Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology

Justin L. Barrett,  Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology: From Human Minds to Divine Minds

The book is a bit ideologically loaded but it is written nicely and there is a logic in what the author says. A big part of the book is devoted to an overview of cognitive science. The discussion on whether cognitive science is compatible with religion follows.

For me there was of particular interest the description of non-reflective ontologies (natural ontologies) and natural religion.  To this end, my thought was that the description of relationships between natural religion and theology in the book seems to confirm Collingwood in that Christianity was important for the development of the modern science (Collingwood on Monotheism and Science).  With just natural religion this would not work.

There was a funny argument (it seems from John Polkinghorne but I do not remember exactly) that the existence of natural religion in our coginitive facilities agrees better with natural selection and God rather with natural selection without God (if natural evolution has created natural religion, then natural religion had had evolution advantages, hence the Universe with God seems better explains this fact).


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