So here is my train of thought, and please feel free to tell me how off-track I am and whatnot, and please cure me of this muddled view. But, as I understand it, faith is this correlation of an impossibility, proposed by God, and believed by the individual to the point of extremity. Now, to me, life after death, in principle is precisely such a "god given contradiction".
Here's why. Borrowing from a Nietzschean point of view, (and common sense) life is life. Death by definition is the end of life. To be dead is to be in a state of logical opposition with the state of life. And to believe that life is able to continue after death is a contradiction of ideas. Well the response often given is, "well yeah, the body dies, but your soul, your mind, your self lives on! (dummy, dont you know anything about your soul??)". But this in and of itself to me seems like an inexpressible idea, because you are purporting to believe in a "soul" which does not die, an eternal soul right? Well now if this is something that is speakable, and explainable, I challenge you to tell me what your soul is, explain to me what a soul is in simple terms. WARNING: If you tell me your soul is your mind, your essence, your being, yada yada yada I will challenge you to further define these meanings until we have a clear answer. Next, and possibly more difficult, is the idea that this soul not only lives on, but lives on in some other place... some place without bodies.... and that we can imagine life in some other realm as pure essence, seems unthinkable to me. Our definition of life is indeed one that is attached to the very bodies in which we inhabit! How can you speak of a life that comes after death? Is this not an unspeakable un-relateable idea that is given to the individual by man? The main reason we want to fight against this idea (I did too) is because it threatens to undermine Kierkegaard's main point that faith has become cheap, as any good faithful person will tell you they believe in an afterlife, and if you're following my argument, they are earning faith and thus becoming a KoF. Now, I will try and save my main man John the silent from the cheapened imitation of faith that I may be arguing for.
My argument is not for the everyday church goer who purports to believe in life after death, but when death finally arrives, still maintains a fear of it. For those who are afraid of death still hold some doubt (I would argue that the doubt it sensical) in their heart about this contradiction. No these men and women are not knights of faith! I argue that it is the Suicide Bomber that is a possible candidate for the knight of faith dubbing. For they actually act upon this deep belief in the contradiction, arguably more deeply than Abraham, although they can not serve as the testament of faith as they are not around after their session of faith has run its course.
Tell me what you think... Am I making sense here, or have I still missed some giant point?
I am excited to hear your feedback.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAfter rereading you post a few times, I am concerned with your focus on the soul. While I do not believe in a soul nor purport to defend the integrity of the concept from naturalistic criticisms of it, I do not think that is actually captures John the Silent's larger problem. Taking the Binding of Issac story, how would life after death have influenced the interpretation of what Abraham's action of killing his son. Is it possible for Abraham to actually kill his son if death makes no sense under the Christian perspective, for his son would live on “after death” in some phantasmal form.
ReplyDeleteThis leads to the problem of whether or not one can actually believe that Abraham is going against the universal. For instance, let us assume that the universal ethics is comprised of forms of actions such as the act of stabbing someone as bad and the love shown to the son as good. Now imagine how these forms of an action can be expressed in mediums such as video games or theatre. If the Christian claims that in such mediums the act of murder does not lead to the same consequences, they have both divorced themselves from a deontological ethic, as opposed to a Consequentialist, and find themselves in the same contradiction with the consequences of killing somebody's body which also does not lead to actual death.
Jesus had not saved the souls of the faithful yet, so at Abraham's point in time there was no heaven for souls to go to.
ReplyDeleteTrue, I agree, but that does not mean that does not continue on as a soul. Afterlife does not mean living in Heaven. In this case, the grave (sheol) would probably suffice as a place of spiritual rest until the not yet prophesied coming of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that I am an expert at this because I am not. And tell me if I am wrong please. But I seem to have a problem with Kierkegaard's argument. If I understand our class, faith is a belief in a paradox. But I do not believe that to always be true. Because the faithful use faith as their reason (if I am making sense). For instance, life after death. That does seem like such a paradox. But to the faithful, who have fully placed their trust into this idea, do not need reason to explain it. Faith in itself acknowledges that it is not able to be explained; therefore, faith is the explanation. This is why I feel that Kierkegaard misrepresents the faithful. If I am not making any sense, please let me know so I can try and clear my ideas up.
ReplyDeleteI think your concern is somewhat justified. From my understanding, a person like the Abraham in the story explain his or her actions with faith, but having a reason (an explanation) and being justified in Reason (the universal) are not the same thing. Now, I think your problem is real here. Once we make Abraham a paradigm for others to follow, it becomes an universal principle. In other words, you are right that when Evangelicals use faith as an excuse for their actions, they are appealing to the Universal where everyone is justified in faith in their god.
ReplyDeleteEric, Abraham may be the model of faith, but he is by no means the Universal. To bring him back into the realm of the ethical is to make him a murderer or a madman.
ReplyDeleteColin, while I like the idea of proposing that a suicide bomber is a knight of faith, I don't think it is because he believes in life after death. As long as you can separate your body from for your 'soul' (some part of you that is not your body and persists after the destruction of the body) it is consistent to say that at one point both body and soul are alive and at the next point only the soul is alive.