CHRTC 250 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Midlife Crisis
22 Jun 2018
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Notes: Week 1
Chapter 5: The Development of Faith
- “To acknowledge Jesus as Lord, to make an act of faith in Jesus as God and Saviour, is a
gift of the Holy Spirit. But faith is not an abstract thing; faith is only expressed in and
through our human personality. Who and what we are affects the way we express our
faith in the course of human life.”
- Our faith changes
Crises of Faith
- Doubt
- If you do not face doubt we do not reach the appropriate maturity for faith
- Crisis = decision
oturning points
Doubt
- “Existential doubt: doubt that can co-exist with a strong faith, doubt that does not
destroy faith. This kind of doubt is a crisis leading to the opportunity to strengthen our
faith”
oCommon in ordinary life
oUnsure if our choice is right or wrong
- Faith is a risk
- “We cannot honestly open ourselves to the truth unless we are prepared to make the
sacrifices that such openness may involve. Skeptical doubt can often develop into a kind
of sneering attitude towards religion… True faith cannot co-exist with skeptical doubt”
Stages in Development of Faith
1. Infancy and Childhood
- “Marked by strong self-centeredness
- God will fix things
- Personal selfishness should not dominate our faith-response
- “Taking responsibility for one’s own actions can be a risky business”
oPeople refrain from doing so and they can blame others on the wrong doing.
- “Surely one of the clear duties of teachers is precisely to help their students to
understand the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of their actions.”
2. Adolescence
- The struggle for self-identity and self-acceptance
- You cannot depend on others
- “As mature believers, we can never let our faith lie fallow, remain static; we should
always be searching for better ways of meeting and responding to God in our life.”
3. Adulthood
a. Early adulthood is a period of risk
b. Later adulthood may bring on a crisis of meaning
- Risk
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Document Summary
To acknowledge jesus as lord, to make an act of faith in jesus as god and saviour, is a gift of the holy spirit. But faith is not an abstract thing; faith is only expressed in and through our human personality. Who and what we are affects the way we express our faith in the course of human life. If you do not face doubt we do not reach the appropriate maturity for faith. Existential doubt: doubt that can co-exist with a strong faith, doubt that does not destroy faith. This kind of doubt is a crisis leading to the opportunity to strengthen our faith : common in ordinary life, unsure if our choice is right or wrong. We cannot honestly open ourselves to the truth unless we are prepared to make the sacrifices that such openness may involve.
