During the second week of August 2018 we received the visit of Dr. Justin Barrett (Fuller Theological Seminar). Justin Barrett is regarded one of the founders of the field of cognitive science of religion, which studies the relationship between man and God with the help of cognitive sciences. His actual research focuses on the openness of man towards God as evidenced in different cultures, in order to discover if it is a natural condition of man. Dr. Barrett is Dean of the Fuller Theological Seminar. He is also the current chief project developer for the “Office for Science, Theology and Religion initiatives.”

Dr. Barret dictated a seminar from August 13^th to 16^th titled Cognitive Sciences of Religion (CSR), as part of the Program of Humanistic Studies. About 12 professors and academics of the university and external researchers participated in this activity. The seminar systematically explored themes which search for the ultimate causes that make religious experience possible. During the first session Dr. Barrett defined CSR as an interdisciplinary research branch which seeks for the causes of religious beliefs. He then proposed that religious ideas which are widely recurrent at the socio/epistemological level are transformed into a cultural phenomenon. During the next session he showed empirically that men are predisposed to detect supernatural agency since birth, since we have an innate “sense of the divine” which influences our way of recognizing supernatural agency in the world. During the last session the lecturer presented a few objections to our knowledge of a God, which affirm that He is a product of our minds. These objections are not supported by empirical studies, since our natural inclination to accept ideas about God and supernatural agency in the world is widely recurrent in every culture.

We are grateful to Dr. Barrett for his visit!