My Sickness Unto Death

I'm realizing more and more what a good choice Kierkegaard was for this essay, for it seems more and more that I learn something of myself the more I study Kierkegaard. His inner struggle seems to loosely match my own, as I'm sure he had intentioned for all of his readers. I'm also realizing, in judging whether Kierkegaard was successful in rising above the idioms and systems of his day to communicate something significant, that he might not have 'risen above' in his communication. But such was not his intent; therefore, in wallowing in the endless categories, the dialectic and the struggle, he was showing that the paradigm of his time was not worthy of him - or us, for that matter.

How would Kierkegaard Respond to Camus?

Our generation has often spoken with reverence of Sisyphus, and I felt moved to respond just now, after recalling it. Many of us have talked as if Camus has put forth something we’ve known our whole lives, but without realizing it. I have to say that I, too, have stood with them, admiring the mastery with which the human condition is considered within these few pages. If this seems like the truest account of humanity, perhaps it is because it may be.

I know I would be the typical one to be speaking like this, but then again, you probably know already that I must have more to say than that. And I do. But inasmuch as Camus focuses on the human condition, Ned, I believe he is right, and yet, if my life indicates anything I hope it shows that there is more to life than just absurdity.

But going back to Camus, he believed what he wrote. And I think his work is so believable because he wrote about himself, and then he also wrote about all of us. He knew himself better than the best of us do, perhaps, even on our most insightful days. He looked at the same world, the same life, that we do, but I think his bravery – his ability to not let himself be diverted from considering the chaos around him – is admirable. He saw the fatal flaw of our life – the meaninglessness, and the eternity. And yet with his fist raised, he turned back to himself, to his life, never reasoning that perhaps the intention of life is for us to see its meaninglessness and look beyond it for answers.

I did say ‘eternity’, even though Camus said he did not believe in such a thing. But it is my opinion that he did, and this was the thing that he believed without articulating, just as you and I read his writing and felt we had believed it all along without articulating it. For in ‘shaking his fist’, he was looking out at the eternity of lives lived over all of time, boiling them all down to one generality – that they are all meaningless, going off into eternity with no end, and no purpose. And so, where he saw that reason is unable to surmount the chaos of Life, and chose his life anyway, that is where I leave him. I found faith instead, and in finding it, realized that it found me.

I write this to share my experience, and faith is my experience. It is how I understand the purpose of this life. Ah, purpose – something from which Camus was so far, and yet so near at the same time. In your own journey through life, I pray that you too will continue to ask these hard questions of life.

The Sum of Human Wisdom

Alas, the truth of human wisdom is laid forth by Kierkegaard in The Sickness Unto Death.

"The summa summarum [sum total] of all human wisdom is this "golden" (perhaps it is more correct to say "plated") mean: ne quid nimis [nothing too much]. Too little and too much spoil everything. This is bandied about among men as wisdom, is honored with admiration; its exchange rate never fluctuates, and all mankind guarantees its worth. Now and then there is a genius who goes a little way beyond this, and he is called crazy - by sensible people. But Christianity makes an enormous giant stride beyond this ne qui nimis into the absurd; that is where Christianity begins - and offense."

Truth we can't deny

Lyrics from the forthcoming album...

We are bound for better truth than this,
which we have come to find,
which bids us hold inside
the truth we can't deny.
We know we can't arrive,
for it is ours to strive,
pushing all else aside
for a truth we can't deny.

Who would give the sun to watch the sky,
and make believe the reasons why,
and give their life unto the call
that so often eludes us all?

Who would give away their right to know
embracing all their strife to show
that certainty is not the goal
of those who stive to truly know?

We are bound for better truth than this,
which we have come to find,
which bids us hold inside
the truth we can't deny.
We know we can't arrive,
for it is ours to strive,
pushing all else aside
for a truth we can't deny.

To push aside the things we know today
and embrace the one true way
goes against uncertainty we claim
holds any truth behind a veil.

For who am I to say what's true for you,
and what are you to hold me to?
I know there must be more than this
to show the reaasons we exist.

We are bound for better truth than this,
which we have come to find,
which bids us hold inside
the truth we can't deny.
We know we can't arrive,
for it is ours to strive,
pushing all else aside
for a truth we can't deny.

Kierkegaard, conquerer of problems past, creator of problems new

From Spark Notes...
The most common explanation of what Kierkegaard is up to is that, unlike the scientists and scholars he criticizes, Kierkegaard is not trying to communicate straightforward facts, but rather to provoke a new state of awareness in his readers. He therefore writes in an circuitous manner that is meant more to provoke reflection than to communicate clear ideas.

So, the thing I sort of knew in the back of my head has been brought to my attention more than once now. Kierkegaard may have been trying to save the world from Hegel and rationalistic philosophy, but in doing so he opened wide the door to post-modernism, and the shots that it takes at his blessed Christian faith. It is obvious that Kierkegaard held the Christian faith close to his heart, but his thinking is obviously in line with the current line, which is increasingly post-modern, and says that truth is only found in our experience. Part of me wants to simply say that, if that's what it takes to produce Christians that follow their Lord with reckless abandon, then so be it. Another part of me desperately wants Christians to be well-taught and theologically certain, but in the end, does the theological certainty actually win any souls?

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.

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.