1st Edition
Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Causal understanding: Physical and metaphysical
Chapter Three
Children’s theories: Scientific and non-scientific
Chapter Four
Early ontological knowledge: The world and its contents
Chapter Five
In the beginning: Cosmological reasoning in children and adults
Chapter Six
The natural-theological concept of God: A unique causal agent
Chapter Seven
Theology as a core cognitive domain
Chapter Eight
Innateness of religion within the limits of science alone
Chapter Nine
Conclusions, exclusions and some implications
References
Appendix
Author Index
Subject Index
Biography
Olivera Petrovich is Research Fellow at the University of Oxford in the Department of Experimental Psychology. Her research deals with the origin and development of natural religious understanding across different cultures.
A common objection to teaching about religious faith by parents and schools is that this implants ideas that children would otherwise lack. In this fascinating book, Olivera Petrovich explores the validity of this objection. Drawing on data with children and adults from different religious cultures and traditions, Petrovich shows that children’s questions about the physical world lead them to postulate causal agents which transcend the empirical domain. In other words, they behave much as natural theologians have always done. Petrovich’s work has major implications for how we should teach about theology in schools and elsewhere. Professor Michael J Reiss, UCL Institute of Education
