The Roots of Religion: Exploring the Cognitive Science of Religion

243 Pages·2014·13.074 MB·English

by  Roger Trigg (editor), Justin L. Barrett (editor)

The RooTs of Religion
An outstanding set of authoritative essays, essential reading for all who are interested
in the nature of religion.
Keith Ward, Christ Church, oxford, UK
The cognitive science of religion is a new discipline that looks at the roots of
religious belief in the cognitive architecture of the human mind. The Roots
of Religion deals with the philosophical and theological implications of the
cognitive science of religion which grounds religious belief in human cognitive
structures: religious belief is ‘natural’, in a way that even scientific thought is not.
Does this new discipline support religious belief, undermine it, or is it, despite
many claims, perhaps eventually neutral? This subject is of immense importance,
particularly given the rise of the ‘new atheism’.
Philosophers and theologians from north America, UK and Australia, explore
the alleged conflict between truth claims and examine the roots of religion in
human nature. is it less ‘natural’ to be an atheist than to believe in god, or gods?
on the other hand, if we can explain theism psychologically, have we explained
it away. Can it still claim any truth? This book debates these and related issues.
Ashgate science and Religion series
Series Editors:
Roger Trigg, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick, and Academic Director of the
Centre for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Kellogg College, Oxford
J. Wentzel van huyssteen, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA
science and religion have often been thought to be at loggerheads but much
contemporary work in this flourishing interdisciplinary field suggests this is far from
the case. The Ashgate Science and Religion Series presents exciting new work to advance
interdisciplinary study, research and debate across key themes in science and religion,
exploring the philosophical relations between the physical and social sciences on the
one hand and religious belief on the other. Contemporary issues in philosophy and
theology are debated, as are prevailing cultural assumptions arising from the ‘post-
modernist’ distaste for many forms of reasoning. The series enables leading international
authors from a range of different disciplinary perspectives to apply the insights of
the various sciences, theology and philosophy and look at the relations between the
different disciplines and the rational connections that can be made between them. These
accessible, stimulating new contributions to key topics across science and religion will
appeal particularly to individual academics and researchers, graduates, postgraduates
and upper-undergraduate students.
Other titles in the series:
Being as Communion
A Metaphysics of Information
William A. Dembski
978-0-7546-3857-5 (hbk)
Christian Moral Theology in the Emerging Technoculture
From Posthuman Back to Human
Brent Waters
978-0-7546-6691-2 (hbk)
God and the Scientist
Exploring the Work of John Polkinghorne
edited by fraser Watts and Christopher C. Knight
978-1-4094-4569-2 (hbk)
The Roots of Religion
exploring the Cognitive science of Religion
Edited by
RogeR TRigg
University of Warwick and Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford, UK
and
JUsTin l. BARReTT
Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, USA
First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2014 Roger Trigg and Justin l. Barrett
Roger Trigg and Justin l. Barrett have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
The roots of religion : exploring the cognitive science of religion / edited by Roger Trigg and
Justin l. Barrett.
pages cm. – (Ashgate science and religion series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4724-2731-1 (hardcover) 1. Psychology, Religious. 2. Cognitive science.
i. Trigg, Roger, editor. ii. Barrett, Justin l., 1971–editor.
Bl53.R585 2014
200.1'9–dc23
2014013545
isBn 9781472427311 (hbk)
isBn 9781315553207 (ebk)
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Cognitive and Evolutionary Studies of Religion 1
Justin L. Barrett and Roger Trigg
2 Intuition, Agency Detection, and Social Coordination as
Analytical and Explanatory Constructs in the Cognitive
Science of Religion 17
Robert Audi
3 Whose Intuitions? Which Dualism? 37
Steven Horst
4 Explaining Religion at Different Levels: From Fundamentalism
to Pluralism 55
Aku Visala
5 HADD, Determinism and Epicureanism: An Interdisciplinary
Investigation 75
Robin Attfield
6 Understanding ‘Person’ Talk: When is it Appropriate to Think
in Terms of Persons? 91
Graham Wood
7 Knowledge and the Objection to Religious Belief from
Cognitive Science 113
Kelly James Clark and Dani Rabinowitz
vi The Roots of Religion
8 Assessing the Third Way 127
Jason Marsh
9 Cognitive Science of Religion and the Rationality of
Classical Theism 149
T.J. Mawson
10 Cognitive Science and the Limits of Theology 167
John Teehan
11 Some Reflections on Cognitive Science, Doubt, and
Religious Belief 189
Joshua C. Thurow
12 Human Nature and Religious Freedom 209
Roger Trigg
Index 225
Notes on Contributors
Editors
Justin L. Barrett: Thrive Professor of Developmental Science, Fuller Theological
Seminary, California
Roger Trigg: Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick, and
Senior Research Fellow, Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford
Contributors
Robin Attfield: Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Cardiff University
Robert Audi: John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre
Dame, Indiana
Kelly James Clark: Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Institute and
Professor of Liberal Studies, Grand Valley State University, Michigan
Steven Horst: Professor of Philosophy, Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Connecticut
Jason Marsh: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, St Olaf College, Minnesota
T.J. Mawson: Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, St Peter’s College, University of
Oxford
Dani Rabinowitz: Junior Research Fellow, Somerville College, University of
Oxford
John Teehan: Professor of Religion, Hofstra University, New York
viii The Roots of Religion
Joshua C. Thurow: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at
San Antonio, Texas
Aku Visala: Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Anthropology, University
of Notre Dame, Indiana, and Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki
Graham Wood: Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Tasmania
Acknowledgements
This volume arose from a joint venture of the University of Oxford’s Centre
for Anthropology and Mind and the Ian Ramsey Centre. The project was the
Cognition, Religion, and Theology Project and was funded by a grant from the
John Templeton Foundation to Justin Barrett and Roger Trigg, for which we are
grateful. This grant provided support for the chapters in this volume among other
activities. A subsequent grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation
(to Barrett), concerning how the ‘naturalness thesis’ of the cognitive science of
religion stands up to new research conducted with Chinese populations (past
and present), has provided support that allowed for this volume’s completion.
Many of the authors in this volume make reference to how religious beliefs and
practices arise in large part as a normal, natural function of human cognitive
systems. Fortunately for this volume, the new data from the China project do
not threaten this thesis.
We also thank Tyler Greenway, Matthew Jarvinen, and Thomas Paulus for
editorial assistance for the entire volume.