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Index to this Study

The Challenges of Faith in
the Quest for Cosmic Citizenship

The emergent strength of this stage is the forming of stories of faith; stories which help to explain our role in social systems, and which contain our first symbolizations of the mysterious and the unknown.  At this stage we experience entrance into the seventh psychic circle. Cosmic citizenship becomes potential here because the personality has exhibited the capacity to make choices relative to the well-being of other personalities.

Stage 2 Personal Values

In this stage other people are viewed in terms of how they will impact the needs of the self to feel secure, needed, loved, free, important, and esteemed.

A basic form of moral judgment emerges which is based on ideas of reciprocal fairness. “I did this for you, now you must do this for me.”

Understandings of God in this stage also take on a pattern of reciprocity.  We engage in prayers and acts of praise in an attempt to store up God’s good favor against times when special help or forgiveness may be needed -- we try to make “deals” with God.

Stage 2 Social Values

The boundaries of social consciousness in this stage extend to people who “are like us” in familial, ethnic, racial, class and religious terms. 

The locus of authority is in the family and the family’s immediate community.  People in authority roles recognized by the family become authority figures for us. Experiences in school and exposure to mass media create the beginning of awareness that a larger world exists than that of the family and immediate community.

Stage 2 Supportive Stories

If we picture the flow of our lives as a river, this stage tells stories that describe our perspective from the middle of the river.  In this stage we do not have the ability to step out on the bank beside the river and reflect on stories about the nature of the river itself.

In this stage we begin to take on for ourselves the stories, beliefs and observances that symbolize belonging to our community. 

Stage 2 Faith Experience

In this stage we place full trust in our primary care givers and the values of our significant community.  We become idealists and assume that everyone and everything should be perfect -- family, friends, teachers, school, neighborhood and church. "Perfection" at this stage is understood to be conformance to the values of our significant community.

We tend to possess a great degree of certitude; we have complete confidence in our perceptions (things are either black or white) and in our opinions (we are always right). 

Stage 2 Faith Challenges

Our transition into Stage 3 begins with the discovery that there are competing stories whose meanings contradict each other.  This leads to reflection on those various meanings.  The transition to more formal thinking makes such reflection possible and necessary.  Previous literalism breaks down and an overconfidence in our own assessments leads to disillusionment with previous teachers and teachings.  Conflicts between authoritative stories must be faced.  For example, conflicts between the Genesis story of creation and evolutionary theory.  The discovery of such conflicts as well as growing awareness of a greater world create the need to find some means of unifying the increasingly diverse content of mind and experience.