Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian - Faith Stages 5 and 6

This is the 4th in a series of posts about the 7 faith stages that James Fowler presents in his book, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian. The 3 previous posts are introduction: the house of my soul is small, stages 1 & 2, and stages 3 & 4.

Note that in the preceding post, Fowler warns that many people get stuck in the 4th stage; as we move now to the latter stages of development, it is easy to understand why many get stuck in the Synthetic-Conventional stage, because the following stage is uncomfortable and moves the person into a time of significant disorientation and confusion related to his or her faith. Most people don't want to go there and so it is not unusual that people remain in stage 4.

Now onto stage 5...

Stage 5 - Individuative-Reflective Faith: young adulthood is a time when this stage typically begins to appear. The Synthetic-Conventional faith (stage 4) is tacit in nature; in other words, the person's faith has not been critically examined or reflected upon but rather has been inherited from trusted people without having thought it through for oneself and without having carefully listened to other points of view outside of one's social network and belief system.

Usually the rise of this stage of faith comes because of experiences of life that force a person to "objectify, examine, and make critical choices about the defining elements of their identity and faith."

At the core of this transition are 2 fundamental movements going on: 1) "From a definition of self derived from one's relations and roles and the network of expectations that go with them, the self must now begin to be and act from a new quality of self-authorization."  2) "There must be an objectification and critical choosing of one's beliefs, values, and commitments, which come to be taken as a systemic unity."

If this stage happens at an older age, it can cause a lot of disturbance to the person's social network. Consequently, not many successfully transition fully into the next stage. Some make a partial shift and remain somewhere between stages 5 and 6.


Stage 6 - Conjunctive Faith: comes mid-life or beyond. In this stage one begins to discover what Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) called "the coincidence of opposites", or they begin to discover the "Being wherein all opposites and contradictions meet and are reconciled...In this transition the firm boundaries of the previous stage begin to become porous and permeable. The confident conscious ego must develop a humbling awareness of the power and influence of aspects of the unconscious on our reactions and behavior..."

Hallmarks of the transition to conjunctive faith are the following:1) awareness of the need to face and hold together unmistakable polar tensions in life, such as being both old and young and both masculine and feminine, having both a conscious self and a shadow self. 2) realization that truth is more complex than most of the either-or categories of the individuative stage; conjunctive faith can value paradox and apparent contradictions of perspectives on truth. 3) transition to a 'second naivete', a post-critical receptivity and a genuine openness to the truths of traditions and communities other than one's own traditions. 

"...Conjunctive faith exhibits a combination of committed belief in and through the particularities of a tradition, while insisting upon the humility that knows that the grasp on ultimate truth that any of our traditions can offer needs continual correction and challenge. This is to help overcome blind spots as well as the tendency to idolatry (the overidentification of our symbolizations of transcending truth with the reality of truth), to which all of our traditions are prone...Persons of Conjunctive faith are not likely to be 'true believers' in the sense of an undialectical, single-minded, uncritical devotion to a cause or ideology...They know that the line between the righteous and the sinners goes through the heart of each of us and our communities, rather than between 'us and them'."

The next post will be about the 7th and final stage of faith: Universalizing Faith.