I will present a selection of observations old and new that address the issue of whether something special goes on in our brains when we engage in religious thinking or have religious experience.  Examples will include ecstatic experience in epilepsy, near death experiences, and imaging of the brains of normal subjects that attempt to capture neural correlates of religious experience or inclination.   I will discuss what one can safely conclude from such data.

Part of the Oxford Christians in Science group lecture series.

This exciting event will include some of today’s top Christian scholars, such as Sarah Coakley, Jean Bethke Elshtain, David Ford, Paul Griffiths, Richard Hays, David Hempton, Mark Noll, Miroslav Volf, John Witte, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. All of these participants are Distinguished McDonald Scholars from eight of the most prominent universities in the UK and USA.

Register online or by post. Registration closes on 10 May, but early registration is encouraged to guarantee a place.

Cognitive Science, Religion and Theology
By Justin L. Barrett

In 2010, Justin very kindly invited a group of us from various disciplines (the human sciences, philosophy and theology) to discuss chapters of his book, as he wrote them. I want to take this opportunity to thank him for bringing together the group, and for his example as both a Christian and a cognitive scientist. Such integration of faith and vocation is something many of us dream of, but quickly lose sight of when we wake up to our post-graduate programmes. For many of us, the approach we do our studies is focused such that we often forget the wider, yet more fundamental, Christian perspective to things. For this reason, I thoroughly enjoyed our weekly meetings with Justin because it brought about a unity of mental life which I lacked, even craved.

It was refreshing to consider the theological significance of what we have discovered about ourselves in the cognitive sciences. One idea in the book that helped me think about things differently is Justin’s thesis that we can be justified to hold beliefs in God because of current evidence from the cognitive sciences. The argument goes like this – when we were growing up, we developed thinking patterns (natural cognitions) that we did not choose to have. Some of these natural ways of thinking made us more likely to develop beliefs in God that are unique to humans; our natural cognitions can be likened to river channels that gives the least resistance to the flowing waters of our thoughts.

Some of these natural ways of thinking that result in inklings of God include notions that the world has a moral quality to it, a purpose within it, and a mind behind it.

i) A moral quality to it.

We naturally tend to see the world in the currency of ‘good or bad’, ‘right or wrong’, and ‘should or ought’. The content may vary depending on culture, but this way of thinking is found everywhere.

ii) A purpose within it.

When asked to consider the natural world, children often give purposeful descriptions like: ‘rivers exist so that we can go fishing on them, birds are here to look pretty, and rocks are pointy so animals don’t sit on them’.

iii) A mind behind it.

When asked to describe a computer animation of a circle and 2 triangles moving about, people tend to report the movements in terms of the intentions or desires of those shapes, rather than simply report the physical movements on the screen. The natural events in the world are also commonly seen as having agency (i.e., Mother Nature) or having an agency behind (i.e., God).

Together, these natural ways of viewing the world then supports the formation of beliefs in gods, or God, because they incline people to ask ‘who decides right and wrong?’, ‘what is the reason for existence?’, and ‘who is in control of world events?’. In sum, cognitive science can now give an evidence based account of how our beliefs in God come about.

It is important to note that the naturalness of these beliefs do not make them correct (i.e., cognitive science does not prove that a belief in God is true). Cognitive science only documents the repertoire of thinking patterns we humans naturally develop; it does not claim to provide evidence that these beliefs are objectively true. However, although beliefs are not true just because they are natural, they can be justified to have as a starting point just because they are natural. The mentioned examples above demonstrates that people believe in God because their daily thoughts convince them that the world is moral, purposeful and intentional; it is in this sense that theistic beliefs are also warranted starting positions to have. This starting point for belief can very well be rejected, by choice, if demonstrated to be false later in life. However, they are our starting points nonetheless.

To me this is a fresh yet strangely familiar perspective about beliefs. Fresh because I always thought that theistic pre-commitments like these are arbitrary and conditioned more by will and choice rather than environment and biology; it looks like I am wrong. This perspective is also strangely familiar because that is exactly how I came to belief in God; growing up, I started out as a little theist; growing old, I am a slightly more practiced Trinitarian.

Thank you Justin for this exercise and your example!

Matthew Lim is a 3rd year DPhil. He studies the psychology of gambling and is currently investigating how gambling-related cognitive distortions influence learning and decision-making whilst gambling.

He presented 2011 Charles E. Test Lectures at Princeton University on A Religious View of the Foundations of International Law

The full text of all three lectures below can be downloaded here.

Lecture 1: THE CRISIS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE STRICTURES OF PUBLIC REASON

Abstract: Over the last ten years there has been something of a crisis in American confidence in, and support for, international law. As the idea of order and justice in the international realm is considered and rationalized from various perspectives, it seems appropriate to consider also how it might be regarded from the viewpoint of the world’s leading religions. This lecture will begin the task of considering law beyond the state from a specifically Christian point of view, mapping Christian ideas of peace, community, redemption, and the task of ordering a disordered world onto the kinds of global structures that were imaginable in the first century CE and that are imaginable today. But it will also consider the difficulties of sustaining a viewpoint of this kind in a multi-faith and indeed increasingly secular world.

Lecture 2: SOVEREIGNS, BORDERS, AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WORLD

Abstract: The ideas of nationhood and sovereignty are both central to and troubling for international

law. But the basis for the division of the world into separate political communities (nation-states) remains controversial. And clearly a religious approach to order in the international realm will endorse the position of most modern international jurists that sovereign independence is not to be made into an idol or a fetish, and that the tasks of order and peace are not to be conceived as optional, which sovereigns may or may not support at their pleasure. At the same time, sovereigns have their own mission in world, ordering particular communities of men and women; and this task, too, should not be slighted. Something similar can be said about ideals of national self- determination. Though Christian commitments are not at odds with the idea of a people taking responsibility for order in their own community, it ought to be highly suspicious of any form of exclusive nationalism, particularly in light of what may be read as the fundamental cosmopolitanism of the New Testament.

Lecture 3: THE SOURCES OF ORDER: WHY NATURAL LAW IS NOT ENOUGH

Abstract: It is sometimes thought that a religious view of international law will argue for natural law as a primary basis of international order. Natural law is no doubt important in any Christian jurisprudence. But the most telling part of natural law jurisprudence from Aquinas to Finnis has always been its insistence on the specific human need for positive law. This holds true in the international realm as much as in any realm of human order—perhaps more so, because in the international realm law has to do its work unsupported by the overwhelming power of a particular state. So this final lecture will address, from a religious point of view, the sources of law in the international realm: treaty, convention, custom, precedent, and jurisprudence. It will focus particularly on the sanctification of treaties. Though parchments and institutions are not the final word in human affairs, they are our best hope for peace and justice in the meantime that is given us to order our affairs.