Faith and Reason: A Darwinian Synthesis

James A. Montanye
For presentation at the
Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion
Oxford University
July 15-18, 2009

• I shall argue that the natural process of biological change – what Darwinians call ‘evolution’ – is
responsible for both our apprehension of God and, separately, for the nature of our religious
practices.

• Being able to explain this thesis while standing on one foot seems entirely appropriate ...

• So, I offer a two-prong summary:

• First, the universal God-sense – that is, mankind’s easy willingness and desire to believe
in God – flows from an evolved predisposition for cooperation and exchange;

• Second, religious practices flow, not only from the God-sense and the propensity for
cooperation and exchange, but also from the evolved capacity for reason;

• The rest, as you shall hear, is commentary.

• I have 10 overarching propositions to offer, beginning with ...

• Proposition #1: Evolution not only is a proper basis for understanding God and religion, it is in
fact the ultimate basis for doing so.

• This might surprise those of you familiar with scientific atheism, and with Richard
Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion (2006), in particular.

• Religion, however, simply is not, as scientists and theologians often claim, a

phenomenon that “transcends the physical world.”

• Evolutionary and behavioral biology show that God is an objectively real phenomena,
albeit a much narrower one than we commonly imagine.

• Proposition #2: Is that God and religion are consequences of mankind’s evolved predisposition
for cooperation and exchange.

• The human brain is genetically programmed for the exchange of goods and services.
This programming is manifested through rationally selfish behavior called ‘reciprocal
altruism,’ which comprises 3 aspects: (i) cooperation; (ii) reciprocity; and (iii) trust.
 • Reciprocal altruism stands in contrast to the conventional notion of altruism, which
entails doing good simply for the sake of doing good. Evidence of such ‘utopian’
altruism seldom appears in nature outside of the family.

• Overstating the significance of reciprocal altruism in this context is nearly impossible,

but I shall try:

• The propensity for reciprocal altruism underlies all of mankind's innate civilizing
virtues, including concepts of brotherhood and non-sexual love (agape), the
golden and silver rules of moral conduct, categorical imperatives of ethical
behavior, the proscription of usurious interest, and the preference among
non-economists for bartered exchange over money and markets. It is the source
of mankind’s innate concepts of fairness and justice;

• Furthermore, reciprocal altruism is the ultimate source of the social unity and
moral order that commonly – and mistakenly – are described as being divinely
external to human existence. It is the foundation of Aquinas' Natural Law, of
Locke's "Rule betwixt Man and Man," and of the biblical "assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). It is the essence of
Spinoza's ‘soul,’ of Schopenhauer's ‘will,’ and of Bergson's ‘vital urge.’ It is the
motivation behind Max Weber’s ‘Protestant ethic’ and Adam Smith's ‘invisible
hand,’ and it is the source of value in Smith’s moral sentiment of "approbation
and esteem;"

• And finally, because reciprocal altruism grounds mankind’s God-sense – as I

shall argue momentarily – it can claim to be the universal god of monotheism,
with cooperation, reciprocity, and trust (or faith) as its holy trinity.

•I hope I haven’t shortchanged the concept.

• Proposition #3: Describes the behavioral process by which the God-sense is produced.

• Mankind is genetically programmed for cooperation and exchange because these

behaviors facilitated past reproductive success.

• The result is an evolved brain module that biologists call the ‘social-exchange organ.’

• Now, imagine how the social-exchange organ performs in situations where individuals
desperately need a cooperating exchange partner, but none is available.

• A clue to the puzzle lies in the expression: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

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 • When we desperately need an exchange partner, and none is available, our brains invent
one. We call this invention ‘God.’ The strength of belief in this god is proportional to the
intensity of an individual’s genetic propensity for reciprocal altruism.

• Biologists call such behavior in vacuo – that is, mock behavior occurring in the absence
of an appropriate external stimulus. Behavior of this sort is common throughout nature.

• Mankind is programmed to cooperate, bargain, and exchange, and we do so even in the

absence of flesh-and-blood exchange partners.

• Professor Dawkins, writing in The God Delusion, characterizes mankind’s God-sense as

a misfiring. Specifically, he calls it “the misfiring of a tendency that is, or once was,
useful for something else.” The “something else” in Dawkins’ description is the innate
predisposition for cooperation, reciprocity, trust, and exchange.

• In closing here, let me just note that mankind’s God-sense is logically prior to questions
about ultimate beginnings and endings. The God-sense becomes, among other things, an
empty vessel into which unknowable answers of all sorts are poured.

• Proposition #4: Humbly states that you needn’t take my word for any of this, or accept
uncritically the behavioral foundations on which my thesis is based.

• My explanatory hypothesis of God and religion need not – and indeed ought not – be
evaluated merely with regard to the apparent reasonableness – or not – of its underlying
theory and assumptions.

• The scientific method requires that hypotheses be testable and falsifiable.

• My hypothesis predicts that mankind’s God-sense is an artifact of a genetic propensity

for cooperation and exchange.

• I propose that this hypothesis be tested by resort to brain imaging data being collected
by researchers working in two areas: Neuro-theology, which images the brains of
individuals during prayer and meditation; and Neuro-economics, which images brains
engaged in simulated exchange activities.

• If no meaningful correlations are found between these disparate data sets, then the
prediction fails and the hypothesis is rejected.

• I know of no attempts to study the imaging data in this way.

• And I mean to suggest that research along these lines would be a splendid way to
dissipate a relatively small portion of John Templeton’s estate.

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• Proposition #5: Is correlative – Any behavior that interferes with reciprocal altruism qualifies as
being ‘satanic.’

• I offer four examples:

• The first two ‘satanic’ behaviors are force and fraud. This is standard stuff,
straight out of Machiavelli;

• The third satanic form is the replacement of the common law – essentially what
Aquinas called ‘Natural Law’ – with legislation permitting the state to exercise
force and fraud on behalf of private factions;

• The fourth satanic form is the rational calculation that leads individuals to renege
opportunistically on voluntary commitments.

• In short, the antitheses of God and reciprocal altruism are Satan and the Hobbesian state
of nature.

• I shall change gears at this juncture, leaving behind the Darwinian explanation of God, and
moving on to address the evolutionary foundations of religion.

• Proposition #6: States that religion is a separate phenomena from the God-sense, and that it is
practiced – not because it is absurd – but because it is rational.

• Religion, like the God-Sense, is rooted in the evolved, biological predisposition for
cooperation, reciprocity, trust, and exchange.

• But religion also is a rational instrument that enables individuals to garner more of life’s
necessities and pleasures.

• “The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction [writes the distinguished
biologist E.O. Wilson], and reason [or rationality] is just one of its various techniques."

• The rationality of religion is evinced, in part, by the growing economics literature

deconstructing religion’s supply and demand characteristics.

• Coincidently, the sociologists of religion Rod Stark and Roger Finke observe that
“[m]ost of the world’s religious scriptures abound in the language of exchange.” In this
sense, scripture truly is the word of God, at least as I have described the phenomenon of
God.

• Beyond being an artifact of exchange, however, religion also serves as an instrument of

social unification. It is an instrument that just happens to turn on the idea of God.

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 • Indeed, the word ‘religion’ is a cognate form of the Latin verb ligo, ligare, meaning ‘to
unify.’

• Economists, coincidently, call their theory of exchange by the term ‘catallactics’ – a

word derived from an ancient Greek verb that means not only ‘to exchange,’ but also ‘to
admit into the community,’ and ‘to change from an enemy into a friend.’

• Religion and exchange are especially efficient instruments for generating social unity.

• Government is another efficient instrument. I’ll return to this point in a moment. But
first, on to ...

• Proposition #7: Religious practice is privately valuable because it provides an efficient platform
for individuals to signal cooperativeness, trustworthyness, and reliability.

• Signaling behavior is common throughout biology and economics.

• The key to this behavior is that signals must be costly to produce and mimic in order to
be credible.

• A collateral implication is that rationally selfish signals often mimic, and so are easily
mistaken for, unselfish altruism.

• Faithful adherence to a demanding religion is a costly undertaking. Its costs are gauged
both in terms of obligations that must be incurred, and opportunities for private gain that
must be foregone.

• Consequently, religion effectively signals an individual’s willingness to be bound by the

obligations of reciprocal altruism.

• Hence, the value of religious practice even among atheists. Britain’s Astronomer Royal,
Martin Rees, for example, signals cooperativeness by attending church regularly, as “an
unbelieving Anglican [he says] ... out of loyalty to the tribe.”

• When individuals stand in church to sing a hymn, or stand at a sporting event to sing a
national anthem – and even when they immolate themselves as suicide bombers, or die
on foreign soil fighting for an ideology – they are signaling instinctively – to their peers
and to their gods – their willingness and desire to act cooperatively.

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• Proposition #8. Asserts that ‘spiritual’ truth is more important than factual truth for inculcating
religious beliefs.

• The 3rd century theologian Origen of Alexandria famously argued that the author of
John’s Gospel always told the truth spiritually, but not always factually.

• Spiritual truths are exercises in pragmatism of the sort described by the American
philosophers William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, and also by the French
social engineer George Sorel, who perfected the concept of ‘vital lies.’

• The wisdom here is that ‘truth’ is simply ‘whatever works’ and is necessary to produce
a desired social result.

• The librettist W.S. Gilbert could describe pragmatic truth as "merely corroborative detail,
intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."

• Pragmatic truths constitute a phenomenon called ‘socially constructed reality.’

• The philosopher Richard Rorty describes the construction process aptly. He says: “The
idea of ‘truth’ – as correspondence to reality – gradually is replaced by the idea of ‘truth’
as what comes to be believed in the course of free and open encounters.”

• In the limit, ‘truth’ emerges even from the sort of fact-free encounters that the moral
philosopher Harry Frankfurt pellucidly calls ‘bullshit.’

• The bottom line is that religious beliefs may seem absurd, as Tertullian famously noted,
but tacit rationality underlies the apparent madness.

• Scientific atheists, like the biologist E.O. Wilson, show ignorance of the social process
when they dwell upon the “humiliating disproofs” of religious mythologies. Criticisms of
this sort are calculated to be evocative, but otherwise they are irrelevant.

• Proposition #9: Claims that religion always complements the local environment.

• The efficiency postulate of economics implies that religion develops in ways that
maximize the net value extracted from the environment. I say ‘net value’ because
religion always entails costs as well as benefits. Once again, there is no free lunch.

• We readily observe religious practices adjusting to the environment over time.

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 • America provides a useful case study – Religion there has evolved from the ascetic,
God-worshiping Calvinism of the 1600s, to deism and atheism in the 1700s, to the
widespread worship of Jesus beginning around 1800, and on to today’s post-Christian
worship of consumption and re-distributive government.

• This history reveals, among other things, how religion and politics co-evolve. Which
leads finally to ...

• Proposition #10: The same evolutionary factors that create God and traditional religion also
produce what Rousseau called ‘civil religion.’

• Civil religion is simply the deification of civil power.

• It, like traditional religion, is grounded on revelatory scripture, called constitutions and
laws, and on hermeneutical interpretation, called jurisprudence.

• Civil religion’s all-to-human gods rise from the ranks of charismatic and numinsitic
individuals, who exude something resembling idealized and larger-than-life qualities of
cooperation, reciprocity, and trust.

• The world’s great civil religions include 19th century Nationalism; followed by
Communism, Socialism, Fascism, and Liberal Democracy in the 20th century; and by
American Democratic Fundamentalism in the 21st century.

• The physicist and Nobelist Steven Weinberg echos Pascal when denouncing traditional
religion as “an insult to human dignity. With or without it [says Weinberg], you’d have
good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to
do evil things, it takes religion.”

• Weinberg, like many atheists, ignores not only the many civilizing virtues of traditional
religion, but also the vastly greater evil done by civil religions. Ironically, much of the evil
done by both camps is the unintended consequence of ostensibly well-meaning attempts
to do good.

• Today’s so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ is a conflict between two great religious

traditions with contrasting means of social unification, and a legacy of mutual grievances.
One of these religions – Liberal Western Democracy – is overtly civil; the other – Islam –
is characterized as being spiritual.

• The literary and social critic Harold Bloom aptly observed that "[the West's first] war
against Iraq ... was a true religious war, but not one in which Islam was involved
spiritually, on either side. Rather, it was the war of an American Religion (and of the
American Religion abroad ... among [America’s] Arab allies) ...”

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 • The advent of great civil religions, beginning in the 19th Century, vindicated
Kierkegaard’s prediction that “all politics eventually would be revealed as religion.”

• The purpose of religion, by Kierkegaard’s lights, is to alleviate despair by providing

objects for faith, worship, and devotion.

• Because civil and traditional religions are similarly rooted in cooperation, reciprocity,
trust, and exchange, they manifest themselves in similar ways.

• The noted economist Joseph Schumpeter once likened Marxism to a religion, calling it
"first, a system of ultimate ends that embody the meaning of life and are absolute
standards by which to judge events and actions; and, secondly, a guide to those ends,
which implies a plan of salvation, and the indication of the evil from which mankind, or a
chosen section of mankind, is to be saved. ... [Marxism] belongs to that subgroup [of
‘isms'] which promises paradise this side of the grave."

• The biologist E.O. Wilson offers a more cynical, but equally valid, perspective:
"Religions, like other human institutions, evolve so as to enhance the persistence and
influence of their practitioners. Marxism and other secular religions offer little more than
promises of material welfare and a legislated escape from the consequences of human
nature. They, too, are energized by the goal of collective self-aggrandizement."

• Returning briefly to an earlier point about satanic forms, I call attention to the converse
of Kierkegaard’s insight – that is, not only does politics reveal itself as religion, but
religion reveals itself as politics when religious factions manipulate civil power to reap
windfall benefits at the expense of other individuals.

• Such benefits are called ‘rents’ in the argot of political economy, and the competition
for them is called ‘rent seeking.’

• Religious affiliation is competitively advantageous to rent seekers because questioning

the ulterior motives of anyone acting ostensibly out of religious conviction remains
socially and politically impermissible, despite the growing awareness of religion’s malign
role in rent seeking.

Conclusion

• I conclude this talk now, as I began it – standing on a one-footed summary:

• First, the universal God-sense flows from mankind’s evolved predisposition for
cooperation and exchange;

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 • And second, religious practices flow both from the God-sense and the innate
predisposition for cooperation and exchange, and also from mankind’s evolved capacity
for reason;

• The rest, as you now know, is commentary.

• And with that, I surrender the floor for questions and discussion.

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