CED 521 Psychology of Religious Learning
Timothy W. Brock
The Nature of Human Faith
Introduction
The information shared in this lecture and discuss is derived from Part 1 of the textbook, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, by James Fowler. The professor will provide additional information, as appropriate.
Questions of Faith
In Chapter One, “Human Faith,” Fowler listed a number of questions centered around his understanding of the concept of “faith.” These questions included:
· What are you spending and being spent for? What commands and receives your best time, your best energy?
· What causes, dreams, goals, or institutions are you pouring out your life for?
· As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
· To what or whom are committed in life? In death?
· With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
· What are those most sacred hopes, those most compelling goals and purposes in your life?
Prior to class, please consider your answers to these questions and write out your responses to at least two of these questions.
According to Fowler, these questions help us to understand our faith, or the dynamic, patterned processes by which we find meaning in life.
On pages 5-8 of Chapter One, Fowler retells the story of Conrad, a young man who survived a boating accident which took the life of his older brother. Please read this story carefully and be prepared to discuss the following questions:
· How did Conrad deal with survivor’s guilt?
· How did the accident change his reason for living?
· In the passage quoted on pages 6-7 of the text, how did Conrad make meaning in his life?
· Have you ever been in a situation where you struggled to “have a reason to get up in the morning”? How did you work through this situation?
· How do you make meaning in your life?
Defining Faith, Religion, and Belief
Based on the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fowler developed his understanding of the distinctions among the terms “faith,” “religion,” and “belief” in Chapter Two of the text.
· Religion is the cumulative tradition of the faith of people in the past. This tradition may include scriptures which contain the narratives, myths, prophecies, or accounts of revelations. Tradition may also include symbols, oral traditions, music, dance, ethical teachings, theologies, creeds, rites, liturgies, or architecture.
· Faith (which is more personal and deeper than religion) is the person’s or group’s way of responding to transcendent value and power as perceived and grasped through the forms of the cumulative tradition. In this way, faith and religion are reciprocal.
· Belief is the holding of certain ideas, arising out of the effect to translate experiences of and relation to transcendence into concepts or propositions.
On page 14 of the text, Fowler summarized his understanding of the nature of these three entities:
1. Faith, rather than belief or religion, is the most fundamental category in the human quest for relation to transcendence. Faith is generic, a universal feature of human living, recognizably similar everywhere despite the remarkable variety of forms and contents of religious practice and belief.
2. Each of the major religious traditions studied speaks about faith in ways that make the same phenomenon visible. In each and all, faith involves an alignment of the will, a resting of the heart, in accordance with a vision of transcendent value and power, one’s ultimate concerns.
3. Faith, classically understood, is not a separate dimension of life, a compartmentalized specialty. Faith is an orientation of the total person, giving purpose and goal to one’s hopes and strivings, thoughts and actions.
4. The unity and recognizability of faith, despite the myriad variants of religions and beliefs, support the struggle to maintain and develop a theory of religious relativity in which the religions—and the faith they evoke and shape—are seen as relative apprehensions of our relatedness to that which is universal.
· Please be prepared to share your understanding of these assumptions during the class discussion.
· With which of these assumptions do you agree? Disagree? Be prepared to explain your answers.
Faith and Relationship
In Chapter 3 of the text, Fowler argued the point that faith is formed and supported in relational networks and that these networks can be described in terms of covenantal triads.
Universally, faith is first formed in the context of family. On page 17, Fowler diagramed the dynamics at work in this formation process, describing a triangle among the self (s), others (o), and one’s family’s shared centers of value and power (scvp). Over the course of time and with age, the self is exposed to other centers of value and power (in elementary school, at church, in gangs or cliques, in college, at work, in recreational activities, etc.) The commitments and trusts embodied in these centers, in turn, shape our identity (as individuals and as member of these groups).
In classifying the nature of the faith-identity relationship, Fowler identified three distinct types:
· Polytheist…a pattern of faith and identity that lacks any one center of value and power of sufficient transcendence to focus and order one’s life.
· Henotheist…a pattern of faith and identity in which one invests deeply in a transcending center of value and power, finding in it a focal unity of personality and outlook, but this center is inappropriate, false, not something of ultimate concern.
· Radical monotheist…a type of faith identity relation in which a person or group focuses its supreme trust and loyalty in a transcendent center of value and power, that is neither a conscious or unconscious extension of personal or group ego nor a finite cause or institution. This approach implies loyalty to the principle of being and to the source and center of all value and power.
Fowler is quick to point out that, while the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions are all examples of radical monotheism, the principle of being and the source and center of all value and power does not have to be God…it can be expressed in other ways.
· How has the faith of your family formed your identity? Your church family?
· When a different source of value and power (science, higher education, work environment) conflicts with the faith formed in your family or in your church family, how do you respond?
· Have you ever meet a polytheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship? Describe that person.
· Have you ever meet a henotheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship? Describe that person.
· Have you ever meet a radical monotheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship, whose understanding of the principle of being was not God? Describe that person.
Faith as Imagination
The material included in Chapter Three of the text was based on three assumptions about the nature of faith:
· Faith is a dynamic process (i.e. the process of “faithing” can change over the course of time) arising out of our experiences of interaction with the diverse persons, institutions, events, and relationships that make up the “stuff” of our lives.
· Faith as an imaginative process is awakened and shaped by these interactions and by the images, symbols, rituals, and conceptual representations, offered with conviction, in the language and common life of those with whom we learn and grow.
· Faith is an active mode of knowing, of composing a felt sense or image of the condition of our lives taken as a whole. It unifies our lives’ force fields.
In preparation for class:
· Be prepared to explain your understanding of each of these statements.
· Address the following questions: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with each statement?”
· Be prepared to give examples of images, symbols, or rituals that awaken or shape your faith.
· Ask any additional questions that you might have about the relationship between faith and imagination.
CED 521 Psychology of Religious Learning
Timothy W. Brock
The Nature of Human Faith
Introduction
The information shared in this lecture and discuss is derived from Part 1 of the textbook, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, by James Fowler. The professor will provide additional information, as appropriate.
Questions of Faith
In Chapter One, “Human Faith,” Fowler listed a number of questions centered around his understanding of the concept of “faith.” These questions included:
· What are you spending and being spent for? What commands and receives your best time, your best energy?
· What causes, dreams, goals, or institutions are you pouring out your life for?
· As you live your life, what power or powers do you fear or dread? What power or powers do you rely on and trust?
· To what or whom are committed in life? In death?
· With whom or what group do you share your most sacred and private hopes for your life and for the lives of those you love?
· What are those most sacred hopes, those most compelling goals and purposes in your life?
Prior to class, please consider your answers to these questions and write out your responses to at least two of these questions.
According to Fowler, these questions help us to understand our faith, or the dynamic, patterned processes by which we find meaning in life.
On pages 5-8 of Chapter One, Fowler retells the story of Conrad, a young man who survived a boating accident which took the life of his older brother. Please read this story carefully and be prepared to discuss the following questions:
· How did Conrad deal with survivor’s guilt?
· How did the accident change his reason for living?
· In the passage quoted on pages 6-7 of the text, how did Conrad make meaning in his life?
· Have you ever been in a situation where you struggled to “have a reason to get up in the morning”? How did you work through this situation?
· How do you make meaning in your life?
Defining Faith, Religion, and Belief
Based on the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fowler developed his understanding of the distinctions among the terms “faith,” “religion,” and “belief” in Chapter Two of the text.
· Religion is the cumulative tradition of the faith of people in the past. This tradition may include scriptures which contain the narratives, myths, prophecies, or accounts of revelations. Tradition may also include symbols, oral traditions, music, dance, ethical teachings, theologies, creeds, rites, liturgies, or architecture.
· Faith (which is more personal and deeper than religion) is the person’s or group’s way of responding to transcendent value and power as perceived and grasped through the forms of the cumulative tradition. In this way, faith and religion are reciprocal.
· Belief is the holding of certain ideas, arising out of the effect to translate experiences of and relation to transcendence into concepts or propositions.
On page 14 of the text, Fowler summarized his understanding of the nature of these three entities:
1. Faith, rather than belief or religion, is the most fundamental category in the human quest for relation to transcendence. Faith is generic, a universal feature of human living, recognizably similar everywhere despite the remarkable variety of forms and contents of religious practice and belief.
2. Each of the major religious traditions studied speaks about faith in ways that make the same phenomenon visible. In each and all, faith involves an alignment of the will, a resting of the heart, in accordance with a vision of transcendent value and power, one’s ultimate concerns.
3. Faith, classically understood, is not a separate dimension of life, a compartmentalized specialty. Faith is an orientation of the total person, giving purpose and goal to one’s hopes and strivings, thoughts and actions.
4. The unity and recognizability of faith, despite the myriad variants of religions and beliefs, support the struggle to maintain and develop a theory of religious relativity in which the religions—and the faith they evoke and shape—are seen as relative apprehensions of our relatedness to that which is universal.
· Please be prepared to share your understanding of these assumptions during the class discussion.
· With which of these assumptions do you agree? Disagree? Be prepared to explain your answers.
Faith and Relationship
In Chapter 3 of the text, Fowler argued the point that faith is formed and supported in relational networks and that these networks can be described in terms of covenantal triads.
Universally, faith is first formed in the context of family. On page 17, Fowler diagramed the dynamics at work in this formation process, describing a triangle among the self (s), others (o), and one’s family’s shared centers of value and power (scvp). Over the course of time and with age, the self is exposed to other centers of value and power (in elementary school, at church, in gangs or cliques, in college, at work, in recreational activities, etc.) The commitments and trusts embodied in these centers, in turn, shape our identity (as individuals and as member of these groups).
In classifying the nature of the faith-identity relationship, Fowler identified three distinct types:
· Polytheist…a pattern of faith and identity that lacks any one center of value and power of sufficient transcendence to focus and order one’s life.
· Henotheist…a pattern of faith and identity in which one invests deeply in a transcending center of value and power, finding in it a focal unity of personality and outlook, but this center is inappropriate, false, not something of ultimate concern.
· Radical monotheist…a type of faith identity relation in which a person or group focuses its supreme trust and loyalty in a transcendent center of value and power, that is neither a conscious or unconscious extension of personal or group ego nor a finite cause or institution. This approach implies loyalty to the principle of being and to the source and center of all value and power.
Fowler is quick to point out that, while the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions are all examples of radical monotheism, the principle of being and the source and center of all value and power does not have to be God…it can be expressed in other ways.
· How has the faith of your family formed your identity? Your church family?
· When a different source of value and power (science, higher education, work environment) conflicts with the faith formed in your family or in your church family, how do you respond?
· Have you ever meet a polytheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship? Describe that person.
· Have you ever meet a henotheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship? Describe that person.
· Have you ever meet a radical monotheist, in terms of the faith-identity relationship, whose understanding of the principle of being was not God? Describe that person.
Faith as Imagination
The material included in Chapter Three of the text was based on three assumptions about the nature of faith:
· Faith is a dynamic process (i.e. the process of “faithing” can change over the course of time) arising out of our experiences of interaction with the diverse persons, institutions, events, and relationships that make up the “stuff” of our lives.
· Faith as an imaginative process is awakened and shaped by these interactions and by the images, symbols, rituals, and conceptual representations, offered with conviction, in the language and common life of those with whom we learn and grow.
· Faith is an active mode of knowing, of composing a felt sense or image of the condition of our lives taken as a whole. It unifies our lives’ force fields.
In preparation for class:
· Be prepared to explain your understanding of each of these statements.
· Address the following questions: “To what extent do you agree or disagree with each statement?”
· Be prepared to give examples of images, symbols, or rituals that awaken or shape your faith.
· Ask any additional questions that you might have about the relationship between faith and imagination.