Unpredictable events or uncertainty is the second name of life. Human life is composed of both happiness and sadness. The way individuals experience safety, security and love on the same side, they also experience sudden, unpredictable tragedies in life. Both comfort and unpredictability strike a balance in human life.
Uncertainty could be a sudden loss of a job, individuals or family members getting diagnosed with a terminal or chronic illness, social instability or even the death of a loved one. Everyone has a set of coping mechanisms or strategies in order to process the sudden occurrence. This article aims to understand whether faith, religious beliefs or spirituality act as coping mechanisms. How does faith helps an individual to maintain homeostasis during times of uncertainty?
Read More: Psychology Behind Uncertainty: Why the Unknown Triggers Anxiety
Understanding Coping Mechanisms and Stress Management
According to Bailey (2025), behaviours that help individuals to decrease and manage stress and unpleasant events are known as coping mechanisms. Coping Mechanisms can be maladaptive and adaptive. For example, Max is an 18-year-old teenager, and recently he had a break-up with his partner. Due to extreme agony and sadness, he started composing poems whenever he got time. By composing poems, he was able to express his pain through words and poetry. This type of coping is known as the adaptive Coping mechanism.
Coping Mechanisms are essentially of two types: Problem-focused and Emotion-focused Coping Mechanisms. When an individual aims to remove or eliminate the source of stress, it is known as a problem-focused coping mechanism, and when an individual changes the way he reacts to Stressors’ is known as an emotion-focused coping mechanism.
Algorani et al. (2023) state that coping is a voluntary and conscious state of action, which is different from defence mechanisms. Defence mechanisms are unconscious ways to mitigate stress. Both Coping and Defence mechanisms aim to reduce stress. Coping mechanisms are consistent over time and across situations.
- Problem-focused coping mechanisms include: Time management, asking for help, establishing healthy boundaries, and making a to-do list.
- Emotions Focused Coping mechanism include: Mediation, Exercise, and taking a bath. Faith is an emotion-focused coping mechanism.
Read More: Faith as a Coping Mechanism: Psychological Resilience Among Students in Religious Education
The Role of Faith during Uncertainty
Faith means complete trust in someone or something. Individuals can have faith in God, their best friend, parents, or it can be anyone or anything. Faith helps in knowing the unknown. There are theories of Faith which help explain how faith develops gradually. These theories are known as ‘Faith Development Theories’.
John Westerhoff 3 stage faith development theory
- Affiliative Faith: It begins in high school years. It manifests through the interaction with the world and others. Faith develops through trust in significant others. Individuals learn by themselves to trust others, and they are not taught. Children here look towards their community as a source of faith. Children depend on others to understand faith and how they feel.
- Searching Faith: It begins in high school years and extends up to early adulthood. By this age, individuals are no longer dependent on the community; rather, they question, judge, and experiment with the philosophical formulations. For the search for truth, individuals move from being dependent to autonomy. Individuals hold a strong opinion that it is important to doubt questions on the faith that is handed over to them.
- Mature Faith: It extends from middle adulthood and continues until death. This final stage is characterized with the union of God. By this stage, individuals are no longer influenced by community and even by their own intellect. In this stage, individuals become secure with their faith. Individuals hold strong opinions about their convictions(Westerhoff, J. H., 1980).
The above theory explains how faith develops over life span. Faith is not something which is innate rather humans observe and understand it.
Faith as a Resource During Times of Uncertainty
Uncertainty simply means not knowing what will happen next. Example: An individual was advised by his doctor to get an MRI scan to check whether there were any tumours in the body. The individual now becomes uncertain as he does not know what the MRI report will suggest. Uncertainty brings stress, worries and negative thinking. Uncertainty can also be a major life tragedy experienced by individuals. It becomes important to look that apart from being practical do individuals keep faith during tough times.
Research Evidence on Faith and Chronic Illness
In a research study by Gordon et al. (2011), researchers studied 40 women who were chronically ill. Illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, or a combination of these disorders. These women used religious beliefs and faith as coping strategies. The participants aged between 29 and 79 Years were interviewed about whether religious beliefs or faith helped them cope with illness. The majority of women reported that religious beliefs helped them to cope with chronic illness and had beneficial results for recovery.
According to Unantenne et al. (2013), their study examined interviews of 69 people with Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease. Researchers explored how individuals incorporated spiritual practices, faith in their self-management routine, and they also highlighted the importance of spiritual practices in managing chronic illness. Results suggested that faith was an important factor in reducing stress.
Participants reported that faith and spirituality helped them to deal with stress, anxiety and frustration. Participants reported that faith gave them a sense of relief and assurance. Findings also suggested that faith helped individuals to take responsibility for their own well-being. Faith provided a space for emotional support. It made participants feel less isolated.
Read More: The Connection Between Emotional Stress, Depression, and Cardiovascular Health
Resilience
Resilience is the act of bouncing back from adverse situations in life. It is not a magical power because some individuals are naturally more resilient, while others are not. After any traumatic event or adverse event, every individual has their own way to come back to a normal life. Some individuals come back stronger, while some succumb to it.
The Risk and Protective Factor model of resilience
Risk factors are conditions, attributes or behaviours that can have a negative impact on the developmental outcome. Risk factors can be individual problems, or they can include socio-economic issues, distress, genetic vulnerability, etc. Protective factors mitigate the risk factors. Protective factors actually protect individuals from the negative outcomes. These factors include family and peer support, emotional support from the community, etc. While interpreting, faith can be a protective factor. As individuals make use of it during uncertainty, that is a risk factor( Roberts, D. 2026).
Conclusion
Faith is not innate, and it develops over time. Research has shown that faith helps during times of uncertainty. Faith is one of the positive ways to cope. Resilience is the aftermath of uncertainty. How individuals will bounce back after uncertain times is determined by resilience.
Faith can neither be imposed nor it can be forced on individuals. The emergence of faith happens with individuals getting exposure to it and then maturing enough to believe in it. Faith among caregivers and family members of the patient has shown beneficial effects.
References +
- Bailey, A. (2022, October 18). Coping mechanisms: Everything you need to know. Verywell Health. verywellhealth.com
- Algorani, E. B., & Gupta, V. (2023, April 24). Coping mechanisms. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559031/
- Roberts, D. (2026). Social and environmental influences on resilience. In The psychology of resilience: Understanding and enhancing human strength and perseverance. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. https://eaglepubs.erau.edu/psychologyofresilience/chapter/main-content-4/
- Gordon, P.A., Feldman, D., Crose, R., Schoen, E., Griffing, G. and Shankar, J. (2002), The Role of Religious Beliefs in Coping With Chronic Illness. Counseling and Values, 46: 162-174. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007X.2002.tb00210.x
- Unantenne, N., Warren, N., Canaway, R., & Manderson, L. (2013). The strength to cope: Spirituality and faith in chronic disease. Journal of Religion and Health, 52(4), 1147–1161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9554-9
- Westerhoff, J. H., III. (1980). Bringing up children in the Christian faith. Winston Press
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