God Naturalized: Epistemological Reflections on Theistic Belief in light of the New Science of Religion

✍ Scribed by Halvor Kvandal

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 208
• Series: New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion, 11
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume argues that theistic philosophy should be seen not as an “armchair” enterprise but rather as a critical endeavor to bring philosophy of religion into close contact with emerging sciences of religion. This text engages with the rationality of religious belief by investigating central problems and arguments in philosophy of religion from the perspective of new naturalistic research. A central question the book analyzes is whether findings in cognitive science of religion (CSR) falsify or undermine religious ideas and beliefs.

With regard to CSR, this volume offers a sustained and critical investigation of the neutrality and positive-relevance view, before offering a re-appraisal of the conflict view. The text argues that when scrutinizing these views, much more attention must be paid to specific normative premises that allow empirical findings to have epistemic relevance. A novel feature is the theoretical application of analytical epistemology in virtue-epistemology to the central question of whether CSR undermines, supports, or is neutral with respect to religious belief. This book appeals to upper-level students and researchers in the field.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Chapter 1: When Cognitive Science Enters the Science and Religion Debate
1.1 Rainbows and Gods: Poetic Mystery and the Worry Science Creates
1.2 Bringing Cognitive Science to Bear on Theist Religion: Three Normative Implications to Consider
1.3 Building Models for Science and Religion: Why Compatibility Does Not Establish Harmony
1.4 Cognitive Science in Natural Theology: Naturalization Enters the Picture
1.5 Debunking, Two Neutrality-Views, and a Positive Relevance Thesis
References
Chapter 2: The Ultimate Origin of Religion
2.1 Biological Adaptationism, Hybrid Theories, and the By-Product Theory
2.2 From Stewart Guthrie’s Anthropomorphism Thesis to Justin Barrett’s “HADD”
2.3 The Memorability and Relevance of Religious Concepts: MCI Theory and Its Critics
2.4 A Motley Crowd: Mickey Mouse, Zeus, and the Abrahamic God in the Context of Cultural Evolution
References
Chapter 3: The Proximate Origin of Religion
3.1 Nico Tinbergen and Proximate Explanations of Religious Beliefs and Behaviours
3.2 Personal Explanation and the Problem of Confabulation
3.3 The Ontogeny of a Disposition to Form Theistic Beliefs
3.4 The Formation of Intuitive, Explanatory, and Folk-Theological Beliefs
References
Chapter 4: Theistic Evidentialism and the Cognitive Science of Morality
4.1 Theistic Evidentialism and the Internalist Argument for Epistemic Neutrality
4.2 Denying Internalism: Not All Epistemically Relevant Factors Are Mental
4.3 John Teehan’s “Cognitive Problem of Evil” and an Inductive Argument from Evil
4.4 An Evolutionary and Cognitive Perspective on Moral Arguments for the Existence of God
References
Chapter 5: Do We Have a God-Faculty? A New Appraisal of Reformed Epistemology
5.1 A Dilemma for Proponents of the Positive Relevance View
5.2 A Proper Functionalist Epistemology of Religion Meets Cognitive Science
5.3 The God-Faculty Dilemma Horn 1: An Empirically Unsupported Faculty
5.4 The God-Faculty Dilemma Horn 2: An Epistemically Deficient Faculty
References
Chapter 6: A Virtue Epistemology for the Theistic Disposition
6.1 Truth-Tracking and False Gods: Two Debunking Arguments Considered
6.2 Character-Based and Faculty-Based Virtue Epistemology
6.3 Identifying the Ability to Know: Explaining and Evaluating Doxastic Performance
6.4 Competence, Aptness and Total Recall: A Virtue-Theoretical Argument Considered
References
Chapter 7: Troubled Navigation: Evaluating the Theistic Disposition
7.1 Psychological Realism as Solution to the Generality Problem
7.2 The Theistic Disposition as Token of a Broader Type of Disposition
7.3 The Argument Against Epistemic Virtue and the Argument Against Epistemic Justification
References
Chapter 8: Cognitive Science and Theist Religion: An Unhappy Marriage?
8.1 Rejecting Neutrality and Positive Relevance and Moving Towards a Moderate Conflict View
8.2 Explaining Religion and Advocating Atheism: Richard Dawkins Reconsidered
References
Index