Credition: Fluid Faith between God and Science. On the Relationship between Neuroscience and Theology.

Hans-Ferdinand Angel
The question of the relationship between neuroscience and theology is embedded in the broader horizon of the centuries-old question of the relationship between science and theology. With the advent of the modern natural sciences, starting around the time of the Renaissance, this increasingly became a question of the relationship between science and theology. That is one side. The other side is: With the tremendous progress of neuroscience in the last decades as well as the exploitation of its results, for example in medicine, genetics or artificial intelligence research, the question arises with new explosiveness. It now aims at the innermost core of the self-understanding of man: it is about the possible ideas of truth, freedom, dignity as well as the ethical foundations for the coexistence in a society as well as the coexistence of peoples and cultures.

Credition: This is the background of the lecture. However, it aims in a different direction: The interest of neuroscience in recent years has increasingly focused on a phenomenon that until recently was mainly located in the domains of theology and philosophy, namely on faith. In the process, unexpected insights have come to light. Before these could come into view, however, a profound change of perspective was necessary. It revealed that until then (religious) faith in science had often been addressed as if it were static (state of mind) and primarily characterized by content. Neuroscience can hardly contribute anything to the understanding of such a contoured (religious) belief. In the meantime, however, interest has turned to the inner processes during believing. These are called creditions in science. But how did it come about that humans can believe? It seems to be confirmed that the extraordinary human capacity to believe (capacity of believing) arose in the course of evolution together with the development of the brain. Humans are hardwired for creditions. Belief processes are a brain function. They are highly complex and take place to a considerable extent subliminally, i.e. they are only partially accessible to consciousness. An understanding of creditions also opens up completely new opportunities for theology to communicate about faith and its individual manifestations. Above all, the question will arise: What consequences result from this for the question of the relationship between religion(s) and individual human religiosity?

Hans-Ferdinand Angel studied Latin, theology and history in Regensburg and Paris. His dissertation dealt with natural science and technology in religious education, his habilitation with "Der religiöse Mensch in Katastrophenzeiten". In 1994 private lecturer at the University of Regensburg, in 1996 professorship at the TU Dresden, in 1997 professorship at the Karl-Franzens University Graz. Since 2011 director of the international and interdisciplinary Credition Research Project credition.uni-graz.at/de/. Publications: Processes of Believing: The Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change in Creditions (Springer 2017; as editor); Credition: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Nature of Beliefs and Believing. Special issue (Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience; as co-editor 2021): www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/23734/credition---an-interdisciplinary-approach-to-the-nature-of-beliefs-and-believing; Credition. Fluides Glauben (Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag 2022).