some snippets of Kierkegaard

[visheshdewan050193]

The snippet is taken from David's compilation of Kierkegaard's writings culled from Provocations on the subject of Truth. It's part of the 'Two ways of reflection' excerpt.

Let me clarify the difference between objective and subjective reflection. True inwardness in an existing subject involves passion, and truth as a paradox corresponds to passion. In forgetting that one is an existing subject, one loses passion, and in turn, truth ceases to be a paradox. If truth is the comprehensible, the knowing subject shifts from being human to being an abstract thinker, and truth becomes an abstract, comprehensible object for his knowing. When the question about truth is asked objectively, what is reflected upon is not the relation but the what of the relation. As long as what one relates oneself to is the truth, the subject is supposedly in the truth. But when the question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual s relation to the truth is what matters. If only the how (not the what) of this relation is in truth, then the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth.

When approached objectively, the question of truth is only about categories of thought. Approached subjectively, however, truth is about inwardness. At its maximum, the how of inwardness is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the essential truth. Decision exists only in subjectivity. Thus the passion of the infinite, not its content, is the deciding factor, for its content is precisely itself. In this way the subjective how and subjectivity, not the objective what and objectivity, are the truth.

Let us take the knowledge of God as an example. The way of objectivity concerns itself with what is reflected upon, of whether this is the true God. In the way of subjectivity, however, the individual relates to God in such a way that this relation is in truth a God-relation. Now, on which side is the truth? Is it on neither side? Or, better yet, does it lie somewhere in between? But how can this be? An existing person cannot be in two places at once. He cannot exist as a subject-object. God is a subject to be related to, not an object to be studied or mediated on. He exists only for subjective inwardness.

The person who chooses the subjective way immediately grasps the difficulty of trying to find God objectively. He understands that to know God means to resort to God, not by virtue of objective deliberation, but by virtue of the infinite passion of inwardness. Whereas objective knowledge goes along leisurely on the long road of deliberation, subjective knowledge considers every delay of decision a deadly peril. Knowing subjectively considers decision so important that it is immediately urgent, as if the delayed opportunity had already passed by unused.

Now, if the problem is to determine where there is more truth, whether on the side of the person who only objectively seeks the true God and the approximating truth of the God idea or on the side of the person who is infinitely concerned that he in truth relate himself to God with the passion of his need, then there can be no doubt about the answer. If someone lives in the midst of Christianity and enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol where, then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol. The distance between objective reflection and subjectivity is indeed an infinite one.

Is there a tacit admission here that ideally one ought to marry one's ideation of 'the true God' (via reasoning about causality as interdependence, and the formlessness of Reality) with a 'passion of infinity'? Also on a side note, does it also hint that Kierkegaard was aware of the conception of the Infinite as expressed in this forum? Here's another snippet from the same compilation that makes me ask the same questions.

It is not my desire to use big words in speaking about the Age as a whole. However, you can hardly deny that the reason for its anxiety and unrest is because in one direction, "truth" increases in scope and in quantity via science and technology while in the other, certainty and confidence steadily decline. Our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good.
Take the thought of immortality, for example. The person who knows how to prove the immortality of the soul but who is not himself convinced by it, and does not live by it will always be anxious. Despite all his proofs, he shrinks from the truth of immortality. He deceives both himself and others by pretending that the proof is enough. In the process of trying to prove immortality he forgets immortality, since immortality is precisely what he fears. He remains anxious and is thus forced to seek yet a further understanding of what it means to believe in the soul's immortality.

[visheshdewan050193]

At the same time, you get thrown off by stuff like this, where he seems to laud objective uncertainty as a condition for faith. A conception of logical causality can be considered to be 'objective' since it pertains to empirical phenomena, just as mathematical statements such as 1+1=2 do so too.

How shall we understand the truth in terms of subjectivity? Here is a definition: The truth is an objective uncertainty held fast through personal appropriation with the most passionate inwardness. This is the highest truth there can be for an existing person. At the point where the road divides, objective knowledge is suspended, and one has only uncertainty, but this is precisely what intensifies the infinite passion of inwardness. Subjective truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite.

I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see omnipotence and wisdom. However, I also see much that is troubling and unsettling. The sum total of this is that God s existence is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness, the certainty of his existence, is still so very great, precisely because of this objective uncertainty. In a mathematical proposition absolute objectivity is given, but for that reason its truth is also an indifferent truth and concerns me very little.

Now the definition of truth stated above is actually a paraphrasing of faith. No uncertainty, no risk. No risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and objective uncertainty. In other words, if I apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith.

[Pam Seeback]

Is there a tacit admission here that ideally one ought to marry one's ideation of 'the true God' (via reasoning about causality as interdependence, and the formlessness of Reality) with a 'passion of infinity'?

The interdependence of causality IS the passion of infinity when known as such by the interdependent causality. When this knowing is doubt-free, reasoning about is transcended, ideation of God is transcended. Why? Because reasoning 'about' and 'of' imply an existent separation when as the truth of infinite subjectivity reveals, no such existent separation exists. Where God (believing Itself to be Kierkegaard) was yet suspended in ignorance was Its consideration of Itself as the unknown objective reality as if in contrast to the faithful relating subject (the soul called Kierkegaard).

This ignorance of Always One, never two appears clearly in this passage from "From Fear and Trembling": "Temporality, finitude—this is what it is all about. I can resign everything by my own strength and find peace and rest in the pain; I can put up with everything—even if that dreadful demon, more horrifying than the skeletal one who terrifies me, even if madness held its fools costume before my eyes and I understood from its face that it was I who should put it on—I can still save my soul as long as my concern that my love of God conquer within me is greater than my concern that I achieve earthly happiness."

When you read the above passage from the perspective of the conscious, knowing, infinite forming God (your true nature, my true nature), the loving of God BY Kierkegaard (as well as the experience of fear and trembling of Kierkegaard for the unknown 'objective' God) makes no sense - liberation/salvation is 'won'!