Summary.Up to the beginning of adolescence the majority of children believe that God upholds the moral law or ideal by rewarding good behaviour. At the same time, the majority have already either rejected or begun to wonder about earlier and cruder ideas about God's punishment of wrong‐doing. As a result of the development of the ability to reason critically, an increasing number of adolescents question, and in many cases abandon, these earlier ideas about God rewarding the good and punishing the bad. Some adolescents and adults, however, retain the basic belief that moral attitudes and decisions should be determined in the light of religious beliefs. The majority of adolescents and adults believe, more vaguely, that religion can and should help them to live a morally good life, though on what grounds this belief is maintained cannot be stated with any certainty. Not all who hold this view believe that religion isessentialfor living a morally good lif