DNA and Believing In God

I’d like to think I’m a Christian because I’ve carefully examined the evidence.

That I’ve weighed the arguments for and against. Read widely. Changed my mind when the facts demanded it. Arrived at my beliefs through reason rather than emotion.

It’s a comforting story.

It also happens to be the story most of us tell ourselves.

We like to believe our worldview is the product of careful, independent thinking. That if we’d been born in a different country, to different parents, in a different culture, we’d still have arrived at the same conclusions because, well… they’re true.

I’ve certainly thought that way.

In fact, I used to get mildly offended whenever someone suggested I was only a Christian because I’d been brought up that way. It felt dismissive. Almost insulting. As though years of reading, studying, questioning and wrestling with difficult ideas could simply be explained away by the postcode I happened to be born in.

“No,” I’d think. I’ve looked at the evidence. I’ve made up my own mind.

And to be fair, I have.

I’ve spent decades reading theology, philosophy, history and biblical scholarship. I’ve changed my mind on more issues than I can count. I’ve abandoned beliefs that once seemed untouchable and embraced others that would have horrified my younger self. If anything, my faith today bears little resemblance to the one I inherited as a teenager.

So surely that proves my beliefs are the result of careful, independent thinking.

Doesn’t it?

Then I started reading the psychological research on how human beings form beliefs.

It turns out we’re not nearly as objective as we imagine.

Our family shapes us. Our culture shapes us. Our education shapes us. Our friends shape us. The media we consume shapes us. Even the order in which we’re exposed to information can shape what we end up believing.

Then I discovered something even more unsettling.

Some researchers think our genes may play a role as well.

Not that there’s a “Christian gene” or an “atheist gene.” There isn’t.

But what if some people are simply born with personalities that make religious belief feel more intuitive? And others are born with minds that naturally question, doubt and resist certainty?

If that’s true, it raises a rather uncomfortable question.

How much of what I believe did I actually choose?

Nature, Nurture… or Both?

Let’s get one thing out of the way.

If you want to predict what religion someone will belong to, you don’t start with their DNA. You start with their parents.

Whether we like it or not, our upbringing remains the single biggest predictor of our religious beliefs. If you’re born into a devout Muslim family in Saudi Arabia, you’re far more likely to become Muslim. If you’re raised in a Catholic family in Brazil, you’re more likely to become Catholic. If your parents are secular Australians who never set foot in a church, there’s a good chance you’ll grow up with little or no religious belief.

None of that is particularly controversial. Our families shape us in countless ways, and religion is no exception.

But here’s where things become interesting.

In 2005, psychologists Laura Koenig, Matt McGue, Robert Krueger and Thomas Bouchard

analysed hundreds of pairs

of twins to ask a simple question: once people become adults, why do some remain religious while others drift away?

The logic behind the research is surprisingly simple. Identical twins are about as close as science gets to running the same person twice. They inherit virtually the same DNA. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are genetically no more alike than any other brother or sister. So if identical twins consistently end up more alike in their religious beliefs than fraternal twins, something more than family life must be going on.

The researchers found exactly what you would expect during childhood: family mattered far more than genetics. During adolescence, the shared family environment explained around 56% of the differences in religiosity between people, while genetic influences accounted for only 12%. In other words, while you’re growing up, Mum and Dad have far more influence over your faith than your DNA does.

But adulthood told a very different story.

Once the twins had left home and were making their own decisions, the balance shifted dramatically. The influence of the shared family environment dropped to around 18%, while the estimated genetic influence rose to about 44%.

That doesn’t mean your genes suddenly make you religious.

It means that once two people are free to make their own choices, their inherited dispositions begin to show themselves.

Imagine a pair of identical twins and a pair of fraternal twins, all raised in similar Christian homes. By the time they reach their thirties, the identical twins are much more likely to have ended up with similar levels of religious commitment than the fraternal twins. They might both still attend church, or they might both have walked away. The fraternal twins, by contrast, are much more likely to diverge.

The question is…

What is it that identical twins are inheriting?

Because it certainly isn’t a “Christian gene.”

What Are We Actually Inheriting?

If you’re imagining scientists discovering a “God gene,” you can relax.

Nobody has found one.

In fact, that’s almost certainly because there isn’t one. Genes don’t encode beliefs. They don’t tell you that Jesus rose from the dead, that Muhammad was God’s prophet or that there is no God. Beliefs are learned. They require language, culture, relationships and ideas.

So what exactly are identical twins inheriting?

According to psychologists, it’s probably not beliefs themselves, but the personality traits that influence how we process the world.

Take openness to experience, for example. People who score highly on this trait tend to be curious, imaginative and willing to explore unfamiliar ideas. They’re generally more comfortable questioning long-held assumptions and entertaining possibilities that don’t fit neatly into the boxes they’ve always known. People lower in openness often value stability, tradition and continuity. Neither approach is better than the other, but it’s not difficult to imagine how each might shape the way someone approaches religion.

Researchers have also spent decades

studying

something called the need for closure. It’s a rather clunky psychological term for a very ordinary human experience. Some people are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty. They prefer clear answers, firm conclusions and a sense that the loose ends have been tied up. Others are far more willing to live with unanswered questions. They’re content saying, “I’m not sure,” even if the uncertainty lasts for years. That difference alone can have a profound effect on how people experience faith.

Then there’s the capacity for awe. Some people are naturally moved by beauty, music, nature or experiences that leave them feeling connected to something larger than themselves.

Psychologists

sometimes refer to this tendency as trait absorption — the ability to become deeply immersed in an experience. Interestingly, people who score highly on measures of absorption also tend to report more spiritual and mystical experiences throughout their lives. That doesn’t prove those experiences come from God, of course, but it may help explain why spirituality feels almost effortless for some people while others never seem to experience it at all.

None of these traits tells us whether Christianity is true. They don’t determine whether Jesus rose from the dead or whether God exists.

But they do shape the kind of questions we ask. They affect how comfortable we are with mystery, how much certainty we crave, whether we instinctively trust tradition or challenge it, and even whether we’re likely to experience the world with a sense of wonder.

In other words, they don’t tell us what to believe.

They may simply influence how we go about believing.

And if that’s true, then it’s hardly surprising that two intelligent, sincere people can examine the same evidence and arrive at different conclusions. They aren’t just bringing different information to the conversation.

They’re bringing different minds.

Does This Mean We’re Just Products of Biology?

At this point, it’s tempting to draw the wrong conclusion. If our upbringing is the strongest predictor of our religious beliefs, and our personalities appear to influence how naturally faith comes to us, perhaps religion is nothing more than biology and social conditioning.

I don’t think the research allows us to say that.

After all, every decision we make is influenced by factors outside our control. Our political views are shaped by our upbringing. Our taste in food is shaped by the culture we were raised in. Even the person we fall in love with is influenced by our personality, our experiences and the opportunities life happens to place in front of us. Yet we don’t conclude that love doesn’t exist, or that politics isn’t real, or that beauty is merely an illusion.

Influence is not the same thing as determination.

The research isn’t claiming that our genes decide whether Christianity is true or false. Genetics has nothing to say about whether Jesus rose from the dead. DNA can’t tell us whether the resurrection happened, whether God exists or whether the New Testament is historically reliable. Those are historical and philosophical questions, and they still have to be examined on their own merits.

What the research does suggest is something much more modest — and, I think, much more believable. None of us approaches those questions as a completely neutral observer. We all bring a lifetime of influences to the table before we ever begin evaluating the evidence. Some of those influences come from our families, some from our culture, some from our education, and some may even come from our biology.

To me, that doesn’t weaken the case for carefully examining evidence. If anything, it strengthens it. If I know I’m carrying biases I didn’t choose, then I have even more reason to listen carefully to people who disagree with me, to question my own assumptions and to remain open to the possibility that I might be wrong.

Ironically, the research hasn’t made me less interested in truth.

It’s made me more humble in the way I go looking for it.