Here are some introductory comments I made prior to my presentation and discussion at the European Conference in Science and Theology in Edinburgh:
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Recent developments in the cognitive science of religion
(CSR) create a putative challenge for many official formulations of doctrine
and popular forms of piety in Christianity (and other religions). This challenge is related to the
compelling evidence produced by CSR for the claim that a mental tool for detecting
agency, which has significantly contributed to the survival of the human
species, often works too well.
As part of his answer to the question
Why Would Anyone Believe in God?, Justin
Barrett explains that this tool sometimes over-functions, attributing agency
where none exists. What he calls
the Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device (HADD) registers “noninertial,
goal-directed movement as caused by an agent and then searches for a candidate
agent” (Barrett, 2004, 32). If no
known agent appears responsible for the movement, then the tool naturally
attributes agency to the object, unless some reflective belief provides a
defense against such attribution.
The problem for theologians – and
religious believers – who desire to attribute intentionality to a
(super)personal God or gods is that this scientific theory can also be applied
to human belief in (or detection of) divine
agency. A wisp of smoke may be
interpreted as a ghost, a threatening storm as the judgment of a sky god, or
the sudden appearance of a parking spot at the mall as divine
intervention.
Ilkka Pyysiainen, following Pascal
Boyer and others, argues that religion and beliefs in supernatural agents are a
“by-product” of evolved cognitive mechanisms (Supernatural Agents, 2009, 186). CSR
scholars are usually careful to say that the hyper-activity of the device does
not prove (or disprove) the non-existence or
non-agency of the divine, but it does set out a plausible explanation for the
natural (or non-super-natural) emergence of such beliefs.
Among those who accept these
scientific findings, reactions tend to go in one of two directions. Either:
we should give up the belief in a god who knows us because our detection of
being-known by god(s) is merely a projection of our HADD. Or:
the fact that HADD functions naturally can be interpreted as the result of God’s
creative intention, making possible human knowledge of an all-knowing
supernatural creative agent.
I take Pyysiainen and Barrett to be
representatives of these two reactions, respectively. Both of these reactions, however, share
a common set of dualistic assumptions; namely, that the options are either "only natural" or "also supernatural," either "theism" or "a-theism." These dichotomies surreptitiously structure the debate itself and therefore
limit the possibilities for theory-choice and interpretation.
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Although I did not have space or time to argue in more detail, it seems to me like resources from the apophatic tradition, both in Christianity and other religions, might help us here.