by Bonnie Butcher
The College of Social Sciences lecture series at the University of West Georgia highlights those who excel in their field. Dr. Daniel Helminiak is a professor in UWG’s psychology department as well as an established author. He has written numerous articles and an impressive 10 books. He recently gave a presentation on his latest published book titled, “Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration.”
The journey of this book began in 2005 when Dr. Helminiak proposed a paper titled, “’God’ in the Brain: Untangling Neuroscience, Psychology, Spirituality, and Theology.” This work was the inspiration behind his recent book.
“I think I am proposing genuinely a whole new paradigm for studies in the human sciences and beyond, based on the work of Bernard Lonergan,” Dr. Helminiak said.
The book discusses the issues of religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences and their relation to neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness.
When he took his first course on Lonergan, within 1000 dense pages he took away an important idea.
“There’s major problems in the philosophical bases of the social sciences, and Lonergan claims to have an answer to it,” Dr. Helminiak said. “That’s all I knew. In the subsequent years I have studied through his work, and I think I understand what his answer is.”
The book explores several aspects of psychology, philosophy, and religion with chapters dedicated to Lonergan’s epistemology, neuroscience, the mind-body problem, spiritualogy, consciousness, transcendent experiences, theology, and union with God.
Dr. Helminiak earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and Andover Newton Theological School, a Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.A. in personality psychology at Boston University.
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