Notes from Kierkegaard

Thoughts on Kierkegaard's idea of high truth.

God exists. Do you know this as objective truth or as subjective truth? I would have always thought that I was supposed to say that it is objectively true that God exists. After all, that's the good answer - that truth is absolute, is objective, and that subjective, relative, or changing truth is really not truth at all. It is becoming; it is striving; but it is not truth. But in Kierkegaard, there is an argument - the first of its kind that I have heard - that posits the knowledge of God is first of all subjectively true, if it is even true at all. This is the first time I've ever heard an argument for the subjectivity of truth which still holds that God is absolutely real.

Look at Kierkegaard's definition of the highest form of truth:

"Here is ... a definition of truth: An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person. ... [At this point,] objective knowledge is suspended."

Kierkegaard is trying to tell us that we can go ahead with all of our evidential and presuppositional apologetics, trying to tell the world that the incarnation, the resurrection, and therefore our salvation are all as believable as 2+2=4, but if we do so, we are sacrificing a higher truth that is available to us. For 2+2=4 does not light a fire underneath anyone - objective truth does not produce the infinite striving that Kierkegaard defines as part of the "God-relation" - that is, the right way of relating to the truth, which treats any delay in pursuing truth as an evil which must be thrown off.

"...truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite. I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed seeomnipotence and wisdom, but I also see much that troubles and disturbs. The summa summarum (sum total) of this is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness is so very great, precisely because it grasps this objective uncertainty with all the passion of the infinite. In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth."

We can't do it. We can't seriously claim that the incarnation - God's coming to earth as a man and sacrificing his life for us - as an objectively true thing, because, in all rationality, it is an absurdity. It is an absurdity which requires that we have faith in order to hold it as true. If it were objectively verifiable, there would be no need for faith, and there would be no scriptures, for why would God tell man that which he could already figure out through the tools given to him through his creation? But God doesn't have a need to be explained - that would not make him better. That would not add to him. And in fact, attempting to do so fills pews with unexcited Christians who follow Christianity as if it costs them nothing but what they would very easily give.

"But the definition of truth stated above is a paraphrasing of faith. Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am able to apprefend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncertainty, see to it that in the objective uncertainty I am 'out on 70,000 fathoms of water' and still have faith."

That's all I have time for right now, but I know there will be more to follow. Good night.