The Urantia Book Fellowship

The Challenges of Faith in the Quest for Cosmic Citizenship

2. Paul Thillich's Perspective on Faith as Background for the Study

Faith as Devotion to One's Ultimate Concern

What is faith?  For purposes of the present study we will consider faith to be our attitudes of devotion to that which is of greatest concern to us in life.

In much of the highly competitive developed world, economic success is the god to which many people are devoted. They may go to church on Sunday and consider themselves to be religious but their ultimate concern is with their economic success. Faith is a state of being ultimately concerned.

The nature of one’s beliefs is significant in the life of the believer, but it does not matter for the formal definition of faith.

1780:5  160:5.3“The object of religious devotion may be material or spiritual, true or false, real or unreal, human or divine. Religions can therefore be either good or evil.”

1088:7  99:3.6“Many individual social reconstructionists, while vehemently repudiating institutionalized religion, are, after all, zealously religious in the propagation of their social reforms."

Faith is not an act of the rational mind – it is not a creation of the will.  Neither is it an act of the unconscious.  But it is an act in which both the rational and the nonrational elements of our being are transcended. Faith exists prior to any attempt to derive it from something else because any such attempt is itself an indicator of the existence of faith.

We are driven toward genuine spiritual faith by our awareness that we somehow belong to the infinite. Faith is similar to love in that we do not own love like a possession, but rather discover it as a quality of our interpersonal relationships.  We learn how to enhance love, how to increase its presence through loyalty and devotion. Faith is like this; we cannot own it like a possession but we experience it as a quality of our orientation toward that which is of ultimate concern to us. And, as is the case with love, we learn how to enhance it and increase its power through loyalty and devotion.

Faith has been described as “the infinite passion” – it is a passion for the infinite. In true faith the ultimate concern is a concern about that which is truly ultimate.  In idolatrous faith, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.  The inescapable consequence of idolatrous faith is deep disappointment, a disappointment which penetrates into the very heart of our existence.  Idolatrous faith finds its center in something which is more or less on the periphery.  Therefore, the devotion of idolatrous faith leads to a loss of the center and to a disruption of the personality.  The ecstatic character of even an idolatrous faith can hide this consequence only for a certain time.  But finally it breaks into the open.

He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.  Where there is true spiritual faith, there is an awareness of holiness. 

The human heart yearns for the infinite because that is where our finite nature wants to rest.  In the infinite, the finite sees its own fulfillment.  The feeling of being consumed in the presence of the divine is a profound expression of our relation to the holy.  It is implied in every genuine act of faith, in every state of ultimate concern.

Faith, Doubt, Risk, and Courage

An act of faith is an act of a finite being who is attempting to orient himself with respect to the infinite.  It is a finite act with all the limitations of a finite act.  Faith is certain in so far as it is an experience of the holy.  But faith is uncertain in so far as the infinite to which it is related is understood by a finite being.  This element of uncertainty in faith cannot be removed, it must be accepted.  And the element in faith which accepts this uncertainty is courage.

In the courageous acceptance of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character.  Where there is daring and courage, there is always the possibility of failure.  And in every act of faith this possibility is present. The contents of our ultimate concern, whether it be our nation, our material success, or God himself, are concerns whose real nature may not be accessible to immediate awareness.  But the risk must be taken.

There is risk if what was considered as a matter of ultimate concern turns out to be a matter of temporary or transitory concern – as for example, the attainment of social status.  The risk to faith in one’s ultimate concern is that what was considered to be a matter of ultimate concern may prove to be a matter of transitory concern.  This is indeed the greatest risk we can take in life.  For if it proves to be a failure, if that to which we have devoted ourselves turns out to have been a temporal creation of our imagination, the meaning of our life breaks down; we find that we have surrendered ourselves to something which is not worthy of such surrender.

The most destructive form of doubt is not a doubt about facts or conclusions.  Genuine skeptical doubt is an attitude of actually rejecting the possibility that we can be certain about anything.  It is a doubt about whether it is possible to understand anything as being true.  Therefore it cannot be refuted logically.  Such an attitude necessarily leads either to despair or cynicism.  And often, if this alternative becomes intolerable, it leads to indifference and the attempt to develop an attitude of complete unconcern.  Skeptical doubt may serve an awakening and liberating function, but it also can prevent the development of a centered personality.

1766:4  159:3.8 "Faith is to religion what sails are to a ship; it is an addition of power, not an added burden of life. There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt--unbelief."

But the doubt which is inherent in faith is not skeptical doubt. It is the normal, healthy doubt which accompanies every risk. It does not question whether or not a certain proposition is true or false; but it is aware of the element of insecurity in every concept which we attempt to elevate to the level of that which represents the infinite.

At the same time, the doubt which is a part of faith accepts this insecurity in an act of courage.  Faith includes courage.  Therefore, it can include the doubt about itself.  Any act in which courage accepts risk is an indicator of the existence of faith.

1223:3  111:7.1 "Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure--uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father."

Faith and Community

In order to explore the content of our faith we need language and stories.  The religious language of sacred stories is created in the community of believers and cannot be fully understood outside this community.  But within the community, the religious language enables the act of faith to realize a richer content because it embodies the combined experience of many truth seekers.  Faith needs its language; without language and stories, faith could not be conscious of itself.  This is the reason why faith communities are important.

When we participate in study groups we not only study The Urantia Book, but we also become more aware of the experiences and insights of others; we are enriched and we contribute to the strengthening of faith by the manner in which we participate

1094:2  100:0.2“Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with other religionists. Love supplies the soil for religious growth--an objective lure in the place of subjective gratification--yet it yields the supreme subjective satisfaction. And religion ennobles the commonplace drudgery of daily living.”

The problem which arises here is that the community itself, with its own needs and attractions, stands in danger of replacing the life of faith.  Communities of believers must evolve in a way which facilitates the relationship between God and each participant.  The challenge for the community is to learn how to mobilize faith in the hearts of believers without becoming obsessed with ideology, without becoming an idolatrous replacement for the spiritual faith which originally led to the creation of the community

1487:1  134:4.4-9"Religious peace--brotherhood--can never exist unless all religions are willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign.

You cannot have equality among religions (religious liberty) without having religious wars unless all religions consent to the transfer of all religious sovereignty to some superhuman level, to God himself.

The kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men will create religious unity (not necessarily uniformity) because any and all religious groups composed of such religious believers will be free from all notions of ecclesiastical authority--religious sovereignty.

"God is spirit, and God gives a fragment of his spirit self to dwell in the heart of man. Spiritually, all men are equal. The kingdom of heaven is free from castes, classes, social levels, and economic groups. You are all brethren.

"But the moment you lose sight of the spirit sovereignty of God the Father, some one religion will begin to assert its superiority over other religions; and then, instead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dissensions, recriminations, even religious wars, at least wars among religionists.

"Freewill beings who regard themselves as equals, unless they mutually acknowledge themselves as subject to some supersovereignty, some authority over and above themselves, sooner or later are tempted to try out their ability to gain power and authority over other persons and groups. The concept of equality never brings peace except in the mutual recognition of some overcontrolling influence of supersovereignty."

Another problem faced by communities of believers deals with faith and doubt within the community of faith itself.  The question is whether the dynamic concept of faith is incompatible with a community defined by creedal expressions or which relies on shared beliefs for the maintenance of social coherence.  Such a situation will lead to problems if it excludes the element of doubt regarding the truth of the shared meanings which define the social boundaries of the community.  The concept of the “infallibility” of a creed, shared beliefs, a decision by a council, a bishop, or the contents of a book excludes doubt as an element of faith in those who subject themselves to these authorities.  They may have to struggle within themselves about their subjection; but after they have made the decision, no doubt can be admitted by them about the infallible statements of the authorities.  Such a faith has become static, a non-questioning surrender not only to the ultimate, but also to its symbolic expression as formulated by the religious authorities.  In this way something preliminary and conditional – the human interpretation of the content of faith is treated as if it were ultimate and is elevated above the risk of doubt.

This is idolatrous faith because its object is a human formulation which is merely representative of the infinite, but not the infinite itself.

When I speak of the “content of faith," I am referring to the stories, rituals of expression, and other factors which enable us to socialize our faith experience – to share it with other travelers on the journey. The "object of faith" is the infinite; the "content of faith" consists of the stories we tell ourselves and each other about the nature of the infinite and our relationship to it.

Pride and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed.  Doubt is overcome not by repression but by courage.  Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it accepts doubt as an inevitable expression of its inability to fully grasp the infinite.  Real courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction or belief.  Real courage enables us to live with the risk without which no creative life is possible.  Living faith is not a matter of doubtless certainty, but rather a matter of daring courage which accepts the possibility of failure. 

When we talk about the possibility of failure in relation to faith, it is important to understand that the real risk of faith is in the domain of what we have chosen to believe is true about reality as a result of our experience of the presence of the infinite.  There is always the chance that our beliefs have been constructed upon erroneous assumptions, or that they have been created by unmet needs of our unconscious minds.

Without an element of doubt we lose the power to have a faith capable of powering an unending quest for truth which includes constant critical evaluation, discarding of illusions and restructuring of the content of faith.  Thus we are equipped to pursue the quest for the infinite itself, rather than becoming paralyzed by centering our lives on a set of beliefs which merely represent the infinite.

Communities of faith must be sure that they include a means for criticism and self-correction. The Urantia Book notes that “Religion can be kept free from unholy secular alliances only by . . .  a critically corrective philosophy.”  In this same section the revelators suggest guarding against fanaticism “by the compensations of the scientific mental attitude.”

One of the great dangers in the formation of religious communities is a paralysis of spiritual growth which occurs when members of the community construct their social identities out of the roles they imagine themselves to be playing in the community. This difficulty is compounded when those social roles are reinforced by other members of the community. Genuine spiritual growth will eventually demand the abandonment of identity based on roles played in human social systems.

Faith and Belief

One of the most ordinary misinterpretations of faith is to consider it an act of knowledge that has a low degree of evidence. In this situation, we are speaking of “belief” rather than “faith.” Often this takes the form of a type of knowledge which not only has a low degree of evidence, but which is supported by religious authority.  In this case, an act of will by the believer is supposed to compensate for the lack of evidence to support the belief.

The Urantia Book has a whole section devoted to this topic with additional material on page 1108. I encourage you to review this important material as part of this study.  These selections contain some of the clearest commentary about the nature of faith and belief in The Urantia Book.

1114:5  101:8.1 "Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

"Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.

"Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.

"Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace."

1108:3  101:3.4"Through religious faith the soul of man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature by the characteristic manner in which it induces the mortal personality to react to certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. Genuine spiritual faith (true moral consciousness) is revealed in that it:

  • 1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies.
  • 2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat.
  • 3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity.
  • 4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.
  • 5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice.
  • 6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare.
  • 7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.
  • 8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul's survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy.
  • 9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times.
  • 10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments.
  • 11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.
  • 12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, "Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him."

Faith, Love, and Action

The concern of faith is identical with the desire of love; union with that to which one belongs and from which one feels estranged. We could even ask, “Is there such a thing as love without faith?”  There is certainly love without the acceptance of doctrines; faith as a set of  accepted and defended doctrines does not produce acts of love.  But faith as the state of being ultimately concerned implies love – the desire and urge toward union with that from which we feel separated.  The more love is present, the more faith has conquered its demonic-idolatrous possibilities. 

An idolatrous faith which gives ultimacy to a secondary concern stands against all other secondary concerns and excludes love relations between the representatives of contrasting claims.  The fanatic cannot love that against which his fanaticism is directed, for "love is the desire to do good to others."  Idolatrous faith is also confronted with the challenge of repressing the doubts which always characterize the elevation of something secondary to a level of ultimacy.

Lastly we must understand that faith as a state of being ultimately concerned reaches out into the world as action.  This is faith which seeks to transform and unite with God all that which appears to be separated from him.

2047:6  192:2.2"If you love me, Peter, feed my lambs. Do not neglect to minister to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel without fear or favor; remember always that God is no respecter of persons. Serve your fellow men even as I have served you; forgive your fellow mortals even as I have forgiven you. Let experience teach you the value of meditation and the power of intelligent reflection."

1780:5  160:5.3 "If something has become a religion in your experience, it is self-evident that you already have become an active evangel of that religion since you deem the supreme concept of your religion as being worthy of the worship of all mankind, all universe intelligences. If you are not a positive and missionary evangel of your religion, you are self-deceived in that what you call a religion is only a traditional belief or a mere system of intellectual philosophy."

The Element of Religious Concern – The Content of Faith

Again, when I speak of the “content of faith” I am referring to the beliefs, stories, rituals of expression, and other factors which enable us to socialize our faith experience – to share it with other travelers on the journey.

Faith is never experienced in isolation from some form of content.  It is experienced in, with and through it's content -- the ideas, language, stories, and rituals of a faith community. An analytic mind can understand the content of faith as being something different from the the spiritual experience of faith.

The Urantia Book contains stories about reality which help us understand our experience of faith as it relates to a personal universe -- a universe structured around relationships between personalities and personality systems.  For most of us, these stories form a significant part of the content of our faith.  Many people in our world use stories from the Bible or some other sacred text to accomplish the same spiritual purpose -- the illumination of the values which enable us to progress in our moral and spiritual lives.  

What is important to appreciate is that the goal of our experience of faith is infinite, while the stories with which we attempt to understand and to socially express this experience of faith are finite.  Therefore we should be aware from the beginning that our stories, our understandings, our sacred texts, our revelations, are always going to fall short of fully expressing that to which they point.  It is a fact that, because of our extreme finitude as human beings, any way in which we attempt to symbolize the infinite is going to be very limited.

The Urantia Book refers to the paradigms within which we do our thinking and choosing as “universe frames and we find a brief overview of the topic on page 1260.  The revelators comment that,

1260:2  115:1.1 "Partial, incomplete, and evolving intellects would be helpless in the master universe, would be unable to form the first rational thought pattern, were it not for the innate ability of all mind, high or low, to form a universe frame in which to think. If mind cannot fathom conclusions, if it cannot penetrate to true origins, then will such mind unfailingly postulate conclusions and invent origins that it may have a means of logical thought within the frame of these mind-created postulates. And while such universe frames for creature thought are indispensable to rational intellectual operations, they are, without exception, erroneous to a greater or lesser degree.

"Conceptual frames of the universe are only relatively true; they are serviceable scaffolding which must eventually give way before the expansions of enlarging cosmic comprehension. The understandings of truth, beauty, and goodness, morality, ethics, duty, love, divinity, origin, existence, purpose, destiny, time, space, even Deity, are only relatively true. . . . Man must think in a mortal universe frame, but that does not mean that he cannot envision other and higher frames within which thought can take place."


Farther on in this study, when we discuss the stages of faith, we will see that the ascent through the psychic circles involves moving through a series of universe frames.  We live within each one for a season, learning and growing.  These are paradigms, frames of reference constructed of meanings and values. But sooner or later there comes a breakdown of our conceptual scaffolding, our universe frame, and we must move on to a more expanded one within which we can experience further growth.

One of the great dangers of religious life is that we can easily mistake a particular “universe frame” for reality itself and become arrested in our development.  This is the basis of religious conflict and religious wars. When we have an experience of the presence of God, this experience may be made possible because of a relationship we have with a book, with a person, with a group, with a place, with an object, with a piece of music – almost anything is capable of mediating the presence of God to us.  The problems begin when we mistake the medium through which the presence of God is experienced for the experience itself. 

These concepts should help us understand the nature of doubt.  Once we have embarked upon the journey of faith, that which is at risk when we find ourselves doubting, is the content of our faith.  We might find ourselves asking, “Does The Urantia Book really contain the truth about reality?”  Or we might ask, “Does the Bible really contain the truth about reality?”  We may have doubts about whether or not a particular book is a faithful guide which can be trusted to lead us to our goal.  But the fact that such doubts disturb us is proof in itself that faith is operating in our lives – we are ultimately concerned even when we are experiencing doubt about the way in which we understand or express our involvement with that ultimate concern. 

If we understand this, and if we understand why The Urantia Book warns us about “the relativity of concept frames,” we can more easily appreciate why a ruthless quest for truth must ever be our guiding principle.  If we are truly growing in our faith experience, we will move through a number of “universe frames” during our mortal lives, each providing a conceptual environment within which we can experience growth, but each of which stands in danger of becoming an idolatrous substitute for the transcendent goal of faith -- an idolatrous substitute which can prevent further growth.

The remainder of my presentation will be devoted to sharing with you the road map of the faith journey which I mentioned earlier.    We’re going to review the various stages of faith through which we pass on our mortal journey.  We will also consider the psychological and spiritual crises which characterize the transitions between these stages.

1097:6  100:4.2 “Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.”

We will find that meaningful growth demands a willingness to experience difficulty.

Now let's take some time to review the specific stages of faith development and the life challenges presented by each of them..