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abstract: People may conceptualize God as benevolent and as authoritarian. This research investigates the influence of these God-concepts on prosocial behavior; specifically whether such concepts differentially predict a set of beliefs about the self and the world, volunteer motivations, and intentions to volunteer for secular causes. Two studies, one correlation and one experimental, were conducted among college students who were Christians and indicated they believe that God exists. A measurement model of the concepts of Benevolent and Authoritarian God was first tested, and a conceptual path model was then analyzed. I found that concepts of a benevolent God were associated with a benevolent self-identity, perceived moral and religious obligations to help, and a high sense of personal responsibility with a total positive indirect effect on intentions to volunteer - mainly via internal motivations. In contrast, concepts of an authoritarian God were associated with a perceived religious obligation, having a positive indirect effect on intentions to volunteer via external motivations; but also with a low benevolent self-identity and low personal responsibility associated with amotivation (the disinclination to volunteer). Thus, there was a null total indirect effect of belief in an authoritarian God on intentions to volunteer. Future directions including the use of religious primes are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2012

God-concepts of 24 third to sixth grade evangelical Christian children were compared with the children‘s logical thinking abilities in a mixed-method study. Measurements included the Children‘s Interview and the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT). God-concepts among the children were Biblical, comforter, communicates, creator, empowering, protector, provider, purposeful, human characteristics, lives in heaven, male, counselor, God is Jesus, all-knowing, loving, perfect, powerful, real, and parental. The majority of concrete thinkers conceptualized God as a gracious guide. The majority of transitional thinkers viewed God also as a gracious guide as well as a distant divinity. Implications were given for religious educators to develop a model for age-appropriate instruction and curriculum and to equip parents to promote spiritual development with children at home.

Magister Artium - MA / This study is situated in the field of Practical Theology with specific reference to empirical studies on the God-images that lay people operate with in their daily lives. It is often observed in the discourse on theology and development that the images people hold of God reflect a sense of power or powerlessness but may also influence the way lay people respond to their social environment. This applies irrespective of religious or denominational affiliation, age group, gender, occupation or socio-economic standing. In particular, this study focusses on two congregations, namely St Dominic’s Anglican Church and the Pentecostal Protestant Church, both located in Hanover Park. These are selected because they represent diverging theological traditions that may or may not shape people’s God-images. The assumption is that whether people see God as law-giver and law-enforcer, a strict judge, an advisor, an advocate, a close friend, a problem-solver or dispenser of goods and services, that this would make a significant difference to how people view themselves in relation to their world. Whilst this interest in understanding the types of God-images and the influence these God-images might have on particular groupings of people is not new, the interest in God-images is new within the field of practical theology (Counted 2015; Hoffman 2005; Lawrence 1997). The God Image Scale that was developed by Richard T. Lawrence (1997), is used in this study. Lawrence (1997:214) a Roman Catholic priest, who served as a pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Baltimore Maryland, developed two instruments namely the God-Image Inventory (GII) and the God Image Scales (GIS). Whilst the GII is used within clinical and pastoral counselling, the GIS has been more widely used in empirical studies in the field of religious psychology and, especially in North America, on the ways in which images of God function amongst specific groups of people. These instruments have not been widely used in the African or the South African contexts although Africa is widely regarded as “notoriously religious”. Such findings on God-images may be significant for Christian education in violence-ridden communities, not only in Hanover Park. The significance of this study on God-images within a specific community context is tied to the complexities of attempting to measure the quality of an individual’s God- image across different denominations, religious beliefs, religious practices and religious educational frameworks. Of equal importance is the need to distinguish between the influence that different doctrinal teachings and religious practices have on the formation of God-images and God-concepts. Whilst people who are social beings learn from their contexts, are influenced by their experiences and make choices based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors, the corpus of God-image literature recognises the pivotal role and influence that one’s God-image have on religious knowledge, attitudes and behaviours within any given context.

Psychological research suggests that children acquire cultural concepts through early developing cognitive mechanisms combined with specific cultural learning. An understudied area of cultural acquisition is children’s understanding of non-human minds, such as God. This thesis gives evidence that young children need not anthropomorphize non-human minds in order to understand them. Instead, children have a general “theory of mind” that is tailored through experience to accommodate the various important minds in their cultural environment. The intuitive default is toward super-attributes, making children naturally inclined or “prepared” to acquire god concepts. Four empirical studies were conducted with 75 British and 66 Israeli preschool-aged children. In Study 1, children participated in an ignorance-based theory-of-mind task and were asked to consider the mental states of human and supernatural agents. Children at all ages attributed correct knowledge to the supernatural agents and ignorance to the human agents. In Study 2, children participated in two perception-based theory-of-mind tasks and were asked to consider the perspective of two super-perceiving animals, God, and two human agents. Three-year-olds attributed knowledge to the animals and God and, by age four, children could distinguish among agents correctly. Also, by age four, children recognized that aging limits the perception of human agents but not God’s. In Study 3, children participated in a memory-based theory-of-mind task in which they were asked to consider the memory of God and differently aged agents Children at all ages responded that God would remember something that the children themselves had forgotten. By age five, children responded that a baby and granddad would have forgotten. These results propose that preschool-aged children regard individual constraints when considering mental states. Study 4 focused on children’s notions of immortality. Cultural differences were found. British children attributed immortality to God before correctly attributing mortality to human agents, and Israeli children attributed immortality to God and mortality to humans more consistently than did British children. Collectively, these studies indicate that children do not have to resort to anthropomorphism to reason about non-human agents but instead have the cognitive capacity to represent other types of minds because of early cognitive capacities. It appears that concepts vary in their degree of fit with early-developing human conceptual systems, and hence, vary in their likelihood of successful cultural transmission.