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Chapter I: Reading Philosophical Fragments 1 the General Problem of Faith and Reason in the Philosophical Fragments

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Chapter I: Reading Philosophical Fragments 1 the General Problem of Faith and Reason in the Philosophical Fragments VU Research Portal Reasonableness of faith: a study of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments Kim, T. 2010 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Kim, T. (2010). Reasonableness of faith: a study of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. 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Sep. 2021 VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Reasonableness of faith: a study of Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr. L.M. Bouter, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de faculteit der Godgeleerdheid op donderdag 9 december 2010 om 11.45 uur in de aula van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 door Tony Kim geboren te Dong Du Chun, Zuid Korea promotoren: prof.dr. H.M. Vroom prof.dr. W. Stoker Table of Contents Chapter I: Reading Philosophical Fragments 1 The General Problem of Faith and Reason in the Philosophical Fragments.................................................................................... 1 The Importance of Kierkegaard in Accounting for Faith and Reason ......................................................................................... 3 The Intention behind Fragments........................................................ 6 The Nature of Each Sub-Problem Addressed in the Fragments ........ 7 On Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms........................................................ 15 Chapter II: The Truth and the Ideal 21 The General Problem of Faith and Reason in the Philosophical Fragments.................................................................................. 21 The Indemonstrability of God: The Case of Spinoza....................... 26 Religious Faith as Proof of God’s Existence ................................... 33 The Subjective in Climacus ............................................................. 35 An analysis of the Climacean Transcendental Critique in Fragments.................................................................................. 40 Summary of the differences between Husserl and Climacus........... 49 Chapter III: The Absolute Paradox 57 The Paradox of God’s Appearance in the World............................. 57 The Objectivity of the Paradox ........................................................ 63 The Empirical and Ideal Dialectic in Philosophy ............................ 65 Chapter IV: Existence and Absolute Knowledge 73 Climacus and the Case of Hegelian Philosophy .............................. 73 Hegel’s Absolute Idealism: Looking into Its Epistemological Tenets and Metaphysical Implications ...................................... 77 The Problem of Hegelian Philosophy’s Elimination of the Transcendent ............................................................................. 82 Summary.......................................................................................... 87 Chapter V: The Relation between Faith and Reason 93 The Distinction between Faith (Eternal) and Reason (Historical) ... 93 “Coming into Existence” ................................................................. 94 Religious Faith versus Historical Belief .......................................... 98 Objectivity and Subjectivity in Climacus ...................................... 102 The Concept of the “Offense”........................................................ 104 The “Moment” and the “Condition” .............................................. 109 Passion, Existence, and Faith......................................................... 111 The Leap ........................................................................................ 119 Chapter VI: Summary and Conclusions 141 Bibliography 151 Chapter I: Reading Philosophical Fragments The General Problem of Faith and Reason in the Philosophical Fragments The great question i.e. of the nature of the relation between faith (fide) and reason (ratio), has always been difficult to answer. Theologians and philosophers alike have attempted to address this complex issue concerning the nature of the relation of faith and reason in various ways, but it remains unresolved. The main reason for the failure, in my view, is due to the fine line that exists between these two different yet somehow overlapping categories of human thought. First of all, faith and reason operate via the two separate fields of philosophy and theology, making it extremely problematic, if not impossible, to reduce religious faith to any kind of rational knowledge. Nonetheless, some philosophers and theologians consider it necessary to bridge between these two diverging and to some extent converging categories in order to show that all human beings have knowledge of God and of the truth of his existence. In this study, I will thus give an account of the nature of the relation between faith and reason made problematic by the fact that these ideas essentially occupy different realms of human thought presented in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments published under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. I will argue that in this work that Climacus argues that there is a historical relation between God and human beings or between faith and human knowledge. We also find that, in the course of his discussion, Climacus simultaneously preserves the integrity of faith—as that which cannot be achieved by any rational human thought—and conveys the limitations of human reason in its inability to transcend all of its speculation concerning the infinite.1 I will try to explore how this particular discussion on the relation between faith and reason is carried out by Climacus in the book as a whole and how reason is historically related to the infinite. 2 – The Reasonableness of Faith The main argument we find in Fragments is that reason and religious faith are essentially irreconcilable because each has its own root, i.e. humanity and divinity, respectively. Does this mean that human reason for him has no historical relation to the infinite? In the absolute sense, his answer is no. He repeatedly makes the claim that there is no meaningful relation between philosophic reason and religious faith because the former is immanent and the latter a matter of transcendence. Does this mean that Climacus is a fideist—one who does not see any possible reconciliation between faith and reason—due to reason’s limitations in identifying the experience of the transcendent? What about those (i.e., Coolidge, Evans, Ferreira, Westphal) who argue that Kierkegaard’s/Climacus’ metaphysics or philosophy of religion contains a point of contact between transcendence and reason? Kierkegaard’s Fragments does not contain clear answers to these questions. However, I will argue that the factual element of the faith-reason relation is evident in Climacus’ analysis of his orthodox position with respect to the faith-reason relation. I will argue that, for him, reason performs the work to a certain extent of affirming the existence of an eternal being. I will thus argue that he situates himself as one who acknowledges an absolute distinction between the eternal and the human, and who at the same time does not entirely reject the notion of historical knowledge of God. I will argue that he is somewhere between fideism, which holds to an absolute distinction between faith and reason, and foundationalism, which maintains that every human being has a basic knowledge of the eternal being. I will argue that, even though he completely rejects the humanistic idea of God- human unity in, for instance, the form of an Hegelian synthesis (which I deal with in chapter four of the thesis), he nonetheless affirms that there is a certain kind of transcendental dialectic between the divine and human. For this reason, then, we may argue that Climacus holds that all human affairs are conscious responses to the being and existence of that which can be transcendentally thought by the human mind, namely, the eternal (God). First, unlike traditional foundationalists, who believe that historical knowledge of the transcendent has to be proven from experience of the world, Climacus believes that reasonable belief has to be based on Reading Philosophical Fragments – 3 transcendental aspects of the human—as we will see throughout this study. In keeping with this theme in Fragments, and what we hope to discover in this study with respect to the problematic relation between faith and reason, I will thus attempt to determine and explain what Climacus understands the nature of human reason to be, and what type of relation reason has with its religious counterpart, namely, faith. I will discuss the specific issues explored
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