The Soul Making Theodicy: An Evidentiary Approach

 

The Problem of Evil (POE) has been the bane of the religiously affiliated for nearly as long as humans have walked upon the earth. Ancient Near Eastern texts like the Book of Job raise the question as to why God allows extensive suffering, leaving the reader with a feeling of agnosticism towards the question. Philosophers have been less pessimistic; this was an inquiry brought up by the Church Fathers , and a great deal of modern literature on the subject of theism, suffering, and explanation has been developed within the field of analytic philosophy.

One of the more common theodicies given by the faithful is the concept of soul making. In the Christian tradition, the concept of soul-making originated, at least in most prominence, with Irenaeus of Lyons. The concept had its mantle carried into the 20th century by Philosopher John Hick, whose book Evil and the Love of God acts as the flagship work for modern discussion of the theodicy [1]. Modern thinkers such as Trent Dougherty [2], Marilyn McCord Adams [3], Elenore Stump [4], and Richard Swinburne [5], among many others, have expounded upon Hick's line of thinking.

The concept of soul-making pertains to the idea that the chief purpose of man is to undergo spiritual and moral development. More emphatically, it is good for mankind to become morally righteous of their own accord, giving responsibility and autonomy to them in order for them to become ethical. God could have just made us perfect ad originum, but then we would not be responsible for our moral character. Just as God creating us in a condition of perpetual sin from the onset removes responsibility from His creation, so also does it seem that God automatically granting us perfection would remove our credit to our condition. Autonomy is necessitated here; unlike God's character, which exists by necessity, mankind is a contingent form of creation whose character would have to be dependent on its creator. The way around this is human freedom and autonomy, one that will have the opportunity to grow stronger and more virtuous in the face of life's trials.

Suffering is in this understanding a sort of experiential boot camp, where trials and tribulations allow us to react in a moral way and to teach us important adages and principles. Evil builds discipline; it is better for example to study for an exam than to be given the answers by the teacher, as studying not only allows information to be better retained but allows us to learn skills like time management, prioritizing, sacrifice, discipline, integrity to abstain from cheating, among countless other things. Suffering is of an equidistant form: temptation caveats the potential for us to resist such sin, fear gives us the opportunity to be courageous, wealth opens the door for us to become generous, fame allows for humility, resources make it possible for sacrifice, and anger and exploitation makes us more able to forgive. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger; granted, sometimes the harms of this world do in fact kill us, yet Hick's theodicy generally presupposes opportunities to grow and develop in the afterlife. Purgatory, or at least something in the same vein, will be applicable here.

The following will not be an ordinent philosophical defense of the soul making theodicy in relation to the POE. Such has already been discussed capaciously in the aforecited literature. Rather, I look to investigate a less-discussed data point: the empirical and statistical evidence in pertinence to moral development post-trauma. I will argue that while the general notion of suffering may not necessarily be predicted under theism, evil that demonstrably brings about moral growth within creation is quite expected under Perfect Being Theism. Furthermore I will present an empirical case for the plausibility of post-mortem soul-building via Near Death Experiences (NDEs). If it can be shown that most suffering on earth leads to moral betterment, and that the vast majority of people become closer to God after an NDE, then the prior probability of a positive correlation between suffering and moral-betterment is quite high.

I. Soul Making in Human Life

Natural Evil and Moral Betterment

Since the origination of the social sciences, human behavior has been the subject of countless studies. Religion as a field of examination should be treated no different; anthropology reveals that religion plays a key role in preserving the mental health of those enduring suffering. Suffering has almost always been observed as having a positive correlation with religiosity, and the more that the populace of a country endures large amounts of evil, the more likely it is to be religious.  

Take poverty as a prime selection of our data. Many Gallup Polls have found that most impoverished countries tended to be much more religious than wealthier nations.[6] Malawi (an African nation) for example is one of the poorest countries in the world (per capita income is $870 a year), and yet 99% of poll respondents stated that religion was an important part of daily life. [7]  In the book Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide , sociologists Ronal Inglehart and Pippa Norris write that, "Religion becomes less central as people's lives become less vulnerable to the constant threat of death, disease and misfortune." [8] This also seems to be the case with the United States; poorer states were more likely to be religious than wealthier states more religious in the long run [9]

Suffering and poverty can seemingly improve our moral character by making us more generous and less materialistic. According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the poorest 20% of American households gave on average over 4% of their income to charity, while Americans in the top 20% bracket of income gave less than half of that percentage (2.1%) to charitable organizations. [10] In terms of countries, Myanmar has been ranked as the world's most generous country (in terms of charitable donations and volunteer work) according to the World Generosity Index [11], even though Myanmar is ranked as one of the poorest countries in Asia [12]. In fact, only 5 G20 countries (those ranked as the most wealthy) made it into the Top 20 of the most generous nations on earth [13] The continent of  Africa, typically known for it's generally impoverished countries, had the greatest increase in generosity and giving compared to other countries.[14]

Poverty is not the only indication of religiosity: natural disasters have also been shown to make people more prone to pray and believe in God. A study by the University of Copenhagen found that religiosity increased by 8-11% in countries effected by natural disasters.[15] Individuals who were at greater risk of earthquakes for example were generally much more religious than those in safer areas. The author of the study writes, "Individuals turn to religion to deal with unbearable and unpredictable life events...[For example] Individuals become more religious if an earthquake recently hit close by.”[16] When our worldly possessions have been stripped from us, many people recognize the need to turn to God. If choosing God over earthly possessions will better our spirituality and get us into heaven forever, then any amount of earthly suffering is minor in the hindsight of eternity.

Prayer and spirituality is additionally a common remedy from illness.  The vast majority of Americans still pray, especially in the context of healing. A study conducted by Baylor University that nearly 90% of Americans pray for recovery of illness for others, with over half of participants saying that they directly asked for prayer from others [17]. Almost 80% have prayed for their own healing.[18] An older survey found that over half of doctors in the US pray for their patients. [19] Over 2/3 of cancer patients pray for their own recovery, and that does not include prayers from others.[20] Likewise, cancer patients reported a higher degree of spiritual growth through their battle with their condition. [21]

 This interestingly also pertains to the nonreligious as well. Though some may consider the adage "There are no atheists in foxholes" to be a cliche overgeneralization to show that atheism is not a real conviction, there is some data to suggest that even those who do not believe in God pray occasionally. Among non-believers in the UK, around 1 in 5 pray, typically in times of crisis or to better their own mental health.[22] Indeed, there is ample data to suggest that tragedies like natural disasters, disease, and war will fervently increase the religiosity and prayer life of its victims, regardless of how much they believe or disbelieve in God. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic interest in prayer and spirituality increased overall; although church attendance has decreased due to government regulations on social distancing, polls show that personal religiosity has actually gone up since the pandemic started.[23] Other studies indicate that interest in God and prayer have also increased substantially due to the stress of Covid-19.[24]  So it is not far fetched to suggest that disaster, even global outbreaks of disease, actually can make people stronger in the long run. All of this illustrates that suffering can allow us to become better people with better morals; we are able to choose how we will react to suffering, and often times allowing suffering to occur makes us more ethical and more godly overall.  

Post-Traumatic Spiritual Growth 

Trauma, typically associated with extremely disquieting circumstances, is commonplace throughout the world, especially amongst former soldiers and victims of violence. Data shows that there is in general a positive correlation between religious piety/spirituality and trauma, termed Post-Traumatic Spiritual Growth (PTSG). Here it is suggested that people frequently turn to religion to cope with trauma, and that more often than not traumatic experiences can increase a person's perceptual reliance on God and their religion.

It is quite natural to ask what possible purpose God could have for allowing unspeakable evils such as violent rape; one 24-year old female online shares this justifiable inquisition, "If God loves me then why did He allow me to be raped?" [25] Though I am not in the position to speak for the specificities regarding this woman's case in particular, there is a statistical trend in cases like these that suggest that soul-making is a very probable outcome of such tragedies. A large number of studies found a strong correlation between victims sexual assault and PTSG, where suffers reported that they became more religious or spiritual after their experience and used their faith as a coping mechanism. [26]. Faith is usually instrumental in helping survivors deal with their experience, allowing them to view the spiritual trials in their life through a new light. Intriguingly, perception of the victim's religion will effect how others perceive their reaction to trauma; one study involving a mock jury found that a rape victim is more likely to be believed and sympathized with if she is religious rather than non-religious. [27]

This can be expounded to other victims of tragedy. It is often, for example, inquired as to how the death and abuse of young children or infants can lead to soul-making, since the child is too young to reflect upon its moral development prior to its death. Yet one should not view the death of children in a vacuum; the character building is often put back onto the parents of the child, drawing them closer to God. I have seen this in the lives of close friends of mine, and data demonstrates that couples who have undergone miscarriages or the death of a young child are highly likely to use religion as a coping mechanism. [28] Richard Petts argues that in the case of pre-natal death, heightened religiosity is an expected outcome, "religion is more likely to lead to increases in mental health among women who experience a miscarriage than among women who do not experience a miscarriage. Overall, evidence suggests that religion may be an important coping mechanism for women who deal with pregnancy loss." [29]

Victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have also drawn a strong correlation between their experience and heightened religiosity. Soldiers suffering from PTSD were found to be less depressed and suicidal by adopting spiritual and religious beliefs [30], and postraumatic stress has been shown to increase as spirituality decreases.  Indeed,a recent study in 2020 found that “the relationship between traumatic events and posttraumatic stress is moderated by spiritual decline, such that those with more potentially traumatic events and higher spiritual decline had higher posttraumatic stress than any other group.” [31] Data collected from survivors of child abuse [32] and torture [33] also demonstrated that most victims felt that the trauma caused them to feel closer to God. 

This applies to large-scale elements of murder as well. Interviews with survivors of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center found that there was a moderate increase in spirituality among the individuals after they endured the tragedy [34]. Applicable to this are cases of mass genocide; though there are many examples of Holocaust victims leaving their faith after surviving Nazi oppression, many reported having their faith strengthened. [35] Famed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel noted this observation whilst at Auschwitz, "[The] loss of faith for some equaled discovery of God for others."[36]

Soul-Making for Offenders of Violence

Though much has been said in pertinence to the victims of suffering, often forgotten is the practical effect that such experiences have on those that commit such heinous acts. The potential spiritual growth of those within concentration camps are frequently discussed, but with little attention to the spiritual outcome of the Germans. I am reminded of Corrie ten Boom’s description of meeting a former Nazi years after she was released from the concentration camp. Corrie was not herself a Jew, but as a devout Christian saw it as a duty to protect her fellow Jewish neighbors from being rounded up. When she was caught she and her sister were sent to the camps, where her sister died from abuse and malnutrition. A few years after Corrie was released from the camp, she was in church when she came across a man who she recognized as one of the Nazi officers who had been in the very camp she had been sent to. This man had been particularly cruel to Corrie and her sister, and had contributed to the abuse that eventually led to her sister's death. The man explained to Corrie that he had been a Christian, and realized that Jesus had forgiven all of his sins. He asked Corrie to forgive him for all of the horrible atrocities he had committed onto her and others while at the concentration camp; Corrie at first was hesitant, but eventually accepted the man's apology and forgave him as a fellow brother in Christ.[37]  Despite being put through the horrors of the Holocaust, the pain and suffering endured by Corrie helped contribute to the man's repentance for his sins and the his eternal security in heaven. Had the Holocaust not occurred, it may be the case that this man would not have understood the gravity of his sin and would have been unrepentant, spending eternity separated from God. Or, if we are to go back a few years, can we view the heartbreaking yet amazing forgiveness bestowed on mass shooter Dylan Roof by the families of the victims he murdered. Forgiveness bestowed to the offender by the victim or the victim’s families is perhaps one of the greatest goods imaginable; I can think of few things more selfless. 

Magazine covering Dylan Roof's trial

The same could be said for serial killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, both of whom claimed to have converted to Christianity while on death row. Various studies show a tendency for convicted criminals to convert to a religion, Christian or otherwise, during their incarceration. [38] Though the hope of eternal life is certainly a feature, often prisoners recount the intense feeling of forgiveness and repentance as motivation behind such conversion. [39] Maybe some of us, perhaps those most encroached in the fallen human state, can’t see our own flaws until we take a look in the mirror. For a small minority, that reflection may not become clear unless contrasted with the horrors of murder, rape, and violence.

These stories among numerous others help illustrate that suffering in fact may be a necessary prerequisite to have people freely repent of their sins and accept a relationship with God.

………………………..

To overview: there is an ample amount of data to suggest that both natural and moral evils contribute to the moral betterment of humans and a heightened sense of religiosity. Part of historical religion’s success is its evolutionary survival benefits and its ability to provide comfort in times of struggle.

This is not an impenetrable argument, for there are of course cases where trauma and suffering have worsened an individual’s perception of God [40]. Those suffering from Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) feel as if religious abuse has alienated them away from their spiritual beliefs. One could list all of the other wise pious Jews who deconverted due to the trepidations of the Holocaust. [41]

There are a few things to be said here. Foremost, these cases do seem to be in the minority, and although such a minority still encompasses millions of people, the prevalence and continual growth of religion globally in concordance with the known psychological effects of PTSG strongly imply that cases of deconversion are the exception rather than the rule. Every data point will inevitably have its outliers. So then, one can state that “the prior probability that suffering will lead to greater spiritual and/or moral growth is higher than the prior probability of the inverse.” 

Secondly, it is difficult to measure the effects of suffering in isolation; even if suffering may lead certain individuals to be alienated from God, the same tragedy could have beneficial effects on the person’s relatives or friends. Interacting with the deconverted may very well strengthen the faith of the converted.

What then do we do with our outliers? It is admitted that earthly soul-making can account for a large portion of human suffering, but what about the portions that go unscathed? This leads us to the next stage of the soul-making theodicy: post-mortem soul making

II. Soul-Making in the Afterlife

John Hick’s initial formulation of the the soul-making theodicy entails the possibility of post-mortem salvation. For if this life is all there really is, then it is evidentially crystal clear that moral perfection has not been reached. People die prematurely, miss opportunities, and often succumb to the very injuries meant to better them; Hick’s resolution is obvious, "For if there are finally wasted lives and finally unredeemed sufferings, either God is not perfect in love or He is not sovereign in rule over His creation." [42]

But how can the claim of post-mortem salvation be justified? One may desire to take an inference: we know that God often uses suffering to better our moral character in this life, so we should presume He will continue to do so in the next. This is not unreasonable.

I will however argue that there is reason to affirm this doctrine for more than just philosophical surmising. I am under the persuasion that there is fairly strong evidence for Post-Mortem Soul-Making (PMSM). This is of course in principle difficult to measure; we have yet to prove an afterlife, and we certainly can’t interview people who are inhabiting this alleged afterlife. 

The realm of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) may help us here. There is of course quite a lot of debate as to just how valid such experiences are; we know people can hallucinate, especially when the brain is under traumatic stress, and that often people see realities directly related to their predisposed cultural beliefs [43].  Controlled attempts at producing results tend to fail at yielding anything supernatural. [44] There is another side to this proverbial coin though: many people have been able report back verifiable information they claimed to have experienced during their NDE, including specific conversations, doctor’s procedures, etc. These can sometimes occur miles away from where the verified details took place. [45] NDEs have also been reported by blind people, who say they saw details that could later be verified whilst brain dead.[46]Some medically verified and inexplicable healings have occurred immediately following an NDE, often accompanied by a vision of Jesus. [47] None of this should be possible if these are hallucinations. Likewise, the notion of crisis apparitions (ghosts that appear to someone the exact moment they died, with the person only later discovering the person was deceased at that time) coinciding with the specific time of their demise seems to suggest something outside the realm of normal human psychology. [48 ]

The back-and-forth between the pro and anti NDE camps is far too extensive to cover here. I will however put my dog in the fight to say that, at least in some cases, the probability that some of these experiences are legitimate is fairly high. Under the inference that some NDEs are legitimate snapshots of the world to come, these experiences can lend credence to the idea of PMSM.

The general consensus among specialists in near death research is that people who come back from such experiences almost always report being spiritually changed for the better. Patients who underwent an NDE were more likely to have a heightened sense of religiosity and spirituality after their experience [49], and there is a large running theme of feeling an overwhelming sense of peace and love during such experiences. The long-term effects of people coming back from near-death are very similar to the effects of people enduring PTSG after traumatic events. Bruce Greyon, one of the foremost experts on NDEs, notes the correlation, “Participants who reported having near-death experiences reported greater spiritual well-being than those who did not, and depth of spiritual well-being was positively correlated with depth of near-death experience.” [50]

If experiences in the alleged afterlife can bring about significant spiritual and moral change in the individuals who undergo them, then this acts as important evidence in favor of the PMSM hypothesis. It provides reason to believe that the hereafter and the events that occur within it are meant to make us draw closer to God, and therefore support the notion that God is not done with us after we die. Though the Book of Hebrews says that “it is appointed for a man to die once, then comes judgment” (9:27), we may be more inclined to see the afterlife through the lens of 1 Peter 3:18-20, where the souls of the dead are taught lessons and freed from bondage. 

Positing PMSM acts as a further explanation for those who initially are not improved by earthly soul-making. For the minority who draw further from God due to earthly evils, there is at least some data to imply that they may turn around in embrace of Him in the afterlife. In order to render the soul-making theory as implausible, one would need to demonstrate that an individual became more spiritually distant after both earthly trials and in the afterlife. One cannot discount how the afterlife is a major factor for assessing our data. 

 III. Soul-Making in Animals

The problem of animal pain is more difficult to discuss in relation to theodicy, because unlike humans, the moral development of animals is less obvious. The creatures that share this planet with us are not, at least technically speaking, moral agents. It is hard to see a point to the constant extinctions, predation, and random malicious behavior for any reason other than natural indifference. 

Some like Trent Dougherty have proposed that Hick’s theodicy should apply to the beasts of the earth. [51] Perhaps natural evils and predation can help strengthen the righteousness and character of higher animals. This at first glance seemed widely ad hoc to me. It is at least far from evidently true. Yet, in reflection, Dougherty might be on to something here; putting aside philosophical justification for Animal Soul-Making (ASM), there is some evidence that the notion is plausible.

Firstly, animals with more advanced nervous systems do have encounters that can be described as proto-religious experiences.[52] We know that religious experiences can be induced in the brain, and the biological mechanisms for our spiritual encounters are very similar to that of high order mammals. Furthermore, rituals that mimic religious rites have been observed in several species; often such behaviors send the organism into a trance-like state comparable to that of spiritual meditation.[53] Mammals of this kind could indeed be demonstrable of a more simplistic form of “spirituality”, proving that more intelligent animals do have some sense of belief in the supernatural.

If it is granted that animals can have spiritual experiences, can we make the epistemic leap to suggest that animal trauma and suffering can improve such spirituality? It is hard to say. We do know that animals can suffer from PTSD and exhibit behavioral change in response to trauma. [54] Animals have their own coping mechanisms when faced with distressed. 

I propose an analogical argument: we know that most people appeal to spirituality to cope with suffering and that such spirituality tends to increase during such suffering. We also know that animals can have more primitive but parallel versions of these experiences [55], and we can demonstrate that animals exhibit behavioral change and coping after trauma. Thus the argument is as follows:

1. Organisms with high order nervous systems (including humans) are highly likely to become more spiritual to cope with suffering.

2. Many non-human organisms possess a high order nervous system.

3. Therefore many non-human organisms are highly likely to become more spiritual to cope with suffering.

There is, in admittance, a lot inference here. None of this is as obvious as the effects of human suffering. Yet, the little data we have may very well lend credence to the position that suffering can make animals more “spiritual” in a rudimentary sense. This only applies to more complex organisms like rodents, primates, pigs, and marine mammals, but animals with lower levels of complexity likewise can’t experience suffering to as great of a degree as their more adaptive counterparts, so there is less evil to be explained away.

Conclusion

I have argued that there is sufficient evidence that suffering will, in the majority of cases, lead to moral development and heightened spirituality among those who endure it. Suffering makes us better people. Though there are exceptions to this, these exceptions could plausibly be accounted for via the evidence for PMSM. High order animals, sharing similar neurology and spirituality as Man, can also be inferred as undergoing improved changes in behavior after trauma via the argument from analogy. 

Suffering is not initially predicted under theism per se, but there is nothing implausible about predicting evil under theism if such evil can demonstrably be shown to bring about a greater moral good. While this does not prove that no gratuitous evils exist, the prior probability implies that evils of such a nature can still yield great moral benefit, and thus the label of “gratuitous” is question begging; it is difficult to demonstrate that certain evils bring about no moral benefit once the afterlife is factored in, because as already discussed there is decent reason to believe that afterlife experiences congeal with earthly memories to institute PMSM. 

Therefore, while certainly short of a proof, the evidential evidence for soul-making act as a shield against the evidential problem of evil.

 

 References

[1]  Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper and Row. 1966. 

[2] Dougherty, Trent. "Recent Work on the Problem of Evil." Analysis 71, no. 3 (2011): 560-573.

[3] Adams, Marilyn McCord, and Robert Merrihew Adams, eds. The Problem of Evil. Oxford University Press on Demand, 1990.

[4] Stump, Eleonore. Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering. Oxford University Press, 2010.

[5] Swinburne, Richard. Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford University Press, 1998.

[6] See for example Crabtree, Steve “Religiosity Highest in World's Poorest Nations: United States is Among the Rich Countries That Buck the Trend.” Gallup. 2010. https://news.gallup.com/poll/114211/alabamians-iranians-common.aspx;

[7] Ibid

[8] Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

[9] Crabtree, Steve and Pelham, Brett. “What Alabamians and Iranians Have in Common: A Global Perspective on Americans’ Religiosity Offers a Few Surprises” Gallup. 2009. https://news.gallup.com/poll/114211/alabamians-iranians-common.aspx

[10] Greve, Frank. "America's Poor Are It's Largest Donors", The Seattle Times. 2009. Contra other articles that argue that the notion that rich people give less proportionally is simply a misconception, as argued in Priday, Benjamin. "Are Rich People Really Less Generous?" Econofact. 2020

[11] Pequenino, Karla. “Myanmar Again Named World's Most Generous Country”. CNN.com. 2016.

[12]The World Bank ranked Myanmar as the 7th poorest country in Asia in 2017. 

[13] Pequenino, "Myanmar"

[14] Ibid.

[15] Sinding Bentzen, Jeanet. "Acts of God? Religiosity and Natural Disasters Across Subnational World Districts." The Economic Journal 129, no. 622 (2019): 2295-2321.

[16] Ibid

[17] Levin, Jeff. "Prevalence and Religious Predictors of Healing Prayer Use in the USA: Findings From the Baylor Religion Survey." Journal of Religion and Health 55, no. 4 (2016): 1136-1158. See also Ly, Albert L., Anondah R. Saide, and Rebekah A. Richert. "Perceptions of the efficacy of prayer and conventional medicine for health concerns." Journal of Religion and Health 59, no. 1 (2020): 1-18.

[18] Ibid 

[19]  Survey by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2004.

[20] Ross, Louie E., Ingrid J. Hall, Temeika L. Fairley, Yhenneko J. Taylor, and Daniel L. Howard. "Prayer and Self-reported Health Among Cancer Survivors in the United States, National Health Interview Survey, 2002." The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 14, no. 8 (2008): 931-938. An interesting note is that the study found a negative correlation between prayer and self-evaluation of recovery.

[21] Denney, Ryan M., Jamie D. Aten, and Kari Leavell. "Posttraumatic Spiritual Growth: A Phenomenological Study of Cancer Survivors." Mental Health, Religion & Culture 14, no. 4 (2011): 371-391.

[22] Survey by Tearfund of 2,069 participants in the UK, December of 2017. https://2sjjwunnql41ia7ki31qqub1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Tearfund_Prayer-Survey_all-respondents.pdf

[23] Newport, Frank. “Religion and the Covid-19 Virus in the U.S.”. Gallup. 2020 https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/307619/religion-covid-virus.aspx

[24] Bentzen, Jeanet, "Rising Religiosity as a Global Response to COVID-19 fear." EU Vox, 2020. https://voxeu.org/article/rising-religiosity-global-response-covid-19-fear

[25] See the following reddit post, https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/982oek/if_god_loves_me_then_why_did_he_allow_me_to_be/

[26] See the following studies: Kennedy, James E., Robert C. Davis, and Bruce G. Taylor. "Changes in Spirituality and Well-being Among victims of Sexual Assault." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1998): 322-328; Durà-Vilà, Glòria, Roland Littlewood, and Gerard Leavey. "Integration of Sexual Trauma in a Religious Narrative: Transformation, Resolution and Growth Among Contemplative Nuns." Transcult Psychiatry. 2013 Feb; 50(1): 21–46; and Knapik, Gregory P., Donna S. Martsolf, and Claire B. Draucker. "Being delivered: Spirituality in survivors of sexual violence." Issues in Mental Health Nursing 29, no. 4 (2008): 335-350. Some studies have more uncertain results, showing a much less frequent correlation between religious coping and assault; see Snider, Madison. "Does God Condone Assault? How Religious Commitment Impacts Trauma Following Sexual Abuse."Georgia Southern University, 2021

[27] Brown-Iannuzzi, Jazmin L., Jonathan M. Golding, Will M. Gervais, Kellie R. Lynch, Nesa E. Wasarhaley, and Sierra Bainter. "Will Jurors Believe Nonbelievers? Perceptions of Atheist Rape Victims in the Courtroom." Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 13, no. 1 (2021): 119; 

[28] See the following: Allahdadian, Maryam, and Alireza Irajpour. "The Role of Religious Beliefs in Pregnancy Loss." Journal of Education and Health Promotion 4 (2015); Khursheed, Masrat, and Mohammad Ghazi Shahnawaz. "Trauma and Post-traumatic Growth: Spirituality and Self-compassion as Mediators Among Parents who Lost Their Young Children in a Protracted Conflict." Journal of Religion and Health 59, no. 5 (2020): 2623-2637; and Wright, Patricia Moyle. "Perinatal Loss and Spirituality: A Metasynthesis of Qualitative Research." Illness, Crisis & Loss 28, no. 2 (2020): 99-118.

[29] Petts, Richard J. "Miscarriage, Religious Participation, and Mental Health." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57, no. 1 (2018): 109-122.

[30] Hourani, Laurel L., Jason Williams, Valerie Forman-Hoffman, Marian E. Lane, Belinda Weimer, and Robert M. Bray. "Influence of Spirituality on Depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Suicidality in Active Duty Military Personnel.” Transcultural Psychiatry 50, no. 1 (2013): 21-46.

[31] Crete, Abigail, Micheline Anderson, Suza Scalora, Elisabeth Mistur, Olivia Fuller, and Lisa Miller. "Spiritual Decline as a Predictor of Posttraumatic Stress." Religions 11, no. 11 (2020): 575.

[32] Doxey, Cynthia, Larry Jensen, and Janet Jensen. "The Influence of Religion on Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse." The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 7, no. 3 (1997): 179-186. For moral betterment after cases of sexual violence, see Larsen, Emmett M., Luz H. Ospina, Armando Cuesta-Diaz, Antonio Vian-Lains, George C. Nitzburg, Sandra Mulaimovic, Asya Latifoglu, Rosarito Clari, and Katherine E. Burdick. "Effects of Childhood Trauma on Adult Moral Decision-Making: Clinical Correlates and Insights from Bipolar Disorder." Journal of Affective Disorders 244 (2019): 180-186.

[33] Leaman, Suzanne C. "Risk Factors for Psychological Distress and Uses of Religious Coping Among African Torture Survivors." PhD diss., The George Washington University, 2009.

[34] Samardzic, Andjela, Yehuda Kowalsky, Micah Zylstra, Eric Gutgarts, and Lisa Suzuki. "Holocaust Survivorship and Religiosity: Meaning and Identity." Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 31, no. 8 (2021): 1077-1090. See also Popa, Ion. "Experiences of Jews Who Converted to Christianity Before and During the Holocaust. An Overview of Testimonies in the Fortunoff Video Archive." S: IMON Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation. 7, no. 1 (2020): 75-86.

[35] Hong, Barry A., David E. Pollio, E. Whitney Pollio, Omar T. Sims, Anthony Pedrazine, and Carol S. North. "Religious and Spiritual Aspects of Disaster Experience Among Survivors of the 9/11 Attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center." Journal of Religion and Health 58, no. 5 (2019): 1619-1630. Some studies argue that the increase in spirituality is only mildly effected and is short-term. See Seirmarco G, Neria Y, Insel B, Kiper D, et. al. Religiosity and Mental Health: Changes in Religious Beliefs, Complicated Grief, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Major Depression Following the September 11, 2001 Attacks”. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. 2012;4(1):10–18; see also Uecker, Jeremy E. "Religious and Spiritual Responses to 9/11: Evidence from the Add Health Study." Sociological Spectrum 28, no. 5 (2008): 477-509. 

[36]Wiesel, Elie, Legends of Our Time. (New York: Schocken Books). 2004, pg. 6. 

[37] Eric Metaxas details this incident in the chapter "Corrie ten Boom" in Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness (Thomas Nelson, 2015)

[38] See the following:  Featherstone, Christopher. "A Phenomenological Study of Christian Conversion and Recidivism in Ex-Prisoners." PhD diss., Walden University, 2020.; Maruna, Shadd, Louise Wilson, and Kathryn Curran. "Why God is Often Found Behind Bars: Prison Conversions and the Crisis of Self-Narrative." Research in Human Development 3, no. 2-3 (2006): 161-184.; and Wilkinson, Matthew, Lamia Irfan, Muzammil Quraishi, and Mallory Schneuwly Purdie. "Prison as a site of Intense Religious Change: The Example of Conversion to Islam." Religions 12, no. 3 (2021): 162-186.

[39]  Rigsby, M. "Prison, Religion, and Conversion: the Prisoner’s Narrative Experience." Finding Freedom in Confinement. Praeger, Santa Barbara (2018): 171-195.

[40] See for example.;  Efird, David, Joshua Cockayne, and Jack Warman. "Shattered Faith: The Social Epistemology of Deconversion by Spiritually Violent Religious Trauma." (2020), and Leaman, Suzanne C., and Christina B. Gee. "Religious Coping and Risk Factors for Psychological Distress among African Torture Survivors." Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 4, no. 5 (2012): 457. The latter study suggests religious coping can be negative towards mental health if it leads to disillusionment. 

[41] Kinnamon, Michael K. "The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors." (1981): 328-330; Lassley, Jennifer. "A Defective Vovenant: Abandonment of Faith Among Jewish survivors of the Holocaust." International Social Science Review 90, no. 2 (2015); Jacobs, Janet. "Traumatic Inheritance and the demasculinization of God: Reimagining the Divine Among Descendants of the Holocaust." Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 31, no. 2 (2015): 65-82. For data regarding other genocides, see Fox, Nicole. "“God Must Have Been Sleeping”: Faith as an Obstacle and a Resource for Rwandan Genocide Survivors in the United States." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51, no. 1 (2012): 65-78.d

[42] Hick, Evil and the God of Love, pg. 376

[43] For a naturalistic response to NDEs, see Augustine, Keith. “Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences” The Secular Web, 2003 (Updated 2008) https://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html

[44]  Some controlled studies have attempted to have patients undergoing NDE to identify specific objects on top of counters and stands, such as the infamous AWARE study that derived largely negative results; see Parnia, Sam, Ken Spearpoint, Gabriele De Vos, Peter Fenwick, Diana Goldberg, Jie Yang, Jiawen Zhu et al. "AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A Prospective Study." Resuscitation 85, no. 12 (2014): 1799-1805. Though given the unpredictable nature of NDEs, where individuals floating in hospital rooms, hallways, outside buildings, or even being miles away, it is nearly impossible to control where the experience will take them. Likewise, the patients did not know that they would be undergoing an NDE, and were not informed that they should be trying to identify a specific piece of information during the experience. That being said, I am familiar with at least one controlled study in the 1960s in which a woman allegedly obtained information during an out of body experience, identifying a five-digit number hidden above where she slept while being monitored by the researchers. The study itself did receive some pushback though, with people claiming she could have cheated and gotten information by other means. See Tart, Charles. "A Psychophysiological Study of Out-of-the-Body Experiences in a Selected Subject." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research  no. 62. 1968: 3-27.

[45] The most extensive collection of evidential accounts is found in Rivas, Titus; Petrus Maria, Anny Dirven, and Rudolf H. Smit. The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences. International Association of Near Death Studies Publications, 2016.

[46] Ring, Kenneth, and Sharon Cooper. Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. iUniverse, 2008 (Originally published 1999).

[47] For example Anabel Beam, who was healed of pseudo-obstruction motility disorder and antral hypomotility disorder after an NDE of heaven. Another case published in a journal involves a man who’s hand was clubbed and withered for 60 years suddenly received healing after an NDE, see Sartori, Penny, Paul Badham, and Peter Fenwick. "A Prospectively Studied Near-Death Experience with Corroborated Out-of-Body Perceptions and Unexplained Healing." Journal of Near-Death Studies 25 (2006): 69-84.

[48] Discussed in depth in O'Connell, Jake. Jesus' Resurrection and Apparitions: A Bayesian Analysis. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2016.

[49 ]See the following:  McLaughlin, Steven A., and H. Newton Malony. "Near-death experiences and religion: A further investigation." Journal of Religion and Health 23, no. 2 (1984): 149-159; Greyson, Bruce, and Surbhi Khanna. "Spiritual transformation after near-death experiences." Spirituality in Clinical Practice 1, no. 1 (2014): 43.; Greyson, Bruce, and Surbhi Khanna. "Spiritual transformation after near-death experiences." Spirituality in Clinical Practice 1, no. 1 (2014): 43.; Greyson, Bruce. "Near‐death experiences and spirituality." Zygon® 41, no. 2 (2006): 393-414; Khanna, Surbhi, and Bruce Greyson. "Daily spiritual experiences before and after near-death experiences." Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 6, no. 4 (2014): 302.

[50] Khanna, Surbhi, and Bruce Greyson. "Near-death Experiences and Spiritual Well-being." Journal of Religion and Health 53, no. 6 (2014): 1605-1615.

[51] Dougherty, Trent. The Problem of Animal Pain, (Palgrave Macmillan: London), 2014. He argues that evil allows animals to undergo “saint-making”, having them become more intelligent and righteous.

[52] Viegas, Jennifer. “Animals Said to Have Spiritual Experiences” NBC News, Oct. 8, 2010. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39574733 

[53] Goodall, Jane. “Primate Spirituality.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. edited by B. Taylor. Thoemmes (Continuum, New York). 2005. pg. 1303-1306.

[54]Zanette, Liana Y., Emma C. Hobbs, Lauren E. Witterick, Scott A. MacDougall-Shackleton, and Michael Clinchy. "Predator-induced Fear Causes PTSD-like Changes in the Brains and Behaviour of Wild Animals." Scientific reports 9, no. 1 (2019): 1-10. See also  Koolhaas, J. M., S. M. Korte, S. F. De Boer, B. J. Van Der Vegt, C. G. Van Reenen, H. Hopster, I. C. De Jong, M. A. W. Ruis, and H. J. Blokhuis. "Coping Styles in Animals: Current Status in Behavior and Stress-physiology." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 23, no. 7 (1999): 925-935.

[55] Ferdowsian, Hope, and Debra Merskin. "Parallels in Sources of Trauma, Pain, Distress, and Suffering in Humans and Nonhuman Animals." Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 13, no. 4 (2012): 448-468.