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 by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
How science is consistent with the ancient Christian teachings
Now after all this theology and philosophy, you may be astonished by my next move. I am going to show that science now substantiates many of the important claims that Christianity has been making since the beginning. Let me begin with the most basic. The human person is meant for love.
The human person is meant for love: sexual attachment
Since we have been talking about sex, let’s start with that. Men and women attach to each other, through the sexual act. Men secrete vasopressin, which creates a feeling of bonding. This hormone is sometimes called the “monogamy hormone,” because higher levels of it are associated with greater loyalty in some kinds of animals. This hormone helps to counteract the male tendency to pursue multiple sex partners.
When women are being sexual, we secrete a hormone called oxytocin. This hormone creates feelings of attachment, relaxation and contentment. Our levels of oxytocin surge during sexual activity, childbirth and nursing. The title of one of the early papers on this subject tells the story, “The Role of Oxytocin Reflexes in Three Interpersonal Reproductive Acts: Coitus, Birth and Breastfeeding.” A woman’s body responds to these community-building acts. The flood of oxytocin increases her desire for further touch with both her mate and her child. The hormone itself connects her to her child and her child’s father. We tend to attach to the man we are being sexual with. We also secrete oxytocin when we are nursing our babies. The sexual act itself creates an “involuntary chemical commitment.”
Becoming “one flesh” is not so easily undone as getting a divorce from our husbands or moving out from our boyfriends. We often experience significant attachments to our sex partners, long after reason would have told us to “move on. You could say this is nature’s way of creating a family. Or you could say that this is God’s way of writing our need and capacity for love into the human body itself.
The human person is meant for love: infant attachment
Let’s turn now to the most universal of all human experiences: infancy. The human infant is born helpless and dependent. It is worth noticing that this is not true of all animals. Some species are born more or less ready for life: snakes hatch and slither away from their parents. But human infants have a long period of dependency before they are prepared for adult life.
Children who are abandoned by their families often end up in orphanages. Their experience reveals some things about human development we might otherwise overlook. Children who are deprived of human contact during infancy sometimes fail to gain weight, or to develop. This “failure to thrive” syndrome is well documented. Some scientists now believe that the presence of a nurturing figure stimulates the growth hormones. All the bodily, material needs of the child are met in these orphanages. The child is kept warm and dry. The child is fed, perhaps by having a bottle propped into the crib. The child contracts no identifiable illness. Yet the child fails to thrive, and may even die. The widely accepted explanation is that the children die from lack of human contact.
Their plight is reminiscent of the monkeys that are deprived of their mothers. The baby monkeys who just get food and no mommy develop some weird behaviors, head-banging, rocking and other forms of self-stimulation. Orphanage babies sometimes do this too.
The human child’s brain is not fully developed before birth: if it were, the infant’s head would be too big to make it down the birth canal without harming the mother. So the brain continues to develop after birth.
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