Ebook: Minding God (Theology and the Sciences)

Peterson views cognitive science as a resource for a new understanding of theology. Cognitive science is the study of the mind or the science of thinking and includes the study of language, reasoning ability, memory, perception, emotions, and the body. This book surveys the cognitive sciences--neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and primate studies--and it offers incisive theological and philosophical interpretations of these sciences. Peterson's work is well-balanced, scholarly, and accessible. It focuses on the ways that the cognitive sciences impact theological issues like original sin, consciousness, the soul, the distinctiveness of humans, culture, views of God, and God's relationship to the world. This is a good text for educated lay-people, seminarians, and college students interested in the engagement between theology and the cognitive sciences.

Peterson describes "three modes of interaction" between cognitive science and theology. First, according to Peterson, within the social sciences, there is a long tradition of reducing the categories of theology to those of sociology, psychology, or anthropology. He finds reductionist claims on behalf of the cognitive sciences to be unconvincing. A second option is to view cognitive science as a challenge that reexamines and reconsiders the meaning of theological doctrines and calls into question traditional doctrines and formulations. But, Peterson offers a third approach, which is to view cognitive science as data for theology. Cognitive science provides insight, inspiring options that had not been previously considered. In this approach, cognitive science does not dictate the content of theology but it does provide insight for "getting the theology right."

Peterson is convinced that the cognitive sciences have the potential to influence theological discourse significantly and to help reformulate traditional religious and theological issues in surprising and insightful ways. In the end, theology has little to lose and much to gain from a dialogue with cognitive science. Peterson emphasizes breadth over depth, because of the unfamiliarity that most theologians and religion scholars have with the cognitive sciences.

The book is divided into four main sections. The first section serves as an introduction to the scope and character of the cognitive sciences and explains what it means to do theology "through the lens of cognitive sciences." The second section deals with the human person and focuses on consciousness, the mind-body relation, emotions, freedom, and the biology and psychology of religious experiences. Most of the issues raised in this section are philosophical, but there are significant theological stakes as well. For example, some Christian views of salvation are based in part on a theological anthropology that presumes a self or soul in need of transformation. However, many of the traditional attributes of the self are subjects of recent scientific inquiry and the results can influence theological views about human nature, the human condition, and salvation.

The third section concentrates on the issues of human distinctiveness, the image of God, human nature, and sin. The existence and nature of animal minds and artificial intelligence present one kind of challenge forcing theologians to consider traditional claims for human uniqueness more carefully. Also, the advent of evolutionary psychology injects a cognitive approach to thinking about conceptions of our place in the world and understanding humans as the image of God. Section four specifically investigates theological discourse, especially the Creator-creation distinction, God's relation to creation, the nature of God, and the divine mind. Theological thinking is frequently anthropomorphic, at least to the extent that God is understood as personal or person-like. Peterson notes that once one talks of God as a person or as having a mind, cognitive science has relevance for discourse about God.

Theology ultimately makes claims about God and creation and is concerned with God's relationship to creation--including humans and human actions, animals, and the physical universe. Doing theology inevitably entails some kind of encounter with the sciences, and the encounter of theology and cognitive science is unavoidable. While God is not a traditional category of inquiry for cognitive science, theology is tremendously interested in issues pertaining to human nature, a subject about which cognitive science has much to say.

The most fascinating claim of Peterson's book regarding the interaction/engagement of science and religion is the prospect of "doing theology through the lens of cognitive science." (p. 17) However, this also points to the one important feature that is lacking: more explanation of Peterson's methodology. How do cognitive science and theology engage one another? Peterson even writes: "It is one thing to assert that the cognitive sciences are significant for theology and quite something else to say how." (p. 17) In only one paragraph in Chapter One, he identifies Ian Barbour's four modes of engagement between science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, and synthesis. Then Peterson describes, in only three pages, his "three modes of interaction" (reduction, challenge, and data) between science and religion, without much explanation of why he thinks the three modes of interaction are more appropriate. Despite this weakness, the book is clear, well-written, and packed with insights for students and professors interested in theology or cognitive science. Peterson is a wise guide through the complex and difficult relationship between cognitive science and theology.