We discussed in class that Kierkegaard's target here is Hegel, and presumably like-minded philosophers who value knowledge over faith. It is assumed, he says, that knowledge is more "difficult" than faith, but Kierkegaard argues that this is actually the other way around. Faith is in fact more difficult than knowledge, and he exemplifies this by giving the alarming case of Abraham and his paradox that he must accept on faith despite the impossibility for his reason to accept both truths. (i.e., that Isaac will both live and die.) However, my challenge to Kierkegaard is that he seems to be fooling us by valuing faith as higher than reason without actually giving an argument as to why we should think so.
Kierkegaard thinks that it is through faith and not by knowledge that we bypass the "universal" and reach the absolute, but there does not seem to be any reason to think that faith is actually more valuable. Yes, he does give us some flowery language here and there about how great faith is, like, "Faith is a miracle, ... for that in which all human life is unified is passion, and faith is a passion," (17) but what reason do we really have to think that faith is more valuable than knowledge and reason? Kierkegaard's answer seems to be that the difficulty inherent in each activity, that is, faith and knowledge, is what makes faith more valuable, but that only raises more questions. If something is more difficult than something else, does this imply that the former is more worthwhile than the latter? If that's the case, then I can just as easily deduce that eating five whole chocolate cakes in a row is more worthwhile than eating a serving of vegetables simply by virtue that eating five cakes in a row is much more difficult than eating vegetables, or something equally ridiculous. There's nothing that should make me think otherwise if we accept that difficulty has such an effect on value.
It does not make sense for people that value reason so much to abandon it in favor of the complete opposite. If I am a rational person and am confronted with such a paradox in my own life, my first reaction is certainly not to tell myself that this paradox is acceptable as long as I realize that it is simply a matter of faith and that because it is so I should accept the paradox as it is despite my reason telling me that it could never be the case. It just seems that we would be doing a disservice to ourselves by dismissing one of our most valued powers, namely reason, that supposedly a divine being gave us for our benefit, in favor of something that is totally irrational. As Galileo said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended for us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them" (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei). If I were a churchgoer in Kierkegaard's day and were made aware of Abraham's paradox, I would certainly be alarmed at the consequences for being faithful.
This is a really interesting post. My only addition is does faith have to be religion? I agree with yours and Galileo's stance but I think in a sense it is harder to have faith (in general, not the paradox form) then knowledge, because knowledge can be measured; while faith is something that helps to explain that which we do not understand by using knowledge, whether true or false. For an example, religion tells us that the only way to ascend to heaven is to be a good person, and in the christian faith you have to be a good person and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savor. I have a hard time believing at least in the latter, because then what happened to all of those that helped to create Christianity before Jesus was alive? Is Abraham in hell or limbo or rotting in the ground because he never knew or accepted Jesus? And if we leave the track of Christianity and just say you have to be a good person to go to heaven how can I believe that when science has showed us so many different things and what truly happens when you die (or so some think, I don't no and never will). So I think even though so people believe in faith only out of fear or hope others find it very hard to believe in, like myself. I no this isn't the form of faith that Kierkegaard is talking about but it does link hand in hand with it, whether it deals with religion or not something that is non tangible is hard to believe in, unless you see proof or truly believe. "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see" Monroe Richman.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good question and one that has certainly troubled me while reading Kierkegaard.This question is particularly difficult to respond to; all answers must necessarily be subjective or simply consist of personal abstractions because, as you pointed out, Kierkegaard supplies no argument or vocabulary with which we may discuss the problem in relation to his ideas. My personal response, therefore, would be that reason should never be discouraged, nor faith substituted for reason simply because it is considered "better" under religious standards. However, I would encourage that we not limit the use of faith by applying it only to the story of Abraham; if we try to understand faith only through that context, the endeavor will be futile, for it can't be done (its an absurd situation and a paradox). But outside this particular circumstance, faith is a necessity within the physical world, as there are particular subjects which cannot be explained through reason. This opinion is expressed, though with certain liberties of my own, by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Human reason is limited by its need for sensorial experience, but that is a problem he states in regards to the subjects of God, freedom, and immortality. Kant states that we invented the subject of Metaphysics to explain these phenomena, but to do so we must go above and beyond the limitations of PURE reason; perhaps Kierkegaard would call this step above normal reason "faith", as we must suspend all empirical knowledge. Perhaps we should not think in terms of which is better, but recognize that they both have their place and appropriate applications.
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