Faith, Trust, & Belief: A Trilogy of the Spirit

He recorded and produced two albums of gospel music while serving as writer, producer, and host of the Through the Bible series, a daily drive-time radio program. After graduating from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, during the s, Willis was simultaneously a high school music teacher, a symphony trombonist, a jazz musician, a part-time carpenter, and a choral conductor.

He became an ordained minister in , earned his master's degree in theology from Andover Newton Theological School, and attends the Florida Center for Theological Studies while engaged in doctoral studies in the field of cross-cultural spirituality for the 21st century. Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

With the world changing so rapidly in the 21st century, what is there left to believe in? Do traditional religions, science and philosophy still have anything left to offer - something that promises measurable hope? Are the words "faith," "trust" and "belief" still meaningful? Jim Willis believes that the next thrust of human evolution needs to be in the realm of the spirit; the human heart. He puts forth the argument that this step is natural and to be expected, because humankind is growing into a potential inherent since the beginnings of consciousness.

Read more Read less. Here's how restrictions apply. AuthorHouse December 5, Language: I'd like to read this book on Kindle Don't have a Kindle? Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Showing of 1 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Random House , where the then little-known psychiatrist first tried to publish his original manuscript, turned him down, saying the final section was "too Christ-y.

The book took off only after Peck hit the lecture circuit and personally sought reviews in key publications. Later reprinted in paperback in , The Road first made best-seller lists in — six years after its initial publication. He described four aspects of discipline:.

Peck argues that life was never meant to be easy, and is essentially a series of problems which can either be solved or ignored. He considers these tools to include delaying gratification, assuming responsibility, dedication to the truth, and balancing. Peck argues that these are techniques of suffering, that enable the pain of problems to be worked through and systematically solved, producing growth.

He argues that most people avoid the pain of dealing with their problems and suggests that it is through facing the pain of problem solving that life becomes more meaningful. Delaying gratification is the process by which pain is chosen to be experienced before pleasure.

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Most learn this activity by the age of five. For example, a six-year-old child will prefer eating the cake first and the frosting last. Children will rather finish their homework first, so that they can play later on. However, a sizable number of adolescents seem to lack this capacity. These problematic students are totally controlled by their impulses. Such youngsters indulge in drugs, get into frequent fights , and often find themselves in confrontation with authority. Peck states that it is only through taking responsibility and accepting the fact that life has problems, that these problems can then be solved.

M. Scott Peck

He argues that neurosis and character-disorder people represent two opposite disorders of responsibility. Neurotics assume too much responsibility and feel responsible for everything that goes wrong in their life, while character-disordered people deny responsibility, blaming others for their problems. Peck argues that everyone is neurotic or character-disordered at some time in their life, and the balance is to avoid both extremes. Dedication to the truth represents the capacity of an individual to modify and update their worldview when exposed to new information discordant with the old view.

For example, a bitter childhood can leave a person with the false idea that the world is a hostile and inhuman place. However, with continued exposure to more positive aspects of the world, this existing worldview is challenged and needs to be modified to integrate the new experiences.

Peck also argues that dedication to truth implies a life of genuine self-examination, a willingness to be personally challenged by others, and honesty to oneself and others. Peck considers the use of these interrelated techniques of discipline as paramount, if the difficulties and conflicting requirements of life are to be dealt with and balanced successfully. Peck believes that it is only through suffering and agonizing using the four aspects of discipline delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing that we can resolve the many puzzles and conflicts that we face.

Peck argues that by trying to avoid legitimate suffering, people actually ultimately end up suffering more. This extra unnecessary suffering is what Scott Peck terms neurotic suffering. He references Carl Jung 'Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering'. First published in , People of the Lie: Peck describes the stories of several people who came to him whom he found particularly resistant to any form of help. He came to think of them as evil and goes on to describe the characteristics of evil in psychological terms, proposing that it could become a psychiatric diagnosis.

Peck discusses evil in his book People of the Lie: In one case which Peck considers as the most typical because of its subtlety, he describes Roger, a depressed teenage son of respected, well off parents. With false rationality and normality, they aggressively refuse to consider that they are in any way responsible for his resultant depression, eventually suggesting his condition must be incurable and genetic. Some of his conclusions about the psychiatric condition that he designates as "evil" are derived from his close study of one patient he names Charlene.

According to Peck, people like her see others as play things or tools to be manipulated for their own uses or entertainment. Peck states that these people are rarely seen by psychiatrists, and have never been treated successfully.

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Evil is described by Peck as "militant ignorance". The original Judeo-Christian concept of " sin " is as a process that leads us to "miss the mark" and fall short of perfection. Peck considers those he calls evil to be attempting to escape and hide from their own conscience through self-deception , and views this as being quite distinct from the apparent absence of conscience evident in sociopathy. According to Peck an evil person: Most evil people realize the evil deep within themselves but are unable to tolerate the pain of introspection , or admit to themselves that they are evil.

Thus, they constantly run away from their evil by putting themselves in a position of moral superiority and putting the focus of evil on others. Using the My Lai Massacre as a case study Peck also examines group evil, discussing how human group morality is strikingly less than individual morality.

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Though the topic of evil has historically been the domain of religion, [10] Peck makes great efforts to keep much of his discussion on a scientific basis, explaining the specific psychological mechanisms by which evil operates. He was also particularly conscious of the danger of a psychology of evil being misused for personal or political ends.

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He argued that a diagnosis of evil should come from the standpoint of healing and safety for its victims, but also with the possibility even if remote, that the evil themselves may be cured. Ultimately Peck says that evil arises out of free choice. He describes it thus: Every person stands at a crossroads, with one path leading to God, and the other path leading to the devil. The path of God is the right path, and accepting this path is akin to submission to a higher power.

However, if a person wants to convince himself and others that he has free choice, he would rather take a path which cannot be attributed to its being the right path. Thus, he chooses the path of evil. Peck also discussed the question of the devil. Eventually, after having been referred several possible cases of possession and being involved in two exorcisms, he was converted to a belief in the existence of Satan.

Peck considered people who are possessed as being victims of evil, but of not being evil themselves. Peck however considered possession to be rare, and human evil common. He did believe there was some relationship between Satan and human evil, but was unsure of its exact nature. Peck's writings and views on possession and exorcism are to some extent influenced and based on specific accounts by Malachi Martin , however the veracity of these accounts and Peck's own diagnostic approach to possession have both since been questioned by a Catholic priest who is a professor of theology.

His perspective on love in The Road Less Traveled is that love is not a feeling , it is an activity and an investment. Love is primarily actions towards nurturing the spiritual growth of another. Peck seeks to differentiate between love and cathexis. Cathexis is what explains sexual attraction , the instinct for cuddling pets and pinching babies cheeks. However, cathexis is not love. All the same, true love cannot begin in isolation, a certain amount of cathexis is necessary to get sufficiently close to be able to truly love.