More Thoughts on Hamartia

So, I’ve been going through this series on neurology and the origins of human individuality from the Great Courses recently. In the last set of lectures I was watching he was discussing the role of the amygdalae and the frontal cortex play in aggression. As I was watching, the list which Paul gave in his letter to the Galatians of the "works of the flesh" came into my mind. And as I was thinking about it, what I realized was that everything in this list in Galatians can be attributed to a limbic system response, and in particular is an aggression response governed by the amygdalae and the frontal cortex.

The human limbic system controls the base responses which in psychology and neurology are known as the four “f”s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and… sex. To take my initial observation further, we can also say that virtually every Hamartia response, everything we can functional describe as a “sin”, is also controlled by the limbic system, the amygdalae and frontal cortex in particular, because every response which is considered to be a hamartia response invariably involves fear, aggression, sex, or feeding in some way. Murder, theft, adultery, outbursts of anger, jealousy, etc. are all ultimately limbic system responses.

I have written about my hypothesis that the amygdalae in particular might have something to do with the hamartia disorder because this is the first thing which stands out when comparing the size of the human brain and its components to the size of the brain of our closest genetic cousin, the chimpanzee, who does not appear to have this disorder. The human amygdalae, relatively speaking, are larger than the chimpanzee’s. Related to this is the frontal cortex which is also larger in humans, relatively speaking, than in chimpanzees. The human frontal cortex is larger and more developed than any other animal, and is responsible for inhibition and disinhibition of behaviors. You could say that it is the human frontal cortex which is the gatekeeper for “right” and “wrong” behavior and is responsible for holding back “inappropriate” behaviors based on societal and cultural norms.

It is also the frontal cortex which is partly implicated in ADHD, Clinical Sociopathy, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The frontal cortex is not fully developed until age 25 in human beings, and explains why children and young adults are prone to impulsive decision making because their frontal cortices are not complete.

This latter point reminds me of when Jesus said, "unless you become as a child you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Consider how children behave and their decision making. It also brings to mind the long standing idea of the age of accountability where a young child is not held as responsible for their “sins” because they are too young to understand. It also reminds me of Jesus’ teaching, and Paul’s, of non-judgment. Non-judgment is virtually the exact opposite of what the human frontal cortex wants to do. It wants to say “this action is correct” and “that action is incorrect” and it appears like it wants to do this for not only its own person but also for those others with whom it comes into contact.

The thought also occurs to me that in thinking about hamartia, we tend to have it backwards. We often define hamartia by its symptoms: selfishness, theft, murder, anger, etc. But many of these things are demonstrated in the animal world, and most animals evolved in such a way that they instinctively prioritize the passing on of their own individual genes at the expense of their rivals. Consider this. For Billions of years, animals have behaved like animals and the planet has been no worse the wear for it. For at least one hundred thousand years, homo sapiens also more or less behaved this way, even with a larger cerebral cortex than most animals, and there was no detrimental impact to the planet as a whole. And then Hamartia was introduced by what I am coming to believe were an enlarged frontal cortex, amygdalae, and a reduction in mirror neurons due to a toxin consumed by the ancestors of all homo sapiens currently living. Within the span of a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, homo sapiens have overrun the planet, driven massive numbers of other species to extinction, and are on the verge of damaging the planet’s environment beyond repair. Hamartia is not the existence of wrong actions, it’s the error in processing that arbitrarily determines something to be right or wrong.

Lastly, I am reminded too of Paul’s teaching that God judges a person based, not on His arbitrary code of conduct or behavior, but on the code of conduct or behavior which that individual person recognizes. God counts as sin, or Hamartia, what the individual counts as sin or wrongdoing according to Romans 2. But where there is no such code of conduct, there is no “sin” to be held accountable. Thus, even though animals kill, steal, rape, and run around naked etc. they do not “sin” because their frontal cortices are not shouting at them that their actions are wrong in some way.

So, if the frontal cortex is the problem, isn’t it surgically possible to correct it? No. It isn’t, and this is why; human society is based around this concept of societal rules and norms. It’s based on actions being either right or wrong. Without a functioning frontal cortex governing this, human civilization would collapse completely, and while that might be best for the planet as a whole, it would be horrendous for every human being alive right now. Millions of people would die. There is literally no way for a human being to return to a pre-Hamartia state biologically speaking. The damage was done thousands of years ago, and human beings have adapted to it in such a way that it is biologically and sociologically irreversible. Paul himself acknowledged this in his letters when he spoke about death as being the only way to be released from the Hamartia disorder.

Thus the need for Jesus’ own death on the cross and our entanglement with His death so that it becomes our own.