Abstract
Prior research revealed qualitative differences between children’s representations and the theologically accepted beliefs for God. In the present study, it was hypothesized that children and adolescents’ weakness to represent the concept of GOD in the theologically accepted way, derives from constraints that are posed by the ontologicalpresuppositions of their initial knowledge upon which they construct the concept of GOD. One hundred and twenty children of four age groups 8-, 10-, 12- and 14-year-olds participated in the study. The results showed that children’s conceptualization of God is constrained by the ontological presuppositions of the living beings in which children, initially, categorize the concept of GOD. Moreover, the results showed that the acquisition of the theologically accepted knowledge for God is a cumbersome procedure and only few of the adolescents acquire a concept of transcendental God. Children and adolescents, in their effort to integrate the information for a transcendental God to their prior knowledge structures, construct synthetic mental models such the God as a superman, as a soul or as a spirit.
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