A Reflection on 'The God Feculty': John Henry Newman in Conversation with the Cognitive Science of Religion

Many Christian philosophers suppose that there exists a “god-faculty”—a cognitive disposition that naturally and rightly inclines human beings toward theistic belief without aid from any argument. In his Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent (1870) John Henry Newman defends an account of the nature of these dispositions, an account that has the moral conscience at its core. In the meantime, the cognitive science of religion has identified many other such dispositions besides. This chapter aims to bring Newman into conversation with current cognitive science of religion with an aim toward better understanding the role of Newman’s conscience within a wider account of the cognitive foundations of theistic belief. First, I’ll argue that while Newman (understandably) makes no attempt to draw any line of support for his view from evolutionary psychology, such support is now available in spades. Second, I’ll argue that Newman’s account of conscience deserves special emphasis in connection with what Christian philosophers call “the cognitive consequences of sin”. While it’s relatively easy to predict how moral wrongdoing would compromise the cognitive mechanisms that Newman draws our attention to, the matter is far less straightforward with reference to those mechanisms that receive the most press in the cognitive science of religion.