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.
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