologists also agree in seeing the urge to dominate as a positive force because it produces morality and cooperation through a simple quid pro quo mechanism; chimpanzees realize that helping others creates friendships which are useful in one’s struggle for power. As a result, even selfish individuals adopt some altruistic behaviors because they understand that these acts of “charity” lead to reciprocity helpful in their pursuit of status (de Waal, 1996, 136-154). The theory that morality and pro-social behavior evolved from the desire for power was originally formulated by biologist Robert Trivers in the 1970s, and his idea of reciprocal altruism have become an accepted part of evolutionary psychology.
Early modem Christianity shared the view that that all people (after the Fall) had an innate drive to dominate. According to religious psychology, this drive exerted its influence through the sinful passions of pride and envy. These two were mirror images of each other: pride was a desire to rise above others, to rule them and to be admired by them, whereas envy was a desire to pull down those above oneself. Ironically enough, even though it dearly intended to push itself to the forefront, the drive to dominate usually rationalized itself as a pursuit of equality.
Following the view that drives could grow stronger, religious “psychologists” viewed pride as a continuum. On one end were people whose passion was so weak that the rational mind could control it. These people carefully observed the effects of their actions and adopted whatever behaviors made them powerful and esteemed. At the other end of the continuum were people whose passion had grown so strong as to paralyze rational thinking. In these “childishly” proud people the impulses of the drive led directly to action: they bragged openly, fought at every insult, and flaunted whatever wealth and authority they had. This level of pride produced incessant quarrels, misfortunes, and poverty, and it was believed to be utterly destructive both to the sinner and to those around him. According to religious psychology, everyone who gratified his drive to dominate was slowly moving towards the vulgar, infantile end of the continuum. This slide was especially dangerous, because the person never noticed that it was happening. The passion overshadowed “rational” thinking, with the result that “from the inside” the sinner experienced his growing pride only as a slow, almost imperceptible change in what was “rational:’ (For religious discussions of pride see Baxter, 1830,111,2. if; Scrivener, 1688,206.)
Religious psychology thus regarded the drive to dominate as both evil and dangerous, and the central ideals of early modem Christianity reflected this view. The role model for every faithful believer was Christ, the embodiment of humility (i.e., the total absence of a desire for power and fame). On the other hand, the Devil illustrated the drive to dominate. Indeed, the personality and behavior of Satan provided a cautionary case-study which illustrated the effects of this drive: Lucifer was one of the most powerful of angels, yet because of his desire to dominate he could not be content with his high position. In the name of reaching equality, Lucifer’s pride led him to rebel against God, bringing about his fall from Heaven and the entry of sin in the world. The moral of the story was clear: Christianity saw the drive to dominate as both the sin of the devil and the source of all evil. Significantly, this story and its moral and psychological messages must have been familiar to just about everyone in early modem Europe.
Early modem theologians and modem evolutionary psychologists thus agree on the existence of an innate drive to dominate in humans. Their ideas about the effects of this drive, however, differ drastically. In the modem view, the drive to dominate is beneficial, while religious psychology regarded it as extremely dangerous. This disagreement is surprising, because the religious view was not based on biblical dogma alone. Pride and envy were important sins, and their psychological functioning received a great deal of attention from late medieval and early modem theologians. Using modem terminology; the discussions of these sinful passions were essentially vast collections of observations about the effects of the drive to dominate on the individual and on society. (The psychological expertise probably came from the confessors, who were in a position to gather detailed evidence about the passions/drives.) Treatises on humility provide additional material by describing what happened to the personality when the des ire to dominate was eliminated. This old “research” cannot be dismissed out of hand; which of these views on the effects of the drive to dominate is correct can—and should—be determined by experimental studies.
Differences Between Religious and Evolutionary Psychology
The religious view of the “animal in man” as both dangerous and sinful produced a response which has no parallel (yet?) in modem evolutionary psychology: an energetic effort to overcome genetic influences. In theology this effort was called “mortifying the flesh,” and normative evidence from early modem period contains detailed descriptions of the methods used to accomplish it. These descriptions suggest that some of the methods, especially the conversion process and some forms of meditation, were quite effective in weakening the drives. The efficacy of these methods is supported by the common belief—at least in England—that people who hoped to be saved had to be able to look back and see a drastic change in their character, when the animal desires that used to dominate them became noticeably weaker and new desires and pleasures appeared that had not been part of their personalities before (Dyke, 1616, 110-112; Baxter, 1830, VII, 375-378).
The central place which the struggle against the sinful passions had in early modem Christianity means that Western society has experienced several centuries of intense effort to suppress genetic influences on human behavior, particularly the drive to dominate. Unfortunately, evolutionary psychologists show no awareness of the unusual historical experience of Western civilization. This ignorance may have led to a serious underestimation of the power—and dangers—of the drives.
Indeed, one wonders whether the religious efforts to control drives/passions might not explain the disagreement about the effects of the drive to dominate; modem researchers cannot see the harmful effects, because, thanks to the efforts of Christianity, they are studying a society with a highly attenuated form of the drive. This possibility is highlighted by Pinker’s discussion of Schadenfreude (an instinctive feeling of pleasure at the misfortunes of others). The English language does not have a word for this emotional reaction, and Pinker assumed that the problem is only a lack of a semantic label because the emotion is “wired” in the genes and thus people must experience it (1997, 367). Yet the instinctive pleasure in other’s misfortunes used to be an expression of envy—as well as a mark of the devil—and early modern Christians regarded it as an emotional reaction which absolutely had to be eliminated. The effort to root out this feeling is likely to have been exceptionally intense, because the instinctive joy at hearing of the sufferings of others was also a well-known sign of hypocrisy. The assumption that Schadenfreude is equally strong everywhere thus can by no means be taken for granted. On the basis of historical evidence one would expect to find significant intercultural differences in the strength of this reaction—a hypothesis which again can easily be tested by research.
Interestingly, the possibility that their Christianity may have enabled many Europeans to overcome the influence of their genes does not contradict the theory of evolutionary psychology. Richard Dawkins has recently allowed for this possibility by noting that, from the point of view of “selfish” genes, the human brain “got out of hand.” According to Dawkins (1996), the brain somehow developed a capability of rational thinking which was so large as to enable it to revolt against the dictates of genes. Precisely this revolt was the aim of the “mortification of the flesh,” which was one of the central themes of English Protestantism. Robert Wright made the same point by noting that, while most people are “string puppets” of their genes, those who understand the actions of the puppeteer can free themselves from that control (1994, 34). Once again, Wright’s thinking is fully in line with early modem Christianity. In English practical theology, making people aware of the genetic strings that controlled them was called “making people see their sins,” and preachers used a special method called “preaching the law” to accomplish this end. (See Perkins, 1607, 100: Baxter, 1830, XVI, 75-76. The title of Baxter’s book describes the early modem religious attitude: Mischiefs of Self Ignorance and Benefits of Self Acquaintance.)
A Revisionist Evolutionary Psychology
Traditional Christianity and evolutionary psychology both believe in the existence of powerful, innate, “animal” influences on human behavior. The common view of human nature suggests that there should be room for reconsideration of the antagonism between these fields. Instead of the criticism, it maybe more beneficial for Christians to focus on the areas of mutual interest and to ask whether there is anything they can learn from evolutionary psychology. For their part, the neo-Darwinians could benefit from toning down their hostility to Christianity and directing their energies to testing the old, religious ideas of the psychology of innate drives by the experimental methods of modem science. Even a brief survey shows that this cross-disciplinary “consilience” would yield great benefits to both fields.
A look at the contribution which evolutionary psychology can make to modem religion produces rather surprising results. After all, “mortification of the flesh” (i.e., subduing the innate drives) is not exactly one of the hottest fields of late 20th-century theology—and we are not talking only of the New Age here. Modem studies of sin, such as Ted Peters’ Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (1994) and Cornelius Plantinga’s Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be (1995), do not investigate the sinful passions in detail, and neither do they discuss the far-reaching influence of the flesh/drives on personality, “rational” thinking and behavior. The disappearance of what formerly used to be called “sin” from modern religion is strikingly illustrated by Mircea Eliade’s 16-volume The Encyclopedia of Religion, which has no entries for “vice,” “virtue,” “pride,” “envy,” “humility,” “hypocrisy,” or “flesh.” It is hard to believe that only a few centuries ago pride and envy characterized the devil, Christ served as the role -model for humility, and mortification was the process which changed one’s personality from the pride innate in every human being to the humility required of all true Christians.
This surprising gap in modem theology points to a “revisionist” perspective on evolutionary psychology: rather than contradicting religion, the neo-Darwinians are in fact rediscovering an idea which used to be central to Christian tradition. Indeed, the role which the “bestial part of man” had in the late medieval and early modem periods means that the hottest field in modem science is just in the process of discovering the part of human nature which Christianity used to call “original sin!” Interestingly, this has not gone entirely unnoticed among evolutionary psychologists. In The Moral Animal Robert Wright mentioned in passing that ethological research has produced results which bear a troubling resemblance to the traditional religious view of human nature as inherently evil. Wright went so far as to note that “the idea that John Stuart Mill ridiculed—of corrupt human nature, of ‘original sin’—doesn’t deserve such summary dismissal” (1994,13,374-377). However, Wright does not seem to be aware of the full implications of these similarities—or at least he chose not to elaborate on this point.
The revisionist view of evolutionary psychology implies the need for an equally drastic revision of Christians’ attitude towards this new field: instead of indignantly rejecting the psychological discoveries of neo-Darwinians (Colson, 1998, 80), conservative religious readers should welcome these discoveries as a helpful reminder of a key part of the Christian tradition which somehow has been lost. Indeed, the failure of religious critics so far to notice the similarity raises a fascinating question for historians: how could the old religious expertise on human nature get so completely lost that psychologists can now present as a new discovery ideas such as the importance of innate drives—especially the lust for power—which for centuries were commonplaces for most people in Western Europe? The mystery becomes especially intriguing when one considers the vast amount of research carried out in theology and in history. Space constraints prevent a detailed investigation of the “loss of sin” here, but a massive discontinuity has obviously occurred in Christian tradition during the last three centuries.
As to the contribution which Christianity can make to evolutionary psychology, the prospects for cross-disciplinary consilience look very promising indeed. After all, one of the main tasks of early modem Christianity was to enable believers to discover and eliminate the influence of the flesh/drives on their behavior. As a result, early modem practical theology contains a vast cache of observations collected over centuries on what today is called the psychology of genetic drives. Currently this data is gathering dust in old treatises on the sinful passions, mortification, and hypocrisy, but it can provide innumerable ideas for experimental studies in evolutionary psychology-some of which were pointed out in the preceding discussion. Following these leads is likely to be highly profitable, because a preliminary survey already shows that many of the “discoveries” of evolutionary psychologists are not new. More interesting yet, the survey also suggests that some of the discoveries which are new may well be wrong, and that modem researchers may be very seriously underestimating both the danger of biological drives and their ability to influence what is commonly called “rational thinking,”
The cross-disciplinary potential extends to methodology, because early modem divines realized that the sinful passions were not always visible. Will power, conscience, education, and opposing passions could get a person to hide his true motives. Early modem theology called a discrepancy between intentions and observable behavior “hypocrisy,” and an entire branch of practical divinity specialized in uncovering people’s true motivating passions, however well they might be hidden. Many of the methods developed to detect hypocrisy were both ingenious and effective, and they can be used in modem experimental studies to discover and investigate the secret motives. (For early modem discussions of hypocrisy, see Dyke, 1614: Whatley, 1619.)
History as Psychology Writ Past
There can be little doubt that the view of Christianity and evolutionary psychology as two fields in total and irreconcilable conflict is sorely in need of revision. Theologians beat Darwin to the discovery of the “animal in man” by several centuries. As a result, ascetic Christianity has, since at least the late Middle Ages, had a well-developed psychological theory of how the innate drives function and how they can be controlled.
The failure to notice the existence of an earlier version of evolutionary psychology highlights another puzzling gap in current work on this field: the research is based mostly on observations of modem society, on anthropology, and on ethological studies of animals. The field of history has hardly contributed at all even though it contains an abundance of material about the interaction between culture and the innate, genetic human nature. The neglect of history is especially unfortunate, because this field offers a long-term perspective which enables us to observe slow, large-scale changes that cannot be studied by ordinary experimental methods. Furthermore, the methods used to control innate drives have varied both over time and between societies, and the historical record thus provides comparative evidence about the long-term effects of different methods to overcome the “animal in man,” evidence which no other source can provide.
Indeed, a large number of possible historical “case studies” about culture and human nature immediately come to mind: the life of the elite in late Roman Empire and late Renaissance Italy provides an example of what happens when there are few restrictions on the drives, when the “animal in man” is allowed free rein; the Mameluks in Egypt illustrate how culture can modify the sexual drive; and, the late medieval period described in Huizinga’s The Autumn of the Middle Ages may show how control of genetic drives influences personality. Huizinga studied Europeans before the large-scale effort at intensive mortification of the flesh (i.e., subduing genetic drives) which characterized Catholic and Protestant reformations, and the highly volatile behavior he described may be a distinctive trait of people with weak control of drives.
The value of historical evidence for evolutionary psychology can be seen in the record of the religious effort to mortify/subdue genetic drives. In its strictest form, the passion-controlling Christianity spread to four areas: Calvinist Switzerland, Calvinist Netherlands, Puritan England, and the Puritan colonies in America. Interestingly, these areas share a quite exceptional historical experience: an initial burst of religious fanaticism which in the Netherlands and in England led to a civil war, followed by several centuries of stability, openness, toleration, representative political organizations, economical and political success, and domestic peace—the U.S. Civil War being the exception to this last rule. The success of these areas strongly suggests that early modem theologians may have been onto something when they stressed the importance of controlling the animal part of human nature.
One detail of the historical record of early modem religion is especially intriguing: at least in England the strict, passion-controlling form of Christianity was closely connected with scholarship. Isaac Newton provided the most famous example of a combination of intense piety and impressive scientific achievement, but he was only an exceptionally successful representative of a type common at the time—a type best described as a highly literate, ascetically religious, and ruthlessly objective workaholic.
The close connection between the passion-controlling form of Christianity and scholarship contrasts starkly with the mutual antagonism which today characterizes the relationship between religion and science. Interestingly, early modem theologians would not have been surprised by this difference. They would have regarded it as a natural result of the loss of the religious effort to mortify the flesh. According to religious psychology, only people who had subdued the flesh and its passions could be objective and rational—in modem terms, scientific. This assumption followed directly from the devastatingly powerful influence which passions were believed to have on rational thinking: “Wise men confess, and ignorant men prove, that passions blind their judgments and reason” (Wright, 1601, 86). (Interestingly, this view agrees with the latest discoveries in the psychology of emotions. See the section “Hallmarks of the Emotional Mind” in Goleman, 1995,291-296.)
The possibility that uncontrolled drives/passions prevent rational, objective thinking is intriguing and it may be quite relevant to our current situation. After all, a wealth of evidence shows that, though disagreements remain, religion and evolutionary psychology agree to a surprising extent, and they can also contribute a great deal to each other. Unfortunately, efforts to reconcile these two fields may be impossible because of a fascinating Catch-22: the hostility between evolutionary psychologists and theologians makes it unlikely that they will ever join forces to study the old, religious treasure-trove of observations about drives/passions. Paradoxically, the passion-caused inability to overcome the first hurdle keeps theologians and psychologists from material which would describe how passions—especially hatred—destroy the ability to be objective and scientific.