I have chosen to look at Fowler's theory of faith development as part of life cycle completion.
Fowler’s stages are fostered by a framework of formation through family, religion and society. James Fowler’s stages of faith is concerned with the individual's relatedness to the universal. See Table 1 below:
Fowler’s stages are fostered by a framework of formation through family, religion and society. James Fowler’s stages of faith is concerned with the individual's relatedness to the universal. See Table 1 below:
|
Stage of Life
|
Characteristics
|
Transitions to next stage
|
|
Stage 0
"Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth - 2 )
|
early learning of the safety of their environment
|
|
|
Stage 1 – "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages 3-7)
|
psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious
|
emergence of
concrete operational thinking.
|
|
Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children)
|
strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are
almost always anthropomorphic
|
- clash or contradictions
in stories that leads to reflection on meanings.
- disillusionment
teachers and teachings
|
|
Stage 3 - "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in
adolescence)
|
conformity,
ideology with lack of awareness of being
|
unavoidable tensions:
individuality versus being defined by a group
- critical
reflection on how one's beliefs and values have formed, changed, and on how
"relative" they are to one's particular group
|
|
Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (mid-twenties to
late thirties – but some adults never construct – or occurs in 40’s & 50s)
|
aware of itself
as a "world view." Self (identity) and outlook (world view) are
differentiated from those of others and become acknowledged factors in the
reactions, interpretations and judgments one makes on the actions of the self
and others.
- demythologizing
|
Disillusionment
with one's compromises and recognition that life is more complex than Stage
4's logic of clear distinctions and abstract concepts can comprehend
|
|
Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges
paradox and transcendence
|
- relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems
-integration into
self and outlook of much that was suppressed or unrecognized in the interest
of Stage 4's self-certainty and conscious cognitive and affective adaptation
to reality.
|
lives and acts
between an untransformed world and a transforming vision
- in some few cases yields to the call of
radical actualization that we call Stage 6. |
|
Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith
|
become
incarnators and actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human
community.
|
|
