The Nature of Faith Essay -- Psychology Religion Papers

The Nature of Faith Faith is an essential aspect of spiritual experience. Events can often be understood by some masses as aesthetic or pleasant 1 rather than religious because their chassis of reference rejects the spiritual connection for a more temporal one. However, of course, on that point are experiences that people have that by-pass any effort on their incite to explain them naturally and clearly demonstrate a spiritual situation. whizz British scholar described his experience, like those of many others, that convinced him of the honesty of God. He had no religion, no real sense of ain birth to God. He went for a walk alone one day, without particular thoughts or intentions, when he became conscious of the presence of someone else and realized a nip that the being of God surrounded him. It was no longer a matter of inference, it was an immediate act of spiritual... apprehension. The experience changed his whole perspective of the world and himself. I had non found God because I had never looked for him. But he had found me he had, I could not but believe, made himself personal to me 2. The man could interpret this experience because trustingness had been awakened or engender functionally directed in him. Some people, and many psychologists, deem reliance to be some issue akin to wishful thinking. The great philosopher-psychologist William James defined faith as a belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible, that the believer acts in faith by taking steps which are not guaranteed to turn out as he thinks they should 3. If faith is not wishful thinking, or acting in hope that the right thing will happen, then it is non-rational self-affirmation. Religious assertions... r... ..., Publ., 1968. Bregman, Lucy. The Rediscovery of the Inner Experience. Chicago Nelson Hall, 1982. Brown, L.B. The Psychology of morality. capital of the United Kingdom SPCK, 1988. Miller, Ed. L. Believing in God Readings on Faith and R eason. Upper weight River, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1996. Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy An Inquiry into the Non- Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. John W. Harvey (transl). London Oxford University Press, 1970. Schleiermacher, Friedrich. On Religion Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. John Oman (transl). freshly York Harper and Brothers, Publ., 1958. Strunk, Orlo (ed). Readings in the Psychology of Religion. New York Abingdon Press, 1959. Whittaker, John H. Matters of Faith and Matters of Principle Religious Truth Claims and Their Logic. San Antonio, TX Trinity University Press, 1981.