Overriding Selfishness by Experiencing Awe

As biological animals, we are genetically and even behaviorally programmed to be self-centered, even though we can “self-program” to override this instinctual urge, which is geared to self-preservation. We are naturally economizing beings, oriented like squirrels to store up as any nuts as we can for winter, given the natural conditions of scarcity and uncertainty in the human condition. Yet we eschew selfish people and generally expect some extent of generosity from benevolence (benevolentia), which in turn is based on good will (benevolentia). To be sure, we can take measures not only to hold us back from abject selfishness, but also override the instinctual urge even for self-preservation. One such way has to do with experiencing awe.  

It is easier to accept that self-interest, which can manifest narrowly as selfishness, has a biological basis refined by the process of natural selection in evolution than it is to believe that experiences of awe have biological effects that reduce or even eclipse a self-centered orientation in perception and behavior. According to one researcher, an experience of awe “activates our vagus nerve. That’s ‘the big bundle of nerves starting in the top of your spinal cord that helps you look at people and vocalize’ . . . and it also ‘slows our heart rate, helps with digestion and opens up our bodies to things bigger than us.’”[1] The neurological feature of perceiving (and perhaps even judging) other people is particularly salient in regard to self-centeredness. For as the vagus nerve is being activated from an experience of awe, a region of the brain is deactivated—the default mode network. “That is where all the self-representational processes take place: I’m thinking about myself, my time, my goals, my strivings, my checklist. That quiets down during awe.”[2] As thoughts about oneself become recessive, we would expect the vagus nerve to look at people less fettered by interlarding thoughts about oneself and one’s own interests.

An experience of awe does not necessitate there being a religious experience; “finding awe and wonder” in the world around us “can be as simple as pausing and noticing . . . something as seemingly small as a newly blossomed flower to something as bigas a sunset stretched across the entire sky.”[3] Another source of awe is of a moral sort, as evinced in “witnessing the kindness or goodness or generosity of other people.”[4] I submit that witnessing or being on the receiving end of compassion for a detractor or enemy transcends awe from a virtue to instantiate spiritual awe, especially if God is believed to be love itself, theologically speaking. To be sure, such awe, or moral awe, need not be experienced for the biological processes to kick in; “listening to music, seeing art and contemplating big ideas” may suffice to trigger an experience of awe.[5]

Perhaps regularly having intense experiences of awe can reduce self-referential thoughts to the extent of a person being willing to die for a larger principle than self-preservation. Religious martyrs and warriors who are willing to die for their country (or cause) on a battlefield may thus be so inclined for biological as much as religious/patriotic reasons.

Furthermore, being less self-referential cognitively can, in itself and as this affects how other people are perceived (via the vagus nerve), render a person more moral in terms of being more benevolent, and thus generous, and less selfish. This orientation is in line with Bentham’s utilitarianism, wherein a person should act in line with the greatest good for the greatest number possible of people, and with Kant’s categorical imperative wherein a person should treat other rational beings not merely as means to one’s own interests, but also as ends in themselves. This formulation is in line with the Golden Rule in Christianity: love others as one loves oneself. Though in depressing the latter, loving others becomes more like selfless, or agape, love, which is self-emptying (kenosis) rather than self-aggrandizing. 

That such lofty theological notions may have correlates in biology does not take away from the value of the former as being sacred even if biology is viewed as profane. Even if a religious person is of another world, being in the earthly realm before any after-life cannot be doubted. Even though Augustine held that human love even as directed “upwards” to God is the best that we mere mortals can do, Calvin was more idealistic in viewing us as being capable not merely of Augustinian caritas love, but also of divine-sourced agape love—this species of theological love being much closer to selflessness than is caritas, which is based on garden-variety eros. Ironically, Calvin’s claim may find support from biological processes that are deactivated and activated.

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1. “Scientists Asked People . . .,” The Huffington Post, December 27, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

God's Gold: Beneath Shifting Sands

The book traces the historical shift in Christian attitudes toward profit-seeking and wealth. Through the centuries, the dominant position shifted from anti-wealth to pro-wealth, meaning that the coupling of greed to profiting and accumulating wealth was at first thought to be very tight, but then loosened--eventually to the extent that a camel could get through the eye of the needle. With both anti-wealth Luther and pro-wealth Calvin living in the same economic context, the commercialization of Europe cannot fully explain the shift. As one possibility, a bias in a core theological doctrine may have been subtly tilting the ground in the pro-wealth direction. If so, the implications for Christianity, and for religion more generally as a phenomenon, would be nothing short of earth-shaking.

Quitting Money: Crazy in Christian Terms?

In 12 years, Daniel Suelo has not made a penny; neither has he spent one. In 2000, he left his remaining $30 in a phone booth (remember those?) and never looked back. He went on to live on public lands, foraging for food and accepting alms from others.  Mark Sundeen, who wrote The Man Who Quit Money about his friend, told an interviewer, “I assumed he had gone crazy or had some kind of mental breakdown. But that is not the case.”[1] The key to unpacking Suelo’s life-choice is to view it as a spiritual journey.

Throughout the history of Christianity, theologians have expressed various views on the relationship between greed and profit-seeking (wealth). Suelo’s path is in line with the strict anti-wealth school expressed in the writings of Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Justin, and demonstrated in the lives of Paulinus of Nola and Godric of Finchale. Godric was a merchant-trader during the first century of the Commercial Revolution of the High Middle Age. He believed that any profit or wealth were utterly incompatible with salvation, so he gave his buried fortune to the poor and lived for fifty years as a hermit. By modern standards, Godric’s choice looks bizarre—even crazy. The key to understanding Godric’s choice is to view it as part of a spiritual journey.

One question for us moderns is whether an established though by now rare religious take on whether profit-seeking and accumulated wealth evince underlying greed is nonetheless a sign of mental illness. Even within Christianity, the strict anti-wealth stand has been moderated (Augustine and Luther). More broadly, moderated and full pro-wealth positions have been expressed by the likes of Clement of Alexandria (a hybrid stance), Aquinas, Calvin, and the Christian humanists of the late Renaissance. In fact, Ficino, a priest in Naples during the fifteenth century, wrote that love of gain is justified because humans are gods on earth by virtue of the control we have over natural resources. In modern times, the prosperity gospel has preached material wealth for the true Christians. Clearly, Christian thought has spanned a wide spectrum on whether profit-seeking and wealth intimate the presence of greed.

Given the span of perspectives just in historical Christianity alone, Suelo’s choice can seem extreme and therefore as bizarre and at the very least unnecessary.  However, it could also be the case that what had been an ideal in early Christianity preached by Jesus has been gradually undermined by greed whose gravity tends in the direction of wealth. If so, what is seems normal today may in Christian terms be rather decadent—even sinful—and what seems bizarre might be truer to form. My point is that it would be rather unwise of us to rely on the societal norms of our day—as if deviance from them automatically means someone is crazy. Just as a religion can falter, so too can a society. In such a context, it is only natural to suppose that false criteria are true—as authentic and valid—and therefore to look at people like Suelo through lenses that we presume are clear yet are like a dark, smoky glass.

See related essay: “A Preface to Godliness and Greed”


1. “He ‘Quit Money’ and Is Still Living a Happy Life,” MSNBC, May 2, 2012.