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May 27, 2014

2014 Barnes Symposium

This year’s Barnes Science and Faith Symposium offered opportunities for the Roberts Wesleyan College and Northeastern Seminary communities to consider the theological implications of contemporary neuroscience research, particularly as related to questions of free will, personal agency, and virtue. Our featured keynote speaker was Dr. Warren Brown, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Lee Edward Travis Research Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Dr. Brown is currently involved in neuroscience research on the subject of cognitive and psychosocial disabilities related to agenesis of the corpus callosum, and he has also studied callosal function in dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease. Most recently, Dr. Brown and other colleagues have researched the psychology and neuroscience of exemplars of the virtues of compassion and generosity, work that has resulted in a $1.2 million grant from the Templeton Foundation.

In addition to authoring or coauthoring over 75 scholarly articles and 15 chapters in edited scholarly books, Dr. Brown has written and presented on the integration of neuroscience and Christian faith. He was principal editor and contributor to Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (1998) and wrote (with Nancey Murphy)Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will (2007). Most recently, he coauthored (with Brad Strawn) The Physical Nature of Christian Life: Neuroscience, Psychology and the Church (2012).