ABSTRACT
Based on children’s ontological, cosmological and theological inferences described in the preceding three chapters, and in the context of wider developmental research that provides the criteria for identifying theoretical domains in early knowledge acquisition, Chapter 7 argues that theology represents one of the core domains of human cognition. The core theological concept (transcendent God) is an intuitive concept that develops early and spontaneously, undergoes no major developmental change and is present in different cultures. The uniqueness and coherence of the concept of God as a causal agent is what demarcates theology from the other cognitive domains, i.e., no other cognitive domain deals with transcendent entities and causal actions appropriate to such entities. It is further argued that God’s ontological uniqueness and thus conceptual salience makes it one of the simplest concepts that humans can acquire early and spontaneously, with developmental research being best placed to determine its eliciting conditions and any other characteristics in the overall developmental context. The chapter also includes a discussion of several areas of cognitive development as possible precursors of the core theological concept.
