Out of the ashes emerged teleology: A psychological exploration of the problem of evil

People sometimes exhibit teleological reasoning by over-perceiving purpose in random events. Teleological reasoning is one of several cognitive predispositions theorized to have gravitated human minds towards religious beliefs. From this perspective, the tendency to rely on purpose-based explanations is an early-developing, universal intuition that adults have learned to inhibit but sometimes default to when their cognitive resources are taxed. Rather than viewing teleological reasoning as an unsophisticated cognition to be avoided, I propose that teleological reasoning can help people make sense of the world amidst suffering. The current research examines whether certain religious ideas and contexts can reinforce people’s teleological intuitions. Specifically, an exploratory study (Study 1) with college student samples and two pre-registered studies with Prolific participants (Studies 2-3) were conducted to examine the hypothesis that when theists are confronted with the Problem of Evil (the conflict between belief in an all-good and all-powerful God and the existence of senseless suffering), they reason more teleologically. Study 1 showed that theists favored teleological arguments against the Problem of Evil, whereas non-theists tended to endorse an anti-teleological argument. Study 2 found that recalling past experience involving suffering resulted in teleological reasoning about the recalled incident, and reflecting on the Problem of Evil resulted in greater acceptance of teleological explanations about natural entities. Study 3 extended Study 2 by separately manipulating the three components of the Problem of Evil (suffering, theistic belief, and the contradiction between the two) and showed that for Christian Prolific participants, all three components together led to heightened teleological reasoning about life events. The current research provides a preliminary proof of concept, and potential avenues for future research are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Watanabe, Shoko

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cohen, Dov
• Todd, Nathan R
• Stern, Chadly D
• Laurent, Sean M
• Kim, Young-Hoon

• Teleological Reasoning
• The Problem Of Evil
• Suffering
• Cognitive Biases
• Purpose In Life
• Religious Cognition

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Shoko Watanabe

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121360

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121360