It is commonly assumed that young children only begin to think about God as a result of some educational or cultural influence, perhaps provided by their parents. Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood asks if there is anything about God that children can know independently of any specific cultural input; does their knowledge of God simply come from their everyday encounters with the surrounding world? Whilst children’s theoretical reasoning in biology, physics and psychology has received considerable attention in recent developmental research, the same could not be said about their religious or theological understanding. Olivera Petrovich explores children’s religious concepts, from a natural-theological perspective. Using supporting evidence from a series of studies with children and adults living in as diverse cultures as the UK and Japan, Petrovich explains how young children begin to construct their everyday scientific and metaphysical theories by relying on their own already advanced causal understanding. The unique contribution that this volume makes to the developmental psychology of religion is its contention that religion or theology constitutes one of the core domains of human cognition rather than being a by-product of other core domains and specific cultural inputs. Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood is essential reading for students and researchers in cognitive-developmental psychology, religious studies, education and cognitive anthropology.

Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion is the second title published in the new Templeton Science and Religion Series. In this volume, Malcolm Jeeves and Warren S. Brown provide an overview of the relationship between neuroscience, psychology, and religion that is academically sophisticated, yet accessible to the general reader. The authors introduce key terms; thoroughly chart the histories of both neuroscience and psychology, with a particular focus on how these disciplines have interfaced religion through the ages; and explore contemporary approaches to both fields, reviewing how current science/religion controversies are playing out today. Throughout, they cover issues like consciousness, morality, concepts of the soul, and theories of mind. Their examination of topics like brain imaging research, evolutionary psychology, and primate studies show how recent advances in these areas can blend harmoniously with religious belief, since they offer much to our understanding of humanity's place in the world. Jeeves and Brown conclude their comprehensive and inclusive survey by providing an interdisciplinary model for shaping the ongoing dialogue. Sure to be of interest to both academics and curious intellectuals, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion addresses important age-old questions and demonstrates how modern scientific techniques can provide a much more nuanced range of potential answers to those questions.

The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology" explores the diversity and vitality o natural theology, both historically and as an issue of contemporary concern.

Excerpt from Psychology and Natural Theology As between men, the prestige of an opponent lends no intrinsic value whatever to his argument. In the field of philosophy every individual's authority is worth only as much as his arguments. Arguments from authority are, perhaps, the weakest in all philosophy, wholly subsidiary and corroborative, of no weight with the wise, without prior and independent arguments based on the very nature of things; and the common consent of mankind is only a seeming exception to this rule. Psychology and Natural Theology, all the Metaphysics of Senior Year in Jesuit Colleges, are combined in the one volume; and this makes for economy as well as for convenience. Questions are thoroughly explained, without sending the pupil to other sources of information. The discussion of difficulties is unusually complete; and experience quite satisfies the author that nothing in all philosophy is more important than this solution of difficulties. It is virtually an application of the Case System to philosophy. The highest kind of knowledge, the only kind of knowledge really worth while, is certainty; and certainty is incompatible with concrete possibility of the opposite. Certainty is out of the question as long as any single opposing argument remains unanswered, no matter how many favorable arguments are urged in defense of a thesis or statement. Hence the supreme need of being able first to comprehend, and then to answer the arguments of opponents. All the matter is done into set and concise theses, and the Scholastic method of presentment is strictly adhered to. In religion a good Catholic can be nothing but a devoted son of the Church, and in philosophy he can be nothing but a thorough Scholastic, an enthusiastic follower of St. Thomas. Pope Leo XIII forever settled that. Religion was not improved by the so-called Reformation, and Luther himself on no few occasions adverts to the fact. Luther and the Reformers worked no more harm to faith and morality than Kant, with his forerunners and followers, worked to reason and philosophy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.