It’s been a few years since I last read him though so you’ll have to excuse me not giving details. Last time I had this discussion I did though. (And I’m too lazy to try and find where I last discussed it)

I definitely agree that it is “naive to appeal to psychology for knowledge”. The value that I see in psychology is this. My view of the truth is colored (biased) by how I think. If I can understand how I think (psychology is involved here too, not just epistemology), then I have a better chance of at arriving at the truth. When I am thinking about religion, WHAT I think is very, very colored by HOW I think. So, I’d better understand how I think when I’m thinking about religion. Logic is only part of the picture. We all know that logic based on false assumptions will lead to the wrong answer. The big problem when dealing with religion is that how I think (via my psychological makeup) is the source of my assumptions. I will go so far as to say that when it comes to religion, my assumptions are more a function of who I am and how I think than they are on anything else, including what is true. For example, if I were to ask a basic religious question, “what is the value of human life?” The fact that I am a human and want to believe that I have value colors my assumptions on which I would base my logical process (that is, if I were even to attempt to use logic to get to the answer to this question). And my assumption determines the end result of my logical process. If I was Stalin, and in my mind 50 million humans were in the way of my world domination, my assumption about the value of human life would be far different. Judging by the next part of your comment though, I’m probably stating something you already consider to be obvious.
I’m a little confused by your statement that Fowler “gets into a discussion of recognition of facts.” It sounds like you are saying that He makes a decision about which of people’s religious beliefs are correct (i.e. the content of their faith). He goes to great pains to circumvent any discussion of veracity of the CONTENT of their faith. As with Piaget, he’s talking about cognitive methods that we use to determine our faith (faith, as he calls it). The other issues he concerns himself with are perspective taking, form of moral judgment, bounds of social awareness, locus of authority, forms of world coherence, and symbolic function. I took these from his summary chart on page 244 and 245 of his book. These are the issues he concerns himself with, not WHAT we believe or the facts that we believe. I don’t see any discussion at all about which type of faith or what beliefs are better than which. For example, he says nothing about whether a Christian view is better than a Buddhist or a Taoist, etc. He does make the claim that religious perspective (as well as a social awareness, locus of authority, and view of the world) broaden over time for an individual. However, he gets this from attempting to assimilate into a coherent whole what people have said in their interviews. If you disagree with the model he puts together from the data he has, this is certainly acceptable. If this is so, then based on the data he presents in his book, what evidence can you offer that he has come to an incorrect conclusion?

That’s fine if you have certain views of what is correct religiously. I’d expect, for instance, most liberal Protestants to view Fowler as correct. However effectively all Fowler is doing is sneaking in a theology of religion and pretending he’s doing psychology, anthropology or epistemology by appealing to Piaget. Since many of those he is speaking to agree with him theologically he gets a softer pass than he should.

I think you are saying is that you mean that science couldn’t operate by assuming that all ideas are equally true. If I understand you correctly, I think you may be misinterpreting what is meant by religious universalism (which a person might use to describe Stage 6, not Stage 5). Universalism does not imply that all ideas are equally true, or that there are no truths, or that truth doesn’t matter. It simply postulates that the more directions you’ve gone in thinking about what is true, and the more data you’ve gathered, the better your chance of being closer to understanding the truth.

Unfortunately that’s just not the way Fowler discusses it. Or, put an other way, if he is discussing it that way then he’s simply taking for granted that most religious claims are false and that the only ones that could be true are very, very vague ethical claims.

I think I just realized the meaning of your statement, “The easiest way to see this is to replace religion by science in the analysis. Would a stage 5 version of science make any sense? Effectively the analysis works only if truth claims are irrelevant.” Your wording is terse, so I could be wrong, but what I think you are saying is that you mean that science couldn’t operate by assuming that all ideas are equally true. If I understand you correctly, I think you may be misinterpreting what is meant by religious universalism (which a person might use to describe Stage 6, not Stage 5). Universalism does not imply that all ideas are equally true, or that there are no truths, or that truth doesn’t matter. It simply postulates that the more directions you’ve gone in thinking about what is true, and the more data you’ve gathered, the better your chance of being closer to understanding the truth. There are also wrapped up in universalism other harder to understand concepts like the “oneness” of all things, etc., which I don’t think is pertinent to your comment, so I’ll leave it out of my response. As I see it, science isn’t incompatible with the idea that the more data you gather the closer you are to the truth. I think this is precisely how it operates. However, individual scientists are prone to coming to hasty conclusions about the nature of reality based upon the incomplete data that they have at the time. But eventually that incomplete view is overturned (at least in theory) by further evidence. I don’t want to put words in your mouth or misrepresent what you are saying in your objection to religious universalism, but one of your concerns may be (as with many other members of the church) that “we have all the truth that has been revealed, so why should we look elsewhere?” I don’t want to take up for universalists at the expense of our own church, so I won’t try to defend them except to remind you of the 13th article of faith. We should look for truths wherever we can find them, according to Joseph Smith. In that sense universalism is a good thing. I hope I correctly interpreted your meaning and gave you an answer that satisfies you.

Here is my response to the issues you raised earlier with Fowler’s stages of faith development. In talking about the use of genetic epistemology to determine how “science” arrives at answers, Piaget said, “The first principle of genetic epistemology, then, is this – to take psychology seriously. Taking psychology seriously means that, when a question of psychological fact arises, psychological research should be consulted instead of trying to invent a solution through private speculation.” I see Piaget’s and Fowler’s work as similar in the sense that Fowler adopted Piaget’s ways of thinking about the evolution of science (a process that takes place among a group of people) and Piaget’s ways of thinking about how individuals learn. Fowler used these ideas to conduct his own psychological research into the nature of and development of “faith” within one individual at time, and using the data derived from this he tried to define a developmental pattern, or path, that most individuals seem to follow. Fowler utilizes Piaget’s stages of cognitive development in part to help him define his stages of “faith”. Both study the development of children. In fact, the first half of Fowler’s book is devoted to talking about faith development starting in children and progressing to adulthood. From what I can gather, studying the development of children is how the term “biology” enters into Piaget’s work. If that is the case, both Piaget and Fowler’s approach have to do with “biology”. Not being a developmental psychologist myself, I could easily be naive in my views, but I am doing the best I can. Please enlighten me if you see where I am mistaken. Also, have I addressed everything that you had issues with?

Clark,
I’m still thinking about your comments. I’m not sure why you say that Fowler’s proposed maturation process in faith (I read his definition of the word faith as having more to do with reasoning ability than the definition of faith that we use) is more problematic than Piaget’s because Piaget sticks to biology. I need to read some more about Piaget’s work.