The Status of the Body Politic and the

The Status of the Body Politic and the Status of the Body Itself In the long history of conversations between science and religion, starting points matter. As Don Browning demonstrates through the example of Thomas Aquinas, when religions start with a desire to understand human behavior, such as the long-term human commitment between parent and child, they recognize that science might illuminate and refine that understanding. And religion, in turn, might shape social institutions that not only enhance the human drive toward social connection but also imaginatively extend its influence beyond direct kinship to influence ethical relations with neighbor and stranger. By starting with a shared interest in understanding what Browning calls “the rudimentary energies of human morality,” creative conversation between science and religion thus prompts a religious humanism, in which religion partners with science to shape models of fulfillment for human sociality. Like Browning, Louise Hawkley starts with the human quest for social connection. As humans mature, Hawkley observes, they proceed from childhood dependence not toward independence but toward interdependence. But, whereas Browning pursued the implications of interdependence for the body politic, Hawkley wants to know the consequences of interdependence for the physical body. Her research focuses on the interplay between psychological and physical factors in the human sense of social connectedness, and Hawkley finds that “feeling wanted and accepted and like one belongs are as vital to our existence as the air we breathe. “ A robust sense of social connection Page |40 reverberates throughout the human body, and its absence—in loneliness—is likely to have long-term adverse effects on personal health. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021286