Faith & trust

Faith is an inner orientation – the certainty of a truth that cannot be proven with the intellect and yet convinces from one’s own experience. Trust is the carrying force that grows out of it: trust in oneself, in life and in others. At the Kyborg Institute we understand both as something that comes from within – not as something that can be decreed from outside.

What is faith?

In „Die Ethik des Neuen Menschen” D. Harald Alke describes faith as a force from one’s own centre – from the heart, from inner centredness and honest self-reflection. Faith is, in this view, not knowledge, but a certainty that carries: “Faith is the honest consequence of not-knowing.” Socrates already called philosophical reflection “the awareness of not-knowing”.

Inner faith – no decreed dogma

Genuine faith cannot be commanded. A “faith” that one compels through ordinances, laws or dogmas has nothing to do with inner faith – it is rather an expression of insecurity and the wish to control others. Here the same line shows itself as with ethics and morality: what grows from within carries – what is imposed from outside oppresses.

Thus faith also differs from religion: faith is the inner attitude, religion the outer system. The two can find each other, but need not.

Open in worldview terms

At the Kyborg Institute, faith is to be prescribed to no one. Our methods are value-neutral – independently of what a person believes. No one may have a particular religious attitude set before them as the “only right” faith. Genuine trust arises voluntarily, never through fear or pressure.

What does that mean in practice?

• Understand faith as inner certainty, not as a duty.
• Leave others their way – faith cannot be decreed.
• Cultivate trust: in oneself, in life, in the people with whom one lives.

Autor: D. Harald Alke