Sean Otterspoor
April 3, 2000
Philosophical Theology
Kierkegaard and Religious Life
Before I begin my exposition of the texts of Kierkegaard, writing pseudonymously as Johannes de Silentio, and Kant I must admit my relative infancy in understanding the writings of Kierkegaard in particular. Perhaps in taking my cue from Johannes de Silentio and admitting at the outset that I do not fully understand Kierkegaard’s philosophy, I can come to a greater understanding. To bring justice to these philosophers would require a poet, or at least a writer of more eloquence than brought forth by my own fumbling keys. What I do know is Kierkegaard held that there were three stages of life: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious. To reach the religious stage required a leap. I will first undertake to examine and understand Kierkegaard, and his leap. Then this paper will culminate with a comparison of that leap with Kant’s view on the transition from Judaism to Christianity.
To continue my following in the steps of Kierkegaard I will begin as he does by examining his quote from Hamann. It is translated as “What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not.” What we should learn from this according to Kierkegaard is that an act can have an entirely different meaning for someone who has knowledge. The son understood because of his special relationship to his father. Kierkegaard’s man of faith will see the same world that a regular man will see, but he will see something else because of his faith. To a regular person, Abraham attempts murder but in the eyes of faith, he is obeying God. He is the son who should obey the father because of faith.
The Kierkegaardian leap is a qualitative leap of faith. This is based on faith being neither easy nor probable to come by. One performs an act of faith despite doubt. The leap is not out of thoughtlessness, but a willed decision. The leap is wholly uncompromising and immediate. It is like stepping off a cliff, permanent. This leap is made from doubt to faith in God. A faith in God is a struggle, and conflict arises as you attempt to bring your being into relation with God. God in this case is an all-powerful god who alone knows all Truths. The person of faith reconciles the finite and the infinite in favor of the infinite (Hong, 47). Kierkegaard asks would it not be best to stop at faith (Hong, 37)? To go beyond faith would be seemingly irresponsible, as faith is the stage beyond infinite resignation. To go beyond faith would cause the loss of the finite, as faith is a movement, a striving, that keeps people in reality.
Kierkegaard posited three stages of life, or spheres of existence: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. These stages are not points in life but rather modes of existence. Individuals might not traverse a certain stage, and you cannot know what stage they exist in simply by looking at them. The aesthetic sphere is primarily that of self-gratification. They enjoy art and music. They are of the opinion that if something brings them pleasure, it is good. They exist wholly on this lower level in which there is no reflection. Things are as they appear. The ethical mode of existence applies to those who sense the duty to God and country. They live in a world of the infinite. The ethical sphere is a transition stage between the aesthetic and the religious. The religious stage is reached by a radical conversion through the leap of faith.
This leap of faith is done out of ones own volition, or freedom. Freedom begins as free will that can choose good, as well as evil. Kierkegaard examines what he calls the "teleological suspension of the ethical." This is the suspension of the moral law for the sake of a higher law (God). Kierkegaard goes into great detail about the story in Genesis, where Abraham is commanded by God to kill his son Isaac. God must be obeyed, but killing is immoral. Abraham in this case chooses, of free will, that moral law (the ethical) must be suspended for a higher goal.
Kierkegaard further examines this will with his "Knight of Faith" and "Knight of Infinite Resignation." Resignation is an act of the will, not abandonment. The Knight of Infinite Resignation is a man committed to adhere an ethical code (Hong, 38). The Knight of Faith is a man who adheres by faith by virtue of the absurd. To believe by virtue of the absurd means that you believe that something is impossible based on your knowledge but still expect that it will happen. Abraham is not only a man of resignation but is the primary example of faith against the absurd. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, for whom he as waited many years. Abraham had the faith to obey God. The act of faith was Abraham's willingness to suffer for God, unsure if his son would be returned. He was able to love God as the giver of commands even though those commands contradicted his love for his son. Abraham could have chosen to allow his love for his son to override his faith, but he did not. By not allowing the ethical to supercede the religious Abraham demonstrated his understanding of God as the cause of love.
Faith is the highest passion in a person (Hong, 122). It was Kierkegaard's opinion that society had become passionless. This worried him because his view was that passion was required for the leap of faith toward the religious. In Fear and Trembling, he is concerned with the interaction of the single individual in relation to the ethical and the religious. When God commanded Abraham to kill his son, Abraham could have yielded, but his passion for god did not allow that possibility.
Kant described the transition from Judaism to Christianity as from a temple to a church. It has been asked whether this could constitute a Kierkegaardian leap. I do not think it does. A Kierkegaardian leap is an act of faith despite doubt. The transition to Christianity was a process filled with many stages and reversals of belief. This gradual process would not be the sheer leap proposed by Kierkegaard. I will say that the actual followers of Jesus the man took the leap. They acted on faith, which was wholly uncompromising and immediate. They made a willful decision to follow Jesus’ teachings and change their view of God. Kant agrees that they made a transition from a fear-based religion to one of reason.
Kant writes that the followers of fear based religions think that by doing something that anyone can do, sacrifice or ritual, that they are making themselves pleasing to a god. Kant felt that it was a superstitious delusion to want to become well pleasing to a god through actions that did not require the person to first be a good human being. It is superstitious because it is choosing a non-moral means, which on can have absolutely no effect on something that is not in nature (Wood, 170).
It was those first disciples who took the leap. They acted on faith, they believed in an absurdity, the Son of God on earth, but reconciled the contradiction in favor of their belief in God. They acted out of their own free will. They saw the same man the rest of their world saw, but they saw something else because of faith. They understood but the messenger did not.
Works Cited
Hong, Howard V. and Edna H. Hong. Fear and Trembling/ Repetition. Princeton University
Press. New Jersey: 1983.
Wood, Allen and George di Govanni. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.
Cambridge University Press. Great Britain: 1998