From Kierkegaard to Philippians

"...as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life - in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing."

These are the words of Paul to the Philippian Christians, at least 1,900 years ago. In these words there is the striving of infinite passion, which Kierkegaard wove into his exposition of subjective truth. Yes, there are plenty of other places where Paul appears to proclaim the objectivity of the truth that God was man, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. He says that Jesus was indeed the perfect representation of the fullness of the God-head, and his witnesses saw him walking and talking on this earth, and after that saw him raised from the dead, and all of that. But I don't think that Paul is trying to aid us in planting our beliefs on something that is objectively verifiable. After all, Paul is the one that first referred to the gospel as an "offense." And after all, just further in Philippians, Paul mentions that he hopes for something "in the Lord." What else does "hope in the Lord" mean, if it does not relate somehow to the idea of the "God-relation?"

The thing that I'm trying to get at is that, if God is real, he is completely sovereign, and he does not need our help in explaining his existence through objective reasoning. The immensely more powerful mode of explaination is that which is seen subjectively, as his disciples work out their salvation with "fear and trembling," as if it really were God who works in them to "will and to act according to his good purpose." I really can't hope to justify the resurrection to anyone on the grounds of reason - it is a matter of faith, and if it were not, then I don't believe that the Bible would have been written. What good would it have been to show man something he could already figure out using reason, his beloved creation? But if all of history was actually orchestrated by some divine power to show mankind something that defies all logic, but nevertheless is truer than anything that ever was true - this is something that needs the Bible. This is the stumbling block, the truth that will offend them all, a stone to make men stumble and a rock to make them fall.