Thelemites or anyone else that stumbles into some post-Christian paradigm tends to want to toss out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. I did, too, way back when. We see it as valid because, let's be fair, new paradigms are created when the older ones no longer work. But, in the case of Esoteric Christianity, one cannot truthfully say that they have evaluated it and found it wanting. The fact that Crowley considered Thelema to be the "true Christianity" has not swayed anyone from clueless rebellion, after which we undertake a new chapter in human evolution without having studied the chapter before it. Guilty as charged. I have done it myself to my detriment. Christianity and its adherents have done it to their own. Let's be better.
Consider this: Where we end up depends on where we've been, where we started. So, the question of the succession of paradigms and how they relate to one another is essential.
I find it helpful to view Thelema and Christianity as links in a long chain of universal DNA. One can only become an expert in religious paradigms by first understanding where they came from because one will have influenced each before. Had Christianity not happened at all, I suspect Thelema wouldn't have either, at least not in the way that it revealed itself to Crowley.
One way of understanding the importance of this progression might be to view each "Aeon," paradigm shift, or whatever you wish to call these changes in the relationship between humans and nature, the same way that Asian religions view past-life regression. Religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism all adhere to the idea that we can achieve perfection or godhood through a series of incarnations. That would be the microcosmic view. The progressions of Aeons are the macrocosmic view of that process.
Whether an Aeon exists as a measure of time is irrelevant, probably doubtful, and confusing since these changes we attempt to measure using this term have no consistent schedule. It is a word to explain a metaphysical concept. Nothing more.
Like Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, et al., Thelema did not develop in a void. Each New Aeon demands a reinterpretation of the same archetypal symbols used by the previous. The Magician's task is to reinterpret those archetypal symbols to make them relevant during his own time.
So how do we redefine an archetype? I can't think of a better example of a loaded word or concept needing reinterpretation in a pre-Thelemic world than the word faith. Most people agree it smells of superstition, tyranny, and willful ignorance. Let's treat this word as a symbol since that is what words are, and we may yet see how these terms are not hopelessly lost and have the possibility of redemption in the present.
And with a new understanding, we can go back to the text and use it to make more sense of the past. In Hebrews 11:6, states:
"Without faith it is impossible to please [God], for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."
Two points come to mind right away. First, is that faith is required because we are not able to see God. We must assume something without any other proof or evidence. This definition is a classic definition of Gnosis.
Gnosis is a kind of "knowing" experienced without the usual tools we have fashioned to measure and evaluate reality as we know it. Once something becomes measurable and quantifiable, we remove it from the sphere of metaphysics and place it under the domain of physics. This process has occurred constantly throughout human history.
The second point is that whether one is a Christian, Thelemite, or someone making their way through the Art and Science of magick, it seems essential to believe in the existence of a Superior Being. Whether that god is within or without seems irrelevant to this topic. Without that "faith," one is not likely to experience godhood. Even for those of us for whom "Deus est Homo" is more than just a potential bumper sticker slogan. (But if we are going to split hairs, Deus Est Humanitatus would be a more accurate statement.)
I have said this countless times: People that don't believe in miracles (or magick) are not likely to notice them when they occur, even when they are the ones that have caused them. So, to paraphrase, the concept of God seems to be important in both Christianity and Thelema.
So, what about the cringe-worthy concept of faith? It is the certainty of one's divinity. If one genuinely has "faith" or knowledge (Gnosis) then there is no need to doubt it or keep trying to prove it. This brings me to how I define the concept of faith. I see it as the absence of Lust of Result. Nothing more.
Knowledge and faith are different sides of the same coin. Faith is synonymous with Gnosis, and Gnosis is synonymous with certainty. There is the Dove, and there is the Serpent, after all.
That's my story, and I am sticking with it.