Tuesday, May 21, 2013


94. From fear to faith

After a series on art I here start a series on a variety of subjects

In my discussion of God, in  item 13 of this blog, I did not mention the unique view of Kierkegaard. He took it for granted that God is ineffable and transcends all our categories of understanding. Belief in God is a leap, a miracle, a surrender beyond rationality, even in direct contradiction with it. 

In this, Kierkegaard resembles the mystical tradition that I discussed earlier, but he diverges from that in not looking for God inside but outside, in an act of will, in unconditional surrender and commitment, based on subjective but non-rational certainty. Faith is the highest passion of subjectivity.

He likened the source of the urge, the passion for faith, with vertigo. Standing on the edge of an abyss one has a dizzy and unresistable urge to jump into the void, releasing one’s foothold in the world. He also likened the urge to fear of freedom, fear of the scope of human existence. This was picked up later by Sartre, with his notion of fear of the freedom of the self.

I dont’t know what to think of this. I find it very beautiful, and enticing, but at the same time totally unacceptable. The idea that faith is a matter of the will, not of reason, goes back to Kant and Hume. But how can one accept not just a non-rational stance that goes beyond rationality, but an antirational stance that goes against it? Where is the limit of such unfathomable anti-rationality? Is it not the opening of Pandora’s box? If one accepts radical subjective certainty, regardless of any argument or objectivity or inter-subjectivity, could one not accord that acceptance also to an atheist, or a racist, or a passionate fascist?

For Kierkegaard, and in contrast with platonism, it is not given to the human being to comtemplate eternal, universal, immutable truths. Ultimate truth is beyond it. Since ultimate truth cannot be possessed by the human being it can only be brought from outside. But a teacher who is able to not only bring the truth but to also make it understood cannot be a human being, can only be God. But to prevent that from being imposed by fear of God, rahter than adopted in freedom, God must appear to the human being in a human form, and that is the meaning of the incarnation in Christ.

Again, I find this perhaps the most enticing view of faith. However, in this blog I plead for acceptance of the unattainability of absolute truth, not seeking its attainment either in a platonic or in Kierkegaards fashion, both utterly illusory in my view, and to accept the perspective of imperfecton on the move (see item 19 in this blog) as a maxim that can yield a valuable, fruitful, constructive flourishing of life. 

Also, the radical subjectivism of Kierkegaard robs us of the only real chance we have to escape, however imperfectly and temporarily, from our myopia and prejudice, in dialogue with the other human being who engages in opposition to us.   

No comments:

Post a Comment