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ABSTRACT
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 claim to provide proof that theism, or religion more generally, is falsified, whilst others suggest that their theories are compatible with holding religious beliefs. In the following, I focus on the CSR of Justin L. Barrett, in order to argue that this particular naturalistic explanation can be seen to be compatible with both theism and atheism. Although Barrett is a proponent of his CSR’s compatibility with theism, and his work appears to imply that he is an incompatibilist when it comes to atheism and CSR, it is not immediately clear whether: (i) his CSR is definitely compatible with theism; and, (ii) why it should be seen as incompatible with atheism. I investigate these questions, utilising and extending research and tools from David Leech and Aku Visala, to argue for the conclusion that Barrett’s CSR is compatible with both theism and atheism, despite what his work implies. I consider the impact this has on the broader sphere of CSR, naturalistic explanations, and different religious worldviews.
Acknowledgments
I would like to give thanks to the Department of Philosophy at Central European University, Budapest, where the initial research for this paper began. In particular, I am grateful for advice and encouragement from Philip Goff and Howard Robinson, both of whom contributed invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this work. Thanks also to Zoё J. Clements, Garrett Mindt, and Jamie Elliott, for philosophical counsel and inspiration over the years.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Barrett, “CS, Religion and Theology”; Barrett, CS, Religion and Theology; and Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe.
2. Sperber, Explaining Culture; and Boyer, Naturalness of Religious Ideas.
3. Dennett, Breaking the Spell; and Dawkins, The God Delusion.
4. Leech and Visala, “CSR: Implications for Theism,” 2011; and Leech and Visala, “Naturalistic Explanations,” 2011.
5. Barrett, Why Wouldn’t Anyone Believe, 2.
6. Boyer, “Why Evolved Cognition Matters,” 378.
7. Barrett, Why Wouldn’t Anyone Believe, 3–4.
8. Ibid., 4.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 5.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Boyer, Naturalness of Religious Ideas, parts 1–3.
15. Barrett, Why Wouldn’t Anyone Believe, 8–9.
16. Baker and Zimmerman, “On Perceiving God,” Ch 1 in Murray and Schloss eds.
17. Barrett, Why Wouldn’t Anyone Believe, 9.
18. Barrett, ‘CS, Religion and Theology,” 20. Although Barrett contends CSR is compatible with any worldview, it seems his comments about the unnaturalness of atheism can be interpreted to mean that CSR does challenge atheism – I will go into more detail about this interpretation of Barrett later in this paper.
19. Barrett, “CS, Religion and Theology,” 18.
20. Barrett, “CS, Religion and Theology,” 19–20.
21. Leech and Visala, “CSR: Implications for Theism,” 47–64; and Leech and Visala, ‘Naturalistic Explanations,” 552–563.
22. Leech and Visala, “CSR: Implications for Theism,” 47–64.
23. Ibid.
24. As a reviewer pointed out here, it might not be clear whether ‘religiously irrelevant’ means completely irrelevant or CSR somehow supporting religion. My understanding of Leech and Visala’s terminology is that CSR here is religiously irrelevant in the sense that it is not inconsistent with beliefs in these subsets, and not necessarily that it supports religion in some way e.g. by making the truth of religion more likely. The CSR can be compatible with religious beliefs but not necessarily be offering support for them e.g. CSR offers an explanation of how religious beliefs form but does not support, say, Judaism over Islam, or Buddhism over Hinduism.
25. By ‘false’ here I mean that the belief is shown to be untrue by the statements of CSR e.g. if a theory that God did not exist were proven true, then this would falsify the belief that God exists.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 58.
30. As Philip Goff noted on an earlier draft of this paper, it would likely be the case that any direct connection to God could be seen as beyond the scope of the cognitive science of religion, and so not ruled out by any explanation of how religious beliefs arise. This is an interesting point that further emphasises Leech and Visala might be mistaken in their contention that CSR undermines God’s direct connection with believers. CSR might be true and God might exist, directly connected to humans.
31. Thanks to a reviewer for pointing out that most religious persons would consider B beliefs vital as much as A beliefs. Here I think it is useful to imagine a believer for whom B beliefs are loosely held or deemed to be beliefs in the worldview that are unimportant to the believer. For instance, a Christian (with A belief that God exists) might sensibly say that although they are Christian and have a belief in God, they don’t believe that Moses parted the red sea. Moses parting the red sea could be a B belief in this case in the sense that it is not a core tenet that if disbelieved or disproven, undermines the whole Christian worldview. This doesn’t necessarily mean the B belief is unimportant, rather less important to this believer than A beliefs.
32. This could manifest as described – adapting their 7-day creator God beliefs in a way where they believe that God has created us with these natural cognitive functions that give rise to religious belief, or it might involve fully abandoning any 7-day creator God leanings (given that these are not in subset A of the belief set) and so adhering to a non-7-day creator God Christianity.
33. Another interesting question is whether CRS is compatible with all religious worldviews beyond theism. Although beyond the scope of this paper, I think that it is quite likely that similar claims can be made about non-theistic worldviews.
34. Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God? – later chapters.
35. Ibid., 108.
36. Ibid., 110.
37. Ibid., 32.
38. Ibid., 110.
39. Ibid., 112.
40. Ibid. As Barrett himself states – if our mental tools weren’t reliable, we’d fall off cliffs more often. Presumably, the atheist could claim, even without ascribing to God as a creator of mental tools aimed at the truth, that their mental tools are usually reliable in that they don’t fall off cliffs very often, and so they take their mental tools to be reliable in general.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 116.
43. Ibid., 117.
44. Ibid., 118.
45. As a reviewer kindly pointed out on an earlier draft, this also applies to Barrett’s views on theism: is CSR compatible with the truth, justification, or existence of theistic beliefs? It seems there is wide scope here for further work on teasing out these issues of compatibility.
46. A question raised by a reviewer here was whether the atheist should revise subset A and accept that belief in God is natural? Further, if this is the case then does this mean CSR is incompatible with atheism? I think the atheist could sensibly revise their subset A beliefs (if need be) to the belief in God as natural, if CSR was proven correct, without compromising their atheism. CSR might show that cognitive tools and evolutionary pre-dispositions exist that have made it overwhelmingly likely that a theistic belief is held but this will not alone undermine the key atheist belief that God does not exist. The atheist believer may believe that there is a scientific explanation for religious belief but not have a fully furnished set of beliefs about what this explanation entails and CSR may then provide details of this explanation, if true.
47. Is CSR compatible with the truth, justification or existence of theistic and atheistic beliefs? I think CSR is compatible with the truth of either theism or atheism (if either were proven true) as it is merely an explanation of how beliefs form/are prevalent and could be incorporated into both worldviews if necessary, as explained using Leech & Visala’s rubric. I think the question of CSR’s compatibility with justification of atheist and theist beliefs is a question for future research as there is much to be done in this area. I cannot see how CSR would be incompatible with theistic beliefs’ existence given that the theory purports to explain why such beliefs are prevalent and humans are prone to holding them. I think CSR is compatible with the existence of atheist beliefs in that although there might not be much information about atheism contained in it, CSR does not claim to show that atheist beliefs are impossible or unlikely, just that religious beliefs are highly likely.
48. One might argue that a good explanation will fit with the actual state of affairs in the situation, but I think in the case that follows it would be difficult to prove divine agency’s involvement in the situation independently of one’s approach to the scenario. Of course, the beliefs held about the situation will be defeasible for all those involved. A reviewer pointed out that a criticism to be levelled here could be that this definition of a good explanation is too liberal and anything goes. I am quite happy to bite the bullet here and say that, for instance, in the example that follows in the main text, even the schizophrenic who believes Doug survived the explosion because he is a spy from Mars with superpowers, has a good explanation given their worldview – this by no means entails that their explanation is good independently (from our perspective) and their beliefs are certainly defeasible (e.g. given their delusions). Theist and atheistic explanations for Doug’s survival are defeasible in the sense that if God is proven to exist or not exist, one explanation will be defeated.
49. Ibid., 34.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 109.
52. Ibid., 110. In a way, what is being said here reminds me of cases of implicit bias (e.g. discussed by Tamar Gendler or Eric Schwitzgebel) where, for instance, a teacher proclaims to want equal rights for all races but has an implicit bias for white students (e.g. scores them higher than better performing African American students). The teacher has some reflective reasoning for proclaiming equal rights but has some non-reflective bias against non-white students. Would we say that the teacher’s reflective proclamation is not natural or somehow insufficient because it doesn’t match up with the non-reflective response in situations? I don’t think we would. I think it may be pertinent to look further into this parallel in future research.
53. Of course, it is certainly not impossible that Doug’s testimony convinces me to change worldview completely but I think that this would be quite rare. For the purposes of this discussion let’s assume this is the case.
54. One way to think about this, in Swinburnian/Bayesian terms (referring to Swinburne’s Existence of God, chapters 5–6) is that the prior probability of the atheist believer becoming a theist might be incredibly low, and so even though Doug’s account of his ordeal explains how God and/or angels were involved in his survival, this is not likely to convince the atheist that this is indeed what has occurred. However, on the other hand, the prior probability of the atheist forming an explanation that does not invoke the supernatural could well be very high.
55. Interestingly, in his later work Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology, 2012, Barrett discusses how conceptual information that we hold shapes the way that we think about events or ideas, affecting how we perceive God’s work. If conceptual information includes beliefs/beliefs about concepts that we already hold, then this could be construed as supporting the thesis that our worldview’s belief-set affects what we are likely to believe in certain situations e.g. when appraising evidence in order to decide whether a supernatural agent has been involved or not. Barrett doesn’t extend this to atheism (to my knowledge) in the way I just have, so the claim remains that atheism can offer a valid explanation (perhaps shaped by conceptual information pre-held by believers).
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Heather Morris
Heather Morris began her philosophical studies at the University of Glasgow. She completed her MA studies at Central European University, where she then began her PhD research. She there worked primarily in philosophy of religion, researching the intersection of this with epistemology and cognitive science. In particular, she is interested in questions concerning the epistemic justification of religious beliefs and whether findings in the cognitive science of religion have any bearing on this. More widely, she is fascinated by the vast array of religions and their attendant belief systems, pondering the similarities and differences between beliefs held. Whilst maintaining a passion for philosophy and theology, Heather is now studying medicine, at the University of St Andrews. Outside academia, she is a keen swimmer and enjoys a good game of Scrabble.