Classical cognitive science explained cognition based on what Susan Hurley called the ‘sandwich model’. According to this model, cognition would take place primarily in the brain, and would consist of the brain’s processing of abstract symbols. The processing that takes place in the brain would be the second or intermediate level, the perception that leads to the existence of these symbols or representations of reality in the brain would be the first level, and the behaviour that results from the processing of the information would be the third level. Hence, the name ‘sandwich model’, which would refer to these three dimensions or levels: input (perception), processing (within the brain), and output (behaviour). This widely held conception understands the brain essentially as a computer machine. To what extent this idea is just a metaphor or is it really a theory that tries to explain how things actually are, is a matter of debate. But even if it is just a metaphor, more and more people are questioning whether it is one that does any good service. One of the schools of thought critical of the approaches of classical cognitive science is the so-called embodied cognition, which some see as an extension of it and others as a break with its fundamental principles (in the same way that classical cognitive science would have been a break with the principles of behaviourism). Be that as it may, this new current understands that in order to understand cognition we need to take into account not only what happens in the brain but also the rest of the body and its relationship with the environment. The cognizers are not properly speaking the brains, but living organisms endowed with a body in permanent relationship with the environment that surrounds them.

The projects that can be framed under the rubric ‘embodied cognition’ are really varied, but Shapiro has summarized his contributions by saying that three hypotheses are defended: conceptualization, replacement, and constitution. The conceptualization hypothesis states that human concepts are entangled with perceptual and motor systems. The replacement hypothesis suggests that many cognitive tasks do not consist of information processing but of sensory–motor interactions with the environment, i.e., they depend on actions of the cognizing subject in his or her environment. The constitution hypothesis proposes that the substrate on which cognition is implemented is not limited to the brain (not the nervous system) but extends to the whole body and even beyond it (again, the idea of extended cognition).

The aim of Tobias Tanton, Tutor in Theology at Harris Manchester College Oxford, is to apply the model of embodied cognition to theology. Although it has not always been sufficiently considered, it seems clear and even obvious that the body is indispensable for religious practice and theological reflection. As Tanton rightly points out, human beings are not angels, and we are characterized, among other things, by being embodied beings. Given the central role that the body plays in who we are, we cannot understand religion, beliefs, doctrines, or theological concepts without it. Tanton’s book is a defence of the corporeal character of all these elements, for which he draws on the model of embodied cognition briefly outlined above.

God’s revelation assumes human language. It could not be otherwise if such revelation is to be welcomed and understood. As I often tell my students, our humanity is God’s grammar, for He makes Himself present in who we are in order to make Himself knowable (insofar as this is possible). This ‘principle of accommodation’ applied to the case at hand means that if we human beings are indeed embodied, our theology must necessarily be embodied. If our cognition is embodied cognition, our theological concepts will also be embodied concepts. God is made known to us in our humanity, with its limits and capacities (and in its limits and capacities). Embodied cognitive science can show us some of those limits and capacities. Like all concepts (or at least a good part of them), the concepts of theology will have their foundation in the human body, and in the way it knows and relates to its environment and to other human beings.

Tanton also tries to show that embodied cognition is not only relevant when examining our theories and concepts, but also our practices. If cognition is also about bodily action in a given context, religious practices are not only the symbolic expression of a cognition that occurs independently of them, but we have to recognize that they are themselves cognition-laden. Religious practice, far from being secondary, is fundamental, and is the source of a kind of cognition that cannot be achieved by any other means.

Tanton’s book seems to me a good example of a dialogue between science and theology. The cognitive sandwich model is increasingly questioned, although it is still practically the orthodoxy in the world of cognitive science and especially in cognitive neuroscience. The embodied cognition approach also has its limits, but at least it includes in the formula the whole organism and its relationship to the environment, elements without which it seems difficult, indeed, to understand what cognition consists of. The fact that Tanton has tried to draw the consequences of the embodied perspective for theology is to be welcomed. However, at times it seems that the arguments are taken a little too far, as I think is the case in the concluding chapter, which examines the contributions of contextual theologies to the question of embodiment. It is true that in the incarnation God assumes a concrete body, that of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is true that this event is crucial. But God assumes a body because he assumes human nature. It does not seem necessary, then, to justify how it is possible that having assumed the body of a man, the incarnation also implies the possibility of salvation for women, or how it is possible that by assuming the body of an able-bodied man, salvation is also open to the disabled. I think this approach confuses things a bit. It is true that without assuming a human body the incarnation would not have been possible, but the incarnation does not only concern the human body, and does not affect a specific human body or those like it, but has efficacy in all human nature and even in all creation, for as the beautiful hymn in the letter to the Colossians says, ‘Through him, God willed to reconcile all things to himself’ (1:20).