Faith Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Stages of faith development == {{Main|James W. Fowler#Stages of Faith}} [[James W. Fowler]] (1940β2015) proposes a series of stages of faith development (or [[spiritual development]]) across the human lifespan. His stages relate closely to the work of [[Jean Piaget|Piaget]], Erikson, and [[Lawrence Kohlberg|Kohlberg]] regarding aspects of psychological development in children and adults. 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.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Nancy|last1=Evans |first2=Deanna |last2=Forney |first3=Florence |last3=Guido |first4=Lori |last4=Patton |first5=Kristen |last5=Renn |title=Student Development in College: Theory, Research, and Practice |edition=Second |publisher=Jossey-Bass |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-7879-7809-9}}</ref> ; Stages of faith: # Intuitive-Projective: confusion and of high impressionability through stories and [[ritual]]s (pre-school period). # Mythic-Literal: provided information is accepted to conform with [[social norm]]s (school-going period). # Synthetic-Conventional: the faith acquired is concreted in the [[belief system]] with the forgoing of personification and replacement with [[authority]] in people or groups that represent one's beliefs (early late adolescence). # Individuative-Reflective: the person 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). # Conjunctive faith: people realize the limits of [[logic]] and, facing the paradoxes or [[Transcendence (philosophy)|transcendence]] of [[personal life|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). # Universalizing faith: this is the "enlightenment" stage where the person 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 uplift, without worries and [[doubt]] (middle-late adulthood, 45β65 years old and beyond).<ref>Works of [[Daniel Levinson|Daniel J. Levinson]]</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2018}} No hard-and-fast rule requires that people pursue faith by going through all six stages. There is a high probability for people to be content and fixed in a particular stage for a lifetime; stages 2β5 are such stages. Stage 6 is the summit of faith development. This state is often{{quantify|date=December 2015}} considered as "not fully" attainable.<ref>{{citation|last=Fowler|first=J.W.|title=Stages of Faith β The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning}}{{full citation needed|date=July 2023}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page