Structuring Credition

Abstract

The chapter provides some synthesis to the contributions to this volume on the “process of believing”, called “credition”. In contrast to much of the traditional literature, which treats “belief” or “faith” as if it is a static phenomenon (i.e., talking about it as a noun), it summarizes the scientific and communicative transformation that is going on with the change from “belief” to the “process of believing”. The contributions provide three different ways to illustrate the consequences of this transformation. We call them bridging (i.e., to clarify its implications for the concept of “belief” in a static sense), translation or modification (i.e., to discuss context-related changes in religious beliefs and religious cognition), and transfer (i.e., to illuminate the conceptual implications of credition from one scientific discipline to another, including psychological, general biological, molecular, genetic, and neurophysiological approaches). The chapter also provides another way to structure the variety of contributions. The Credition Research Project has elaborated a “model of the believing process” (model of credition) and a “conceptual framework of the believing process”. Some chapters contribute more to the conceptual understanding of the believing process and aim to enrich its theoretical foundations. Other chapters explicitly take a more applied approach in exploring how creditions might be relevant for social sciences and economic fields. For example, creditions are discussed in context of politics as related to understanding societies trying to undergo a transition from war to peace.