Approach the Sacred: Offer Gratitude, Dwell in Humility, Speak Truth and Let the Mercy In.

4 snips

Oct 23, 2025

Guest

Dr. Chris E W Green

Guest

Iain McGilchrist

Dr. Iain McGilchrist, a renowned neuroscientist and author, teams up with Dr. Chris E W Green, a theologian and Anglican priest, for a captivating discussion on spirituality and culture. They explore how the divided brain shapes our worldview and the dangers of reductionism in art and life. With insights on storytelling's power, they argue for the importance of acknowledging darkness for personal and societal growth. The conversation delves into the necessity of space for mercy, healing, and the true value of rest and play in restoring humanity.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Reductionism Robs The World Of Wonder

Scientific reductionism makes the world feel like meaningless junk and numbs our sense of wonder.
Iain McGilchrist says young people sense this sterility and seek something richer than materialist stories.

INSIGHT

Two Minds: Knowing vs. Thinking You Know

The right hemisphere knows what it is; the left hemisphere thinks it knows everything.
McGilchrist frames cultural blindness as a dominance of the left hemisphere's false certainty.

ANECDOTE

Student Craves Poetry’s Beauty, Not Analysis

Chris Green recounts his daughter's Persian poetry class that studies politics but neglects beauty.
The anecdote shows academic reductionism stripping art of its living, aesthetic power.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Dr. Iain McGilchrist and Dr. Chris E W Green join The Meaning Code to speak of the way back from our current wandering in the wilderness. Introductions to the two follow the timestamps, which regrettably only cover the first hour. If anyone wants to add the second hour, go for it.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

01:00 Reflections on Spirituality and Hope

01:25 Iain McGilchrist reads poem by Hermes Trismegistus

06:37 The impact of Reductionism on Art and Experience

13:16 The interplay of Death, Life and Storytelling

19:01 The danger of grasping mode in human experience

31:40 The nature of understanding and intelligence

36:09 The temptation to turn resistances into tools for personal gain

40:30 The importance of making space for growth

45:00 Opposites and Dark Sides - George MacDonald

49:04 The importance of acknowledging darkness for health and society

52:50 Rituals and Henri de Lubac

56:00 Sentimentality is cruelty

Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. His books include Against Criticism (Faber), The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale UP), The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning; Why Are We So Unhappy? (Yale UP), and Ways of Attending (Routledge).

Chris E W Green Chris Green is Professor of Public Theology at Southeastern University (Lakeland, FL) and Director for St Anthony Institute of Theology, Philosophy, and Liturgics. He is the author and editor of a number of books, popular and scholarly, including most recently All Things Beautiful: An Aesthetic Christology (Baylor University Press), the first volume of a forthcoming trilogy.