The 8 Stages of Faith: Fowler, Spiral, and Vervaeke

As people grow and develop, how does their faith develop with them?

This question can be answered in many ways. But I’ll be considering it through the work of theologian James Fowler, the biggest name in tracking faith through stages. A few years ago I tried mapping his 7 stages of faith onto Spiral Dynamics, and discovered the two development models overlap elegantly, the main difference being that the Spiral has 8 stages (and thus Green and Yellow are both subsumed into Fowler’s Conjunctive Faith stage). I discuss this mapping in more detail in a paper.

In trying to find reference charts/diagrams online of Fowler’s Stages of Faith I came up mostly empty-handed, and so decided to create my own! Yet, in making this reference material, I discovered that (1) Fowler’s naming of stages is often quite clunky for common discussion about faith and (2) The Spiral model has a lot to offer embellishing Fowler’s work and (3) I can loop in some of Vervaeke language as well to enhance the this joint-model.

Thus, I came up with the following chart of 8 Stages of Faith (or, if you prefer, 8 Dimensions of Faith), which is a fair summary of Fowler’s Stages, while also functioning as a slightly expanded model of faith development.

Patterns rather than just Stages: I believe, consistent with Fowler and the Spiral, there is a real developmental order and ontological priority with these stages. Each one builds upon aspects of the previous, and thus they unfold naturally according to inherent patterns of reality. Yet, I don’t believe that by “moving on” to another stage, the previous are necessarily disregarded. Nor are people at any point only in one stage, for it is quite possible for people to “move on” in one area of faith, but not another. People are able to incorporate many, even all of the stages into their faith (in fact, a robust faith should include every faith stage)! That’s because these are not just “stages” but “patterns” of faith with various focuses and underlying orientations towards what is real, transcendent, and ultimate. Thus, all the stages have indispensable value, for all connect us to aspects of what is really real.

8-Dimentional Faith: Each of these patterns are dimensions to faith — and thus, in the framing of this theory, we all have access to an 8-dimentional faith-space. In one’s life, it may be that some dimensions are under-developed or completely unexplored. Faith may be very strong in one dimension, but if not bolstered by the other dimensions, it is brittle, and prone to breaking when stressed in the wrong way. A resilient faith is strong in many dimensions, and a vibrant faith is richly bearing fruit in at least one of the dimensions.

On Vervaeke's Kinds of Knowing: I am personally fascinated by the ways the 4 kinds of knowing appear to ebb and flow through these stages. (Summary of the 4 Kinds of Knowing here.) It makes sense that Participatory knowing, the most foundational kind of knowing, frames the stages — as both primary and ultimate, in Primal Faith and Mystical Faith. Participatory knowing is the rim and center of the wheel of faith.
Perspectival knowing is the closest to Participatory. In Intuitive Faith, an intuition of the patterns of reality is created through taking on different perspectives. The shaman (frequently found in “Purple religion”) is the specialist of this perspective-mining, discovering new and useful perspectives using cognitive-disruptive strategies, ritual, and divination. While Intuitive Faith forms our initial perspectives, Integrative Faith is about gaining facility and dexterity with them, able to intentionally move between different perspectives freely, thus developing opponent-processing between various intuitions of faith, while also discovering meta-perspectives which unify and support all these perspectives.
Procedural knowing is about what works. This is exactly what Functional Faith is, and is a common bastion for faith after deconstructing propositional faith and finding it lacking. Personal Faith is also largely about what works, but often in a more short-sighted and self-focused way. Individually, it involves personal stories about God and experiences that are only relevant to oneself — deeply valuable personally, yet not necessarily useful for engaging with others. On a collective level (Red religion), every tribe/nation has a personal god, and that god fights for them (who cares about everyone else!). Note that sacrifice is often emphasized at this stage as a necessary procedure of faith. This is also the pattern of faith most likely to force conversions or spread faith by the sword, for it’s a tactic that “works.”
Propositional knowing is, understandably, seen as an improvement upon many of the pitfalls of “what works,” or at least it’s seen that way in Conventional Faith, which promotes moral codes for the common good, and unifies people around shared beliefs, creeds, and values. Conventional Faith cares about procedural conventions as well, but will justify the procedures through propositional argument moreso than procedural effectiveness. (Personal faith primarily “argues” through personal witness, testimony, and action, rather than though logical argument). The focus on logical argument in Conventional Faith leads ultimately towards Exploratory Faith, and a pursuit of truth, regardless of whether it is found in the Conventional pattern or not. If one is limited to exploring ideas similar to their Conventional Faith, they explore without much tension with their Conventional Faith… but if they explore ideas (and activities and paradigms) which seem radically opposed to their Conventional Faith, there is often heavy tension and a pressure to break from the Conventional Faith. This pursuit of truth, if continually stuck in the propositional realm, will lead to despair and nihilism, but if the pursuit of truth involves exploration through the other kinds of knowing, faith can expand to include all the stages!

What do we mean by faith?: For the purposes of this model, faith is the pattern of one’s relatedness to and concern for what is real and ultimate. All the 8 stages are examples of such patterns. I will save a more robust discussion defining faith for another time. For now, Fowler and Vervaeke have provided us adequate language.

In the non-denominational tradition I was raised in, “faith” was generally considered as “belief in God.” While this description of faith can be technically accurate if “belief” and “God” are deeply understood, I have concerns that this language promotes a shallow understanding of faith. For “belief” is easily confused for mere acceptance of propositions (rather than lived participation… see my Faith or Belief? article) and “God” is easily confused for an invisible person who’s somewhat, or entirely, dictatorial. God would be better understood as the Infinite Mystery of Ultimate Reality, the Good, True, and Beautiful, Love Itself, the underlying intelligibility of the universe (Logos), Existence Itself, the Ground of Being, the Dharma, and the Tao… notwithstanding that God can (and should) also be understood as personable :)

Ah, so there’s a little teaser on future articles regarding God and faith.

Have you noticed within yourself a gravitation towards (or aversion to) a particular kind of faith? Feel free to share with me your thoughts on the 8 Stages of Faith!