The Padlás Project >> Content >> Theology >> Principles of the Unitarian Faith

Liberalism
The principles of the Unitarian faith arise from Jesus’ teachings to love and to serve both God and our fellow man and from the realization of these teachings in theory and in practice. Unitarianism is a liberal faith in which freedom of belief and conscience, the individual’s own inner authority, religious tolerance, readiness for dialogue and free inquiry are stressed as positive values.

Religion
Religion is man’s relationship of faith and love to God and the true and ethical way of life that arises from this relationship. The goal of religion is to encourage us to the loving service of God, humanity and the world through the cultivation of the spirit and the refinement of our sensitivities.

Theocentrism
The Unitarian faith is theocentric, in contrast to christocentric or pneumocentric theological conceptions. In our theological view, God is the self-derived existent (Exodus 3:14). His existence depends upon Himself alone. He is His own cause and purpose.
We should seek knowledge of God, the delineation of His nature, in the sources concerning Jesus, “for it was Jesus who disclosed to humankind what we now know of God.”
It is our conviction that God is a personal spirit (John 4:24), Who is at work within the world through His responsive love. This is also the basis of our worship.

The Unity of God
God’s unity is the foundational teaching of the Unitarian faith. The unity of God excludes not only the idea that there may be more than one divine being, but also that one god might possess several persons. It is our conviction that the truth of God’s unity is to be found in the Bible, is in agreement with the demands of reason and is justified by religious experience. Jesus’ decisively important statement on this question survives in the gospel of Mark where he asserts in answer to the scribe that “the Lord our God is one” (Mark 12:29) and that we should love this one indivisible God and love our neighbor, as well.
On this question of God’s unity it is our opinion that there is no need to go beyond the teaching of Jesus and to flee into the world of metaphysical speculation and synodal decrees that are alien to his teaching. The truth carries its own value and validity and does not depend on the recognition of others. With regard to the dogma of the trinity, we Unitarians hold that it is not the Unitarian view but the dogma itself that has turned away from Jesus’ teaching and from the substance and spirit of the New Testament.

God the Father
God is a personal reality Who is quite near to us, our caring Father. His fatherly character inspires us and moves us to build an immediate, personal and living relationship with Him. It follows from His fatherly nature that His relations with His creation, all of His actions, are determined by love. (John 4:16) His love is constant and universal; no one and nothing is excluded from it. God’s love for us fills us with a boundless confidence, for we sense that the Father sees in us not a mere instrument but a goal, not a helpless, failing creature struggling under the burden of original sin, but sees us as partners in His work, as capable and worthy of serving His will conscientiously. We should seek a relationship with God in an attitude of confidence, hope and love.
God’s existence points beyond itself and within it the fullness of His action is realized, which is not for Himself alone but for us as well: for humankind and, ultimately, for all of his creation, the entire universe.

The Created World
We view creation as one form of the revelation of God’s action. Unitarian theology values and reveres the accounts of the creation found in the Bible, but attribute to them a symbolic significance. We Unitarians accept the principle of creative evolution, on the basis of which we profess that it was not chance, not accident, nor even the constitution of the material world which provided the impetus that brought our world into being, but God Himself. God did not create this world in a moment, finished and perfected, but made it capable of ongoing development. Since the world derives from God, it retains within it the marks of His essential goodness, but it is by no means perfect and so it is constantly called upon to achieve its own perfection.
We Unitarians conceive of creative evolution as being necessary, intentional and rational, which compels us, as God’s co-workers, to help in achieving His goals. For this reason causing harm to the world or to life, or any behavior directed toward the actual destruction of either, cannot be a matter of indifference to us. The created world deserves our care and has an irreplaceable value for us because it belongs to God. This world is not a place of suffering, but the home in which we live out our calling.

Providence
A world order directed by God and His preservation of harmony in a dynamic universe are more indicative of divine care than would be a static, determined world incapable of development. We conceive of providence as the continuation of God’s work of creation. God has not left the world to itself, but continues to give it His loving care.
By providence we understand God’s loving concern and care for those He has created and for the world, which care, it is our conviction, is both personal, or individual, and general, or universal.
God’s providence, however, does not free us from caring for ourselves and for our world. In the life of the universe everything has its own place and a role it strives to fulfill, if only by instinct or impulse; how much more applicable this is to people, who possess self-awareness. In this way God has assured us our freedom, which Jesus also stressed: “My Father still goes on working, and I am at work, too.” (John 5:17)

Suffering
Intertwined with providence is the problem of evil and suffering. “Why does God not prevent or end evil and suffering?” – the impatient question is often asked. It is our belief that God in no way visits evil or suffering upon His children. The causes of these trials may be sought in our free will and in the developmental character of life. In such circumstances we Unitarians should ask, “How is God with me?” Our answer is that He is with us by increasing our strength and tolerance and by revealing to us the sympathy, the helpfulness, the knowledge and the love of those around us.

The Spirit of God
Unitarians conceive of the Holy Spirit as a force belonging to and emanating from God. It is through this force that God’s uplifting, enlivening work finds expression. For this reason we have never separated this manifestation of one of God’s attributes from the possessor of the attribute – from God Himself.
The Holy Spirit is the work that arises from the essence of the living, active God, through which He creates a direct relationship with His creation. Thus the Holy Spirit is nothing other than God Himself acting upon us in the present.
The work of the Holy Spirit is universal, ongoing and direct. This means that anyone may share in His gifts, anywhere, anytime. We, however, must strive to bring our will into harmony with God’s so that His will may work within us and through us. Spiritual immersion, prayer and the doing of good works are excellent opportunities for achieving this harmonization.

Prayer
Prayer is the measure of a living faith. In prayer, the content and values of religious faith are revealed. Unitarians pray to the one God the Father, as Jesus did, in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
The goal of prayer is the creation of a direct spiritual relationship with the Father, the one God, which moves us to be better, truer, in a word – to be children of God.
It is our conviction that the purpose of prayer is not to bring change in God or in the world, but in ourselves. “Prayer does not change things, but it changes people and people change things.” So the Unitarian does not pray to God for tasks suited to his strength, but for strength suited to his task.

Human Dignity
Each person is a child of God. Our spiritual capacities, our understanding, feelings, faith, free will, conscience and love, not only raise us from the world of living creatures, but endow us with unique responsibilities as well.
We Unitarians believe that as humans we are born not into sin, but with a capacity for good. We believe that people are constantly growing, developing intellectually and spiritually and that we can be strengthened in our respect for ethical law and can become more conscientious in our service to God and to humanity. We trust that, with God’s help, we can improve our spiritual capacities. This is the meaning and justification of Jesus’ call to us to “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

Jesus
Jesus is for us “the way, the truth and life” (John 14:6) and our faith in him is directed not so much toward his person as toward his teaching. For us the essential things are not who he was, how he came into the world, where he might have come from or what might later have become of him, but what he taught and how he acted.
We view Jesus as the best of God’s children, as His prophet, as an extraordinarily ethical person and as the founder of our faith. When we stress Jesus’ human character, his historical person, we do not depreciate his greatness; on the contrary, we seek to promote a better understanding of his influence and significance. It is our conviction that he has been the most successful in creating a spiritual union with the Father and in bringing the whole of his life into harmony with God’s will. His love of God, spiritual cultivation, character, and ethical behavior were unique and exceptional; we will not find his equal in the religious life of his age or of any age since. For us, all that is connected to his life and his teaching stands before us as an ideal worthy of emulation. This is why we hold it more important to follow his teaching and the example of his life than to merely adore or invoke his person.

Sin
Any person possessed of free will can err, make mistakes, or sin. For us, sin is a personal, intentional and purposeful act of evil - or omission of a good act – through which we violate our obligations to ourselves, our neighbors or our God. Thus, it is clear that we can all err and can all become sinful. There is no need however to seek a deeper meaning behind this statement.
It is our conviction that no one is born sinful, but may only become so. We cannot shift responsibility for a sin we have committed onto another person; we must shoulder responsibility for it ourselves. The consequences of our sin may have an impact upon our descendents, but they cannot inherit our sinfulness.
Like Jesus, we believe that we may be forgiven and freed from our sin. Each of us, as the transgressor, must strive to be deserving of forgiveness. If we change and we make good our transgressions, God will forgive us. His forgiveness does not mean He will overlook our transgressions, but that He will help us to improve and to free ourselves of our faults. We, too, must be ready to forgive one another.

The Bible
Unitarian theology stresses respect, adherence and love towards the Bible, but also emphasizes that it is not the sole depository and summary of our faith. It is one of the sustaining sources of a living religiosity. However, as children of God our understanding and conscience are the final authorities.
It is the task of theology to make the Bible’s message understandable to all - not to make its acceptance obligatory.

Death
In the Unitarian view, death is an unavoidable, inescapable reality of human life, but does not represent its complete destruction. God’s fatherly love promises us a life eternal after death. (1. John 2:25)
We understand eternal life as a form of spiritual existence. We believe that our soul is immortal and lives on with God after our death. Our hope of eternal life, of a loving spiritual communion with God, begins here on earth in our striving to experience His love and goodness and to lead lives worthy of His children. The apostle Paul reminds us of this as well: “We should also endeavor that, whether we live here or have departed this life, we shall be pleasing to Him.” (2. Corinthians 5:9)

The Sacraments
The Unitarian reformation upheld two sacraments as clearly being of biblical origin: Baptism and Communion. Francis David taught that Jesus “has given us two signs, two seals, in his gospel: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and he has neatly presented to us their every form and order so we may use them as He commanded.”
In keeping with the teaching of Jesus we do not attribute to these two rites the character of being sacraments, of being salvific. These rites are instruments for encouraging the fulfillment of our Christian obligations. In addition to these two, our church life has given shape to the following rites as well: confirmation, burial and the blessing of marriages.
The Church
The Church, in our view, is a spiritual community, the principle responsibility of which is the realization of the Kingdom of God taught by Jesus.
We Unitarians approach the multiplicity of Christian denominations in the spirit of Jesus’ call: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) We recognize that in questions of religious faith people have differing convictions, just as they have differing opinions with regard to other of life’s questions, but there is no single point of dogma, no profession of faith, worthy of our sacrificing for it our love for one another and violating the spirit of Jesus’ gospel.
“In every area of religion the Unitarian faith is, in its essence, a developing faith.” In this process the responsibility falls to every Unitarian to open his or her heart, mind, will and faith to life affirming values.