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Introduction
CSR brings the various disciplines and methodologies of the cognitive sciences
to the investigation of religious phenomena. While disputes continue, the
establishment of several consensus points allows us to speak of a general
cognitive model. A foundational position of the field, at least as it relates to god-
beliefs, is articulated by Justin Barrett, who writes,
Belief in gods requires no special parts of the brain. Belief in gods requires
no special mystical experiences … . Belief in gods requires no coercion or
brainwashing … . Rather, belief in gods arises because of the natural functioning
of completely normal mental tools working in common natural and social
contexts. (Barrett 2004, 21)
CSR posits that belief in supernatural beings (e.g., gods, ghosts, spirits, demons)
arises from the workings of a suite of mental tools that evolved to serve survival/
reproductive needs of our earliest ancestors. These tools—for example, Agency
Detection Device, Theory of Mind, Promiscuous Teleology, Common Sense
Dualism—function as part of what has come to be called System 1 (Kahneman
2011). System 1 refers to mental processes that are quick, automatic, and
generally outside of conscious control. Such processes result in compelling
intuitions that not only shape our interpretations of the world, but in many
cases constitute our very apprehension of the world. These are not unique to
religious cognition but are fundamental aspects of our perceptions, emotional
reactions, and moral intuitions, and cognitive science posits that they are by
far the dominant aspect of our cognition. In addition to System 1 processes,
there are also System 2 processes. These are slower, more deliberative, “rational”
processes that we typically associate with conscious thought and reason.
3
Cognitive Science, Evil, and God
John Teehan
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy40
System2 processes are important and do influence behavior and belief, but they
are relatively weak compared to the intuitive, emotionally valenced outputs of
system 1 (Haidt 2001; Kahneman 2011). As products of System 1 processes,
religious beliefs are intuitively compelling, emotionally rich, and relatively
immune to rational refutation.
In addition, there is also general consensus that religion1 has played a role
in human social evolution in serving to unite groups into cohesive, functioning
social units. Just how early on religion played this role, the relative importance
of other social systems and whether this role worked strictly on the level of
cultural evolution or also had an effect on biological evolution are issues of
contention (e.g., Alcorta and Sosis 2005; Pyysiainen and Hauser 2009; Atran and
Henrich 2010; Slingerland et al. 2013); that religion played a key moral function
for humans and human society is not. This is significant for our discussion of
religion and evil.
While an admittedly general overview of the findings of CSR, this should
prove sufficient to allow us to consider some implications for religious belief.
Implications for religious belief
Evolution-based cognitive science is the foundation of a powerful naturalistic
theory of religion. It provides an empirical, experimentally grounded account
of the formation of the core components of god-beliefs and of the cognitive
and emotional systems that make these beliefs salient and that also serve as
protective measures against criticism—and all of this holds true even if there
is no God.2 As such, CSR may pose the most serious empirical challenge to
religious belief to date.
Strangely, however, you might not necessarily come to this conclusion
through a review of the literature. Consider the following claims from by some
scholars involved in this discussion. Justin Barrett confidently reassures believers
that, “even if this natural tendency toward belief in God can be conclusively
demonstrated to be the work of evolved capacities, Christians need not be
deterred” (2004, 123), and Barrett is not alone in this confidence. For example, it
has been argued that “CSR does not show that belief in god is irrational” (Thurow
2013, 77); that “antitheistic claims about the incompatibility of the CSR with
theism look like they may be harder to maintain than first appearances might
suggest” (Leech and Visala 2011, 47); and that “the significance of these [CSR]
theories for the holding of religious beliefs is not very great” (Peterson 2010, 545).
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 41
One may be forgiven for wondering just what is going on here. How could
it be that a naturalized account of god-beliefs as by-products of evolutionary
processes not be significant? How is it that Christians “need not be deterred”
and continue to hold onto the rationality of such beliefs? Once again, we can
turn to Justin Barrett to provide a succinct statement in response to this apparent
quandary: there is no deep challenge because “God may have fine-tuned the
cosmos to allow for life and for evolution and then orchestrated mutations
and selection to produce the sort of organisms we are … ” (2004, 123), or, as
biologist Kenneth Miller put it commenting on the evolution/religion debate,
“Evolutionary forces become just one more tool in the hands of the Almighty”
(1999, 285).
So, just as the challenge posed by Darwin’s introduction of evolution via natural
selection was met by viewing natural selection as guided by divine providence,
with God creating through the evolutionary processes, cognitive evolution can
be understood as the method God chose for bringing about creatures with the
kinds of minds capable of coming to know Him. The discovery by cognitive
science of god-generating mechanisms (Shults 2014) is simply the discovery of
God’s method of self-revelation.
This position may be considered an updated version of natural theology. In
natural theology, belief in God, and beliefs about God, are framed in such a way
as to be compatible with, even supported by, the findings of natural science.
The notion that our cognitive structures serve as means of God’s self-revelation
stands in a long line of such theological and philosophical efforts, now updated
to incorporate the latest, relevant empirical evidence. We shall refer to the belief
in God justified in this manner as a cognitively natural theology,3 and beliefs
about God grounded in this manner will constitute a cognitively compatible
Theism, or cTheism,4 that is, a system of beliefs about God that are supported by
or at least not inconsistent with, or in conflict with, the best findings of cognitive
science. How successful is such a theology as a response to the challenge of
cognitive evolution?
While the analogy between theology’s response to biological evolution and
to cognitive evolution may seem apt, there is a significant difference being
overlooked. Theists may safely place God’s role outside the evolutionary
process because evolution has nothing to say about what goes on outside
of evolution. Theists may therefore accept a wholly naturalistic account of
human origins and still feel warranted in believing in a God who designed
that process. They can then relegate the resolution of tensions between those
two accounts to the realm of theology or philosophy. However, an evolutionary
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy42
account of cognition brings belief itself into the domain of science. Where
our beliefs come from, to what degree they may be reliable, truth-tracking,
rational as opposed to intuitive, is to a significant degree, at least in many cases,
crucially related to a cognitive analysis. Therefore, the belief that God designed
the evolutionary process, as a belief, falls within the domain of an evolved-
cognitive science. And here is the true crux of the matter: the question is not
“Did God design the process of cognitive evolution to result in minds capable
of coming to know him?,” but rather “What reasons, in the light of CSR, do
we have for believing ‘God designed the process of cognitive evolution’?” This
is not a question of logical compatibility, but whether we have sufficiently
solid grounds for accepting that belief. Is this belief supported by, or at least
consistent with, the best available evidence from cognitive science? Or does
CSR “debunk” religious belief?
There is a growing literature addressing just this question (e.g., Murray
2009; Clark and Barrett 2010; Kahane 2011, Leech and Visala 2011; Barrett and
Church 2013; Draper and Nichols 2013; Shults 2014; Teehan 2014), with those
arguing for the debunking position, as well as those defending the plausibility
of cTheism. It is not my intention to address the various facets of this debate.
Instead, I plan to explore an apparently unnoticed aspect of the issue: the
relevance of CSR for the problem of evil. It should, appropriately, strike one
as strange to refer to the problem of evil as an unnoticed challenge,5 given that
it is, historically, one of the most significant challenges to belief in God and
as such has generated voluminous theological attention. The presence of evil,
and evil of such a degree and extent, in a world claimed to be the creation of
an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God raises serious moral and conceptual
problems. The attempt to justify God, or God’s ways in the face of such apparent
evil, is theodicy. The inability to develop a successful theodicy threatens to
undermine belief in God and represents a failure of Theism. There is, of course,
a body of literature addressing this problem, stretching back thousands of years.
This is important but not relevant here. My focus is strictly on the import of
CSR for this issue, and I will argue it is significant.
Cognitive science changes not only how we understand God but how we
understand evil, and these changes have ramifications for belief. My thesis is
that a Theism that can be made consistent with the findings of CSR—that is,
that cognitive science reveals God’s natural means of self-revelation—cannot
also be made consistent with a cognitively based understanding of evil; that
is, a cognitive science of evil provides a powerful evidential argument against
cTheism.
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 43
Cognitive evolution, morality, and evil
To appreciate the special challenge of a cognitive account of evil, we must
recognize a previously unstated implication of a cTheism: if God guided the
process of cognitive evolution to result in the kinds of minds capable of coming
to know Him, then this applies not simply to god-generating mechanisms but
also to morality-generating mechanisms, as well. This entailment is particularly
salient for the God of Theism, who is understood as an essentially moral Being,
intimately concerned with the morality of His creatures. This connection
between god-beliefs and morality is also attested to by the findings of CSR (e.g.,
Sosis and Alcorta 2003; Atran and Norenzayan 2004; Johnson and Kruger 2004;
Sosis 2006; Shariff and Norenzayan 2007; Teehan 2010; Norenzayan 2013).
Therefore, our evolved moral cognition is as much a revelation of God’s nature
as are our god-generating mechanisms. Given this, an understanding of an
evolved-cognitive account of morality is in order.
The ability to live cooperatively in large, uniquely complex social units is
perhaps the defining characteristic of the human species, but for this to be
possible humans must address the tension between an individual’s promoting
his/her own inclusive fitness (the standard target for natural selection) and
the need to contribute to the stability and effectiveness of the group—which
require transferring resources from self and family to the group. Given the
social nature of hominins, a stable and flourishing group creates the conditions
under which individuals may more successfully pursue their own inclusive
fitness. Therefore, resources committed to the group function as a sort of long-
term investment in one’s own fitness. However, this only works if others in
the group also invest in the common pool, and there exists the temptation to
not invest and yet benefit from the group’s common resources. This failure to
reciprocate (whether it occurs directly, group member to group member, or
indirectly, by not investing in the group from which you benefit) increases the
cost to those who do cooperate with the group. This threatens to undermine the
cooperative schema which sustains the group. Morality, from an evolutionary
perspective, is a system for promoting prosocial behavior and discouraging
and punishing socially costly behavior. It is a means for addressing the
problem of individuals pursuing their own inclusive fitness within a social
setting. There is a substantial theoretical and experimental literature attesting
to the evolutionary function of moral systems (e.g., Alexander 1987; Boyd and
Richerson 1988; Gintis 2000; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003; Nowak and Sigmund
2005; Nowak, 2006).
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy44
An evolutionary theory of morality is quite complex, and a detailed discussion
is beyond the scope of this paper. However, there is one key feature of evolved
morality vital to our discussion: morality is an in-group adaptation. The group
is the setting for our pursuit of inclusive fitness, where we find protection from
the dangers of an uncertain environment (and from other groups), where we
raise our children and care for our extended families (the source of our genetic
future). It is where we invest our resources; it is the source of the return on
that investment. It is in-group members who must be counted on to cooperate,
reciprocate, and invest in the group; it is in-group members whose violation of
the social code poses the most significant and regular threat. Those outside the
group are less often, if ever, in a position to be partners in social exchange. They
are not personally invested in the group and, in fact, are often threats to the
group—whether in terms of potential aggression or in terms of being resource-
competitors. The in-group boundary sets the boundary of moral concern. This
results in a moral psychology that is sensitively attuned to signals of in-group
membership, as well as indications that one’s commitment to the in-group is
unreliable, that is, cheating and defecting. We are, by nature, more morally
sensitive to those we recognize as in-group members than to out-group members,
who do not trigger the same moral intuitions and, in fact, may trigger fear and
threat-responses. This in-group/out-group moral divide is the psychological
source of much of the compassion, love, pride, and willingness to sacrifice that
humans can demonstrate. It is also the source of xenophobia, ethnocentrism,
racism, and narrow tribalism that also defines human behavior—and which
constitute types of moral evil.
In assessing moral behavior, evolutionary theory tends to focus on ultimate
causes, such as kin selection, indirect altruism, reputation management, etc.
Ultimate causes concern evolutionary cost/benefit ratios that favor one strategy
over another, all measured strictly in terms of reproductive differentials. Human
behavior, however, is not typically motivated by ultimate causes. A parent’s
investment in her/his child, while contributing to inclusive fitness, is not
necessarily motivated by calculations of genetic returns. Rather, it is the love
and pride that one feels for a child that serve as proximate causes for parental
investment. Humans evolved to feel love and pride in children is to be explained
by reference to ultimate causes, but the translation of these ultimate causes into
behavior must focus on proximate causes (Scott-Philips et al. 2011). This helps
to avoid some misplaced criticisms of evolutionary theories of morality: for
example, if parental investment is motivated by concern for passing on copies
of one’s genes, how do you explain love of, for example, adopted children, where
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 45
there is no possibility of passing on copies of one’s genes? The ultimate cause of
parental investment has equipped us with cognitive-emotional mechanisms that
can be triggered by cues that are not related to genetic reproduction, that is, by
proximate causes.
In terms of moral behavior more generally, research is coming to focus on
a particularly important proximate cause: empathy. Empathy is the capacity
to recognize and respond to, on both a cognitive and emotional level, the
emotional state of another individual (Decety and Jackson 2006; Shamay-
Tsoory 2011). This capacity for empathy is instantiated on a neurological level
and is the subject of a wide body of neuroscientific literature.
The empathetic systems of the brain are spread across diverse areas of the
brain. Simon Baron-Cohen identifies at least ten areas involved in the various
expressions of empathy (Baron-Cohen 2011). We need not concern ourselves
with the specifics of the neurological picture, but two general points are needed:
(1) that humans are equipped with cognitive mechanisms for empathy that
function as part of System 1—our empathetic responses are bottom-up processes
that are automatic and quick. When you witness a person fall and hit her head,
your brain immediately makes a representation of that event which triggers
neurological responses that generate an empathetic response, and (2)that
empathy functions as the proximate cause of moral behavior—it plays a key role
in triggering our moral intuitions.
Empirical support for the notion that a healthy, well-functioning
empathetic response is central to morality comes from studies of individuals
with damage to parts of their empathy systems. The most dramatic example
is that of the psychopath. The clinical picture of a psychopath is an individual
with damage to, or decreased responsiveness in, areas of the brain that process
emotional cues. That is, psychopaths have a deficient capacity for emotional
empathy. They may be quite capable of cognitive empathy (i.e., recognizing
that someone else is in pain) but without experiencing the accompanying
emotional empathy (i.e., feeling emotional distress at another’s pain). This
particular profile is what allows some individuals with psychopathy to engage
in the cruel behavior often associated with this disorder. They do not feel
emotional distress at the sufferings of others, nor do they have the appropriate
fear response to the prospect of causing others to suffer. While very few
individuals with psychopathy commit violent crimes, a disproportionate
percentage of those who commit the most serious of violent crimes have
psychopathy—and almost all serial killers appear to be psychopaths (Blair
et al. 2005; Baron-Cohen, 2011).
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy46
Psychopathy is not the only example of inhibited empathetic responses
being implicated in antisocial and criminal behavior. Neuropsychologist Adrian
Raine has compiled an array of data connecting decreased volume in the medial
ventral prefrontal cortex (mVPFC), which is involved in inhibiting impulsive
behavior and homicide (Raine 2013). Neuroscientist James Blair and colleagues
(2005) has established a connection between deficient amygdala responses (the
amygdala plays a complex role in emotional reaction, particularly fear responses)
and childhood behavioral disorders.
In terms of understanding evil, in this case the horrible and undeserved
suffering humans can impose on others, cognitive science allows us to locate
the genesis of much evil in the workings (or failed workings) of the human
brain—a brain that cTheism claims is designed to function as a means of
revealing God’s nature. In response, the cTheist may confidently point out that
the above examples are all the result of the empathetic systems of the brain not
functioning properly, that is, not working as God designed them to work, and so,
no culpability may be attributed to God. Of course, one might question a divinely
guided cognitive design that is capable of going so terribly wrong, resulting in
such suffering. It also raises serious questions about the moral responsibility of
psychopathic individuals, and how that can be reconciled with a theology of
salvation, as individuals are not responsible for having psychopathic brains. But
even if we leave such concerns aside, even if psychopathological evil does not
challenge cTheism, psychopathy is not the only source of evil. What of the evil
humans do that is not based in a brain disorder?
e cognitive bases of moral evil
From the picture we have sketched above, we can set out an evolved cognitive
account of evil. Empathy, which is the proximate cause of moral behavior,
has a neurological basis that operates automatically and outside of conscious
control. It is a bottom-up process, characteristic of System 1; and this process
can be disrupted or inhibited by damage to any of the component neurological
structures. But, research indicates that this bottom-up process can also be
modulated by top-down cultural and experiential events. For example, hearing
one’s child cry triggers an empathetic response that motivates protective
behavior in adults. Learning (a top-down process) that the child is crying in
anticipation of, say, an imminent inoculation can modulate that response such
that the emotional empathy does not provoke protective behavior. The extent
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 47
of our empathetic responses can also be expanded by top-down processes.
Learning of the cognitive complexity of, for example, dolphins, can prime us for
increased moral concern for creatures that might not have previously elicited
empathy. These learned empathetic responses can come to be automatic System
1 responses and so part of our repertoire of intuitive moral responses.
However, it turns out that not all top-down processes are equal. The brain
seems primed to respond to evolved moral concerns: to cheaters, to cooperators,
and, significantly, to in-group/out-group distinctions. This convergence
between evolutionary and neurological models of morality should not be
surprising. Evolutionary theory explains the selection pressures that give shape
to our empathetic responses; neuroscience reveals the mechanisms by which
the brain represents social relationships and motivates altruistic behavior. It
makes sound evolutionary sense that we are particularly attuned to a conspecific
experiencing pain or fear: their experience may signal possible threats in the
environment, and so empathy may function as a threat defense mechanism
(Lamm et al. 2007). Empathy, however, does more than simply alert us to self-
directed dangers, it cues us to the distress of others in a way that generates
helping behavior, and evolutionary theory makes very specific claims on this
topic: it will be primarily directed toward members of the in-group. There is a
substantial body of research that fills in the details of this convergence.6
Studies by Tania Singer and colleagues reveal intriguing neural responses to
cooperators and cheaters. In one experiment, participants played a Prisoner’s
Dilemma game with confederates of the experimenters, who were instructed
to either cooperate or cheat. The subjects were then scanned in an fMRI while
viewing images of the confederates experiencing a painful stimulus. Both male
and female participants exhibited empathetic responses to those confederates
who had cooperated during the game but had reduced empathetic brain
responses to the confederates who had cheated. Not only were there reduced
empathetic responses, the male participants exhibited increased activation in
the reward centers of the brain (Singer 2006; Singer et al. 2006).
Perhaps more significant for our purposes is evidence of a neurologically
based bias against out-group members. In a widely cited study, Xiaojing Xu
and colleagues (Xu et al. 2009) compared the neural empathetic responses to
seeing others receive painful stimuli. The subjects consisted of Chinese and
Caucasian participants, who were shown video clips of other Chinese and
Caucasian individuals receiving the stimuli. The results showed that witnessing
the painful stimuli increased activity in brain areas involved in first-person
pain experiences (i.e., the anterior cingulate cortex, and the frontal/insula
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy48
cortex), and this was independent of the race of the participant or the person
in pain. However, these empathetic responses “were greater to racial in-group
than out-group members,” and this held true of both Caucasian and Chinese
participants (Xu et al. 2009, 8527). Interestingly, this bias was not found in
explicit assessments of degree of painfulness. That is, when asked to rate
how much pain the person in the video clip was experiencing, no racial bias
was detected. This indicates that humans have an automatic, neurological
empathetic response to the suffering of other humans, but that this base
response can be modulated by in-group status.
The biasing effect of racial in-groups has been found in numerous studies
(e.g., Phelps et al. 2000; Richeson et al. 2003; Avenanti et al. 2010; Chiao and
Mathur 2010), but it is not only racial groups that have this effect, cultural in-
groups have also been shown to modulate how the brain responds to the pain
of others, the recognition of emotions in others and amygdala responses to fear
faces (Elfenbein and Ambady 2002; Chiao et al. 2008; Han and Northoff, 2008;
Mathur et al. 2010). In fact, one study demonstrated an in-group bias to even
“minimal groups”—that is, artificial groups organized for a particular purpose—
in terms of facial recognition (Van Bavel et al. 2008). There is mounting neural
evidence that we are implicitly biased toward members of our in-group in
ways that are significant for morality: we have a moral bias toward in-groups
members, along with a decreased sensitivity to out-group members (Elfenbein
and Ambady 2002; de Waal 2008; Van Bavel et al. 2008; Chiao and Mathur 2010;
Mathur et al. 2010).
And it is not simply decreased sensitivity. Certain signals of being in the out-
group can actually trigger an ingrained disgust response. In a study by Harris
and Fiske (2006), images of low-status, out-group members failed to trigger
those neural systems involved in processing persons and instead triggered those
systems that respond to disgusting objects. These people did not even register in
the brain as persons. They were objects of disgust, and objects of disgust are to
be avoided or eliminated.
The evolved moral bias against the out-group, a bias that is neurologically
instantiated, is not the source of all moral evil, but it is the psychological basis
of prejudice, discrimination, and dehumanization—and all the injustice, harm,
and violence that follow. Significantly, this results not from damaged or deficient
brains; this all follows from the brain working as it was designed to work. This
leads to an empirical conclusion: moral evil (at least some of the worst examples)
flows from the workings of mental tools that evolved to promote inclusive
fitness and in-group fitness. It also allows us to draw a moral conclusion: If
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 49
God designed our cognitive evolution as the means to revealing himself to our
minds, then these cognitively based evils are predictable, even inevitable, results
of God’s moral design. The suffering produced is not simply collateral damage
to the fulfillment of some otherwise worthy moral goal; the establishment of
a moral bias against other groups of humans is a design feature of our moral
minds. As God knew this would be the case, God bears responsibility for moral
evil. If God bears responsibility for moral evil—if the degrading, destructive
ways humans treat other humans, for selfish or tribal reasons, is a natural result
of divine design—then, I propose, theodicy fails.
If a cognitive understanding of evil makes the case for God’s culpability for
evil, then theism cannot both (a) be made compatible with the facts revealed by
an evolved-cognitive science (i.e., argue that God reveals himself through our
cognitive architecture) and (b) defend God in the face of the evidential argument
presented by cognitive science. Therefore, an evolved-cognitive science of evil
threatens to undermine cTheism.
This provides powerful evidence supporting the case for debunking. Still,
as this is a relatively unexplored challenge, perhaps cTheism can establish a
cognitively compatible theodicy (cTheodicy) in response. I am not aware of
any such efforts, which does not mean one cannot be developed. There are
suggestions in the literature defending cTheism that may be relevant. To avoid
too premature a conclusion on cTheism, let us try to construct such a theodicy.
ceodicy
In line with the cognitive-natural theology we are working with, we might
hypothesize that God did indeed endow us with a moral cognition that would
prepare us to act in the manner consistent with the command to love our
neighbor as ourselves and “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly”
(Micah 6:8), but that something went wrong. Barrett suggests perhaps “a perfectly
adequate concept of God does come as part of our biological heritage but that
living in a sinful, fallen world this concept grows corrupt” (2009, 97). Drawing
on Christian theology, Alvin Plantinga points to the disastrous “cognitive
consequences” (Plantinga 2000, 205) of original sin, that left us epistemically
corrupt. Perhaps it left us morally corrupt as well. Indeed, this reading fits
readily with a traditional theology of original sin, that is, that pride, the original
sin, leads us to prioritize our will and good over that of God and certainly over
that of others. This prioritizing of our good gives rise to the in-group bias that
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy50
we have presented as the source of so much evil. This moral corruption, then,
needs a moral-cognitive fix, which God provides through revelation. Evil is a
result of a deviation from God’s design, not a natural outcome of that design.
Thus, God is justified. How does this cTheodicy fare?
This approach is difficult to reconcile with natural theology. One central
problem is the concept of original sin seems inconsistent with natural history.
If we are to read Genesis as even a roughly historical account, with an
original pair of humans committing that first sin, then there is no possibility
of reconciliation with a naturalistic account that sees humans as part of an
evolutionary tree, with modern humans arriving very late in the process. Of
course, Genesis need not be read that way and is not read that way by many
Theists. “Adam and Eve” may be metaphors for the first morally or spiritually
mature members of homo sapiens, and so the first truly human beings made in
the likeness of God (e.g., Korsmeyer 1998; Williams 2001). Original sin, in this
evolutionary context, is not the first sin committed by the original humans but
instead is an event that took place in the history of the species, once humans
became moral agents. In terms of a theology compatible with science, this is a
better fit—but is it a good fit?
Even this naturalistic update to the doctrine of original sin entails that there
was a moral fall, a moment in the development of the species that constitutes a
break with a previous moral condition—and this is incompatible with what we
know of our evolutionary history. There was no pristine moral state from which
to fall. The moral evils we are considering, those that follow from an in-group/
out-group bias, are found throughout the higher mammals. This speaks to a
deep evolutionary origin of the in-group bias—and all the moral insensitivity
and cruelty that it generates—one that predates the human-chimp split, some
six million years ago. Just how far back must we go to find this Fall? (Hick 2001;
De Cruz and De Smedt 2013).
Perhaps, however, one might want to argue that the discriminatory urgings
of the cognitively based in-group bias are not themselves the source of sin but
are primitive elements of the evolutionary ascent to truly moral persons; that
the process of ensoulment, which creates the “first humans,” endowed us with
a moral perspective that allows us to resist the myopic morality of our evolved
moral psychology and instead embrace the more inclusive love that God expects
of us. It is the failure to embrace this perspective and instead pridefully focus on
the self and in-group that constitutes original sin. This may seem to fit better
with natural theology, but not with cNatural Theology. We just have no evidence
of any period in human history in which we find an inclusive love for the stranger
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 51
that (a) breaks with a previous state of in-group bias common to other mammals
and b) then gives way again to rampant in-group bias, ostensibly resulting from
original sin. Original sin and the Fall have no place in natural history; and
in terms of cognitive science, the evidence is clear that we have always been
naturally inclined to in-group bias.
The theology of original sin is ill-suited to serve as part of a cTheodicy
and so cannot salvage cTheism. However, original sin has always been a
theologically complicated notion, even before the advent of evolutionary
science. Whether or not contemporary theologians can come to a coherent
understanding compatible with our evolutionary history remains a live issue
for many. I am deeply skeptical that such an account can be developed, but it is
not necessary to settle the issue here. For even if we were to grant this point, for
the sake of the argument, and use original sin as part of a cTheodicy, serious
problems remain.
According to theorists taking this approach, original sin corrupts our
cognition thus leading to the moral evil we find around us, but God, in his mercy,
provides us with a fix to this corrupted cognitive program (Plantinga 2000, 206)
through revelation, as expressed, for example, in Scripture. By following God’s
moral guidance, we can correct the corrupted outputs of our moral cognition
and avoid the evil that follows. Once again, God is justified; but once again,
there is a problem: Scripture does not fix our moral in-group bias; it gives divine
sanction to that bias.
As I have argued elsewhere (Teehan 2010), religious texts set out a moral
system that follows the contours of our evolved psychology and thus endorse
the in-group bias. We do not have the space to exemplify this claim in detail,
and so some representative examples will have to suffice. Let us look at the
commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). This is a good candidate
for a universalist morality, as it seems a categorical imperative unconstrained by
group membership, but that is not the way it functions within the Hebrew Bible.
This command clearly is not applicable to out-group members:
When the Lord your God gives it [a foreign town] into your hand you shall
put all its males to the sword, but the women and little ones, the cattle, and
everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and
you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies. (Deut. 20, 13–16)
Here it is clear that the humans living in a foreign town, that is, out-group
members, do not enjoy the protection of “You shall not murder.” Nor are they
accorded status as full-fledged human beings. The women and the children may
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy52
be treated as booty—as dehumanizing an attitude toward the other as can be
imagined. What sort of moral system allows humans to use children as things
to be enjoyed as the spoils of war? A moral system that is designed to promote
the inclusive fitness of the individual and the in-group. Rather than correcting
an ostensible moral corruption of God’s plan, this passage sanctifies it. And of
course this is not the only example. Deuteronomy portrays the march of the
Israelites to the Promised Land as a genocidal bloodbath: “We captured all the
towns—there was no citadel that we did not take from them—sixty towns … .
And we utterly destroyed them … in each city utterly destroying men, women,
and children” (Deut. 3:4-6).
As much as some Christians might want to characterize this moral
discrimination as a concession made to the Jews that was superseded by the
teachings of Jesus, we find the same moral psychology at work in the Gospels,
and indeed throughout the history of Christian thought, albeit at times portrayed
in less dramatic ways. Christianity redefined the boundary of the moral in-
group, moving away from ethnicity as a signal of membership and establishing
in its place belief in Christ. Yet, this new definition of in-group membership
brings with it the moral bias that follows from this psychology. Christ himself is
said to have proclaimed: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever
does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11:23); that “everyone therefore who
acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in
heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father
in heaven.” (Matt. 10:32-33). In the parable of the sheep and goats, he teaches
“the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you’ … to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from
me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’”
(Matthew, 25:32-41).
There is an in-group and an out-group and woe to those on the wrong side
of that divide:
Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with re, so will it be at the end
of the age. e Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his
kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the
furnace of re, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. e righteous
will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
(Matt. 13: 40–43)
Those who run afoul of the moral boundaries, whether by being part of
another group or failing to abide by the in-group’s social contract, lose their
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 53
full moral status. Here Jesus characterizes them not as humans but as weeds,
that is, things to be collected and discarded, subject to terrible pain and
suffering—an attitude that has been played out through the sad history of
religious prejudice and violence, a history not restricted to Christianity.
This is an admittedly one-sided look at the moral story in the Scriptures,
which also contain powerful, inspiring exhortations to principles of justice and
love. These move us to consider the humanity of the other and serve to expand
the moral community, enriching our moral imagination. They serve as antidotes
to the morally corrosive aspects of our evolved cognitive tools—just the role
Scripture is assigned in the cTheodicy we are considering. However, Scripture
also presents, under divine sanction, a moral bias against the out-group that
promotes and even provokes (Bushman et al. 2007) moral insensitivity and
outright cruelty (including slavery, genocide and torture)—the very sorts of
moral evil they were supposed to correct.
This aspect of Scripture, and it is no small aspect, is inconsistent with
the claims of this version of cTheodicy, and it leaves cTheism subject to the
challenges posed by cognitive science: Moral evil flows from the workings of our
evolved cognitive tools—tools designed to reveal God’s nature, working as God
designed them to—thus implicating God in the evil that humans do. Instead
of countering the moral biases that lead to so much evil, Holy Scripture, which
reveals a more refined understanding of God’s will, gives those biases divine
sanction. Rather than getting God off the hook for the evil that our divinely
designed minds generate, Scripture reinforces God’s moral culpability for all the
evil that follows from that design. cTheodicy, then, fails; and if cTheodicy fails,
then the prospect for defending a cTheism is severely, if not fatally, challenged.
But let us hold off once more before resting with this conclusion. Perhaps,
one might argue, it claims too much, undermining one argument for cTheism
but leaving alternative versions viable. Interestingly, such an alternative is raised
in recent literature on this topic, a version based not in an Augustinian theology
of original sin but one which goes back to an earlier Church Father, Irenaeus
(Second century C.E.).
An Irenaean ceodicy
In Irenaeus’s thought, humanity’s moral failings do not result from a discrete
original sin that had species-wide consequences but rather are a result of
God having created us spiritually immature. We do not have a corrupt nature
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy54
that needs to be fixed, but an immature nature that needs to be developed.
Philosopher John Hick sees this as compatible with a naturalistic account of
humanity, a compatibility that “hinges upon the creation of humankind through
the evolutionary process as an immature creature living in a challenging and
therefore person-making world” (Hick 2001, 39). This notion of humans as
immature creatures, still in the process of “person-making,” has been proposed
as a response to the Unreliability Argument, that is, that our cognitive tools
when properly working are unreliable in the domain of god-beliefs; they do not
reliably result in god-beliefs consistent with Theism. In this alternative theology,
our mental tools are not unreliable: “They are simply spiritually imprecise
or coarse-grained. Perhaps the function of the god-faculty is simply to make
humans aware of the broad divine/moral dimension of reality” (Clark and
Barrett 2011, 665).
God-generating cognitive tools are reliable in producing god-beliefs in a
general, imprecise way. They are designed to make us aware of a spiritual aspect
to reality. The natural, intuitively compelling sense of the divine that comes from
these tools is then to be refined through Scripture and theological reflection.
God designed evolution to allow for spiritual development, rather than
determining fully formed beliefs that would automatically present themselves
to us—a process that allows us to meaningfully participate in God’s creation.
This may be a better, more refined understanding of how God intended our
cognitive tools to work, opposed to a view that just expects them to generate
irresistible truth. It is an interesting approach that merits consideration (see,
e.g., Clark and Barrett 2010, 2011; De Cruz and De Smedt 2013) and may
provide a promising model for cTheism. But what about evil? What kind of
theodicy works with this model?
John Hick presents one such possibility: moral evil is an inevitable
consequence of there being spiritually/morally immature creatures, such as
humans. The justification of there being such immature, evil-prone creatures is
the greater good to be achieved through fulfilling God’s Purpose, which is “the
full realization of human potential in a spiritual and moral perfection within the
divine kingdom” (Hick 2001, 44). Unfortunately, the suffering-mass of humanity
rarely reaches this spiritual/moral perfection during their stay on this “person-
making world” and so further theological speculations are required of Hick to
make this all work out. But let us leave that concern aside for now and focus on
an assessment of this as a cTheodicy.
How is our immature, unrefined spiritual nature to be drawn closer to the
Truth? Certainly within the Abrahamic traditions, Scripture serves that role.
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 55
However, as argued, while Scripture certainly moves us away from a narrow
individual selfishness, structured as it is by our evolved moral cognition, it does
so by moving us to embrace a corporate selfishness that places the in-group,
however broadly defined, at the center of our moral concerns. This is, perhaps,
an improvement but certainly not a “full realization” of “moral perfection.”
This critique, however, may not be as problematic as it first appears, as many
theologians assert that Scripture needs to be understood in more sophisticated
ways. Examples of apparently God-sanctioned evil are not to be read as final
revealed truth. The reading of Scripture, which serves to refine our rough
sense of the divine, is itself in need of refinement via theological reflection—
and this seems reasonable. But, cTheists should be wary of this move, for it
opens up a slippery slope that may ultimately lead to an even more damaging
conclusion.
Consider the argument: Spiritual awareness is imprecise and immature and
so requires development and refinement to reach True Belief. This process of
development, however, seems to be an ongoing process. Our intuitive beliefs are
refined by Scripture, but our Scriptural beliefs need to be refined by theology—
and what about theology? We have already considered the move to refine
the theology of original sin from a naturalistically incompatible Augustinian
model to a more compatible Irenaean model. But, scholars in CSR exploring
the Irenaean model recognize that it too needs to further refinement, via
continued theological reflection. At what point does this process of ongoing
refinement stop? While it may be possible to identify immature beliefs to be
discarded (although, see current revising of Augustinian theology in favor of
formerly discarded Irenaean theology) it does not seem possible to identify the
final stage of appropriately refined, mature theology (e.g., Irenaean theology
giving way to … ?). If there is not a clear, objective standard by which we can
determine the end of the process, then any theological system can only be
accepted provisionally, open to future refinement or possibly rejection—and
this includes the belief in a personal, Supreme Being, that is, the God of Theism.
There are no compelling reasons to accept Theism as a final stage. It may just
be one more step upon the path, destined to join animism and polytheism as
primitive attempts to make sense of our world.
This leads to some deeply challenging conclusions about Theism in light of
cognitive science. A cognitive scientific model of morality reveals the propensity
to evil is built deep into our nature. This is not the result of some fall from grace
but is a product of the cognitive processes that constitute our moral psychology.
A naturalistic account explains this as the result of selection pressures favoring
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Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy56
those cognitive predispositions that promoted the inclusive fitness of social
beings. Such beings need to secure the cooperative groups in which they live
and protect themselves from threats from competitive groups and individuals.
These goals entail different moral sensitivities and so will result in different
moral treatment for in-groups and out-groups. This account fits the available
evidence much better than a Theistic account that sees our moral cognition
as the design of a God seeking to enable humans to follow the demands of a
higher morality. No Theism can claim to be compatible with the findings of CSR
without addressing this moral challenge, and meeting this challenge may call for
a very different approach.
A conception of God consistent with, much less supported by, an
evolutionary cognitive science will need to be as dynamic and open to ongoing
development and refinement as our cognitive processes are. In such a theism,
scripture and theology must also be subject to this evolving understanding,
constantly subject to revision and perhaps rejection. It may indeed be possible
to develop such a cognitively compatible understanding of God, but the more
successful that effort is, the less that understanding will resemble the God of
classical Theism.
Notes
1 “Religion” is a contested term among scholars. Here I stipulate that by “religion” is
intended a communally shared set of beliefs and practices involving one or more
supernatural beings. is denition should serve to denote the subject matter as it
is treated by both cognitive scientists and theologians working on the present topic
and dene the subject in a manner recognizable on a more general level.
2 “God” is also an ambiguous term. Here I stipulate “God” to mean a conception
of the deity as the Supreme Being; a personal God who is creator of the universe,
morally interested in humanity and possessing superlative qualities. I do not
claim that CSR has nothing to say about other god-concepts, I believe it does,
but here the focus is on a conceptualization of God that has played, ambiguities
notwithstanding, a central role in human history, and which is almost uniformly
assumed by those involved in debates such as this one.
3 See De Cruz and De Smedt (2015), for an important study of natural theology and
CSR.
4 I will use “eism” capitalized to indicate a rationally grounded and defensible
system of belief in God, with “God” understood as stipulated above. is is to
distinguish it from a more general notion of theism as any belief system about God.
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Cognitive Science, Evil, and God 57
5 I am not aware of research directly addressing this issue. ere are relevant
discussions in Draper (2004); Shults (2012); De Cruz and De Smedt (2013, 2015);
Teehan (2013).
6 is discussion of the neuroscience of in-group bias is a rehearsing of the topic
found in Teehan, 2012.
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