The theism question

pp. 109-115

in: Graham Richards, Psychology, religion, and the nature of the soul, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

Time to change tack. Theology cannot be dodged forever despite William James' hopes. In the present case, I found one issue unavoidable and requiring discussion even if from a less systematically historical angle than the others, namely Theism. The existence or otherwise of God might, at first glance, strike one as an exclusively theological or philosophical issue rather than a Psychological one. Psychology surely only enters into the picture when we ask the rather different question as to the psychological reasons why people believe in God, the default assumption from an orthodox scientific view being that it is belief, rather than disbelief, which needs explaining. (Not a position which has always been held, atheism once being thought a form of insanity and, as we saw in Chap. 3, belief in God being thought by mental and moral philosophers to be the "normal" outcome of healthy maturation.)