Is God Dead?: “21 Grams”

It is the heart and soul of everything. The soul of man, I mean. Whether we are all just a composite of atoms wandering about in an existence that touches, and only touches those things made of atoms, and death of the body is the annihilation of our being, questions of the soul’s existence define what it means to be human. Or, as Christianity holds, human beings are composed of a material body made up of atoms and an immaterial soul that gives our mortal bodies their essence and personhood. In short, either human beings have a soul, or they don’t. It is really that simple because if human beings have no soul, then Christianity is not true and atheism reigns supreme. However, compelling evidence for the existence of the soul, and a great deal of it, comes to us through the assessment of objective and observable phenomena. Most notably, from the inexplicable origin of human consciousness, from the testimony of Near Death Experiences, and from general religious experiences that help guide us toward the correct answer the question, “Do human beings possess a soul that survives the death of the physical body?”

In 1907 a man named Duncan MacDougall determined to put the matter to rest, not through religious argument, but through the rigors of the scientific method. MacDougall, a physician from Havenhill, Massachusetts would answer the question of the existence of the soul scientifically. In his paper published in the April 1907 edition of American Medicine, MacDougall reported the details of his experiment and his interpretation. At the center of MacDougall’s hypothesis was his belief that the human soul has mass (weight) and that the soul departs the body at the instant of death. To test his hypothesis, MacDougall recruited six dying patients whose deathbeds were then placed upon a highly sensitive scale so that any change in the patient’s weight at the moment of death could be observed.

From the bedside of one of the patients, MacDougall wrote, “At the end of three hours and 40 minutes he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end [of the balance] dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce,” or, more precisely, 21.3 grams. To bolster his hypothesis MacDougall then repeated the experiment using fifteen dogs (not so sure they were terminal) only to find exactly what he had anticipated. No weight loss upon death due to dogs not possessing souls. And with that, MacDougall had done it, or so it seemed.

Now a hundred years on, the 21^st century has seen MacDougall’s work widely popularized. The mention of the soul’s weight being 21 grams can be found throughout pop culture today from references appearing in the lyrics of popular songs and novels, to television series and podcasts. It was even the title and subject of the 2003 drama “21 Grams” starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. In the closing scene Penn’s character, who is dying from a failed heart transplant is shown lying in an ICU hospital bed as his voiceover ponders the meaning of it all: “They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? What goes with them? How much is gained? Twenty-one grams. The weight of a stack of five nickels. The weight of a hummingbird. A chocolate bar. How much did 21 grams weigh?” Then, the screen goes black, and the credits roll. It’s a powerful ending using powerful words. The only problem is, it’s not true!

For all his effort Duncan MacDougall was an abject failure as a research scientist because his “interpretation” was severely flawed. It turns out that only one of the six patients irreversibly lost weight at the moment of death. Two of the results had to be excluded for “technical reasons.” Another patient lost weight at the moment of death only to regain it a short time later while two other patients had initial weight loss which stabilized only to drop again a few minutes later. All told, only one patient lost weight, that weight was 21 grams. Statistically, one out of six is meaningless. In scientific terminology, MacDougall’s hypothesis failed so miserably that he should have been forced to accept the null hypothesis: “There is no detectable loss of weight when the soul leaves the body at the moment of death.” Like it or not, that is the scientific method. That is how real science works.

For the Christian, the outcome of MacDougall’s experiment comes as no surprise. In fact, orthodox doctrine holds that the soul of man, being pure spirit, is weightless, just as its Creator in whose image it is made is Spirit (John 4:24). The soul of man no more weighs 21 grams than does the God of heaven. Therefore, Christians reason rightly that there should be no detectable weight loss at the moment of death; not the weight of a stack of five nickels, not the weight of a hummingbird, not even the weight of 21 grams. Ultimately MacDougall’s results conclude as much.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!