Supported Books & Articles

Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (Understanding Complex Systems)
edited by Nancey Murphy, George F.R. Ellis, and Timothy O'Conner
Springer, 2009

How is free will possible in light of the physical and chemical underpinnings of brain activity and recent neurobiological experiments? How can the emergence of complexity in hierarchical systems such as the brain, based at the lower levels in physical interactions, lead to something like genuine free will?

A key tool in understanding how free will may arise in this context is the idea of downward causation in complex systems, happening coterminously with bottom up causation, to form an integral whole. Top-down causation is usually neglected, but is explored in depth in this book, along with the ethical and legal implications of our understanding of free will.

The book arises from a JTF Humble Approach Initiative workshop held in California in April 2007 on Top-Down Causation and Volition, chaired by Dr. Christof Koch. Participating scholars included physicists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and theologians, offering a range of perspectives on this issue. The resulting publication includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis, Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans Küng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs, Nancey Murphy, William Newsome, Timothy O’Connor, Sean A. Spence, and Evan Thompson.

Thrift: Rebirth of a Forgotten Virtue
by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch
Encounter Books
November 2009

If the current financial crisis has taught us anything, it is the imperative to save—and to revive a forgotten American virtue. In Thrift, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch looks at the history of thrift from its roots in the Scottish Enlightenment to the no-waste credo of Sam Walton. Malloch argues that thrift itself, when rightly understood, provides the resources to stimulate prosperity.

Even if the government manages to shock our ailing economy back to life, Americans will require discipline, accountability, and farsightedness — all natural products of thrift — to maintain the country's financial and economic health. In an age when corruption and ineptitude have crowded out thrift, Malloch’s important book is lively, topical, and immediately useful.

The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures
by Nicholas Wade
The Penguin Press
November 2009

For the last 50,000 years, and probably much longer, human beings have practiced one or another religion. But little attention has been given to explaining the universality of religious behavior. How did it become hardwired into human nature? In his new book, supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the acclaimed New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade traces how religion grew to be so essential to early societies in their struggle for survival.

As a force that binds people together and motivates individuals to put the interests of society above their own, religion encouraged moral behavior toward those within the group and aggression, when necessary, toward those outside it. Religion thus provided the earliest human societies with their equivalents of law and government. Wade describes how religion influences morality and trust, governs people’s reproductive practices and demography, motivates soldiers for warfare, and unites social organizations as small as parishes and as vast as civilizations. A compelling and original contribution to the scientific study of religion, The Faith Instinct examines both the weaknesses of modern religions and the strengths that account for their remarkable persistence.

Stolen Lives: Dignity, Forgiveness, Hope, and Future-mindedness for Victims of Sex Trafficking in India
By Victor Joseph, D.Min.
Edited by Kent Hill, Ph.D.

Over 700,000 people are trafficked across nations and international borders each year. A majority of the victims of this modern form of slavery are women and children. Stolen Lives is a newly released report (August 2009) on the staggering emotional and psychological effects of sex trafficking on the young women, between the ages of 14 and 22, who are sold into brothels in India. Extensive interviews were conducted by Dr. Victor Joseph, an Indian human rights activist and educator in the United States. He carefully analyzes the stages through which these young women pass during their ordeals, and also looks at the impact of forgiveness and future-mindedness on their lives.

Stolen Lives addresses questions that need urgent attention in the broader discussion of sex trafficking: Is forgiveness possible in these horrific circumstances? Is it necessary for healing to occur? How do these young women envision their future and their ability to shape it? Can the victims of sex trafficking escape fatalistic views of themselves and the world and come to believe in their own capacities?

The study is intended as a tool for NGOs, universities, governments, law enforcement, and other agencies who wish not only to tackle this global issue but to help the victims restore their lives. To download a copy of the report, click here.

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion (Harvard University Press)

Since the 19th century, the dominant narrative in the history of science has been that of science triumphant and of science at war with religion. In the 1970s, however, a new generation of historians began to examine various episodes in the history of science and religion through the values and knowledge of the actors themselves. In a new volume, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion, Ronald L. Numbers has brought together the leading scholars of this new history of science. Their essays puncture a range of still-prevalent myths, from Galileo’s incarceration to Darwin’s deathbed conversion to Einstein’s belief in a personal God who “didn’t play dice with the universe.” The book is based on papers delivered at a 2007 conference supported by the Templeton Foundation.

Ronald L. Numbers is the Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A leading figure in the field, he is an authority on the history of creationism and creation science. He is currently working on a one-volume history of science in America since European settlement and co-editing (with David Lindberg) the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science.

The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (Oxford University Press) describes and assesses the latest scientific accounts of how religious belief and behavior developed. The volume begins with essays by leading researchers in the field, who discuss the evidence for a naturalistic understanding of religion's origins, and concludes with a series of diverse reflections on this research by leading philosophers, theologians, and scientists.

The Believing Primate addresses such questions as: Is religion an accidental by-product of our evolutionary development or an adaptation shaped by natural selection? Do scientific accounts of religion's origins undermine the justification of religious belief? Even if human beings are naturally disposed toward religion, would we fare better or worse without it?

Edited by Jeffrey Schloss (distinguished professor of biology and director of the Center for Faith, Ethics, and the Life Sciences at Westmont College in Santa Barbara) and Michael Murray (vice president for philosophy and theology at the John Templeton Foundation), the volume is the result of summer seminars at Calvin College sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation on "Science and Religion" and "The 'Nature' of Belief: Evolutionary Explanation, Biological Function, and Divine Purpose."

SPARKS: How Parents can help Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers

In his provocative and practical new book, Sparks: How Parents Can Help Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers, JTF advisor Peter L. Benson describes a simple yet powerful plan for awakening the spark inside every young person. His recommendations for encouraging teenagers to find joy, energy, and direction can make the difference between a life of merely “surviving” and one of actively “thriving.” Grounded in new research with thousands of teenagers and parents, Sparks offers a step-by-step approach to helping families discover and celebrate their unique gifts.

A social psychologist and the author of many previous books, Benson is an internationally recognized authority on children and teenagers and how to help them flourish and thrive. He is the creator of Developmental Assets, a widely used framework for positive youth development, and of other innovations in the field. Benson serves as president and CEO of the Minneapolis-based Search Institute, an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities.

A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil

David G. Myers is the author of the most widely used psychology textbook on college campuses today, soon to be in its 9th edition, and he devotes a good deal of his time to keeping it up to date. But Myers, a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and a professor of social psychology at Hope College in Michigan, also has a vocation—getting people on different sides of difficult issues to talk to each other.

This middle ground, Myers recently argued in "On Faith," the religion blog of the Washington Post, is precisely what today's "new atheists" refuse to accept, a point he also emphasized in his response to Religulous, the new movie by Bill Maher. Publishers Weekly, among other reviewers, has singled out his new book's calm reasonableness as a particular strength: "Myers adds to the numerous apologetic texts that have emerged since the neo-atheist movement began. But this quick jaunt into potentially dangerous waters is head and shoulders above the rest."