Stages of Faith

Paul Tillich's Dynamics of creed was published in the 1950s, yet Fowler maintains it holds one of the most bonnie and clear analyses of faith. Fowler believes that traditionally we have been too ready to align faith with theology rather than analyzing faith as a basis for religion. He argues that Tillich per manakins such an digest by move aside easy identifications of faith with religion or teaching and challenging his readers to ask themselves what values have centering spring in their lives (Fowler 4). much(prenominal) an analysis would be persuasive to Fowler because it is the thesis of Stages of Faith that the values we develop through out(a) the different academic degrees of our sustain personal growth define the nature of our faith and, thus, form the basis for our perceptions of the way life is organized.

Thus, through an analysis of Tillich's work, Fowler is fitting to establish his divorcing of faith from a necessarily religious basis. He then moves on to an analysis of the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, whom he argues worked out an approach to faith similar to Tillich's and thus similar to Fowler's receive understanding of faith (Fowler 5). Fowler uses Niebuhr to prepare the reader for his eventual definition of the developmental stages of faith. He argues that Niebuhr sees faith taking form in our earliest relationships with those who provide care for us in our infancy. This rivalry will be

The adjacent stage, Synthetic-Conventional, is the stage in which the pincer confronts the contradictions in his or her culture's stories and begins to ruminate on what these stories actually mean (Fowler 150). The child is undergoing puberty during this stage and thus is beginning to relate to a widened set of environments (Fowler 154). sooner of the family as the only sphere of influence, the child is also confronted by beliefs and m viva voce attitudes of peers, school, work, and those expressed by the media and popular culture. In this stage, the child may first be confronted with the tenets of his or her culture's organized religion (Fowler 154).

Smith argues the various expressions of the faith of mass in the outgoing have amounted to what he calls a "cumulative tradition" (Fowler 9). Such a tradition is defined by the scriptural, legal, narrative, mythological, prophetic, or indicative texts of a given culture. It can also be demonstrate through visual and other symbolic or oral traditions and rituals. In fact, Smith argues that a cumulative tradition operates as a "dynamic gallery of art" that addresses contemporary people and becomes "the mundane cause" that awakens present faith (Fowler 9). This aspect of Smith's disceptation is particularly significant because it anticipates Fowler's argument later in the analysis that people's faith is a response to their formative development.

The next stage, Individuative-Reflective faith, is marked by a "double development" because while it results in the development of a world-view developed by the self, it also results in the demythologizing of the sacred (Fowler 182). The self, which previously identified itself and its faith through its social connections, now claims a new identity element composed of its own boundaries and inner connections. Fowler argues that at this stage the self is now aware of itself as a "world view" (Fowler 182). Self identity and outlook are differentiated from those of others and beco
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