Resilient Faithfulness

Abstract

Resiliency has been a widespread topic of psychological and neuroscience research over the past twenty-five years, revealing how each person’s inner strength develops and how men, women, and children persevere through the trials, traumas, stressors, and challenges of life. Resilience in the face of adversity requires a dynamic tension between the physical adaptations to environmental and psychological challenges as well as the transcendent perspectives of the meanings and purposes, sorrows and joys, fears and excitations of human life. This paper explores the causes and strengthening elements of resiliency through two lenses, the neuro-psychological and the theological. Resiliency happens at the intersection of body and soul, brain and mind, science and faith, the physical and the metaphysical. Resilience can be the powerful interior strength that is enhanced or deprived by physiological factors that determine if obstacles are perceived as insurmountable or mere road-bumps to be conquered. Evidence for resiliency is also found in saints, martyrs, prophets, and hosts of faith-filled people who embody the virtuous attributes of faith and fortitude. Thus, this paper proposes that the strength of resilience must include transcendent dimensions of the human person balanced with the physiological elements and offers a model of a dialectic of resiliency.