The Killer Within Us

Dr. Jim Fallon, 62 years old, is a neuroscientist who studies the biological basis of human behavior at the University of California, Irvine. I was able to catch him on the third installment of ABC's four-part documentary called Secrets of Your Mind. Jim has studied the brains of more than 70 murderers on behalf of psychiatric clinics or criminal defense lawyers. Three years ago, as part of a personal project to assess his family's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Fallon collected brain scans and DNA samples from himself and seven relatives. He discovered on his own brain scan the tell-tale evidence that he himself had the potential to be a killer.

Studies show the frontal lobe of a "normal" brain is highly active and that of a serial killer or psychopath is somewhat inactive. It's speculated that this part of the brain is where our conscience and feelings of remorse originate. Dr. Fallon's previous research on murderers had suggested that many killers show distinctive patterns in these brain areas. He wasn't aware that his father's lineage was littered with murderers--famous ones like Thomas Cornell, hanged in 1673 for murdering his mother and Lizzie Borden of Fall River, Mass., who in 1892, was accused and then controversially acquitted of killing her father and stepmother with an ax.

If any one of us looks deep into our being, we will find lurking there a connection that ties humanity together like a dark thread: sin. Our sinful heritage, like a murky river, flows through each generation, leaving it's evidence on every heart. There are some that deny it's presence saying that humanity is basically good. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Again, in Matthew 15:19, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander."

Dr. Fallon's brain scan may show the potential to be a killer. But he concluded that, being a caring and non-violent person, his loving upbringing was able to thwart the effects in his own life. I still believe that we are all born with the same dark affliction that our father, Adam, left us. It is at the core of the redemption story. We can be changed, cleansed and rejuvenated to live as God originally intended. It is not through a change in behavior or a good upbringing, but is only through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ:

^"22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—²⁶he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." Romans 3:22-25