World-view neutrality and its consequences

How do theistic advocates of the compatibility thesis argue for their case? Theistically oriented cognitive scientists of religion start with the cognitive mechanisms that are salient in explaining the transmission and continuity of religious beliefs (Barrett Reference Barrett2007, Murray Reference Murray and Bulbulia2007). Then they argue that the nature of these explanations does not have consequences which are incompatible with a theistic world-view, especially with the metaphysical or ontological assumptions typical of theism. For example, a naturalistic critic could contend that the cognitive mechanisms of our evolved minds do not guarantee the truth of our beliefs; the evolutionary process is interested only in the adaptational value of our mental representations (think of HADD, for instance). This error-proneness also holds for religious representations, which are produced by the same cognitive mechanisms. Consequently, the explanations of CSR show that theistic beliefs are unjustified or at least their reliability is greatly weakened by these explanations. In reply, a theist can point out that if this kind of argumentation is accepted, then we have no more reason to trust our beliefs in any other cognitive domain of our life – and, in fact, isn't the original sceptical claim actually self-refuting?

One way to articulate the compatibility thesis is to speak about the world-view neutrality of theories (Leech & Visala Reference Leech and Visala2011a, Visala Reference Visala2011); I call this the neutrality thesis. Thus, the cognitive science of religion is world-view neutral with respect to theism when the truth of the former is consistent with the core propositions of the latter, especially with the existence of God.Footnote ² This is a rather weak characterization of the neutrality thesis. As we will see, much depends on how we understand the role of a theistic God vis-à-vis the world. Furthermore, it is argued that CSR may have a religious relevance for theism if it leads to a modification or even a rejection of some non-essential beliefs of the theistic view. My emphasis in this article, however, is on the core theistic (metaphysical) assumptions and their relationship to bio-psychological explanations of human beliefs.Footnote ³

Hence, pro-theistic cognitivists can argue that cognitive science of religion is compatible with the theistic world-view, because CSR is world-view neutral with respect to metaphysical theism. Let us accept this and consider next the case of metaphysical naturalism. By metaphysical naturalism, I refer to the world-view that contains materialism, at least in some form, as a core ontological assumption. That is, a metaphysical naturalist thinks that all the basic entities of the world (if such exist) are physical. He or she may be a reductionist or favour non-reductive materialism, according to which some ‘higher’ level entities with their characteristic properties are not reducible to lower-level entities. Thus, non-reductive materialists typically take mental properties to be non-reducible to physical (neurological) properties. However, for a materialist, whether reductionist or not, the world is ultimately composed of physical properties and powers; all the other (possible) kinds of properties and forces are either identical with or strongly dependent upon (e.g. supervenient on) physical ones. Here, of course, there is an essential difference compared with metaphysical theism. A theist, believing in a non-physical personal God, must reject materialism as the ultimate metaphysical view of reality.

Now, I claim, by regarding cognitive science of religion as world-view neutral in view of theism, a theist must also accept the world-view neutrality of CSR in the case of metaphysical naturalism. This is because if CSR were not also world-view neutral with respect to naturalism, it would have consequences regarding theism (or some other non-materialistic world-view). By strengthening or weakening the metaphysical assumptions of (materialistic) naturalism the results of CSR would also weaken or strengthen theistic assumptions. But, then, CSR would not be world-view neutral with respect to theism in the first place. I call the view that a bio-psychological theory (especially CSR) has no metaphysical consequences for a world-view the first aspect of the neutrality thesis.

This first aspect has as its consequence a second aspect associated with the neutrality thesis. Let us suppose that a scientific theory x is world-view neutral with respect to world-views A and B that have ontologically contradictory assumptions. This means, first, as I pointed out above, that x cannot have consequences that are metaphysically incompatible with A and/or B. But this, on the other hand, must imply that neither A nor B has metaphysical consequences for x as a scientific theory. Let us assume that world-view A has ontologically narrowing or broadening implications regarding x. Then x could no longer be world-view neutral with respect to B. If, for example, a theist included a non-physical designer who intervenes in the natural processes in her biological theory, biology would no longer be metaphysically neutral in regard to naturalism (which is materialistic by its ontology). This, however, contradicts the original (first aspect) assumption according to which x does not have metaphysical implications for A or B. When applied to theism, this means that the theistic world-view cannot have metaphysical consequences for a (supposed) world-view neutral cognitive science of religion.

According to this analysis, for a theist, cognitive science (or any bio-psychological theory) of religion can only be explanatory by nature; there can be no metaphysical relationship between explanations of CSR and theism. Thus, a theist (working as a cognitive scientist of religion) must accept some version of methodological naturalism. One way to characterize a methodological naturalist is to say that he or she first of all follows the methods and results of sciences wherever they lead. The emphasis is on the empirical research and explanations that are ontologically as neutral as possible.Footnote ⁴

Cognitive science of religion and methodological naturalism

Let us sum up the argument thus far. One possible way to reconcile theism with the cognitive science of religion is to speak about the world-view neutrality of scientific theories. If a theist holds this view, then he or she must also accept the metaphysical neutrality of his or her theistic world-view in regard to the cognitive theories of religion. This implies a clear-cut separation between CSR and theistic or other metaphysical world-views. Consequently, methodological naturalism follows. Of course, a cognitive scientist of religion may reject the neutrality thesis in the first place. My starting point was, however, that many of the theistically oriented proponents of CSR accept it.

But, then, can we construe cognitive science of religion as a purely explanatory theory and hence consider it compatible with theistic assumptions? That is, first, can we regard CSR as world-view neutral with respect to theism and, second, take theism to be without explanatory or metaphysical consequences to CSR? Let us begin by considering the first question; it is connected to the issue of naturalism, as I showed above (the second question will be examined in the next section). As a methodological naturalist, a cognitive theorist of religion who is a supporter of the compatibility claim must refrain from metaphysical commitments as far as possible; or, at least, he or she cannot prefer some commitments to any other. Consequently, she leaves the question of the truth value of religious claims open. For example, working as a scientist, she holds no view on the existence of God or on the authenticity of religious experiences and thinks that her scientific work has no real bearing on these metaphysical or non-empirical questions. Science as an explanatory activity says nothing about their truth or veridicality.

I think, however, that in general it is not reasonable or even possible to isolate science and its results from metaphysical questions in such a radical way – even though I admit that metaphysics as an intellectual inquiry has to some extent an autonomy of its own. Think of neuroscience, for instance. Surely the results of neuroscientific research have greatly diminished (although not completely destroyed) the plausibility of dualistic metaphysics of mind. Or, should someone find this example too controversial, think of the genesis of life. Nowadays it is taken for granted that life as a biological phenomenon has a chemical (molecular) basis, and this view has replaced the previous – more or less – metaphysically oriented vitalistic theories of life. I do not intend to claim that science ultimately settles our metaphysical questions, but it is also implausible to argue that (natural) sciences have no relevance at all for them. One can, of course, be inspired by the idea of non-scientifically initiated, primitive-like ‘basic beliefs’ as a ground of one's world-view. However, beliefs do not originate in a vacuum, and we live in a world where the results of scientific research have had a profound impact on almost every area of life. Cognitive science of religion taken as a naturalistic research programme clearly poses a challenge to religious truth claims.Footnote ⁵

Another apparent problem with the radical separation of scientific explanations and metaphysics concerns the question of acceptable explanations. If explanations of religious phenomena are taken to be completely neutral in regard to ontological commitments, on what grounds are, for example, gods and bodiless spirits excluded as explaining factors from scientific theories?

A theistically oriented cognitive scientist of religion who is also a methodological naturalist could reply that, in principle, these non-natural entities could figure in scientific theories. For example, if sufficient evidence is found for the manifestation of bodiless, non-material spirits (e.g. poltergeists) and the spirit hypothesis is the best explanation of the phenomena in question, then the hypothesis could be included in the best-explaining scientific theories. This, in fact, is in accordance with the canons of scientific realism. The problem seems to be that at the moment there is no sufficient evidence for the existence of bodiless persons.

However, as far as the cognitive science of religion is concerned, I do not consider this reply plausible. Let us assume that on some day we will find – by following the scientific methods – convincing empirical evidence for the existence of non-physical persons and/or other traditional religious entities. Consequently, a cognitive scientist of religion (committed to methodological naturalism) would also have to accept their existence. Until now he had believed that the cognitive mechanisms (e.g. producing counterintuitive representations) revealed by the theories of cognitive science would provide the best explanation of the origination, spreading, and persistence of religious beliefs. Now it seems that a more (in fact, the most) fundamental and thus a better explanation is the factual existence of non-material beings and their ability to bring about various beliefs in humans. As a result, a cognitive scientist of religion would have to modify dramatically – to weaken – the role of cognitive categories in explanations of religious phenomena. In fact, he could not embrace methodological naturalism in the same sense as before. Thus far, as a methodological naturalist, he would have followed the methods and results of naturalistically understood research procedures based on naturalistic-scientific theories. With the postulation of non-material spirits, non-naturalistic categories of explanation should be included in the theories of religion. In other words, there would be a change in the ontological (metaphysical) commitments of those theories; indeed, they would cease to be full-blooded naturalistic theories any more. This consequence confirms my claim above: it is implausible to separate scientific explanations altogether from metaphysical commitments. A methodological naturalist does not get rid of metaphysics just by following the methods of the sciences.

It seems, then, that it is difficult to take cognitive science of religion as a purely explanatory project in the spirit of methodological naturalism. The relationship between metaphysics (ontology) and explanations with respect to the cognitive science of religion is discussed by Aku Visala (Reference Visala2011). Visala first criticizes certain cognitive theorists of religion for committing themselves to strict naturalism, which, by Visala's definition (ibid., 90–91), includes reductive materialism. The problem, according to Visala, is that these naturalistic proponents of CSR regard explanations based on physical causality as fundamental when constructing theories of psychological and cultural activities. However, contends Visala, metaphysics and scientific explanations must be distinguished from each other; the latter can proceed without strong ontological commitments.

On the other hand, Visala wishes to replace strict naturalism with ‘broad’ naturalism, which he takes to be compatible with the theistic world-view. According to this notion, higher-order properties and states are dependent on lower-order states (for example, mental states depend on brain states), but the former still have some ontological and explanatory autonomy. It seems that by equating broad naturalism with non-reductive materialism Visala tries to build some kind of metaphysical dimension into the former (ibid., 87, n. 6). A similar view is taken by Leech and Visala (Reference Leech and Visala2011a). They speak about broader conceptions of naturalism advocated by non-reductive or emergent materialists who think that the material world includes complex entities which are not reducible to physical causes alone. They continue: ‘[t]hus emergent materialists deny or reformulate the causal closure claim to allow ‘causal power’ to higher level states' (ibid., 53).

If broad naturalism is offered as the metaphysical missing link between the theistic view and cognitive science of religion, there is an obvious problem. The ontology of broad naturalism – as described by Leech and Visala – is still physicalist. Non-reductive materialism is, after all, still materialism. Non-reductive materialists or emergentists typically maintain that certain physically constituted systems have new properties that cannot be reduced to the properties of the system's parts. Consequently, the system is governed by novel laws. It may even have ‘new’ causal powers (e.g. in the case of mental properties). However, for a non-reductive materialist, these novel powers are still physical or strongly dependent on physical causal properties; they are not ontologically new. When the physical base is gone, the novel properties are gone too. But, then, how could broad naturalism be understood as compatible with the theistic world-view? A theist must reject all forms of materialism as the ultimate metaphysical views of the world. In fact, it is hard to see how broad naturalism could add the missing metaphysical dimension to the problematic explanatory naturalism to which – according to the analysis above – a theist is committed on the basis of the neutrality thesis. The problem is actually not naturalism, but the view of God Leech and Visala seem to hold; that is what I claim below.

What are the consequences of theism for theories of religion?

Let us consider the second aspect of the neutrality thesis mentioned above. Can a cognitive theorist of religion, representing the theistic world-view, consequently think that theism is without explanatory or metaphysical consequences to CSR or some other bio-psychological theory of religion? There is an apparent problem with the positive answer. To take an example of a religious phenomenon, let us think of a theistically described mystical experience. Of course, there are also other kinds of religious experiences and some forms of them (e.g. those connected to rituals) have raised more interest than mystical experiences among the proponents of CSR. However, mystical experiences – because of their supposed direct nature – serve here as a demonstration of the problematic consequences the neutrality thesis has for a theistic cognitivist.

One might still argue that the discussion on mystical experiences is not relevant in this context. According to this view, what a cognitive scientist of religion (whether theistically oriented or not) aims to explain on the basis of cognitive theories is not mystical experiences per se but general tendencies in belief formation. Consequently, he or she as a cognitive theorist can leave the question of the ultimate origin of mystical experiences open. But – I claim – now we are back in the problematic view of methodological naturalism as far as the relationship between CSR and theism is concerned. And, in any case, my question in this section explicitly relates to the possible consequences of theistic metaphysics regarding the cognitive science of religion.

To begin with, as a cognitive scientist of religion, a theist seeks to find out, for example, what cognitive and neurological structures are possibly activated during a mystical experience and how the experience is conceptualized. He or she employs cognitive, neurophysiologic, and evolutionary theories to track the possible causes of the experience.

But as far as the cognitive researcher is a theist, he or she cannot regard any naturalistic – any ‘immanent’ – theory as sufficient for explaining mystical experiences. In order for the explanation to be complete from a theistic point of view it must be assumed that the experiencer has had direct contact with some transcendent entity (a personal God). The naturalistic explanation cannot be the whole story; it is actually incomplete without the theistic assumption. This, however, is in conflict with the second aspect of the neutrality thesis presented above, which requires that theism as a world-view is neutral with respect to bio-psychological theories of religion; theistic assumptions do not interfere with scientific explanations or metaphysics that are supported by scientific results.

There is a standard reply offered by theistic theorists to this kind of problem. A theist ‘could simply maintain that a god or gods put into place the natural order … such that human brains naturally give rise to religious experiences under particular situations' (Barrett (Reference Barrett2007), 61). In more general terms, God arranged the initial conditions of the evolutionary process in such a way that in the course of evolution humans develop appropriate cognitive devices, which make it possible for them to have contact with God. However, in the case of a mystical experience the reply fails. The central feature of theistic mystical experiences is that the mystic has a direct connection to God as the initiator of the experience. This implies that God actively intervenes in the course of the world – at least in the case of religious experiences. He does not just passively stand outside the system and observe how it evolves after having fixed the right initial conditions.

Obviously, the question concerning the relationship between God and the world is of critical importance to the compatibility view. Suppose that God interferes with the processes of the physical universe – either by breaking the laws of nature or by guiding evolution teleologically. This undermines the basis of scientific research and leads to a dilemma. If God's activity is taken into account in scientific theories, the latter cease to represent science in any minimally naturalistic sense; if the activity is not taken into account, our view of the world and its processes is incomplete. In recent years, the proponents of the Intelligent Design movement have defended a kind of anti-naturalistic intervention view. They speak about an unknown designer whose activity should be incorporated into scientific theories; but, ultimately, on their premises, the designer can only be a theistic God.

The position of the theistic cognitivists concerning the question of God's activity in the world is not completely clear. Barrett (ibid.) seems to think that God does not interfere with the workings of the natural world. On the other hand, he speaks about possible ‘supernaturally generated mutations’ arranged by God in order to steer natural selection (ibid., 70). Leech and Visala assume that God ‘actively works in the physical world’ (Reference Leech and Visala2011a, 53). Unfortunately, they do not tell us what this activity consists of. In fact, Howard J. van Till criticizes Barrett for ending up with a rhetoric which is not very different from the one used by the Intelligent Design movement (Van Till (Reference Van Till2008), 347–348).

I take it that allowing God to be an intervening (secondary) cause of the physical events and processes in the world leads to difficulties for a theist (as a cognitive scientist of religion). What about mental events? Above I argued that in the case of a mystical experience the theistic cognitivist has to accept God's direct influence on the experiencer. I further assume that, for a theist, this contact on the part of God is typically causal. God's act of will is a causally necessary part of the process that brings about the exceptional, mystical experience; it is God who initiates the experience. But if there is a direct causal relationship from God's mind to the human experiencer's mind, it seems that God at least does not interfere with the physical processes of the world and, consequently, there is no problem with a godly intervention in this case.

There is a problem, however. If God has a direct impact on a person's conscious states and the latter are taken as brain states or at least intimately dependent on neurological states, God cannot affect the person's mental states without first having an effect on his or her brain states. But, then, God again intervenes in the physical events of the world. Of course, a theist does not have to endorse any version of materialism as a solution to the mind–body problem; he or she may favour some form of dualism. In that case, God's influence on the person's mind does not proceed ‘through’ the physical states of the brain. However, dualism is presently not a popular mind–body theory and if a theist accepts a form of non-reductive materialism with the supervenience assumption instead, the problem of God's activity in the world raises its head again.

The problems for the theist are not finished yet. One problem concerns the artificially induced mystical or religious experiences. Michael Persinger, for example, has conducted investigations in which he has successfully produced a ‘sense of presence’ in many persons by using weak magnetic fields to stimulate their temporal lobes (see e.g. Persinger & Healey Reference Persinger and Healey2002).Footnote ⁶ It is also well known in many cultures that various mystical/religious/altered states of consciousness can be induced by drugs and by different psychophysical techniques. In recent decades in the west, considerable interest (including scientific interest) has also been shown in psychedelic drugs and their potential effects. If it is possible to bring about a theistic mystical experience by manipulating one's brain electrically or chemically, how plausible is it to claim that the real originator of this experience is a theistic God? How could we induce – whenever we want – a mystical experience of the all-powerful God in a person independently of any activity on God's part? This seems quite incredible and contradicts the claim made above according to which God necessarily has a role in producing the experience.

Philosophers of theistic persuasion have a clear-cut reply to this problem: there is no clear evidence that theistic mystical experiences can be induced artificially (e.g. Wainwright Reference Wainwright1981, ch. 2). This can be disputed; some scholars have reported empirical evidence for artificially generated theistic mystical experiences (cf. Smith Reference Smith1964).Footnote ⁷ Furthermore, there are many descriptions of non-theistic mystical experiences in world religions. Are these, because of their impersonal nature, not genuine experiences of transcendence for a theist? It should be noted that one can also find descriptions of profound unitive mystical experiences – where no difference between the experiencer and God is made – in the traditions of monotheistic religions. These experiences and their descriptions have often been problematic from the point of view of official teaching concerning God in monotheistic religions (see e.g. Paper (Reference Paper2004), 105–129).

Is there any way for a theist to handle the problem of God's activity in the world? That is, how could a theist as a cognitive scientist of religion hold on to the neutrality thesis, which presupposes that the theistic world-view must not interfere with scientific theories and their explanations of religious phenomena? I think the difficulty lurking in the background concerns the view of God. The theists I have referred to are not very specific about the conception of God with which they operate. They arguably endorse a classical Christian view of divinity. This notion makes a clear logical and metaphysical distinction between God and the world. God created the world and sustains it but, on the other hand, He may occasionally make a causal intrusion into the course of the world (through a miracle, for example). Ultimately, according to the classical theistic view, the world (cosmos) is a system that is metaphysically distinct from God (in fact, God created the world out of nothing). The world is dependent on God but not the other way round.

The classical view is apt to lead to a conception which takes certain worldly processes as an object of God's causal activity. Although God is understood to be omnipresent, his influence somehow originates, as it were, from outside the world. Given these difficulties, I want to examine an alternative model. According to this model, God is not a cause of worldly events – or mystical experiences – in the sense of efficient causality; God is rather their structuring cause.

An alternative model for compatibility

Fred Dretske has made a useful distinction between triggering causes and structuring causes (see e.g. Dretske Reference Dretske2004, Reference Dretske, O'Connor and Sandis2010).Footnote ⁸ The following example illustrates the distinction. An operator moves the cursor on a computer screen by pressing a key on the keyboard. The cursor would not have moved without the key press. In an obvious sense, the pressing causes the movement of the cursor; the former is a triggering cause of the latter. However, when asking why the cursor is moving, we may be interested in another kind of cause. We want to know ‘what brought about or caused the machine to occupy a state or to be in a condition in which pressure on the key has this effect’ (Dretske (Reference Dretske2004), 169). Why has the pressure on the key this effect? The answer refers to a structuring cause of the movement. The hardware and the activity of the programmer resulting in a relevant program have made the effect of the key press – the triggering cause – possible.

Dretske points to some important differences between triggering and structuring causes. In Humean terms of causality, a triggering cause (Ct) produces the effect (E) in a regular way: events of type Ct are regularly followed by events of type E. Together with pre-existing conditions, Ct is sufficient for E. On the other hand, a structural cause (Cs) is, generally speaking, not sufficient for E. There must be later events (independent of Cs) that ‘conspire to promote Cs into a structuring cause of E, and these later events might or might not occur’ (ibid., 170). For example, an act of a terrorist who plants a bomb in the general's car is the structuring cause of the following explosion and the general's death; the general's turning of the key to start the engine is the triggering cause. But whether the terrorist succeeds with his plot or not depends on the general's course of actions. If the latter never sits in his car and does not turn on the engine, the plot fails and the structuring cause does not materialize. As this example shows, there are no regularities between a structuring cause and its effect. Another difference between a triggering and a structuring cause, pointed out by Dretske, is that the triggering causal relationship is one–one, whereas the structuring causal relationship is one–many. For instance, to return to the example above, each movement of the cursor is produced by a distinct press (the triggering cause). In contrast, there is only one structuring cause (the activities of the programmer) associated with distinct presses of the cursor.

Dretske is not completely clear on the scope and nature of the structuring cause. In the examples above, he takes the structuring cause to be the activities of the relevant person(s), – i.e. the programmer and the terrorist. On the other hand, he speaks of the structural cause as the conditions that enable the triggering cause to bring about the effect. In my discussion, I include both aspects in the structuring cause. Sometimes it is vitally important to know who ‘structured’ the situation in a certain way (as in the case of the terrorist). There are situations, however, in which it is impossible to point to a particular (original) activity or activities responsible for the structure (think, for example, of different cultural habits and how they structure people's behaviour). As Dretske himself remarks, a structuring cause may advert to historical circumstances which, for example, caused a person (or some other entity) to be constituted in a certain way.

How can the distinction between triggering and structuring causes enlighten the problem of the relationship between God and the world and thus, possibly, restore the neutrality thesis? Let us begin with the case of the mystical experience. Mystical or religious types of experience can apparently be induced in many ways, for example, by taking hallucinogenic drugs, by meditating, or by affecting one's physical constitution through various techniques. These are triggering causes of mystical/religious experiences. There is a regularity to be observed with respect to the cause and the effect. Whenever persons take particular drugs or practise meditation for a sufficiently long time, they have a mystical type of experience.Footnote ⁹

However, when we want to explain the content of the experience, we need another kind of explanation. What are the structuring causes of a mystical experience? Obviously, there are many of them. It is very likely that a mystic's neurophysiological state must be structured in an appropriate way in order to make an exceptional experience possible; perhaps there are some permanent changes in her neurophysiology. Furthermore, the mystic's mind has to be structured in a suitable way. Her (inherited?) cognitive and psychological organization allows her to surrender to a mystical experience. This disposition has a link to the right kind of conceptual and cultural background structure. Arguably, the person cannot have a conceptually rich experience of a theistic (or any other kind of) God without being embedded in a culture where she has acquired the necessary conceptual resources.

All this is in accordance with the view that God is the ultimate structuring cause of the mystical experience. God is not the triggering cause but He makes the manifestation of the triggering cause (through ‘natural’ structuring causes) possible. Of course, not all mystical or religious experiences are genuine experiences of God. Those that are not can be explained solely by naturalistic structuring (and triggering) causes. As opposed to the classical model, God as a structuring cause does not have to be taken as intervening in the processes of the world. God is a transcendent ‘system’ of consciousness that structures the physical and biological world through the laws of nature. The latter make the effects of various triggering causes possible. Consequently, God or his activities do not figure in scientific theories and explanations; God does not get involved in the causal chains of the world.

The neutrality thesis above required that theism as a world-view does not entail any consequences for scientific theories (of religion) as scientific theories. My structural theism meets this condition. God is transcendent but also immanent in the sense that as the structuring cause of the universe He ‘enfolds’ the physical and biological world; the latter, with their specific laws, are ‘part’ of God. As long as sciences study the physical and biological course of events as they are ruled by the laws and regularities of nature, there can be no incompatibility between science and the existence of God in so far as God is understood to manifest Himself in the processes of nature. The structuring view can quite naturally be construed as a form of panentheism, especially if the universe is taken (necessarily) to exist within God, who is greater than the universe. I will not, however, examine the panentheistic ramifications of my structural view in any systematic way in this article.Footnote ¹⁰ To what extent the structural view of God is eventually (in)compatible with the classical theistic view, I leave as an open question. Some conceptions of God in the classical Christian tradition at least come close to the structural view; think of, for example, Meister Eckhart's mystically construed view of God.

What does it actually mean to say that God is not a triggering causal explanation but the structuring source of a veridical mystical experience? According to the structuring cause view, God is not the causally active instigator of the experience as in the classical notion I described above. Instead, in a mystical experience the transcendent structure is more or less revealed to the mystic in her conscious experience. It follows that on the basis of the view of God as a structuring cause, both theistic and non-theistic mystical experiences can be regarded as real. In the latter, the non-personal structure is – from a transcendent point of view – disclosed to the mystic; in the theistic experiences, the personal aspect of God is revealed. The revelation of God's nature in a mystical experience is made possible by the mystic's mind becoming empty of personal intentional states (desires, urges, thoughts, etc.) and various kinds of mental ‘clutter’. In consequence, the transcendent consciousness can pervade the mystic's mind. This is reminiscent of Meister Eckhart's view which Studstill (Reference Studstill2005, 218) describes thus: ‘Just as air naturally fills a vacuum, God has no choice but to fill the void of the annihilated soul.’

Thus, on the basis of the structuring view, it is possible for a theist as a cognitive or other naturalistically oriented scientist of religion to accept the authenticity of a mystical experience and still claim that this does not imply presenting a view of the mystical experience competing with the naturalistic theory. As a scientist, a theist is not investigating any godly activities in the world. The transcendence is ‘realized’ in the immanent processes of nature as well as in human experiences and activities in different ways.

Concluding remarks

I have examined the compatibility thesis according to which the assumptions and results of the cognitive science of religion (and this can be generalized to any bio-psychological theory of religion) are compatible with the theistic world-view. In particular, I have analysed the conception of world-view neutrality concerning scientific theories of religion. This notion has turned out to be more complex than some of its proponents have assumed. In its proposed form, it implies too strong a distinction between scientific theories and metaphysics. If it is associated with the classical notion of God, it is apt to lead to a view where God actively intervenes in the development of the world. To avoid this consequence, I have proposed a notion according to which God should be taken as the metaphysically structuring cause of the world. If this is accepted, a (panen)theist does not have to make a problematic separation between science as an explanatory activity and the metaphysical suppositions (and implications) of sciences. Furthermore, the view of God as a structuring cause does not compete with the scientific theories and explanations of religious phenomena.Footnote ¹¹