the varieties of faith


When thinking of "faith," we may picture churches, temples, rituals, and scriptures. We’re less likely to imagine secular pillars like experimental evidence, data, and logic. These seem in sharp contrast with one another, and many people—both religious and atheist—would say secular faith isn’t faith at all.

But when we look at basic psychology, we find that faith is not the exclusive domain of religion, and it isn’t absent from secular systems such as science. At its core, faith is a vital, universal human faculty—the ability to act in the face of uncertainty.

Far from being about dogmatic belief, faith spans a broad spectrum and is necessary nearly every moment of our lives. We’d be largely paralyzed if we demanded certainty before action. Instead, we navigate our chaotic and unpredictable world using a mix of baseline assumptions, learned rules, and gut feelings derived from experience and instinct, all of which we embrace on faith, not on the basis of unshakeable evidence. Beyond that are more mysterious aids, such as flashes of insight, deeply felt intuitions, and mystical realizations. For us to use any of these as guides, we must have faith in them. Admittedly, some people distrust these latter sources, especially if they have no personal experience with them. But the distrust itself depends on faith—in one’s ability to know what’s valid and what isn’t in human experience.

By mapping a spectrum of faiths, we can see how various forms are available to us. Everybody uses many on the list, plus others. At the same time, no one uses them all. We rely on some faiths and not others according to our backgrounds, temperaments, and experiences. Occasionally, we make conscious choices about them, as when a person chooses to go all in with a particular religion or philosophy.

It helps to notice the role of faith in our lives, because it’s behind many of humanity's heroic actions. Who would climb El Capitan without faith in their skills and equipment? But it also undergirds everyday experiences, like driving through an intersection on a green light, on the faith that drivers facing red will wait their turn.

When seen clearly, faith also invites humility because, by definition, it is not 100% reliable. Consider the sun. We have faith it will rise at the expected time every day, and it probably will for the rest of our lives. But if a rogue planet from another solar system crashed into ours, sunrise as we know it would be over. Even our most deeply convinced faiths are less than totally reliable. That’s what makes them faiths.

Yet despite this core feature of faith, it is powerful. It allows us to move with a measure of confidence through an uncertain and hazardous world. It enables, in other words, courage.

I invite you to scan the list below to get a sense of which faiths are ones you use, and which you reject or disbelieve. It can also be interesting to ask: in which faiths do you find meaning and purpose? Which do the most to bolster your courage?


[NOTE: this list was generated with a lot of help from AI.]


Instinctual Faiths—These require no conscious thought, philosophy, or belief system; they are wired into human survival from birth.

Necessary Faiths—These are practical baseline assumptions that every functioning adult relies on to navigate daily secular society.

Cultural Faiths—These tend to develop in large, human-made systems.

Traditional Faiths—These depend on ancient cultural frameworks, with orientation toward an unseen but traditionally described order.

Religious Faiths—These tend to grow out of specific religious traditions, theological doctrines, or community covenants.

Esoteric Faith—These are dependent on transcendent psychological states or direct philosophical insights that alter baseline perception.