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PDF Kierkegaard and the Knowledge Of Teodorescu: Kierkegaard and the Knowledge of God 105 Kierkegaard and the Knowledge of God Valentin–Petru Teodorescu ABSTRACT: Contrary to the common opinion that Kierkegaard is a fideist, there are in fact good proofs that he offers arguments (of an ethical and existential nature) in favor of the belief in God’s existence. However, this type of philosophical justification is not classical. Evaluated through the categories of modern epistemology it may be called rather externalist than internalist. The advantage of this approach to the problem of the arguments for God’s existence is its egalitarian, eliberating and formative consequences. In addition to that, a result of this view on the belief in God (and the knowledge of his attributes) is the fact that they do not seem to depend in any way by the contingent developments of science or society; therefore, they cannot be affected and eventually deteriorated by these factors. KEY WORDS: fideism, arguments, knowledge, externalism, egalitarianism, future T he theme of this essay is the knowledge of God—more precisely the knowledge that God exists and that he is a certain kind of being—from a Kierkegaardian perspective. There is generally, regarding Kierkegaard, the public perception that he is a fideist, a person for whom belief in God has no rational grounds; from this perspective a theist, in order to adhere to his own metaphysical worldview, needs to make an irrational jump toward faith. The present article suggests that this perception is false. In what follows we shall see that in the support of theistic belief Kierkegaard brings ethical and existential arguments, relating in this way our knowledge 105 106 THE FUTURE OF KNOWLEDGE HARVARD SQUARE SYMPOSIUM | of God to these universal components of the human subjective experience. 1. Kierkegaard and the Subjective Knowledge our subjectivity The knowledge of God has for Kierkegaard strong ties to ; therefore it is subjectivityimportant towas understand an answer howto a Kierkegaard understands this last concept. According to Hermann suchDeuser, elements Kierkegaard’s as ‘res concept cogitans of problem raised by the idealist philosophy—which, centering on ’, ‘transcendental apperception’ and ‘the unity1But of what subject means and toobject,’ understand “missed—and, the humans even in moretheir than that, positively ignored—the human being in her concrete subjectivity.” real subjectivity?1.1. What The Knowledgefollows offers that an God answer Exists; to this problem. the Subjective Immanent Metaphysical Knowledge 2 For Kierkegaard the knowledgeConcluding that God Unscientific exists is somehow, Postscript “built writes:in our human consciousness”—as Marilyn Piety puts it. Thus, in a well-known passage from , he To demonstrate the existence [Tilvær [er til ] of someone who exists ] is the most shameless assault, since it is an attempt to make him ludicrous, but the trouble is that one does not even suspect this, that in dead seriousness one regards it as a godly undertaking. How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that he exists unless one has allowed oneself3 to ignore him; and now one does it in an even more lunatic way by demonstrating his existence right in front of his nose. In “Philosophicalrecollection Fragments”: he says that this knowledge, like the truths of mathematics, is gained, in good Socratic (or platonic) fashion, through Teodorescu: Kierkegaard and the Knowledge of God 107 faith that god exists [er til One does not have ], eternally understood, even though one assumes that the god exist. That is an improperrecollection use of language. Socrates did not have faith that the god existed. What he knew about4 the god he achieved through , and for him the existence of the god was by no means something historical. Even if a person is not able to demonstrate the claim that God exists, this5 does not seem to deter her from the conviction that this statement corresponds to reality. For Kierkegaard real atheists do not exist. But how do we obtain this kind of knowledge (or belief) about God? Through a person’s wishing to be convinced by it—says Kierkegaard. There are nevertheless some people who do not want allto allowpeople this6 knowledgeKierkegaard’s to control their Analysis minds; of Radical this explains—at Evil least in part—why belief in the existence of God is not shared by . In his book , David Roberts offers details regarding 7this We canprocess now ofunderstand obscuring why and denying the knowledge of God’s existence (and the duty related to itit) has in thethe capacityKierkegaardian to control writings. the person who possesses it: in other knowledge about God’s existence is part of subjective knowledge: thewords, immanent it is related metaphysical to the existence knowledge of the subject. This knowledge of God is for Kierkegaard partrecollection of what he calls knowledge incorporates the objective knowledge, that kind in of a strictknowledge sense which is for him the subject of the Socratic mathematics. Thisand ontology/logic (which referred in his view to such domains as 8 it ),also but itincludes is not reduced a subjective to these two areas of objective existenceknowledge—which are indifferent to the existence ofknowledge the concrete of theindividual: existence of God each side individual (related has toa soulthe and the knowledge of the individual), that there which are eternally incorporates valid thenorms for human behavior 9 , the knowledge that , . 108 THE FUTURE OF KNOWLEDGE HARVARD SQUARE SYMPOSIUM | In this sense Kierkegaard says that: “With respect to the existence of God, immortality, etc., in short, with respect to all problems of immanence, recollectionJP, applies; it exists altogether in every man, only he does not know it, but it again follows that the conception may be inadequate” ( 3606) p. 3.662 (V.B.40.) He is here in agreement with Karl Barth, who suggested—more than a century after Kierkegaard—that a conception of deity and an10 obligation to fulfill the moral law are the basic forms of religion, immanentconstituting, metaphysical more or less, knowledge universal features of human existence. But immanentwhy does Kierkegaard call this knowledge of God subjective? It is because it is somehow part of the content of human consciousness. It is also because it refers (and is interested) in the human existence, the own existencecertainty of the thinking subject. Because this is a “subjective knowledge proper him. it prescriptive is associated by Kierkegaard with psychological ”— writes Piety. Moreover, because all subjective knowledge is for , it follows that “the certainty of the knower that necessitya given mental representationcorrespondenc corresponds to reality will . be inexorably intertwined11 with his appreciation of his subjective of the e of his existence to the substance of this representation.” As we shall see in the next section,12 the knowledge that there is aimmanent God is—for knowledge example—deeplyGod connected with the impression of a (moral)subjective obligation conviction related tothat Him. they have a dutyIn tothe God case of this of , Kierkegaard argues that all people have a obscuring . An individual always13 possesses an impression of this duty, even if he, in Piety’s words, “is engaged in the activity of it from himself.” The assurance regarding God’s evenexistence if her is life for is a not person in agreement proportional to God’s to the laws measure in which she agrees that her life should correspond to God’s laws. However, she might feel guilty , that person might still be sure that Godan agreement exists, because—though with the reality she of this fails duty to do God’s will— for her failure; if this is the case, her guilt represents14 in fact “ ” (which may in fact be “the first step down the path of the fulfillment of the duty.) Teodorescu: Kierkegaard and the Knowledge of God 109 2. The Knowledge That God Exists and its Relationship with Ethics A preliminary conclusion to what we presented until now is that sensus divinitatis, an apriori for Kierkegaard “the knowledge that God exists” (the belief in God) functions more or less as a kind of conviction which appears to be common to all people—although many of them might somehow obscure it, being unwilling to let theit get way control in which over people their minds.relate toThe their difference moral duty in recognizing or acceptingassociated the idea of God’s existence isbelief related in God.for Kierkegaard) The present to (which seems to be —or bound—to this section intends to focus on this relationship. 2.1. The Belief in God for the Ethicist and the Religious: Their Relationship with the Ethical Norms not proper only to what he calls the religious stage In Kierkegaaard’sthe ethicist view the belief in God is of existence—as one might expect. On the contrary, (the personbelieves who in God chose too to live in the ethical stage of existence—a stage in which morality has priority over all other aspects of human life) . To Kierkegaard— according to Stephen Evans—was alien the idea that ethical life is “free from risky metaphysical commitments, a kind of humanistic stance that does not require belief in God...The ethicists of ethicistsKierkegaard see aretheir invariably ethical duties devout as and divine pious commandments individuals who15 believe in God and participate in the life of the church. Kierkegaard’s .” So, in this respect they do not differ from thenot religious that the people ethicists in willwhat necessaryregards their belief in God (although, as we shall see, to see ethical duties as divine commandments means believe in the personalethical imperatives God of monotheism; have power some of althoughthem might they just might say: still “there not oughtyet believe to be in a God.God,”16 )a reference to the idea that—for them—the ; and this 110 THE FUTURE OF KNOWLEDGE HARVARD SQUARE SYMPOSIUM | confidence in the capacity of fulfilling the ethicalThe main task difference between the ethicist and the religious theyperson can refers by themselves rather to their given by God.
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