Have you ever heard the terms, "the leap of faith", or "all roads lead to heaven"? Both of these stem from the philosophy of a man named Soren Kierkegaard. I wrote a paper on this philosopher last year for a class I was taking, and I thought I would share it with you. Much of the cultural worldview in America today was heavily influenced by Kierkegaard, so I feel there is relevance in understanding his ideas in a little more detail. I know it is quite long, but I hope you learn from it and enjoy it!
Søren Kierkegaard
Born in
1813, Søren Kierkegaard is considered the father of modern existentialism. Existentialism is defined in Merriam-Webster
Dictionary as follows:
Analysis
of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual
who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain
knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.
While the term did not exist in Kierkegaard’s time,
the ideas related to existentialism were in large part pioneered by him. In addition,
Kierkegaard was an expressly Christian philosopher. He sought answers regarding the relationship of faith
and religion, and ultimately led to the common modern separation between faith and reason. Søren
Kierkegaard had many correct insights into the Christian life, but one little error led him,
and our culture after him, into miry clay.
During
Kierkegaard’s day, the culture had been widely influenced by Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel. Kant, in his epistemology, defended
the principle of a priori knowledge, including the moral law and ethical standards. Thus,
he established the idea that moral principles are universal, necessary, and rational. Kant penned
the term, “The Categorical Imperative”, which is basically a version of the Golden Rule: The
way you should act is the way you want everyone to act. However, Kant did not anchor ethics
or morality on any divine standard, but rather simply assumed that they exist a priori without cause. Therefore,
ethics became its own end, divorced from God. G.W.F. Hegel reinforced
Kant’s system, and ultimately left a morality unmoored from any divine foundation.
Thus,
during Kierkegaard’s day, many “Christians” lived according to ethical
principles without any kind of passion or commitment to the God
who is the standard of ethics. This left Kierkegaard with a bad taste in his mouth regarding
the effects of Kantian Ethics on society. He said, “God comes to be an invisible vanishing point,
and impotent thought; his power is only in the ethical, which fills all of existence.” What
Kierkegaard experienced was a lack of true, passionate faith amongst Christians; instead, they
simply practiced ethics as the chief end of religion. This viewpoint pushed Kierkegaard to
develop the concept of the three stages of religious life. The first stage, the aesthetic
stage, consists of a selfish pursuit of pleasure and a focus on temporal existence alone. This stage leads
to despair, because it does not accomplish the purpose for which God created man. Such despair
leads man to move to the second stage, the ethical stage. In this stage, man submits to the
universal ethical principles, becoming a “good person”. Finally, when man realizes that the ethical
cannot be its own end, he makes a specific decision to move to the religious stage. This stage,
characterized by a true relationship with God and a passionate commitment to him, is reached
through an irrational “leap of faith”. As a model for this type of blind faith, Kierkegaard turns to
Abraham. Specifically, he focuses on the instance of God’s command for Abraham to offer Isaac
as a sacrifice. The Scripture reads, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and
go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show
you.” Abraham obeys God, and whilst he begins to plunge the knife at Isaac, God provides a
ram in the thicket instead. Throughout Scripture, Abraham is elevated as an exemplar of
faith. Kierkegaard then summarizes that Abraham obeyed God out of an irrational, zealous
faith. For, to all other men, he would have seemed insane and unethical. In man’s eyes, no
universal moral rule can justify Abraham’s actions. However, according to Kierkegaard, true
faith is characterized by a radical, desperate, and irrational obedience to God. By definition, it is subjective, and for each
individual the commands differ. Thus, as Kierkegaard himself
stated, “Truth is subjectivity.” True religion and faith is characterized by complete abandon of
rationality in subjection to God. In fact, Kierkegaard used an example of two men praying. One
prays to the Christian God without zeal or passion, and in truth he serves idols. On the
other hand, the second man prays to idols with passion, zeal, and complete commitment, and he worships
God. Kierkegaard’s continually focused upon the irrational faith of true religion,
as opposed to the cultural norm of lackluster service to ethical principles.
First,
let us look at what Kierkegaard got right. The concern he experienced over the
works-based faith of his era resounds with many Christians
throughout history, including Martin Luther. The need for a saving, life changing faith
is certainly Scriptural. Indeed, a radical commitment to God, despite the ridicule from
outsiders, is also Biblical. The stages are very insightful, and in some ways adequate for explaining
the Christian conversion. Some people simply don’t care about ethics, some are “good”
people, and then there are faithful Christians. Finally, Abraham as an example of faith is certainly
not out of the ordinary or unbiblical. In fact, many of Scriptures authors, most notably Paul, used
Abraham as a supreme example of faith. Thus, many things, especially in the beginning of
his quest, Kierkegaard scored a goal on.
On the
other hand, it seems as though when Kierkegaard finally got to the point of
concluding the matter, he went off the deep end of sound
reasoning. While Abraham was used repeatedly in Scripture as a model of faith, he was never referred
to as having irrational faith, but rather a very rational faith. The command to offer Isaac was not
the first experience Abraham had with God. Rather, Abraham’s relationship with God was long and
tested. God had promised Abraham a son who would produce many offspring. At that time, Isaac
had no offspring, and thus Abraham trusted God to carry through with his promise in
some way. Hebrews 11:17-19 says:
By
faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received
the promises
offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed
shall be
called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…
Thus, Abraham had a rational faith in a God whom he
had previously known to follow through with His promises. In addition, what Abraham did was
not subjective or “unethical” according to societal norms. God, the giver of life, is the only
One who can also take human life. Thus, for God to require the life of Isaac did not violate
ethical standards. God, the standard bearer, can take the life of his creation as He sees fit. Thus,
in reality, Kierkegaard had a faulty and partial view of Abraham’s faith, and falsely concluded that
Abraham had an irrational, subjective faith. He swung the pendulum too far in the opposite
direction of works-based religion to a religion that entirely excluded reason. Furthermore, he
denied the fundamental principle, if not in practice in theory, of Christ as the only way to the Father.
Instead, he favored the view that all roads lead to heaven as long as you follow them with passion
and zeal.
For his
many insights, Kierkegaard had an equal number of detrimental faults which
still influence of culture today. One of the most obvious
results of his viewpoints is modern relativism. Since all roads lead to heaven if
followed with passion, why should you judge someone else’s religion? Although this may not seem
as radical as all relativism, it prevails in today’s world, even among many Christians.
Ultimately, this leads to disobeying the fundamental command Christ gave, which is the Great
Commission. Furthermore, it becomes a short distance to the full-fledged relativism of our
day. Finally, Kierkegaard influenced modern culture, especially the church, regarding faith and
reason. Because he created such a gap between faith and reason, the former being all-in-all and
the latter unnecessary, Christians now remove themselves from any area of society which calls for
reason and logic. One common example of this is science – Christians believe that science
belongs in the realm of the world, while they should simply focus on faith. While most would not readily
recognize the name of Søren Kierkegaard, they have many of the thought patterns
which he introduced ingrained in their minds. Thus, as it turns out, one little misstep
from Biblical truth leads inevitably to false doctrines and ultimately heresy.
