Ask the DM
Well according to the DMG among humans anyone that has the ability to go up in levels (which I bracket as "normal" levels as there are many NPC jobs that have class like abilities and levels of a sort, Sages, mercenaries, Alchemists, etc) are only 1% of the population. While anyone can open a lock or hit with a sword to do those things as well as a 1st level character is very rare, among human. Spell powers are non existent in nomals.
So in a way every character class is like a psionic, they made the 1% lottery. Maybe 1% of everyone with training could cast cleric spells, but some of those become magic users or fighters instead.
Of course the 1% figure could also mean those with ability and opportunity to come classes are figured in, in this case here would be more 9 wisdom people who could cast a spell, if they where discovered in the D&D version of American Idol - but it is not a huge jump since it would not be hard to become a thief or fighter with little opportunity - so maybe 5-10% of people have the talent but need the opportunity to go to cleric college.
It is also possible that cleric's are a lower bar than the other classes, that as you said only faith is needed, but the gods just chose to only grant the gift to the best - so just like everyone can play basket ball, only a handful get to get to play at the College level - the Gods picking only the best to allow their spells to work. You do after all actually have to learn the spells and the power, if not the knowledge of the prayer, ultimately comes from the god - thought they may be self powered. That is it is possible for a heretical sect of peasants to learn the prayers and gain powers of a god, faithful but working against the main ideas of the church (and also the deity.)
Summation:
1) You need to have some talent to cast any spells, which is rare
2) Assuming faith is the only talent in clerics cases, you still need to learn the prayers and theology of your god
3) Assuming that any faithful person could become a cleric from
say learning the prayers from going to church, the god choses not to take them into for special training
4) Assuming you can forgo special training, that is learn the prayers by just watching clerics do their things or read a cleric holy book on your own (unauthorised clerics) then the deity my have to "activate" your ability to cast first level spells, a sort of divine gift
5) But if not, then in theory, anyone with faith, learning the prayer on their own, even without their gods permission, could start casting prayers. In that case it is only the amount of faith that is an issue and who closely they need to be to their gods beliefs to cast spells. Presumably their would be high bar for this amount of faith, you could not just be a Sunday church goer, and might have to be far more than average
6) but if the faith bar is fairly low, that is just someone who prayers 10 or so times a day -in a world with gods granting healing then there would be many clerics - but even then the prayers and what not would compete with what ever other job they have - it be like if everyone quit their job to be kindergarten teachers - they all be doing it for free since there be so many of them and nothing else would get done. In this case there be a hug magical plus, cures for everyone, but their would be no good on the table (plenty of water however) or any thing being made like houses, or crops coming in. In some cases the cleric of say a god of farming could proably do double duty as farmer and a cleric - but normally a cleric role would be to advise many farmers and bless their crops and what not - now we have lots of blessing but very little actual farming happening - it be like if the coaches of a foot ball team where also the players coaching themselves - - -
Well according to the DMG among humans anyone that has the ability to go up in levels (which I bracket as "normal" levels as there are many NPC jobs that have class like abilities and levels of a sort, Sages, mercenaries, Alchemists, etc) are only 1% of the population. While anyone can open a lock or hit with a sword to do those things as well as a 1st level character is very rare, among human. Spell powers are non existent in nomals.
So in a way every character class is like a psionic, they made the 1% lottery. Maybe 1% of everyone with training could cast cleric spells, but some of those become magic users or fighters instead.
Of course the 1% figure could also mean those with ability and opportunity to come classes are figured in, in this case here would be more 9 wisdom people who could cast a spell, if they where discovered in the D&D version of American Idol - but it is not a huge jump since it would not be hard to become a thief or fighter with little opportunity - so maybe 5-10% of people have the talent but need the opportunity to go to cleric college.
It is also possible that cleric's are a lower bar than the other classes, that as you said only faith is needed, but the gods just chose to only grant the gift to the best - so just like everyone can play basket ball, only a handful get to get to play at the College level - the Gods picking only the best to allow their spells to work. You do after all actually have to learn the spells and the power, if not the knowledge of the prayer, ultimately comes from the god - thought they may be self powered. That is it is possible for a heretical sect of peasants to learn the prayers and gain powers of a god, faithful but working against the main ideas of the church (and also the deity.)
Summation:
1) You need to have some talent to cast any spells, which is rare
2) Assuming faith is the only talent in clerics cases, you still need to learn the prayers and theology of your god
3) Assuming that any faithful person could become a cleric from
say learning the prayers from going to church, the god choses not to take them into for special training
4) Assuming you can forgo special training, that is learn the prayers by just watching clerics do their things or read a cleric holy book on your own (unauthorised clerics) then the deity my have to "activate" your ability to cast first level spells, a sort of divine gift
5) But if not, then in theory, anyone with faith, learning the prayer on their own, even without their gods permission, could start casting prayers. In that case it is only the amount of faith that is an issue and who closely they need to be to their gods beliefs to cast spells. Presumably their would be high bar for this amount of faith, you could not just be a Sunday church goer, and might have to be far more than average
6) but if the faith bar is fairly low, that is just someone who prayers 10 or so times a day -in a world with gods granting healing then there would be many clerics - but even then the prayers and what not would compete with what ever other job they have - it be like if everyone quit their job to be kindergarten teachers - they all be doing it for free since there be so many of them and nothing else would get done. In this case there be a hug magical plus, cures for everyone, but their would be no good on the table (plenty of water however) or any thing being made like houses, or crops coming in. In some cases the cleric of say a god of farming could proably do double duty as farmer and a cleric - but normally a cleric role would be to advise many farmers and bless their crops and what not - now we have lots of blessing but very little actual farming happening - it be like if the coaches of a foot ball team where also the players coaching themselves - - -
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