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"More recently, cognitive psychologists have used the resources of psychological science to study the foundations of religion, and to discuss and possibly illuminate issues of concern for theologians. The new field, known as the cognitive science of religion (CSR), draws from work by Ernest Thomas Lawson, Robert McCauley, Pascal Boyer and Justin Barrett, among others. Many of its scholars are inspired by a spirit of collaborative work with theologians and philosophers of religion, emphasizing the need of serious cross-training between disciplines. Driven by the same spirit, the present issue of Scientia et Fides documents instances of integrative work at the intersection of psychological science and philosophical or theological knowledge, specifically centered around our understanding of what a person is. We hope that, apart from their individual worth, as a whole these contributions will stimulate further interdisciplinary studies, in order to achieve genuine science-engaged philosophy and theology, and a science that is aware of philosophical and theological discussions." (from the introduction)

The Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) is a scientific approach to the study of religion that seeks to provide causal explanations of religious beliefs and practices. Proponents of CSR seek to explain the process of the formation, acceptance, transmission, and prevalence of religious beliefs by explaining the natural features of the human mind and how it functions. One of the religious beliefs that exists in all human cultures, and has attracted the attention of many CSR scholars in the last decade, is the belief in afterlife. According to CSR researchers, this belief is rooted in the natural structures of the human mind. They see the belief in life after death as a non-reflective or intuitive belief that results from the functioning of mental tools. They have proposed various theories to explain the formation, development, spread, and transmission of belief in life after death. But among these theories, two theories have been more widely accepted, intuitive dualism theory and simulation constraint theory. Intuitive dualism theory says that all humans have the two mental tools: Intuitive Biology and Intuitive Psychology. Intuitive Biology in the face of a dead person makes us believe that he is no longer alive because he cannot move and act. Intuitive Psychology continues to attribute invisible features (such as desires, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions) to the dead person automatically. The simultaneous functioning of the above two mental tools makes the human mind believe that a part of the dead person is immaterial and remains after the physical death. Simulation constraint theory says that all humans have the mental tools to process information from the environment and acquire religious beliefs. None of the mental tools can imagine or simulate the nonexistence of one's desires, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Therefore, the human mind in the face of the dead person, although easily imagining his physical death, continues to believe in the existence of another part of the person (thoughts, desires, etc.). Both of these theories seem to face challenges and limitations in explaining the formation of belief in afterlife. These include inability to provide causal explanation, the lack of distinction between the natural and the rational foundations of belief in afterlife and disregarding the supernatural foundations of the afterlife belief. Neither of the two theories seems to provide a sufficient causal explanation for the formation of belief in the afterlife. Both theories attempt to present a possible story about the formation of afterlife beliefs based on how mental tools function. They provide only a reasonable story of the process that has led to the belief in afterlife. What these two theories offer is a description (not causal explanation) of the human mind and its tools and how they function. This in itself does not explain that these tools have produced a belief in the afterlife. Therefore, the claim that belief in the afterlife is the result of the functioning of mental tools requires a causal relationship between mental tools and this belief. Neither of these two theories can explain this causal relationship, and they merely describe a reasonable story of the relationship between them. Furthermore, distinction between rational foundations of religious belief and natural foundations of religious belief shows that finding a natural origin for believing in the afterlife or describing the cognitive mechanisms associated with it does not in any way mean rejecting or discrediting that belief. Cognitive theories about the natural origins of the belief in the afterlife cannot show us whether this belief is rational or irrational. These explanations can only (if they can) show us the natural roots of the formation and prevalence of this belief. Also Religious belief is a complex notion. Firstly, it is a natural notion, in that sense it is rooted in the human nature and is related to human cognitive systems and mental tools. Secondly, it is a cultural and social notion, in that sense it is both influenced by cultural and social change, and also affects it. Thirdly, it is a supernatural notion, in that sense it is deeply connected with both revelation and prophecy, and with the immaterial aspect of human. Belief in afterlife seems to require all three levels of explanation.

The foundation of Alvin Plantinga's reformed epistemology is the idea that beliefs which are naturally, non-inferentially and immediately produced by a cognitive faculty are properly basic. A properly basic belief is one that ought to be held as true, even if there is no evidence or argument to confirm it. Such a belief should only be rejected once sufficient evidence or a sound argument can be found to disprove it. Plantinga's most important claim is that belief in God is one such belief, produced by a cognitive faculty which he calls the sensus divinitatis. In this paper I will first examine three major accounts of the origin of religious beliefs from the cognitive science of religion, not only to show that such beliefs exist but also to see if any one of these accounts could be considered a scientific account of the sensus divinitatis. I will then examine reformed epistemology itself in order to find out whether or not Plantinga is correct in saying that these beliefs ought to be held as true until disproven and to see if Plantinga's properly basic beliefs can be considered a form of knowledge.

Naturalistic explanations for religious beliefs, in the form of the cognitive science of religion (CSR), have become increasingly popular in the contemporary sphere of philosophy and theology. Some...

The cognitive science of religion sets out a naturalistic account of religion, in which religious phenomena are grounded in evolved cognitive and moral intuitions. This has important implications f...

Robert McCauley and Ernest Thomas Lawson, Philosophical Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion

According to The Debunking Argument, evidence from the cognitive science of religion suggests that it is epistemically inappropriate to persist in believing in the theistic God. In this paper, I focus on a reply to this argument according to which the evidence from cognitive science says nothing about the epistemic propriety of belief in the theistic God, since God may have chosen to create human beliefs in God by means of precisely the systems identified by cognitive scientists. I argue that this reply can be extended to a variety of non-theistic contexts, and consequently that if the reply is sound, then the scope of The Debunking Argument is surprisingly limited.

A doctrine of original sin or of the human condition generally requires an account of how that sin or condition is transmitted. One would think there are two options for thinking about this. Either original sin is innate or it is acquired. Both would seem to be problematic, the former because all the available options involve untoward metaphysical commitments or implicate God in unacceptable ways; the latter because of the uniformity of the human condition the doctrine requires. In this article, I use conceptual advances within the cognitive science of religion and empirical research to advance a plausible model of what the human condition consists in and how it is passed down.

This concluding chapter summarizes the main argument and the central findings of the investigation. We then conclude by offering a re-appraisal of Richard Dawkins’ biting and often ridiculed criticism of religion. I argue that, ignoring the vitriol and the rhetoric, in principle, the strategy Dawkins applies aids advocacy for atheism. This strategy is to attack arguments in favor of religion and to appeal to cognitive and evolutionary research to explain why people hold allegedly false religious beliefs. For an atheist advocate employing this strategy, such research is analogous to “geocentric psychology”, an explanation of why people in some contexts widely (and falsely) believed that the sun orbits the earth. Such psychology does not establish heliocentrism by providing conclusive evidence that the earth orbits the sun. But it helps the heliocentric advocate by explaining why people would widely believe the opposite. Similarly, the chapter argues, CSR helps the atheist respond to the challenge of explaining why people would widely and falsely believe in God.

Justin Barrett and Kelly James Clark have suggested that cognitive science of religion supports the existence of a god-faculty akin to sensus divinitatis. They propose that God may have given rise to the god-faculty via guided evolution. This suggestion raises two theological worries. First, our natural cognition seems to favor false god-beliefs over true ones. Second, it also makes us prone to tribalism. If God hates idolatry and moral evil, why would he give rise to mind with such biases? A Plantingian response would point to the noetic effects of sin. Such a response, however, would have to assume that God is restoring the minds of believers. This paper considers empirical reasons to doubt that such a process is taking place.

Martin, Luther H. and Donald Wiebe (eds) 2017. Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-five Years. xi + 260 pp. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN: 978-1 350-03246-0 £85.00 (hbk); 978-13501-0592-8 £28.99 (pbk); 978-13500-3247-7 £31.30 (e book).

The doctrine of the Intelligent Design offers an intuitive explanation of why the ordering in the Universe is authored by an intentional agency. Due to its appeal to common-sense perception, this doctrine is endorsed even by scientifically literate circles despite of its obvious contradiction with the discoveries of science. In this article, an attempt to apply the tools of the cognitive science of religion to the appraisal of the methodological and epistemic status of the ID doctrine is presented. It is concluded that the ID doctrine may serve as means of the real-time metaphorical reassurance of the creative power of God while it cannot give grounds to any literal inferences on the nature of the Divine action.

This review essay presents and critically engages April DeConick’s The Gnostic New Age, thereby elucidating a series of theoretical problems currently facing the study of Gnosticism and ancient religion more broadly. Notably, a post-theoretical shift—identified as pervasive in the field of religious studies in the 2010s—has emerged in recent Gnostic studies, a shift that has failed to embrace the critical insights offered by Michael Williams (1996) and Karen King (2003) and is on the rise in Gnostic studies. In addition, a historical “mapping” (in the sense offered by J. Z. Smith) of ancient religion into dichotomies leaves us with a romanticized ”Gnosticism” and a caricatured understanding of ancient religion and ancient Christianity. On the positive side, however, DeConick illustrates a rising interest in studying the experiential in Gnosticism while advocating the application of cognitive science of religion.

Luther H. Martin and Donald Wiebe, eds, Religion Explained? The Cognitive Science of Religion after Twenty-Five Years (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2017), xi + 260 pp. $102.60 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1-35003-246- 0; $39.95 (pbk). ISBN: 978-1-35010-592-8; $102.60 (PDF eBook). ISBN: 978-1-35003-247-7.

This book is meant to be used as a teaching resource, the editors caution in the introduction, it is not a work of original scholarship. Taking into account that the academic study of religion is ‘...

This is an analytical study into how the new cognitive science of religion (CSR) relates to the classical but now lowly regarded "intellectualist" view of religion, according to which supernatural-agent concepts serve to explain the world. Could CSR be merely old intellectualist wine in new bottles? No, the central idea of the "standard model" of CSR, "minimal counterintuitiveness" (MCI), is not intellectualist --- yet for the phenomenon that motivates MCI theory a better account falls out of intellectualist work, five decades old, by the late anthropologist Robin Horton. Other CSR ideas include the "hyperactive agency detection device" (HADD), as well as two approaches that I classify as intellectualist. I argue that an agency bias is not needed to account for religion --- in fact, no type of bias is needed that could not be found in modern science as well --- and that old-fashioned intellectualism, which along the way I defend against objections, does a better job than the two CSR intellectualisms. (Although part of the CSR problem here turns out to be just odd prohibitions against the old-fashioned intellectualism.) Insight largely overlooked today, and applicable to the origin of religion and especially to the so-called Axial Age, can be found in work that is no less than three centuries old, by Bernard de Fontenelle.

Kognitif din bilim, dinî düşüncelerin insan bilişsel sistemlerinin çalışmasının doğal bir sonucu olarak ortaya çıktığını, dolayısıyla tamamen doğal ve bilimsel yöntemlerle anlaşılabilir ve açıklanabilir bir yapısı olduğunu savunan bir çalışma alanıdır. Bu tezde, Batı'da yapılan güncel din çalışmalarına damgasını vuran kognitif din bilim çalışma alanının temel varsayımları ve teorileri eleştirel bir şekilde ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Tez, giriş, üç temel bölüm ve sonuç bölümünden oluşmaktadır. Giriş bölümünde aydınlanma çağı boyunca dinin kaynağına ilişkin yapılan hümanist açıklamaların genel özellikleri ve insan doğasına ilişkin yaklaşımlar üzerinde durulmuştur. Birinci bölümde, kognitif din bilimin tarihsel arka planı hakkında bilgi verilmiş ve alana katkı sunan akademisyenlerin eserlerinden bahsedilmiştir. Çalışmanın ikinci bölümü, kognitif din bilimin çalışmalarını üzerine bina ettiği en temel teoriler ve varsayımların açıklamalarına ve değerlendirmelerine ayrılmıştır. Üçüncü bölümde kognitif din bilim başlığı altında incelenebilecek teoriler, iddialar ve ortaya konulan bulgular açıklanmaya ve değerlendirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Sonuç bölümünde ise kognitif din bilimin verilerinin ve iddialarının ne derece tutarlı olduğu ve dini düşüncenin kaynağını açıklama konusunda ne derece başarılı olduğu tartışılmıştır. Cognitive science of religion, CSR, is an emerging discipline which claims that religion is a natural by-product of the human cognitive systems and can therefore be understood and explained completely through natural and scientific methods. In this thesis, the core assumptions and theories of the CSR, which seems to dominate the current academic studies of religion in the West, are presented and discussed.The thesis comprises of an introduction, three main chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, the humanist explanations of religion that are advanced since the enlightenment era and general views regarding the human nature are presented briefly. In the first chapter, the historical background of CSR is given by reference to the works of the scholars who contributed to the area considerably. The second chapter provides a description as well as a critical examination of the main assumptions and theories that are at the bedrock of the practitioners of CSR. Similarly, in the third chapter, the theories and findings of CSR are presented and discussed critically. And finally, in the concluding part, an overall assessment of these theories and findings of CSR is given in terms of their consistency and rationality in order to see to what extent they provide a successful explanation for the origins of religious belief. 149

Autori u radu analiziraju osnovne odrednice relativno mladih znan-stvenih disciplina nazvanih kognitivna znanost o religiji i evolutivna kognitivna znanost o religiji, koje su postale nezaobilazne pri pokušaju ostvarenja znanstvenoga objašnjenja religije. Cilj je članka pružiti širi okvir razumijevanja mogućega budućega razvoja interdisciplinarnoga i transdisciplinarnoga dijaloga između novih disciplina i teološke antropologije., In the article the authors provide insights into the basic determinants of relatively young scientific disciplines – the cognitive science of religion and the evolutionary cognitive science of religion, which have become inevitable in attempting to pursue the scientific explanation of religion. The aim of the article is to provide a broader framework for understanding the possible future development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogue between emerging disciplines and theological anthropology.

Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy, edited by Helen De Cruz and Ryan Nichols, Bloomsbury, 2016. Advances in Experimental Philosophy series. 221pp. $42.95 USD ISBN: 978-1-47422- 382-9

Cognitive science of religion is a fairly young discipline with the aim of studying the cognitive basis of religious belief. Despite the great variation in theories a number of common features can be distilled and most theories can be situated in the cognitivist and modular paradigm. In this paper, I investigate how cognitive science of religion (CSR) can be made better by insights from John Dewey. I picked Dewey because he offered important insights in cognition long before there was cognitive science and because his ideas are influential in the recent enactivist movement. The relevance of Dewey’s thought for CSR will be discussed under three headers: embodiedness, embeddedness and anti-modularity. I focus on these points because embodiedness and embeddedness are important features of Dewey’s view on cognition and because his ideas are useful for criticizing modularity. I will first give a brief overview of the most influential theories in CSR. Then I will discuss how existing theories in CSR can be improved on the first two points and criticized on the third.

This paper argues for thinking about religious commitments as different in kind from everyday ordinary understandings of the world. It argues against the straightforward assertion from the cognitive science of religion that belief in the supernatural is easy. That is, there is a way in which intuitions of invisible presence come very easily to people. Yet to sustain that belief commitment is hard, especially when the invisible other is omnipotent and benevolent. Here I suggest that it makes more sense to understand faith commitments as a kind of frame that coexists with everyday commitments. The approach shares much with Neil van Leeuwen’s understanding of religious commitments and factual commitments as being held with different kinds of cognitive attitudes. Here I suggest that people engage the faith frame the way engage play and fiction—except that in the case of faith, the commitment is a serious claim about the world.

This paper explains a fallacy that often arises in theorizing about human minds. I call it the Factual Belief Fallacy. The Fallacy, roughly, involves drawing conclusions about human psychology that improperly ignore the large background of mostly accurate factual beliefs people have. The Factual Belief Fallacy has led to significant mistakes in both philosophy of mind and cognitive science of religion. Avoiding it helps us better see the difference between factual belief and religious credence; seeing that difference in turn enables us to pose interesting normative questions about various mental states labeled “belief.”

Alvin Plantinga theorizes the existence of a sensus divinitatis – a special cognitive faulty or mechanism dedicated to the production and non-inferential justification of theistic belief. Following Chris Tucker, we offer an evidentialist-friendly model of the sensus divinitatis whereon it produces theistic seemings that non-inferentially justify theistic belief. We suggest that the sensus divinitatis produces these seemings by tacitly grasping support relations between the content of ordinary experiences (in conjunction with our background evidence) and propositions about God. Our model offers advantages such as eliminating the need for a sui generis religious faculty, harmonizing the sensus divinitatis with prominent theories in the cognitive science of religion, and providing a superior account of natural revelation.

I criticize 5 arguments for the conclusion that religious belief is unreliably formed and hence epistemically tainted. The arguments draw on scientific evidence from Cognitive Science of Religion. They differ considerably as to why the evidence points to unreliability. Two arguments conclude to unreliability because religious belief is shaped by evolutionary pressures; another argument states that the mechanism responsible for religious belief produces many false god-beliefs; a similar argument claims that the mechanism produces incompatible god-beliefs; and a final argument states that the mechanism is offtrack. I argue that the arguments fail to make the case for unreliability or that the unreliability can be overcome.

Summary“Religion is natural” has become a common thesis in Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). The claim, however, is often ambiguous. This paper seeks to clarify and evaluate the naturalness of religion thesis that flows from CSR theories pointing to the optimal compatibility between recurrent religious concepts and the ordinary operations of the human mind. For the naturalness thesis to be scientifically valid, some criteria for naturalness are needed. Robert McCauley has suggested four typical marks for natural cognitive systems, but his account suffers from the inability to point to any causal operations in human development responsible for the naturalness of religion. Even if naturalness is a problematic concept, the science behind it may nevertheless carry interesting implications. First, since Christian theologians have traditionally viewed man as naturally religious, CSR offers new material for theological considerations. Second, it may also help us make predictions about the future of religion. Third, it has been argued that the naturalness thesis offers support for freedom of religion.

McCauley, Robert N. and Thomas E. Lawson. 2017. Philosophical Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion: A Head Start. London: Bloomsbury. xii + 179 pp. ISBN: 978-1-3500-3031-2 £85.00 (hbk); 978-1-3501-0586-7 £28.99 (pbk); 978-1-3500-3032-9 £31.30 (ebook).

According to the Standard Model account of religion, religious concepts tend to conform to “minimally counterintuitive” schemas. Laypeople may, to varying degrees, verbally endorse the abstract doc...

Shook (2017) argues that if god-beliefs are “innate,” one is obligated to be skeptical about them by virtue of their mutually incompatible plurality and nativist origin. Second, Shook suggests that even if god-beliefs are not innate, it is still epistemically vicious to believe in gods. Shook also raises concerns about using theology to motivate or interpret scientific inquiry. This response essay clarifies the character of the theories offered in the cognitive science of religion (csr), including rejecting that innateness of god-beliefs is a common view. Shook’s primary claims are then evaluated with the conclusion that they are not adequately argued or substantiated.

Proposals that god-belief is an innate capacity of all humanity have not been confirmed by empirical studies. Scientific disciplines presently lean against god-belief’s innateness. Perhaps religion should be relieved that belief in gods is not innate. Intuitive cognitive functions supporting god-belief offer little convergence upon any god. Religious pluralism back to the Stone Age displays no consensus either. Any cognition for god-belief can only be deemed as mostly or entirely misleading. Theology has tried to forestall that skeptical judgment, by dictating what counts as authentic religiosity and who enjoys a valid idea of god. Justin Barrett exemplifies this theological interference with scientific inquiry. Contorting the anthropology and cognitive science of religion too far, his quest for a primal natural religion won’t match up with his search for intuitive conceptions of god. His quest for god-belief’s innateness devolves into theological dogmatism, deepening doubts that scientific theories of religion will validate god-belief.

While the cognitive science of religion is well-trodden ground, atheism has been considerably less scrutinized. Recent psychological studies associate atheism with an intellectual virtue, inferentiality (Shenhav 2011; Norenzayan, Gervais, and Trzesniewski 2012; Norenzayan and Gervais 2013; Pennycook 2012). Theism, on the other hand, is associated with an intellectual “vice”, intuitive thinking. While atheism is allied with the attendant claim that atheism is the result of careful rational assessment of the relevant evidence, theism is considered the result of a lack of reflection on the relevant evidence (or careless disregard of the evidence). Atheism, then, is rational, but theism, then, is irrational. In this essay, we will assess the import of these studies and the attendant claims that these differences in thinking styles entail differences in rationality.

This paper examines the cognitive foundations of natural theology: the intuitions that provide the raw materials for religious arguments, and the social context in which they are defended or challenged. We show that the premises on which natural theological arguments are based rely on intuitions that emerge early in development, and that underlie our expectations for everyday situations, e.g., about how causation works, or how design is recognized. In spite of the universality of these intuitions, the cogency of natural theological arguments remains a matter of continued debate. To understand why they are controversial, we draw on social theories of reasoning and argumentation.

This paper offers an account of religious belief using the resources available within naturalized epistemology. The account accepts the basic architecture of an individual’s ‘web of belief’ as articulated by Quine and Ullian, and explores some of the further details of the Quinean account of naturalised epistemology. The paper then updates that account drawing on recent work in psychology and cognitive science. The paper also considers the purpose of an individual’s web of belief. Quine’s web of belief has a very tightly constrained purpose, namely, the prediction of future experience in the light of past experience. But, drawing lessons from the feminist critique of analytic epistemology and the philosophy of science, this paper considers the consequences if the purposes of a web of belief are wider than simply predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Drawing on work from the cognitive science of religion the paper suggests a wider set of purposes could result in religious beliefs existing in a web of belief, even when that web of belief is understood purely from the perspective of naturalised epistemology.

Данная статья представляет краткое введение и комментарий по поводу когнитивной науке о религии - развивающемуся междисциплинарному проекту, направленному на исследование того, каким образом ментальные особенности и предрасположенности способствуют закреплению религиозных убеждений и религиозного поведения. В рамках данного обзор особое внимание уделяется исследованию телеологических предрассудков, контринтуитивных понятий, а также критических дискуссий по поводу мистического опыта и концепций бога. Это исследование направлено на обоснование идеи о том, что религиозное познание осуществляется естественным (органичным) образом. И хотя акцент делается на эпистемологическом измерении проблемы (на том, каким образом развивается и воспроизводится религиозное мышление), автор также дает краткое заключение об онтологическом значении основных достижений когнитивной науки о религии.

A cognitive semiotics of Western Esotericism is proposed with reference to the opaque aspects of esoteric discourse and texts, exemplified by Crowley's Liber AL and the tradition of Thelema. Such discursive opacity (leading to failed interpretation) is a semiotic problem, as it would hardly be tolerated in ordinary communication due to expectations of relevance (i.e. that the discourse will be intelligible and informative). It is argued that this is different when the context is religious, i.e. that in religious contexts, opaque signs/texts will effect a shift in interpretive strategy from linguistic interpretation (to understand the text’s linguistic import) to indexical interpretation (intuitions about the text’s background), leading to a psychological effect, a motivating sense of relevance—the relevant index effect. Findings in the cognitive study of reading provide suggestive evidence in this vein. With reference to the relevant index effect, a model for the transmission of esoteric traditions is proposed. In conclusion, theoretical and empirical avenues are explored.