What is FAITH?

[permela]

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

Fowler defines faith as an activity of trusting, committing, and relating to the world based on a set of assumptions of how one is related to others and the world.

Stages of faith

1) Intuitive-Projective: a stage of confusion and of high impressionability through stories and rituals. (Pre-school period)

2) Mythic-Literal: a stage where provided information is accepted in order to conform with social norms. (School-going period)

3) Synthetic-Conventional: In this stage the faith acquired is concreted in the belief system with the forgoing of personification and replacement with authority in individuals or groups that represent one's beliefs. (Early-late adolescence)

4) Individuative-Reflective: In this stage the individual critically analyzes adopted and accepted faith with existing systems of faith. Disillusion or strengthening of faith happens in this stage. Based on needs, experiences and paradoxes. (Early adulthood)

5) Conjunctive faith: In this stage people realize the limits of logic and, facing the paradoxes or transcendence of life, accept the "mystery of life" and often return to the sacred stories and symbols of the pre-acquired or re-adopted faith system. This stage is called negotiated settling in life. (Mid-life)

6) Universalizing faith: This is the "enlightenment" stage where the individual comes out of all the existing systems of faith and lives life with universal principles of compassion and love and in service to others for upliftment, without worries and doubt. (Middle - late adulthood (45-65 yrs and plus)

No hard-and-fast rule requires individuals pursuing faith to go through all six stages. There is a high probability for individuals to be content and fixed in a particular stage for a lifetime; stages from 2-5 are such stages. Stage 6 is the summit of faith development. This state is often[quantify] considered as "not fully" attainable.