Robert C. Roberts, Professor of Ethics and Emotion Theory at the Jubilee Centre, has published a paper titled ‘Virtues and belief in God’ in The Journal of Positive Psychology. Please find the abstract, and a link to the publisher’s page, below:
Abstract:
“This paper describes a basic psychological mechanism by which beliefs about God affect the structure of virtues in human beings. Iris Murdoch calls it ‘the siege of the individual by concepts’. A premise is that appetites, desires, emotions, pleasures and pains have a conceptual dimension that can be trained by regular exposure to relevant concepts. Theological concepts are among the relevant ones. Another premise is that our virtues and vices are largely dispositions to appetites, desires, emotions, pleasures and pains. The argument is made by way of discussing two virtues, temperance and compassion.”
The article is available at this page.