Paper 102 Overview: The Foundations of Religious Faith

This paper explores the foundations of religious faith and explains how faith helps humans overcome the challenges of living in a material world. Religious faith allows people to see beyond the physical universe and connect with God as a loving Father. The paper contrasts the certainty of religious experience with the uncertainty of materialistic views.

Religious faith is based on personal spiritual experience that cannot be proven by science or logic. Even though religion cannot be proven by experiments, it is just as real and valid as scientific knowledge. Religious experience gives people a deep sense of certainty about God that goes beyond what facts and logic can provide.

For those who don't believe in God, human life seems like an accident in the universe with no purpose or meaning after death. From this view, all human efforts, loves, and beliefs will eventually disappear into nothingness after death. This viewpoint creates a feeling of despair about life's meaning.

This dark view of life is not humanity's true destiny. The darkness of despair can be overcome by one brave act of faith from any of God's children. This saving faith is born when people realize that human values can be transformed from material to spiritual, from human to divine, and from time to eternity.

The Thought Adjuster explains how humans move from a sense of duty to a true faith in eternal realities. If a person chooses to do God's will, they will know the path of truth. Human things must be known to be loved, but divine things must be loved to be known.

The faith of religion comes from spiritual insights, while science is based on observable facts of time. Truth remains unchanged through all generations, though teachings about the physical world may change. The more science you know, the less certain you can be, but the more religion you have, the more certain you become.

People know religion when they see it in the lives of others. No definition is needed because we recognize the social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual fruits of religious living. Religion belongs to humanity and is not created by culture.

Religious people live as if they are already in the presence of the Eternal Being. They show a unique originality and spontaneity that sets them apart from others. They seem free from the stresses and worries that trouble most people. While knowledge is always a search that never ends, the religious soul knows God now, in the present moment.

Not having enough education makes it harder to grow spiritually. However, too much focus on intellectual aspects of religion can also be harmful. Religion must use thought effectively while also recognizing that thinking is not the most important part of spiritual experience.

Science sorts people into groups, but religion loves all people. Wisdom treats different people fairly, and revelation shows how all people can become partners with God. Science searches for facts, religion grasps the whole universe, and philosophy tries to connect material science with spiritual insights. When philosophy fails to connect them, revelation succeeds.

Because of the Thought Adjuster in your mind, knowing God's mind is no more mysterious than knowing any other mind. Religion begins when you recognize the reality of other minds beyond your own. Faith then transforms this experience into the recognition of God as the source of all other minds.

Prayer is part of religious experience but has been overemphasized compared to worship. Prayer may enrich life, but worship illuminates our eternal destiny. Revealed religion unifies history and all the sciences by providing a spiritual center for understanding the universe.

Although proving belief is not the same as proving what is believed, the evolution of life from simple organisms to personalities shows that personality potential existed from the beginning. In the evolving cosmos, what will be is the unfolding of God's purpose.

Primitive human fear transforms into deeper reverence for God and awe of the universe. This shows how spirit potentials can overcome actual mind limitations. Religion is more than emotionalized morality - it is to morality what love is to duty and what sonship is to servitude.

As science eliminates false gods and superstition, it may temporarily blur spiritual vision. But the relationship between humans and God is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith that cannot be precisely defined. A true religious person has faith in a personal God, not just an idea or concept.

Faith transforms the philosophical God of probability into the certain God of religious experience. The God-knowing soul dares to say "I know," even when questioned by doubters. Faith is always triumphant over doubt, as positive always has advantage over negative, truth over error, and spiritual realities over isolated facts of time and space.

The Universal Father lives in every rational mortal. You cannot be sure about God unless you know him through personal experience. The universe and God are not identical - one is cause, the other is effect. The cause is absolute and unchanging; the effect is changing and growing.

Those who try to create a religion without God are like those who want fruit without trees or children without parents. You cannot have effects without causes; only God is causeless. You cannot pray to a chemical formula, worship a hypothesis, or have loving fellowship with a law.

The highest evidence for religion is that humans, who are naturally fearful and concerned with self-preservation, will trust their future to God. Different religions disagree about what God requires in return for salvation, but all recognize this basic trust.

Religion is best judged by its moral judgments and ethical standards. The higher the religion, the more it encourages and is encouraged by improving social morality. Religion is always rooted in personal experience. The highest religion revealed in our universe is the earth life of Jesus - a mortal man seeking God and finding him, while God sought and found man.