What Are Social-Scientific Theorists Actually Talking about When They Talk about “Faith”?
They’re describing something real. If it’s not faith, what is it?
Rejection, Adaptation, or Redefined Appropriation?
How should evangelical educators respond to faith-development theories from social-scientific theorists?
The simplest paths of response are rejection or adaptation. Each of these two possibilities is, however, problematic.
On the one hand, to reject these theories completely is to refuse to deal adequately with the fact that theorists such as Fowler seem to have measured some real phenomenon. On the other hand, any attempt to adapt a universalized, social-scientific understanding of “faith” to coincide with Christian faith fails to recognize the radical variance that separates these disparate perspectives on faith.
A third path is possible and, in my estimation, preferable.
This third way is the path of redefined appropriation.
What I mean by “redefined appropriation” is this: Although the dominant faith-development theories have failed to define faith in any way that is admissible from a historic Christian perspective, these theories may describe some reality that does significantly impact Christian formation. Put another way, James W. Fowler and other social-scientific theorists and scholars of religion have described something. Although this “something” is not Christian faith, the phenomenon may still have some relevance for processes of Christian discipleship.
Pursuing this third pathway, I offer three specific recognitions that are intended to guide Christian engagements with social-scientific models of faith-development:
(1) Significant commonalities exist among developmental theories that attempt to depict faith development.
Despite their differences, the theories proposed by James W. Fowler, Fritz Oser and Paul Gmünder, Heinz Streib, John Westerhoff III, and others share a strikingly similar set of patterns and transitions. This commonality is not surprising: In John Westerhoff’s book Will Our Children Have Faith?, published prior to Fowler’s Stages of Faith, Westerhoff explicitly notes his dependence on Fowler’s burgeoning theory. Oser and Gmünder as well as Fowler drew heavily from Kohlberg’s moral-development theory, while Streib’s five religious styles rework Fowler’s stages.
And what are the common elements in these developmental paradigms?
(1) Each model or theory begins with the individual’s subjective assimilation of patterns of meaning-making in their families and other close social relations.
(2) As this phase draws to a close, children discover rules and patterns of life that, when followed, lead to positive outcomes in their particular contexts. In this phase of instrumental reciprocity, the natural tendency is to keep the rules and to follow certain rituals in order to avoid consequences and to receive rewards.
(3) Social conventionality emerges when the individual begins to develop his or her values according to the expectations of a meaningful group.
(4) Eventually, individuals realize that inconsistencies exist even within their selected group. Some individuals move from group to group, still deriving their values and identities from groups; others, however, embark on a process of individuative systemization, developing a personalized worldview to deal with life’s increasing complexity.
(5) Some individuals move from this point to dialogical consolidation. These persons may retain an individuated worldview, but they reconcile this worldview with a new-found capacity to enter into appreciative dialogue with dissimilar groups, perspectives, and worldviews.
(2) The dominant theories of religious development seem to have described an actual phenomenon that constitutes some single structural whole.
To be sure, several aspects of these theories lack sufficient supporting data. Neither Fowler’s nor Oser’s data, for example, can unambiguously substantiate their proposed progression past the point of social conventionality. The research underlying Fowler’s universalizing stage specifically lacks sufficient support. Furthermore, several aspects of each theory must also be challenged on theological grounds—the assumption, for example, that advanced development should result in a pluralistic perspective on other belief-systems. Furthermore, it should be recognized that some developmental structures may stem from human depravity and self-centeredness rather than the goodness of creation or the grace of redemption. As such, developing discipleship processes around these developmental structures may not always lead to Christ-centered maturity.
At the same time, despite disparate samples and methods, these theories do present us with common elements that overlap in ways that support the supposition that all of them describe some similar phenomenon. It has already been demonstrated that this phenomenon is probably not Christian faith. If this shared phenomenon is not faith, however, what is it? And how does it impact Christian faith-development?
(3) What the social-scientific theorists have described as “faith-development” relates more closely to some particular expression of the biblical concept of wisdom than to faith.
Biblically, wisdom begins with “the fear of God” (Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Isaiah 33:6)—that is to say, with the awe-inspiring awareness that there is an orderliness and an immensity around us that is not easily comprehended or perceived. This awareness compels not only the believer but also the pagan to pursue some semblance of morality and to seek some greater meaning behind the events of life. Viewed in biblical perspective, these pursuits cultivate wisdom—that is to say, the reasoned search for universal patterns in natural and social contexts that enables individuals to develop habits and attitudes that enable the accomplishment of certain goals. Or, to put our definition of wisdom in somewhat simpler terms, these pursuits lead to “intellectual understanding expressing itself in sensible living.”
According to the biblical authors, wisdom was a universal phenomenon available both within and beyond the believing community (Genesis 41:8; Exodus 7:11; Isaiah 19:11; Ezekiel 28:1-17; Daniel 2:12-18; 4:6-18; Zechariah 9:2; Acts 7:22), embedded by God not only in Scripture but also in nature (Psalms 19:7; 104:24; Proverbs 8:1, 22; 28:7; Jeremiah 8:9). Wisdom was a developmental phenomenon. Wisdom began in the child with the cause-and-effect reciprocity of parental discipline (Proverbs 29:15-17), matured with age (Job 12:12; 15:8-10; Luke 2:40, 52; cf. function of “wisdom” in Sirach 6:18, 34; 25:4-5), and operated at its highest level when individuals made ethical decisions based not on rigid rules but on overarching principles (1 Kings 3:16-28). Individuals could use wisdom positively (Ecclesiastes 7:25; Psalm 10:24-32; Proverbs 3:19-20) or negatively (Exodus 1:10; 2 Samuel 13:3). Perhaps most important, wisdom entailed an expanding quest to find meaning in life’s events (Ecclesiastes 7:25; 8:16; cf. function of “wisdom” in 4 Maccabees 1:16).
Nearly all of these elements may also be located in the social-scientific theories of “faith” and “religious judgment.” The developmental phenomenon that these theories describe constitutes a “universal human concern” and “a consequence … of the universal burden of finding or making meaning” in which the individual moves beyond cause-and-effect ethics and embraces a “principled higher law” in search of “order, unity, and coherence.” One key question to elicit persons’ perceptions of this phenomenon in Fowler’s faith-development interview has been, “When and where do you experience wonder, awe, or ecstasy?” Viewed together, these elements coalesce to depict a reality very similar to the biblical phenomenon of “wisdom.”
To be sure, some developmental theorists seem to have misconstrued many aspects of wisdom. For Fowler and others, the endpoint of development is cultural-linguistic pluralism; in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, the ultimate goal and specific content of wisdom is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:21-30; Colossians 2:2-3). Nevertheless, it appears that these theorists—like the unbelieving sages from whom Moses gleaned knowledge during his years in Pharaoh’s palace (Acts 7:22)—have seen and systematized elements of an authentic phenomenon, one that the inspired authors of Scripture described thousands of years earlier.
Some aspects of these theorists’ research may be usable in evangelical explorations of human development and formation in wisdom. The patterns that these developmental theorists have described are not, however, faith-development in any biblical sense. Their “faith” is a distinct phenomenon, distinguishable from Christian faith not only in its developmental patterns but also in its essential nature.
A Christian Approach to Faith Development
What, then, might a uniquely Christian model of faith development look like? We suggest three specific criteria that ought to characterize a Christian approach to faith development:
(1) Such an approach should be centered in content that is both particular and personal.
The substance of Christian faith is not a universal experience that is shared by all people; the goal and substance of Christian faith is Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:2). As such, a Christian approach to faith development ought to be centered in the particular person of Jesus Christ, as he is recognized through Holy Scripture and revealed through the Holy Spirit.
(2) Christian faith development should be understood as inseparable from the theological construct of sanctification.
(3) Given that Christian faith is rooted in God’s covenant not merely with individuals but with a community, a Christian approach to faith development should reflect the crucial role of a faith-community that is being formed both by assent to particular truth and allegiance to a particular transcendent reality.
Content and Christian Faith
As presented in the New Testament, Christian faith requires patterns of active and personal allegiance (Hebrews 11:7-30; James 2:17, 26; 1 John 3:2-3). Faith also, however, requires that believers assent to specific content that is rooted in God’s consummate self-revelation in Jesus Christ (see, for example, Romans 10:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; Hebrews 11:1-6; James 2:19; 1 John 5:1-5). Far from being “content-empty,” the faith of the earliest Christians was nothing less than life-defining allegiance to Jesus—as recognized through Holy Scripture and as revealed through the Holy Spirit—that resulted in increasing confidence in God’s decisive action on their behalf in Jesus Christ and in increasing conformity to the character of Jesus Christ. Such faith results immediately in justification and eventually in sanctification (Romans 5:1-2; 6:8-22; 10:9-10).
If content is removed from faith, the result is not—and, indeed, cannot be—Christian faith at all. It is instead a relativistic recognition of transcendence, devoid of any foundation beyond the fleeting experience of the individual. Such substitutes for authentic faith endow penultimate realities with ultimate value and thus constitute idolatry.
Faith Development and the Faith Community
Faith in Jesus Christ results from an individual’s response to God’s grace. At the same time, the life of faith—as presented throughout the New Testament—is experienced in a community of faith. The church is, after all, a “household of faith” (Galatians 6:10) wherein Christians “strive together” for their shared commitment (Philippians 1:27). Faith is held in “common” with other believers (Titus 1:4) to be “passed on” from one generation of believers to the next (Jude 1:3). It is through faith that believers “encourage one another” (Romans 1:12). The idea of a solitary believer in Jesus Christ—someone who pursues sanctification and Christian formation in isolation from other believers—is utterly foreign to the New Testament.
From the perspective of the Christian Scriptures, I cannot follow Jesus alone anymore than I can get married alone. To have faith in Jesus Christ is to be enmeshed in a particular community of fellow travelers on the journey of faith. In the words of William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas,
Jesus did not call isolated individuals to follow him. He called a group of disciples. He gathered a crowd. … Privacy is not a Christian category. We are saved from our privacy by being made part of a people who can tell us what we should do with our money, with our genitals, with our lives. We have been made part of a good company, a wonderful adventure, so that we no longer need “mine.”
This is not a light commitment on the part of the Christian. It will demand such things as loving others sacrificially, maintaining a servant attitude, not coveting, controlling emotions, bearing others’ burdens, giving generously, confronting graciously, and admitting sin. It means applying scriptural truths in difficult situations, allowing iron to sharpen iron as our lives intertwine with one another.
Concluding Thoughts
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so,” a schoolboy declared in a novel published under the pen name Mark Twain. A few decades later, journalist H.L. Mencken echoed these same sentiments, defining faith as “an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.” Viewed in this way, faith is the hope of a fool, an illogical longing for some state of being for which there is no proof in reality. For a Christian, however, faith falls into a category that is far from irrational yearning. Christian faith is an ever-developing phenomenon that is both rational and experiential, confessional and experimental, propositional and personal, objective and subjective, human and divine.
This article has said much about faith. The final word about faith is not, however, to be found in this presentation. The final word about faith is not to be found in any human sentence at all, because the final word about faith is not merely a proposition but also a Person: “Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who—for the joy that was set before him—endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). It is with him that all true faith begins. It is in him that such faith finds its foundation and will one day find its perfection.