In times of crisis, instability and adversity, we face more acute than usual questions about the causes and meaning of what is happening.
Finding no answers in everyday life, we try to appeal to higher powers, many turn to the search for God (without which they managed in a calmer time). Should we consider this a positive sign of the growth of spirituality or a sign of backwardness and conservatism?
An adult is able to maintain inner support, live and act even in the absence of precise knowledge.
By itself, faith does not solve anything, the main thing is what kind of person chooses this faith. In some, undoubted religiosity is combined with a pronounced spiritual search, in others — with its complete absence. A person who is inclined to expand his horizons and take responsibility, faith helps to find support for this; for a person who is inclined to look for simple answers and throw off responsibility, it helps too. There is some psychological research evidence that it is easier for believers to find meaning, happiness, and morality than non-believers*, but other data clarify that education also has the same effect, so to develop religious education and upbringing at the expense of secular — that change the awl for soap.
More than a hundred years ago, the eminent American philosopher and psychologist William James noted that the meaning of faith is that it can change our behavior, whether it is justified or not. What any faith (not only religious) gives us is by no means the truth, although in a sense it is more than the truth. This is an opportunity to live and act in the absence of exact knowledge, while maintaining inner support and stability — the most important asset of any adult.
Religion is not the only source of such inner stability, although it is the most popular and popularized. But whether to look for such support, and if so, where — everyone decides for himself. Determination in relation to matters of faith, the choice of religion or rejection of it is one of the main choices in a person’s life. Moreover, the choice is individual and deeply personal, extremely intimate. If faith ceases to be a personal matter and begins to become something like an imperative addressed to others, it turns from faith into an ideology, and we have already gone through this. From the Pravda newspaper to the Truth TV channel…
The key to the answer to the main question is found in the psychology of the individual, and not in the psychology of the masses. “One person asked Mr. K. if there is a God. Mr. K. said, “I advise you to consider whether your behavior will change depending on the answer to this question. If it remains the same, then we can no longer ask ourselves this question. If it changes, then I can help you at least by saying: you have already decided — you need God.
* S. Joseph, P. Linley, J. Maltby «Positive psychology, religion and spirituality». Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2006, vol. 9, issue 3.
** B. Brecht «History of Herr Keuner», Text, 2007.