Affective neuroscience, the modern neuroscience of emotion, emerged powerfully in the late 20th century by demonstrating that emotions are not vague feelings, but biologically grounded action systems partly shaped by evolution, embodied in distinct neural circuits, and expressed through physiologically specific patterns that prepare organisms for survival and flourishing. Pioneering work by Jaak Panksepp (1943–2017) identified primary-process emotional systems such as FEAR (centred on the amygdala, periaqueductal gray, and hypothalamus), RAGE, SEEKING (mesolimbic dopamine circuits), LUST, CARE (oxytocinergic hypothalamic networks), PANIC/GRIEF (anterior cingulate and separation-distress circuitry), and PLAY (fronto-striatal networks). This work built on earlier foundations laid by Charles Darwin (1872) on emotional expression, Walter Cannon (1927) on bodily responses, James Papez (1937) and Paul MacLean (1952) on limbic circuitry. It was refined by Joseph LeDoux’s fear-conditioning research in the 1980s–1990s and Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis (1994), which together established physiological specificity, namely that fear, disgust, joy, and sadness are associated with partially distinct neural, autonomic, endocrine, and behavioural signatures rather than a single undifferentiated arousal state. For example, disgust prominently recruits the insula and basal ganglia and elicits nausea and withdrawal, while fear activates amygdalo–brainstem circuits driving vigilance, cortisol release, and defensive behaviour. From a Christian perspective, this research illuminates the Biblical claim that humans are embodied souls (Genesis 2:7), “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14), whose emotions are meaningful signals rather than moral failures in themselves; Scripture acknowledges biologically grounded emotions, including fear (Psalm 56:3), righteous anger (Ephesians 4:26), compassion (Matthew 9:36), and grief (John 11:35), while calling them to be ordered by love and wisdom through spiritual formation (Romans 12:2), suggesting that neural circuits are part of God’s good creation yet subject to disorder in a fallen world (Genesis 3). The value of affective neuroscience for personal wellbeing lies in helping individuals understand, regulate, and heal emotional systems through practices that integrate body, mind, and spirit, such as secure attachment, contemplative prayer, therapy, and community. At a societal level such insight informs trauma care, education, justice, and public health by recognising how fear, rage, and care circuits shape collective behaviour, offering a scientifically grounded and theologically hopeful vision in which emotional knowledge becomes a tool for compassion, resilience, and the pursuit of the common good (Micah 6:8).