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Cognitive Science of Religion and the Study of Theological Concepts

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Abstract

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content biases that also underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts.

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Notes

  1. For the sake of brevity and scope, I will leave aside the role of context biases in the transmission of theological concepts. I take it as uncontroversial that they are important for providing a full account of the cultural evolution of theological views.

  2. These ratios were computed using an ordered logit/cumulative logit model. Thanks to Robert O’Brien, a medical statistician at Miami University, for help with this calculation.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Hugo Mercier, Ryan Nichols, Eric Schwitzgebel and Johan De Smedt for their suggestions to earlier versions of this manuscript. This research has been financially supported by a travel grant to Oxford from the Research Foundation Flanders.

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  1. Research Foundation Flanders, Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, K Mercierplein 2, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Helen De Cruz

  2. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK

    Helen De Cruz

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Correspondence to Helen De Cruz.

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De Cruz, H. Cognitive Science of Religion and the Study of Theological Concepts. Topoi 33, 487–497 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-013-9168-9

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