Anthropologists, neurologists, philosophers, psychologists, theologians and other specialists are to conduct a £2 million three-year study into the nature and formation of religious belief.

The work will be funded by the John Templeton Foundation and carried out at the highly-regarded Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford.

Among other issues, it will explore the question about whether receptivity towards a transcendent influence on life is an inherent part of humankind's constitution.

This is an issue which has been considered in different ways by evolutionary biologists and religion researchers, notably the Alister Hardy Centre and its work on 'religious experience'.

There is wide disagreement in the field. Popular writers such as Richard Dawkins have promoted a reductionist account of religious belief based on a positivist type of empircism. But this is seen as too limited and ideological by many specialists in the field, as are accounts driven by vague notions holism - the attempt to hold together or integrate descriptions and theories from different perspectives.

"We are interested in exploring exactly in what sense belief in God is natural," said Justin Barrett, a psychologist and leading member of the research team. "We think there is more on the nature side than a lot of people suppose."