Kierkegaard claims in the second Problema on page 69 that recent philosophy has reduced faith to a substitute for the immediate, consequently placing it on the level of mood and feelings. Kierkegaard claims that this is incorrect and that nothing justifies philosophy in using such language. To explore this issue I will argue that faith is indeed something along the lines of a mood or feeling.
Isn’t faith, by virtue of being illogical, at best a feeling and at worst bad logic? I may be in a great mood having set a record running time recently, and so when confronted by a pack of hungry dogs have faith that I can outrun them. However doesn’t the hungry pack of dogs overtaking me and devouring me evidence that my faith yields no better results than feelings? One might object that in that instance I was being foolish, and that I was consulting feelings and not faith, an absolute connection with God. What if God tells me run from those dogs? What if I do? Now having faith that I will out run the dogs because God said I would won’t change the speed of the dogs, or my painful death. Isn’t faith just the same as feelings but with a different name? It seems to me that Abraham could have just been mad, despite Kierkegaard’s claims, and merely acted on his feelings.
A second objection to this idea of faith is the part of the paradox it creates in which it cannot be mediated and understood by anyone else. Hegel famously claims that if something cannot be said, it is not true. Kierkegaard dismisses this idea, but really, how can anything exist if it cannot be verified by anyone. Allowing something to be true because someone has an experience of it that cannot be explained to anyone else seems to me like giving people a license to populate our world with as many fictional things as they can think of.
A third of objection to this idea of faith is Kant’s critique of metaphysics. In its desire for unity our reason tries oversteps it’s self and leaves experience behind to create a priori concepts full of error. How can we even comment on things such as faith and God? They are beyond our knowledge. Even if this paradox of faith exists, but we can have no knowledge of it and so it is useless to argue about.
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Interesting points. As to your second point, I supposed I would say that what is true is what happens, no matter who is there to witness it or relay the information. Verification may strengthen our confidence in what happened and may confirm our individual notions of what is true. But why does something need to be confirmed in order to be true? If it does, we are placing truth distinctly within the human mind and it seems to me that there are plenty of true things that I don't know about.
ReplyDeleteGranted, I probably assume that it is possible for me to know them and that other people could tell me. But I wonder why we cling to this idea of confirmation so fervently. If the truth is what happens, then why does it matter if anyone knows?
I really like your example of running and the dogs. Faith can seem like its not changing anything, like a feeling, just as you said. However, couldn't faith possibly be that little glimmer of hope that inspires you to persist and push on? Maybe your faith won't save you from the dogs, but maybe it will help you survive another minute.
ReplyDeleteI think where I disassociate myself from Kierkegaard is in the basing of something major (religion) that applies to many people on something unconfirmable. It's a beautifully illustrated argument that some things are true that can't be communicated or shared - and that I think is a worthy critique of Hegel. But I don't think that modes of operation should be based on those sorts of things; rather, WE should build upon things WE can all understand. Though Kierkegaard isn't really asking us to change the way we act (until we move into the absolute realm), he is asking us to change the way we think about the ethical realm, and there's something problematic about granting exceptions (which happens not in Kierkegaard's ideal but in the real world) for unethical actions because of something incommunicable.
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