When talking about philosophy and religion and ways in which to live our lives it is perhaps the most important to realize the significance of subjectivity.
And when we speak of subjectivity one of the great philosophers that should come to mind is Soren Kierkagaard. Kierkagaard was a christian. He wasn't the type of christian that you might think of today. In fact he felt that Christianity had nothing to do with any group of people in particular and more precisely it had only to do with ones self. He felt that people who were born into Christianity felt that they were Christians by association..He felt that they never had to make the decision to "become" christian. In other words just because one is born into Christianity doesn't make them a christian..in fact even being baptized does not make one a christian simply because one is baptized. Keirkagaard felt that one can only become a christian through the idea that one makes a passionate commitment to believe in Christianity. This need not take the shape of any congregation. No singing of hymns. But rather it is all completely and wholly internal. your relationship with god is yours and yours alone. He also believed that the fact that other Christians even exist in the world should have to be only as a contingent by-product of people on their own accord making "the leap of faith" as he called it. He certainly felt that some if not all christian churches were merely benign social clubs. You can talk about your faith and you can hang around one another but in the end what has gone on between you and other Christians is completely benign in the christian sense. nothing of a christian nature has happened.
When it came to paradoxes of Christianity such as God being both eternal and on earth at the same time and the problem of evil which I will get into. He made it clear that religion is religion and that philosophy is philosophy and that never the tween shall meet.
I mentioned the problem of evil. this is an old problem that has been asked about for years and years and has no solution that we know of. It states basically that if God does exist and is all knowing and all powerful. Then why is there evil in the world.
We know there are evil things happening in the world. there a rapists, murderers, there is incest, kids being tortured and left in closets by their parents for years at a time. but God exists. so if he's all knowing he knows these things are going on. If he's all powerful he can do something about it. And because he is god and he cares. He WILL do something about it. Where does this leave our beliefs? We can say its simply god's will. But I think any one who has been raped, or molested, or has lost someone to senseless violence or cancer or AIDS might tell you that answer simply isn't good enough. I think anyone who thinks of this weather you are a christian or not has to struggle with the answer to this one.
But I think over all this leads us back to what Kierkagaard felt. and that is we study we learn and we decide what to believe. And just as with Christianity when we make a passionate decision to throw ourselves over the cliff and and rely on our beliefs to save us. We have made a leap of faith.
What does this mean for us then?
I think it means that everything is subjective. It is through our own subjective experience that we believe or don't believe in an idea. Kierkagaard never argued against objective truth. And he understood that objective truth did in fact exist. such as in science. but when it came to objective truth in philosophy and religion he said "All power to the sciences, but that is not what I am trying to do." He simply wanted objective and subjective truth to be kept seperate.
Kierkagaard felt that proving gods existence objectively was to undermine Christianity. When we try to show that God actually exists we take away from Christianity the most fundamental point of it. And that is to choose to believe in something that we have no chance of understanding.To choose to believe in something that is completely incomprehensible. Taking the leap of faith is what Christianity is for.
Kierkagaard was in fact so enthralled with what it actually took to be a true Christian that he turned down a job as a minister and broke off an engagement with his fiance citing that he could not properly serve a church or a marriage because he was not yet sure just what he was supposed to do within those institutions. I love Kierkagaard's ideas because he was very honest with himself about his beliefs. by all accounts he was a man filled with inner turmoil. perhaps even neurotic. His father had once when he was thirteen used the lord's name in vein and spent the rest of his life in utter guilt over the matter. So we can see where Kierkagaards philosophy takes us. It leads us to rationaly try to solve the problems of commitment of oneself, guilt, and responsibility.To me he simply was rational person on the side of a creator. And subjectively that makes sense to me.
Posts
