Like Piaget’s cognitive development
There is a spiritual development.
It begins that the man or woman cannot understand good and evil.
Like the Child with the cognitive inability to perceive objects
Of equal weight in different forms
A man cannot, at the lowest stage of the development
Understand what is good or evil.
Then, after developing the sense of what is good and evil
The man or woman still has to process what forgiveness is.
They cannot, after perceiving evil or good
Understand the aspect of mercy or forgiveness.
After developing the sense of when it is right to forgive
The man or woman begins to instill a sense of God
Or higher authority. They cannot, at first
Perceive the higher authority, until they acquire the discernment to perceive it.
After finding God exists, the man or woman begins
To discover whether God loves them,
And begins to understand the nature of divine laws and consequences
Or if the God of the Universe is disinterested
Until they perceive that the higher authority interacts with man and does love them.
After perceiving that the higher authority interacts with man
And He does love them, they come to the recognition of the moral law
Which best fits that divine love.
And soon they perceive that it is Jesus.
B. K. Neifert 