The Science of Spiritual Fortitude

How spiritual fortitude is the key to enduring faith

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.” — 2 Timothy 4:7

By Jamie Aten, Ph.D. & Kent Annan, M.Div. | Dec 15, 2025 | 5 min read

Introduction

Commonly defined as our ability to bounce back from adversity, resilience is often touted as the key to a successful life. But definitions like this one don’t always capture the reality of long suffering, such as living with a chronic health condition. In our work with disaster survivors around the globe, we’ve seen how recovery often looks different from the quick bounce back people expect. These experiences raised a key question: Is there a biblical equivalent, or even a more robust counterpart to resilience? This isn’t to dismiss resilience; it remains an important resource in facing hardship. Yet what we’ve experienced, witnessed, and researched shows that people of faith also need another way to think about enduring life’s hardships.

Rethinking Resilience

Data from several of our studies at the Humanitarian Disaster Institute identified a gap in this thinking and highlighted the need for further investigation. Other studies, such as one led by Arizona State University researchers Frank Infurna and Suniya Luthar, had also begun to highlight that natural resilience to life-altering events (e.g., spousal loss) may be less common than most assume. Using a longitudinal dataset dating back to the early 1980s, Infurna and Luthar found that participants who experienced a significant life stressor experienced sharp declines in well-being that sometimes persisted for years. Clearly, there was a need for a concept that recognized not just recovery but also faithful endurance in the midst of pain. We saw this same need among disaster survivors, who often struggled for years to rebuild not only their homes but also their sense of identity and community. For them, resilience as bouncing back was not realistic. What mattered more was finding the strength to continue day after day, even when life did not return to its former shape.

Spiritual Fortitude Defined

Our team, led by Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren of Hope College, published an article in the American Psychological Association journal Psychological Trauma comprising several studies on spiritual fortitude that sought to identify what was happening in some survivors. For scientific purposes, we described spiritual fortitude as “enabling people to endure and make redemptive meaning from adversity through their sacred connections with God, others, and themselves.” At the core of fortitude is the ability to cope with long-suffering. While one of the hallmarks of resilience is expedited recovery from adversity, fortitude places greater value on endurance.

A Distinctly Christian Virtue

Though new to the field of psychological science, fortitude is not new to the Christian tradition. Scripture speaks of fortitude as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, and Thomas Aquinas described it as an act of “brave endurance.” In the church’s teaching, fortitude is tied to doing good in the face of fear and hardship. It is also understood as “the guard and support of the other virtues.” Our findings confirm this: fortitude not only protects character but also helps people transform suffering into practices of care, for themselves and for others. Christians across centuries have seen fortitude as the virtue that steadies the heart when everything else feels shaken. It is the soil in which patience, compassion, and faithfulness can grow. Our research suggests that this ancient teaching also has measurable benefits for modern mental health.

Distinct from Resilience and Grit

Our studies found that spiritual fortitude is different from both resilience and grit. Resilience can help us push through to return to normal. Grit can help us stay focused on long-term goals. However, fortitude enables us to find meaning when outcomes remain uncertain or when suffering persists for an extended period, such as in the case of terminal illness or long-term disaster recovery. In fact, we found that spiritual fortitude predicted well-being, meaning, lower anxiety, and stronger religious coping, even beyond the effects of grit and resilience. This suggests that fortitude is not simply a new label for an old idea. Instead, it captures a distinct process that enables people to persevere when a quick recovery is not possible. Fortitude sustains life in the waiting, when goals are unclear and the future remains fragile.

Choosing Good in Hard Times

Unlike resilience, which often emphasizes personal recovery, spiritual fortitude includes the capacity to turn outward. We saw evidence that fortitude motivates people to help others, even when they are suffering themselves. It redirects pain into action for the greater good, fostering a faith that serves in the midst of hardship. For example, we’ve witnessed disaster survivors who, despite losing nearly everything, organized aid for their neighbors or gave time to comfort others in shelters. Fortitude did not erase their grief, but it gave them a sense of meaning that came from serving others. In this way, fortitude extends beyond self-preservation toward doing good in the face of adversity.

Conclusion

Taken as a whole, our series of studies revealed that fortitude helps people persist in the face of challenges, leading to positive mental health outcomes and flourishing. This offers hope to anyone living through adversity; it allows us to relieve ourselves of the pressure to “bounce back” to the way we were before. Often, life’s biggest challenges change us, and that is okay. We now know that there’s great value in simply enduring. As Paul wrote in his Second Letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.”

References

Infurna, F. J., & Luthar, S. S. (2016). Resilience to major life stressors is not as common as thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(2), 175–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615621271

Van Tongeren, D. R., Aten, J. D., McElroy, S., Davis, D. E., Shannonhouse, L., Davis, E. B., & Hook, J. N. (2019). Development and validation of a measure of spiritual fortitude. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 11(6), 588–596. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000449