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Empirical steps toward a Christian Psychology

I believe the presence of this meta-standard References
has significant implications for the character Bering, J. (2002). Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents‘
of the incommensurable rationalities, namely Minds: the Natural Foundation of Afterlife Beliefs as
Phenomological Boundary. Journal of Cognition and
that they are on some level engaged in the un- Culture , 263-308.
righteous suppression of the truth of God, as Calvin, J. (1559/1960). The Institutes of the Christian Re-
described in Romans 1:18-23.. In a much more ligion. (J. T. McNeill, Ed., & F. L. Battles, Trans.) Philadel-
explicit and contemporary example of the cha- phia: Westminster Press.
racters of such a rationality, the experimental Kuhn, T. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
psychologist Jesse Bering has been clear about Plantinga, A. (2000). Warrented Christian Belief. New
suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Be- York: Oxford University Press.
lieving his research with children and their be- Plantinga, A. (2011). Where the conflict really lies: Sci-
liefs about dead agents demonstrates the error ence, religion, and naturalism. Oxford: Oxford Universi-
of belief in God (Bering, 2002), he commen- ty Press, USA (December 9, 2011).
Reischel, J. (2008, March 9). The God Fossil. Retrieved
ted triumphantly to a reporter for the Broward January 3, 2014, from Broward Palm Beach New Times:
Palm Beach New Times, „We‘ve got God by the http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2006-03-09/news/
throat, and I‘m not going to stop until one of the-god-fossil/full/
us is dead“ (Reischel, 2008). Perhaps, as a athe-
ist, Bering is using a rhetorical device, but it is
difficult not to see his comment as both an ex-
ample of the sensus divinitatus and the biblical
principle that were are, in our fallen state, the
enemies of God.

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