Kierkegaard had a particular dislike for philosophers, theologians, and “academics” by and large. Anyone who has spent time in the graduate level/academic world will know why. Now, while it is not true in every single case, the academic world of philosophers and theologians is one where each “specialist” is in his own little world where he knows all there is to know about certain facts about a specific subject—but he is rather helpless once you get him outside of that little world. It may sound harsh, but it seems that 90% of what is published in academic journals is largely irrelevant to humanity. Maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but it’s also kind of true.
Kierkegaard clearly saw that it is oftentimes the learned academic who is the biggest fool: “…what is most difficult of all for the wise man to understand is precisely the simple. The plain man understands the simple directly, but when the wise man sets himself to understand it, it becomes infinitely difficult…the more the wise man thinks about the simple…the more difficult it becomes for him” (CUP 143).
Why is that? As Vardy says, “Kierkegaard’s complaint is against philosophers, theologians and others who busy themselves building up more and more learning and lose touch with the simple and what really matters. In particular they lose touch with the essential nature of faith. They fail to address the important issues, such as what it means to have faith and how having faith will affect them as single individuals” (26). And again, “…most philosophers are good talkers and writers but fail to express anything significant with their lives” (26). Now, I would take issue with that whole “most philosophers are good writers” bit—but do they do anything significant with their lives? It doesn’t seem so. What’s the joke about the philosophy of most philosophers? “I can drink you under the table!”?
Sadly, though, many confessing Christians are pretty much in the same boat. Oh, they may not spend their time “drinking people under the table” while amassing random and useless facts and using incomprehensible philosophical jargon, but they do spend their lives just doing what they want while giving lip service to a few standard “religious facts” about God and Jesus. They are, in fact, neglecting to live out a very real, subjective relationship with the Living God, in favor of mentally ascribing to a few supposed “objective facts” about God…then they pretty much live their lives however they want. They have fallen into the Enlightenment trap, which is a fundamental lie.
Why is that? Because, as Kierkegaard clearly saw, faith is not an objective enterprise: “If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe” (CUP 182). Take, for example, the fundamental Christian claim of the incarnation: that Jesus is God in the flesh. Now, there is no objective way to “prove” that claim. For that matter, there is not objective way to “disprove” that claim either. It is a claim that goes above and beyond objective reality. Instead, the central Christian claim is actually a subjective claim, in that if Jesus is God in the flesh, and if through Christ God is redeeming humanity so we can be in right relationship with Him, the truth of that claim can only be realized in the context of a relationship with a God who cannot be objectively proven—it can only be subjectively and relationally lived out, realized, and experienced.
Or more simply put, I can do the objective research and become rationally convinced that Jesus lived from 6 BC-33 AD, that he really said the things in the gospels, that he really was betrayed, crucified, and buried. I may even be rationally convinced that he came back from the dead. But accepting those things as factually true does not constitute faith. Accepting those facts are a safe thing to do—they don’t necessarily affect my life. But those facts do, if I am honest, challenge me to face that very real subjective challenge: how do I choose to relate to Christ in the here and now, if indeed he rose from the dead and is God in the flesh? And it is choosing to step into that relationship that will decide our humanity. Or as Kierkegaard said, “Essentially, it is the God-relationship that makes a man a man” (CUP 210).
But to take that initial step, and to keep walking, is what faith is—that is why the first example of real faith in the Bible is that of God calling Abraham to leaven Ur of the Chaldeans and to walk to a place he didn’t know where he was going, but that he trusted God to bring him to. That is what faith is—it is a stepping-out; it is a risk; it is vulnerability and the admission that, “Holy crap, if I’m wrong, I will have utterly wasted my life!”
But here’s the thing: in our lives we are always “stepping out” based on what we think or hope to be true. We are always taking risks—it is inevitable. In that way, our lives will be our testimony to what we truly believed…not to what we say we think is objectively true, mind you—but to what we really believe. This is why Kierkegaard hammered modern philosophy so much. As Vardy puts it, “Modern speculative philosophy mocks faith and makes it out as something of no consequence which is held on to by the naïve and ignorant. This Kierkegaard refused to accept. If faith is the highest, then reason has no right to cheat people out of faith” (34). Modern philosophy would have us believe (oh, the irony!) that “faith and belief” is illusionary, with no basis in the real, objective world. And in its place, modern philosophy puts forth “believe in facts and objective truths!”
But you can’t “believe” in something that can be quantified and measured—to do so is ultimately idolatry. It might give the illusion of security (an ancient man making a sacrifice to Baal according to the measured requirements might feel secure that Baal would send the rains to water his crops), but in the end it gets you nowhere, for you haven’t really stepped out into a subjective relationship with the Living God. You’ve measured and quantified measurable and quantifiable things, but you haven’t stepped out to live.
