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Cultural Psychology, Consciousness and Theology: Continuing the Dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Peter Hampson
Peter Hampson*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of the West of England, Bristol, Frenchay Campus, BRISTOL, BS16 1QY
*
Email: peter.hampson@uwe.ac.uk
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Abstract

This essay extends arguments that cultural psychology is useful for dialogue with Christian theology by indicating its relevance for theologies of consciousness. Donald's cultural account is outlined, followed by Davies's theological treatment of compassionate consciousness. Interactions are considered between the two approaches, which are shown to be co‐implicated in the teaching ministry of Jesus, and the subsequent development of the Christian religion, and to accompany the shift from discipleship, through apostleship, to a trans‐generational cultural‐symbolic system assisted by the development of theology. The essay concludes with reflections on the challenge to psychology of the ontological reality of being ‘in Christ’.

Keywords

CompassionCultural psychologyMimesisNarrativeSymbolic‐Consciousness
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 90 , Issue 1027 , May 2009 , pp. 322 - 342
Copyright
© The author 2008. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA

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References

1 Hampson, Peter, “Cultural Psychology and Theology: Partners in Dialogue,” Theology and Science, 3:3 (November 2005): 259–274CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Benson, Ciarán, The Cultural Psychology of Self (London: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar.

3 Donald, Merlin, A Mind so Rare (New York: Norton, 2001)Google Scholar.

4 See for example Davies, Oliver, A Theology of Compassion (London: SCM, 2001)Google Scholar.

5 Hampson, “Cultural Psychology and Theology,” 262–266.

6 For a theological contextualization see Rowlands, fTracey, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II. (London: Routledge, 2003), 142CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Cf. Lave, J., Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Cambridge: CUP, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Benson, The Cultural Psychology of Self, 222–236.

9 These include the emergence of brain imaging methods, the emergence of cognitive neuropsychology and increased interest in the neural substrates of awareness.

10 For example Dennett, Daniel, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little Brown, 1991)Google Scholar; Searle, John , The Mystery of Consciousness (London: Granta, 1997)Google Scholar; McGinn, Colin, The Problem of Consciousness (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991)Google Scholar; Baars, Bernard, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (Cambridge: CUP, 1989)Google Scholar; In the Theater of Consciousness: the Workspace of the Mind (Oxford: OUP, 1997)Google Scholar.

11 For a good example see Lodge, David, Consciousness and the Novel (London: Penguin, 2003)Google Scholar.

12 Dennett, Consciousness Explained, op. cit.

13 Gregory, Richard, personal communication, (Bristol, October 2001)Google Scholar.

14 In this regard Donald is much closer to the spirit of large parts of modern cognitive psychology than Dennett.

15 Donald's views contrast with the implicit anthropology and accounts assuming the predominance of language which characterises some postliberal theological positions. See for example, Lindbeck, George, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984)Google Scholar.

16 Murphy, Nancey, “On the Role of Philosophy in Theology‐Science Dialogue”, Theology and Science vol. 1, no.1 (Spring 2003): 79–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kerr, Fergus, Theology after Wittgenstein (London: SPCK, 1997,Google Scholar 2nd edition).

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22 Grenz, Stanley J., The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei.(Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox, 2001Google Scholar).

23 Davies, A Theology of Compassion, p. xvi

24 Ibid., xvi.

25 Ibid., xvii.

26 Ibid., xviii.

27 Ibid., xix.

28 Ibid., xx.

29 Ibid., 33.

30 Ibid., 33.

31 Ibid., 33.

32 Ibid., 35.

33 Ibid., 36. (Davies contrasts his account with Karl Rahner's, 43.)

34 Ibid., 253.

35 Ibid., 251.

36 Ibid., 45

37 For example Nellas, Panayiotis, Deification in Christ: The Nature of The Human Person, St (New York: Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

38 Tomasello provides evidence that primates exhibit the former only while humans also accomplish the latter. See: Michael Tomasello The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1999).

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40 See Annette, Karmiloff‐Smith, Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science (Cambridge: Mass.: MIT, 1992)Google Scholar for an exposition of representational redescription.

41 cf Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 120–121.

42 See for example comments by Alister McGrath The Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundation of Doctrinal Criticism (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1990), 14–34Google Scholar and Milbank, John Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford Blackwell, 1990), 382–8Google Scholar on Lindbeck.

43 For a progressive development of this idea see: MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd edition (London: Duckworth, 1994)Google Scholar; Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988)Google Scholar; Three Rivals Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Geneology and Tradition London: Duckworth, 1988)Google Scholar; Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings need the Virtues (London: Duckworth, 1999)Google Scholar.

44 The point was originally made by St Thomas Aquinas; see also Herbert McCabe for a lucid treatment of what is essentially a Thomist distinction: McCabe, Herbert, God Matters (London: Mowbray, 1987), 2–9Google Scholar.

45 Hampson, Peter “Beyond Unity, Integration and Experience: Cultural Psychology and the Theology of mediaeval Mysticism,” New Blackfriars, 86:1006 (November 2005): 622–641CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Hampson, “Cultural Psychology and Theology,” 266.

47 Davies, A Theology of Compassion, xxi.