From an evolutionary perspective, large-scale human groups face an adaptive challenge: maintaining cohesion beyond the limits of one-to-one grooming. Cultural practices that recruit evolved bonding systems may help solve this problem by harnessing mu-opioid psychobiological mechanisms. Religious rituals are cultural practices that consistently promote social cohesion, and here we report a pre-registered large-scale field study examining psychobiological mechanisms underlying these rituals. Participants were tested in the United Kingdom and Brazil at 24 ritual sites (N = 265), with measures taken pre- and post-ritual. Results showed that levels of social bonding (5.4% increase, rR = 0.30) and positive affect (13.1% increase, rR = 0.27) were higher after ritual participation. Importantly, increased social bonding was independently predicted by increases in pain threshold (a proxy for mu-opioid activation; β = 0.13, R2 = 0.02), positive affect (β = 0.25) and connection to a higher power (β = 0.15), even after controlling for country, gender, age and religiosity (R2 = 0.15). This multi-site field study provides experimental yet naturalistic evidence that religious rituals recruit an evolved mu-opioid-based affiliation system that may help sustain cohesion in large congregations, supporting the brain-opioid theory of social attachment.

Computational theorising has the potential to bring clarity and precision to understanding how the human mind is deployed in spiritual practices. As a step in this direction we use the cognitive architecture, Interacting Cognitive Subsystems, to explore a computational-level theory of mindfulness, the Jesus Prayer, and Centering Prayer. We make a distinction between two modes of central human cognition, and suggest that most spiritual practices involve a move away from conceptual cognition, to allow greater scope for intuitive-embodied cognition. In future work we suggest it may be helpful to explore further Ron Sun's CLARION architecture, which combines both top-down and bottom-up cognition. We also discuss the challenges to be faced in future cognitive modelling of spiritual practices.

Those engaged in a spiritual life have sometimes claimed that it gives them direct access to the spiritual aspects of reality. That may seem as though it implies philosophical dualism, and that there are separate spiritual and sensory worlds. However, it is pointed out here that it is equally compatible with a dual-aspect modernism, in which spiritual practices enhance understanding of the spiritual aspects of a single reality. Such insights should be treated with caution, and neither dismissed nor accepted uncritically. The understanding of reality that arises from spiritual engagement is always a participatory one, rather than being a propositional understanding that arises from the detached study. The question of whether there can be spiritual senses, and what form they might take, is explored.

This chapter discusses the characteristics of spiritual cognitive processing, and suggests that it is a mode of processing that is deep rather than quick. It is concerned with meaning, purpose, and significance, seeking patterns and developing narratives, rather than focusing on what is needed for immediate practical purposes and to solve problems. It is participatory, rather than detached and objectifying, and understands things by engaging with them, rather than by standing back. It is a relational form of intelligence in which the whole person is engaged, and includes knowing by feeling and by doing. It characteristically integrates concerns with truth, beauty, and goodness.

There is often an unnecessary relationship of mistrust between theology and advocates of spirituality. Theological misgivings about a spirituality that is independent of religion focus largely on concerns about what the word spiritual means; questions about how spirituality relates to religion; concerns about an overemphasis on subjective experience in the framework of spirituality (FOS); the question of whether there are external influences on religious and spiritual experience; and the prospects for interdisciplinary work on spirituality between theology, science, and philosophy. I suggest that the FOS is less nonreligious, as often assumed, but rather stands in a distinct quasi-religious tradition, and that internal and external influences on spiritual experience should not be regarded as alternatives. My hope is that there will be more fruitful dialogue between theology and the FOS, though that depends on a better understanding of the nature of the various disciplines involved and respect for their various core assumptions.

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This article explores the prospects for humans having spiritual conversation with a computer. It has long been clear that it is possible for humans to talk about personal issues with a computer, as evident from Weizenbaum’s early work on programming nondirective counseling. There are various ways in which automated spiritual interlocutors could be developed, e.g., using chatbot methodologies, script-based knowledge, machine learning, or some kind of hybrid. Preliminary empirical work suggests that a significant number of people are happy to discuss spiritual issues with a computer, whether the responses are by a human masquerading as a computer using Wizard-of-Oz methodology or GPT. In due course, it may be possible to develop a personalized artificial spiritual companion. The acceptability of spiritual conversation with the computer may depend on various factors such as the personality of the human user, their views on religious issues, and the focus and content of the spiritual conversation.

There has been increasing interest in virtue, both from the perspective of theology, and from human sciences such as psychology. This paper focuses on the possibility of modelling human virtue computationally, in terms of a particular cognitive architecture, Philip Barnard’s Interacting Cognitive Subsystems. It is unusual in being a macro cognitive architecture; it has been formulated with a computational level of precision; and its evolutionary development has been described. Though it is possible that computers could acquire virtue in a distinctive way, the focus here is on modelling human-like virtue. That needs to be grounded in empirical research on human moral functioning, and research is discussed on two main topics: whether or not virtue functions as a cross-situational, characterological trait; and the tendency of virtue to fragment into components such as values and behaviour which are only weakly connected. An important feature of Interacting Cognitive Subsystems is the distinction between two different modes of central cognition, one intuitive-embodied and the other conceptual. The interplay between these two different modes of cognition in the acquisition of virtue is discussed.

There has been a developing interest in spiritual intelligence from various points of view, including psychometric research and a practical self-help literature. Our approach here is primarily a theoretical one, building on the previous work of Robert Emmons. We reject the proposal that there is a separate spiritual intelligence that meets the criteria set out by Howard Gardner in his multiple intelligences framework. Nevertheless, we suggest that spiritual processing has distinctive characteristics, and that it is a deep form of processing concerned with ultimate meaning and significance. The current understanding of intelligence is tributary to a paradigm shift in the late 19th century. Spiritual intelligence connects better with earlier assumptions about intelligence, especially those found in the theological literature.

AbstractThis article introduces the concept of spiritual intelligence in terms of a natural human ability to take a different perspective on reality rather than an extraordinary ability to engage with a different/supernatural reality. From a cognitive perspective, spiritual intelligence entails a re‐balancing of the two main modes of human cognition, with a prioritization of the holistic‐intuitive mind over the conceptual one. From the psychological and phenomenological perspectives, it involves a different kind of engagement with information: slower, more participatory, less objectifying, and not focused entirely on problem solving. The article ends with a reflection on the theological implications of the proposed model and how such an account of spiritual intelligence as knowing differently might relate to theological anthropology and the theology of the spirit and the spiritual.

From the middle of the twentieth‐century onwards, there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of relationality in what it means to be human, which we call a “relational turn.” This is found in various domains, including philosophical psychology, psychoanalysis, and theological anthropology. Many have seen a close connection between relationality and personhood. In the second half of the article, we consider the implications of this trend for artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. So far, AI has largely neglected relational intelligence, though that could perhaps be about to change. Cybernetics was rendered more open to assumptions about the contextuality of intelligence by its rather different assumptions from AI. Social robotics increasingly requires relational intelligence, and promising steps might be found in computational modeling of human relationships. Questions about whether robots can achieve personhood are difficult to resolve, though the possibility should not be ruled out.

The debate about whether, and in what sense, there is 'spiritual intelligence' remains unresolved. We suggest it will be helpful to make a distinction between strong and weak versions of the claim. The strong version proposes that there is a separate and distinct spiritual intelligence that meets the criteria set out by Howard Gardner in his 'multiple intelligences' framework. This involves evidence from neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, individual differences, experimental tasks, and psychometrics. We review the relevant evidence and conclude that there is no support for the strong proposal. The weak version of the claim assumes that the intelligence that is apparent in spiritual contexts is the same as is found elsewhere, but it is nevertheless deployed in a distinctive way. We suggest that the evidence supports the claim, and we review six key marks of spiritual intelligence: ineffability, embodiment, open-minded attention, pattern-seeking meaning-making, participation, and relationality. Our approach makes use of a cognitive architecture, Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (ICS), which has been proved useful in modelling spiritual practices. It will be helpful in the future to bring this approach into dialogue with other scientific approaches to spiritual intelligence from psychometrics and from experimental research.

Coventry Cathedral was bombed in 1940; the new cathedral, consecrated in 1962, was in many ways an exceptional cathedral, reflecting the outstanding architecture of the building, its gifted leadership, and its commitment to reconciliation. This paper focuses on the analysis of the problems of urban society, and the role of cathedrals in them, developed in Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s. The argument developed by Provost Williams was that urbanisation had changed the nature of parishes. In an agrarian society the village is a natural unit, and those attending the parish church belong to a real community. However, urban parishes are not natural communities in that sense; in urban society people regard themselves as belonging to a city rather than a parish. He argued that a central church was needed, such as a cathedral, that could relate to the city as a whole, engaging with all aspects of urban society. This is what Provost Williams attempted in Coventry, calling it the 'Coventry experiment'. He hoped to reconnect church life with a natural community, and to bring reconciliation to a fragmented urban society. It was a bold experiment, and one that invigorated the cathedral community, though it probably made less difference to urban society in Coventry than he hoped.