Abstract
In this work, The Role of Cognition in Religious Development is researched and discussed from various perspectives. Cognition here is defined as the activity of the mind, more specifically the act or process of knowing. This includes perceiving, appraising, understanding, reasoning, judging, remembering, imagining, planning, etc. Clearly, one's personal religiosity
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involves not just cognition, but also emotions, volition, unconscious drives, etc. However, more dimensions of social behaviour correlate with cognitive development than with any other aspect of personality. The development of cognition is an important ingredient also of religious / spiritual / faith development.
Existing theories of religious / faith development by Fowler, Oser & Gmünder and others ascribing an important, albeit not an exclusive role to cognition are theoretically sound per se (and are empirically supported) as long as it is understood that they do not describe in detail individual development in the course of the life span but indicate developmental milestones many persons will reach along their religious journey (as far as it goes).
While advocating in regard to religious development to take duly into account the important roles of religious rituals and experiences, emotions, meditation, the unconscious, social imbeddedness and other dimensions of religiosity, the case for the role of cognition seems robust enough to warrant a separate study.
The origin as well as the planning of this research project and the sequence of its stepwise execution are presented. After the author had familiarised himself with the scientific background from the perspective of religious studies and psychology of religion, a first theme evolved via the interpretation of a world view study with children and adolescents: While some participants fell victim to cognitive dissonance on account of divergences between a religious and a scientific world view, others managed to “co-ordinate” the two views to their satisfaction.
This co-ordinating capacity was diagnosed as an indication of a particular form of reasoning, eventually labelled Relational and Contextual Reasoning, RCR. Its systematic study was planned accordingly, and a series of empirical studies carried out (chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). This research showed that RCR ingredients are elements of (a) Piagetian operations, (b) cognitive complex thought, (c) dialectical thinking, (d) analogical thinking and it involves (e) a specific, trivalent logic as well as (f) advanced epistemic cognition (specifically an awareness of mental tools and their roles and importance for gaining dependable knowledge).
As the outcome of the theoretical and empirical studies of RCR demonstrated (chapters 2, 3, 4), RCR is particularly useful for understanding religious doctrines such as the Divine Creation of the universe, the Chalcedonian Definition of the two natures of Christ, and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
Likewise, RCR furthers religious development on account of lessening the danger of cognitive dissonances, and supporting a second naiveté (Ricoeur), as well as coordinating conceptual polar pairs such as the holy and the profane, divine providence and luck, freedom and dependence (chapters 4, 6)
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Building on the results reported in chapters 2 to 6, the basics of a dynamic model of the Person-God Relationship were elaborated (chapter 7).
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