196:0.12 (2089.2) The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child’s trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, “Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom.” Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.

I see, above, that Bradly says he was NOT saying that. But I'd like to offer a different perspective. When I read that post of Bradly's I agreed with him that a suckling child is experiencing the very early glimmers of faith. The reason I say this is a baby has complete trust that her needs will be met by her loving parent. When she cries or roots for the breast, nourishment is soon forthcoming. The baby has, as Bradly put it, a "connection" with the parent and this connection is founded on trust and belief (reassurance) that the parent loves and cares for the needs of the child. To me, that is a very early, undeveloped form of faith. Faith and connection to the earthly parent, to be sure. But to a baby, their earthly caregivers are God, in a way. Their mind is too undeveloped to conceive of anything outside that physical and emotional connection.

" ... faith is a gift and it is not given at the birth of the body, but at the birth of the soul ..."

Perhaps the difference is that you see faith as binary (either on or off) and I see it as a spectrum. It's perfectly fine for us to have different interpretations/ different views of these concepts.

I think this opens up a couple can of worms for readers. Can an adult fail to grow a soul during their life in the flesh? I think so. And, can an adult be considered "child" or "youth" in the eyes of the universe? I definitely think so! I conclude there are grown adults with the status of "child" on the nursery world.

I think that the Revelation focuses mainly on people with "normal" minds. Certainly there are individuals born into this world with severe mental deficits that might not be able to acquire a soul through no fault of their own. Some of these individuals live well into adulthood. I do think many are salvageable, either as attached to their parents or in their own right as personalities. We aren't given much detail on this since the Revelation is geared to people who are able to read it, which I don't think is possible with a severely handicapped mind, at least in terms of comprehension.

Are you saying that a suckling infant does so due to its faith? That an infant who responds to a parent's loving touch is having a religious experience? Would you mind explaining more about that?

No of course. I think binary thinking is purely human, the good/bad, theory of life fostered by the early organized religions and their teachers (Zoroaster).

(1009.6) 92:5.11 Zoroaster, while much affected by the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness.

Higher thinking requires trifold thinking at the minimum since duality naturally begets triunity, the ancestor of all things.

(1157.4) 105:4.3 It has been sometime stated that unity begets duality, that duality begets triunity, and that triunity is the eternal ancestor of all things.

I agree there is a continuum of faith because faith grows; it is alive. That is not the issue. The issue is when it appears within the psyche. As we all have agreed, trust naturally appears in the psyche, followed by the gift of faith and sonship when the psyche discovers its Creator (who lives in the soul).

Personality, on the other hand, is a pattern that unifies all its constituent parts which would include both the adjutant psyche and soul psyche, our dual mind and dual nature, or character. The adjutant psyche has trust and the soul psyche has faith which the personality works to unifiy as faith-trust. Mind too is unity, all mind ministries conspire to unify the psyche toward God-consciousness which has as its counterpart son-consciousness.

(1593.5) 141:7.4 The Master sought to impress upon all teachers of the gospel of the kingdom that their only business was to reveal God to the individual man as his Father — to lead this individual man to become son-conscious; then to present this same man to God as his faith son.

(9.1) 0:5.11  Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul.