Reflections: Faith in Existenz

In the Edifying Discourse entitled “The Expectation of Faith”, the great Danish religious philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, assures us that “the expectation of faith…is victory.” The dark forest of myriad contingencies, through which the quest of the Knight of Faith must progress, harbors a “crafty” adversary, known as doubt:

In its secret way [doubt] sneaks about a man, and when faith expects victory, then it whispers that this expectation is a delusion. “An expectation whose time and place are not determined, is only an illusion; thus one can always continue to expect; such an expectation is an enchanted circle from which the soul cannot escape.” Certainly the soul, in the expectation of faith, is prevented from falling out of itself into the manifold; it remains in itself; but it would be the greatest evil which could befall a man if he escaped from this circle.

Kierkegaard goes on to assert:

It is true that he who expects something in particular, may be disappointed; but this does not happen to the believer. When the world begins its sharp testing, when the storms of life snap the vigorous expectations of youth, when existence, which seems so loving and so gentle, transforms itself into a merciless proprietor who demands everything back, then the believer looks with sadness and pain at himself and at life, but he still says: “There is an expectation which all the world can not take from me; it is the expectation of faith, and this is victory. I am not deceived; for what the world seemed to promise me, that promise I still did not believe that it would keep; my expectation was not in the world, but in God. …I have still conquered, conquered through my expectation, and my expectation is victory.”

This essential sadness and pain which dwells like a heart worm at the core of existence, which impels the Buddhist toward the refuge of oblivion and the consumer of the material toward the abyss of insatiable acquisitiveness, is for Kierkegaard the impetus toward the mysterious and paradoxical victory of the Cross. This is an existentialism without nihilistic despair: victory over existence.

Interlude: The Matrix - Roll, Roll, Roll, Your Blog

Since I stubbornly refuse to add a permanent blogroll to this site, it behooves me, from time to time, to direct attention to the goings-on at some of the other sites that make up my blogospheric neighborhood. So here goes:

In the comments section of Postmodern Papist, Kyle was asked to define the term “postmodern” as he understands it. Kyle modestly directed the reader to the Stanford University philosophy site to which I hereby link again. It is an excellent resource to which I have often been conducted in the past in my wanderings across the universe of directed cognition.

As I was eavesdropping, I went there myself and came across the following citation touting Kierkegaard as a precursor of postmodernism:

Kierkegaard…describes modern society as a network of relations in which individuals are leveled into an abstract phantom known as “the public”. The modern public, in contrast to ancient and medieval communities, is a creation of the press, which is the only instrument capable of holding together the mass of unreal individuals “who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization”. In this sense, society has become a realization of abstract thought, held together by an artificial and all-pervasive medium speaking for everyone and for no one.

Substitute “the blogosphere” for “the press” in the above, and understand how Kierkegaard continues to define our common lot today. (I should not neglect to mention here that Kyle has also made available for your perusal and delight some new art by his wife, Genece. Check it out.)

Speaking of art, over at Disputations, reigning sage and guru, Tom, posted a mysterious cartoon graphic well over a month ago. And then vanished. His loyal readers hope that his dramatic reappearance, with or without more cartoons, is imminent.

While Tom remains on the lam, over at Sex, Politics and Religion, our MC, Civis, has returned from a lengthy sabbatical with this timely post. He solicits your advice.

At Ragged Thots, host Robert A. George continues to have a hell of time keeping his rowdy crew of regulars within the bounds of propriety universally recognized as orthodox by members of a civil society. Go there armed.

Anthony, The Catholic Libertarian, has gotten the most response recently to his post on the antics of everybody’s favorite Hugo Award winner, Senor Chavez. Go there and rip the Venezuelan Pol Pot a new one for Jesus.

On the eve of the Super Bowl, at Politics and Pigskins it’s all pigs and no pols with resident maven, Ed. You can’t tell the swine without a scorecard, folks. But in the spirit of redneck unity, it must be remembered that, before there was “Andy of Mayberry,” there was “What It Was Was Football”.

Keesey claims to be fo’ Sheezy, but I’ve been watching all the debates I didn’t even know that Sheezy was running. This is the place to hang if you’re looking to meet the blonde-all-over, slanty-eyed, slinky, Slav-ette of your dreams. And a quirky topic, or two, or three…

Finally, go here to keep an Ever Vigilant eye on what the hyper-edumacated, hard-right-reactionary set is all a-buzz about, as we are swept by the currents of history inexorably toward the End of Time.

Readings: from The Notebooks

When Kyle, the major-domo of Postmodern Papist quoted the French Catholic existentialist philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, here, it reminded me that one of my purposes in launching this blog was supposed to have been posting excerpts from notes I had taken in the course of my various readings. For the most part, however, new readings have prompted immediate postings, and the contents of my notebooks have gone untapped.

Well, Kyle reminded me that I had been reading Gabriel Marcel some months back, so I went to the notebooks to look for a pithy quote from Marcel in order to give it an airing here. I found several quotes, from two different texts, to choose from. As a consequence of the fact that I refer to myself as a “pilgrim” in the profile adorning Rodak Riffs, I offer the following from Marcel’s book, The Mystery of Being:

There is not, and there cannot be, any global abstraction, any final high terrace to which we can climb by means of abstract thought, there to rest forever; for our condition is this world does remain, in the last analysis, that of a wanderer, an itinerate being, who cannot come to absolute rest except by a fiction, a fiction which it is the duty of philosophic reflection to oppose with all its strength.

But let us notice also that our itinerate condition is in no sense separable from the given circumstances, from which in the case of each of us that condition borrows its special character; we have thus reached a point where we can lay it down that to be in a situation and to be on the move are modes of being that cannot be dissociated from each other; are, in fact, two complementary aspects of our condition.

There’s your pilgrim. And while looking for a good Marcel quote, I came across whole pages of notes that I had scribbled down while reading Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity. I find the excerpts quoted below to have particular relevance to the rather heated disputation in which I was involved in the comments section of What’s Wrong With the World here. And so, Kierkegaard:

That an individual man is God, declares himself to be God, is indeed the “offense.” …Can one demonstrate that to be a rational reality which is at variance with reason? Surely not, unless one would contradict oneself. One can “prove” only that it is at variance with reason. The proofs which Scripture presents for Christ’s divinity—His miracles, His Resurrection from the dead, His Ascension into heaven--are therefore only for faith, that is, they are not “proofs,” they have no intention of proving that all this agrees perfectly with reason; on the contrary they would prove that it conflicts with reason and therefore is an object of faith.

…the certitude of faith is something infinitely higher [than a “proof” from history]

Everyone who has the least dialectical training can easily perceive that the whole argument about consequences is incommensurable with the decision of the question whether it is God…whether he will believe that He is what He said He was; or whether he will not believe.

…”History,” says faith, “has nothing whatever to do with Christ…”

Jesus Christ is the object of faith; one must either believe on Him or be offended. For to “know” signifies exactly that the reference is not to Him. …Knowledge demolishes Jesus Christ.

Given that the discussion got a little bit hot at WWWtW the other day, it is probably just as well that I didn’t come across the following Old Testament tidbit at the time:

May the Lord strike you with Egyptian boils and with tumors, scabs and itches, for which you will find no cure. [Deut.28:27]

I feel much better now.