Published 08/08/2026 | by Dr. Daniel T. Lewis

Why does this matter?  Correctly directed faith helps individuals discover a sense of purpose, facilitates purposeful personal expressiveness, and provides opportunities for effortful engagement in meaningful activities.

How can I apply it this week?  You can discover the ways correctly directed faith facilitates the pursuit of human flourishing. 

Introduction

Attainment of human flourishing requires more than just believing deeply in something. The alignment of personal goals and priorities with divinely revealed standards moves faith beyond a belief system to a driving motivational force and source of meaning. Faith moves beyond mere belief by provoking God-honoring life actions. By divine design, the theological and psychological dimensions of meaning come by faith. A life grounded in well-placed faith accelerates human flourishing by revealing the meaning of life, defining individual and community identity, and guiding individuals in their pursuit of meaningful purpose.

In this way, faith enhances our understanding of freedom, informs our approach to the formation of the whole individual, and facilitates the successful pursuit of human flourishing. Human flourishing differs significantly from material prosperity. The conceptualization of faith as the motivation for the successful pursuit of human flourishing establishes a direct nexus between faith and human flourishing, one recognized by many philosophers.  The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Wellbeing (Waterman et al, 2010) defined human flourishing as a sense of purpose, purposeful personal expressiveness, and effortful engagement.

The Relationship of Faith to the Three Dimensions of Human Flourishing

Sense of purpose: Integrating faith into daily life helps individuals set meaningful priorities and goals. Faith draws attention to higher goals and priorities that exceed temporal needs and desires. Faith, when properly placed, directly generates a sense of purpose and meaning through a calling to higher, more noble outcomes. An emphasis on faith-based goals fosters coherence in life and establishes a specific direction for actions.

Psychological research has shown that a sense of purpose requires both meaning and direction. Faith provides the foundation that integrates individual freedom, personal psychological and spiritual formation, and human flourishing into a comprehensive sense of purpose. The strong foundation for human flourishing provided by faith assembles because faith finally answers the ageless questions of philosophy: Why do we exist? What purpose drives our lives? What goals should we prioritize? Greek philosophy diverged on that last question, with some philosophers promoting a life of virtue, while others emphasized a life of pleasure and indulgence. Faith removes the need for an individual to construct their sense of purpose on their own; instead, they may rely on divine revelation. The creation of humanity in God’s image (Imago Dei, Genesis 1:26-27) endowed us with an inherent dignity. Faith established our identity, explained our purpose, and gave direction to our actions (Ephesians 2:10). In other words, faith produces our meaning and calling. Our meaning and calling clarify our life goals. Life goals establish a sense of purpose, and the development of a sense of purpose moves us towards human flourishing.

Purposeful personal expressiveness: By establishing a sense of purpose and meaning, faith helps individuals understand their identity. Faith clarifies what one needs to accomplish in life. Individuals discover the optimal uses of their gifts and talents through the lens of faith. Trust in one’s values arises from commitment to a life guided by faith. These contributions from faith help individuals identify and engage in meaningful activities and discover true purposeful personal expressiveness.

Activities that involve purposeful personal expressiveness manifest one’s identity, while highlighting critical dimensions of one’s potential. Increased faith optimizes opportunities to engage in activities that align with purposeful personal expression. Faith helps individuals discover their identity. A life of faith leads to the discovery of one’s gifts, talents, and abilities. Faith clearly defines everyone’s life mission and how to use their abilities in a meaningful manner. The theology of faith frames abilities as gifts to be developed and used with purpose (Romans 12:6). Faith shapes our understanding of our identity and our abilities and calling. Our divine calling leads us to participate in meaningful activities, expressed as purposeful personal expressiveness. Purposeful self-expression guided by faith differs from unrestricted self-expression encouraged in non-faith-based systems. Faith gives us the standard for evaluating the appropriateness of our purposeful personal expressiveness. Faith moves the focus from what activities express an individual’s personality to what activities express the purpose for which we exist.

Effortful engagement: The reason to display fortitude in difficult but meaningful activities arises from commitment to faith, even in the apparent absence of an immediate reward. Genuine faith naturally produces a desire to love and care for others, and that desire, in turn, fosters a sense of justice. The contemplative nature of faith produces a life guided by prudence. Faith moves life towards temperance. Above all else, the faithful find hope as they deal with life’s trials. Many Greek philosophers concluded that human flourishing emerges from a life guided by virtue (aretê ἀρετή), furthermore the Greeks identified four essential or cardinal virtues: fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance. In the Middle Ages, theologians added three spiritual virtues: love, hope, and faith. These theologians found these virtues throughout the New Testament, particularly in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Pursuing these virtues takes effortful engagement, and faith makes that effortful engagement possible.

The process of effortful engagement acknowledges that life comes with challenges; sometimes circumstances take us beyond our comfort zone, and the trials of life deplete our emotional reserves. James 1:2–4 describes how the testing of faith produces endurance, and endurance contributes to spiritual maturity and completeness, outcomes in alignment with a Christian conception of human flourishing. When actions require temperance, love, fortitude, and effortful engagement, they often increase human flourishing. At first, the connection between life’s trials and human flourishing appears counterintuitive, but consideration of faith validates it. Even when life and activities become difficult, faith provides the incentive to keep us moving forward. The apostle Paul observed, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23). Faith fundamentally changes our perceptions about the meaning of effort. In Genesis 2:15, God put humanity in the garden to tend it, a mandate for effortful engagement. The fall of humanity produced a shift from the ease of effortful engagement in the garden as the means of meeting basic needs to the necessity of a life of toil to meet those same needs. The introduction of sin made effortful engagement more difficult. Faith, when rightly placed, aligns our lives with meaningful goals. Those meaningful goals foster internalized, transcendent motivations to persevere and demonstrate fortitude. These motivations then result in meaningful effortful engagement. Faith begins and drives the whole process of moving towards human flourishing. The importance of faith in the pursuit of human flourishing increases when extrinsic rewards fail to materialize. When the meaning of an activity comes from physical rewards such as wealth, fame, or recognition by others as a success, then a lack of those rewards removes the motivation for effortful engagement. A purpose rooted in deep faith perseveres and even strengthens in adversity. Instead of minimizing effort, faith endows effort with meaning and purpose (James 1:2-4).

Human Flourishing

Framing faith as the psychological and theological resource needed to facilitate the pursuit of human flourishing eliminates the mistaken conclusion that faith always produces human flourishing. The superiority of correctly placed faith establishes a solid foundation for the pursuit of human flourishing. The foundation of faith fortifies our sense of purpose and manifests our identity, gifts, talents, and abilities through effortful engagement. Faith also shows an important relationship to freedom, formation, and flourishing. The purposeful direction of human action arises from a foundation of faith. Freedom gives individuals the choice to decide whether and how they want to pursue the purpose of their lives. The combination of purposeful personal expressiveness and effortful engagement in meaningful activities produces human flourishing. 

Faith as the Foundation of Human Flourishing

The combination of sense of purpose, purposeful personal expressiveness, and effortful engagement coalesces into a coherent developmental sequence that promotes human flourishing. On a theoretical level, the three flourishing variables combine to increase overall human flourishing, driven by a life grounded in faith. Faith provides a sense of purpose by answering the question of why engaging in a particular course of action matters. Faith clarifies our understanding of WHO our identity embodies, while we manifest our identity through purposeful personal expression. Finally, faith motivates HOW we overcome adversity through effortful engagement. As part of a system for promoting human flourishing, faith begins by clarifying meaning, identity, calling, hope, and values. From the sense of meaning, faith develops our sense of purpose as we begin to understand the direction of our lives towards something meaningful. The manifestation of our capabilities, gifts, and talents through meaningful activities helps us experience purposeful personal expressiveness. Then our activities matter enough to us that we find it worthwhile to invest ourselves in them through effortful engagement. Epistemology helps us properly place our faith.

Reference

Waterman, A., Schwartzb, S., Zamboangac, B., Ravertd., R., Williamse, M., Agochae, B., Kimf, S., Donnellang, B. (2010, January). The questionnaire for eudaimonic well-being: Psychometric properties, demographic comparisons, and evidence of validity. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(1), 41–61.