The Embodied God: Core Intuitions About Person Physicality Coexist and Interfere With Acquired Christian Beliefs About God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus.
Counterintuitiveness
Disembodied mind
Dualism
God
Holy Spirit
Religious beliefs
Representational coexistence
Journal
Cognitive science
ISSN: 1551-6709
Titre abrégé: Cogn Sci
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7708195
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
09 2019
09 2019
Historique:
received:
17
07
2018
revised:
30
07
2019
accepted:
01
08
2019
entrez:
19
9
2019
pubmed:
19
9
2019
medline:
2
10
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Why are disembodied extraordinary beings like gods and spirits prevalent in past and present theologies? Under the intuitive Cartesian dualism hypothesis, this is because it is natural to conceptualize of minds as separate from bodies; under the counterintuitiveness hypothesis, this is because beliefs in minds without bodies are unnatural-such beliefs violate core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and consequently have a social transmission advantage. We report on a critical test of these contrasting hypotheses. Prior research found that among adult Christian religious adherents, intuitions about person psychology coexist and interfere with theological conceptualizations of God (e.g., infallibility). Here, we use a sentence verification paradigm where participants are asked to evaluate as true or false statements on which core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and psychology and Christian theology about God are inconsistent (true on one and false on the other) versus consistent (both true or both false). We find, as predicted by the counterintuitiveness hypothesis but not the Cartesian dualism hypothesis, that Christian religious adherents show worse performance (lower accuracy and slower response time) on statements where Christian theological doctrines about God's physicality (e.g., incorporeality, omnipresence) conflict with intuitions about person physicality. We find these effects for other extraordinary beings in Christianity-the Holy Spirit and Jesus-but not for an ordinary being (priest). We conclude that it is unintuitive to conceptualize extraordinary beings as disembodied, and that this, rather than inherent Cartesian dualism, may explain the prevalence of beliefs in such beings.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e12784Informations de copyright
© 2019 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.
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