Christian Existentialism as concieved of by Soren Kierkegaard

[mitchellmckain 0]

Existentialism teaches us that philosophies which do not help in dealing with the human condition and thus help in the living of our lives is meaningless. The contents of human existence are the choices we make, for in them we find ourselves. It is true that we have no real control over the events which ultimately occur, making them somewhat irrelevant to our being, but the fact that our choices do have an impact on events is what gives our choices context and meaning. A denial of this impact is contrary to the reality of human existence. So philosophies of determinism and fate are alien to the human experience and as such might be appropriate philosophies for rocks but not human beings. Human life is filled with choices for which we bear the ultimate responsibility by becoming what we have chosen. Denial of that choice is a refusal to live. Trivialization of these choices or the refusal to acknowledge the responsibility diminishes human life.

 

This was the basic criticism that Soren Kierkegaard had for the Western rationalistic phiosophies such as that of Descartes who argues from pure reason, "I think therefore I am", concluding that only thought is assuredly real. To the existentialist this is idle chatter with nothing to do with basic experience of human life. You may like the idea that "only thought is real", but no one lives as if that were true, for they would quickly die of hunger if they did. Even as simply a means of proving that things exist, this rationalistic philosophy has no value in the existentialist approach to philosophy. The idea that existence is in doubt is ridiculous and useless to the task of living.

 

Determinism is another point on which philosophy and the science (of the nineteenth century) became meaningless to the context of human existence. Our most basic human experience is that we are free to choose and that when we choose to do something our body responds to that choice. Assuming you are a completely healthy human being, when you move your finger, is not your experience that you chose to move the finger and the finger moved as a result of your choice? So philosophies which tell us that we are not free to choose or that all events are predetermined, it contradicts our most basic experience as human beings.

 

It is the choices we make - how we respond to the situations that life throws at us that define who we are. If we habitually respond to adversity with anger and hatred we make ourselves an angry and hateful person. If we choose to solve our problems by lying then we make ourselves a liar. If we choose to get what we want by stealing then we make ourselves a theif. It may be inevitable because of the fall that we will choose to sin in some manner and thus inevitably become the sinner, but it is still our choice and responsibility. We find what we are in what we do as a result of the choices we make. Our only freedom is to make choices, NOT to control events. For many people, events do seems to largely coincide with the choices they make, but this often leads to a false sense of security and power. Others find themselves lost in chaotic events beyond their own control (bad things happen to good people), and they may wonder if they have any freedom at all. The choices we make and the things we do have the potential to bring misery or happiness to others. That potential is what makes our choices good or bad. It is true that even when we try to bring happiness to others we sometimes bring only misery, but that does not change the nature of our choice.

 

Because our freedom is only the choices we make and not the eventual consequences, our freedom does not depend on knowledge. Only God has the knowledge and power to control events. We never have the full and complete knowledge of the consequences of our choices. That is why we need God as a part of our life and as a partner in our choices. Such a partnership does not subtract either from our freewill or our responsibility for no choice is ever made in a vacuum, but we choose what environmental influences we will heed and we choose the reasons to embrace for the choices we make.

 

Unfortunately existentialism is often equated with moral relativism because of Sartre. But it must be recognized that existentialism has both Christian and non-Christian developments, and moral relativism is not part Christian existentialism. Please remember that the father of existentialism was Kierkegaard not Sartre. Satre was the atheist who embraced moral relativism in his version of existentialism. Even the agnostic Albert Camus stood against the moral relativism of Nietzsche and Sartre, although he did have criticisms of Chritianity. In any case, Christian existentialism clearly does not include Sartre or his moral relativism.

 

Kierkegaard speaks of subjective truth as an apologist for Christianity. He is seeking to legitimize Christian thought as a natural type of human thinking by showing that not all rational human thought need satisfy the academic/scientific standards of objectivity. Indeed Kierkegaard claims that objective truth as sought by the scientists and academicians is inherently flawed and that the only real truth is what he calls the subjective.

 

In other words, God is not a philosphical concept because He cannot be defined as such so there is no access to God in the search for objective truth. God is a person so He can only be known in a personal relationship.

[iGuest 3]

What does Soren mean that we are free to make decisions? Christian Existentialism

I don't believe that human beings are free. If Aquinas was correct, and I believe he was, when he defined freedom, as the ability to choose the good, then very few people are are really free. All the time, people do things that they do not really want to do, in order to gain an end, or an intermediate end, like pleasure. Addiction is an excellent example. Many, many people do not want to do what they actually do. A drinker wants to be happy, drinks until drunk, finds that he is escaping the suffering of life, and is marginally happy in escaping. When the drink wears off, the drinker becomes even unhappier after drinking, as he/she will be hung over. This happens with drugs, food, money, sex, you name it. We have a marginal ability to make decisions, but we are not free. The government allows us to, but personal compulsions keep us slaves.I would say that only God gives us the ability to choose the good, freedom, but only through our own will, or desire.

 

-reply by Thomas Berndt

[mitchellmckain 0]

I don't believe that human beings are free. If Aquinas was correct, and I believe he was, when he defined freedom, as the ability to choose the good, then very few people are are really free.

Human beings have free will and that is the freedom to choose that makes them responsible for what they have chosen. But they can and very often do choose to destroy their own free will by enslaving themselves to habits of thought and action. So yes there are indeed a great many people with very little free will remaining to them but this is a state for which they themselves are completely responsible because it is their own choices which have brought them to this .
Free will is not a fixed and unchangeable attribute but it quite quantitative in nature and it can increase or decrease and because of this we are confronted with the inarguable fact that all choices are not equal. Furthermore free will is not a purely human attribute but is the essence of all life and is thus something in which all living things partake but to greatly varying degrees.

All the time, people do things that they do not really want to do, in order to gain an end, or an intermediate end, like pleasure. Addiction is an excellent example. Many, many people do not want to do what they actually do. A drinker wants to be happy, drinks until drunk, finds that he is escaping the suffering of life, and is marginally happy in escaping. When the drink wears off, the drinker becomes even unhappier after drinking, as he/she will be hung over. This happens with drugs, food, money, sex, you name it. We have a marginal ability to make decisions, but we are not free. The government allows us to, but personal compulsions keep us slaves.

Quite right addiction is indeed an excellent example of the way that free will can be destroyed, but this is only an example of a more pernicious addiction that is more ubiquitous in human life and that is an addiction to habits of thought, and these can be just as destructive of our free will by narrowing our consciousness of what choices are available to us.

I would say that only God gives us the ability to choose the good, freedom, but only through our own will, or desire.

This is indeed what God is all about. God is the creator of life and life really is all about free will. Thus I hear the constant refrain in the words of God in the Bible... "therefore choose life!"

[Entheone 0]

I have many "hard-swallows" with 19th century's philosophies in general. I definitely do appreciate their usefulness -- they have served us beautifully for a long time. Still, I firmly believe that we've "outgrown" them now. We need new, better models to perceive and deal with the world around us.That said, I can't say that I agree with this view of the "free will." I guess it's my personal preference that I choose another model for explaining it, one derived from the ideas of Terence McKenna about the geometric nature of reality, Alfred North Whitehead about what he called "occurrences of experience," Edward de Bono about the pattern-making and pattern-using nature of the human mind, Scott Adams's humorous thought experiments, and my own nutty speculations. I'll try to elaborate more on that soon, since I'm very interested in listening to different opinions.But when all is said and done, and even though I don't think of myself as an existentialist (per se) anymore, I must admit that it still remains near and dear to my heart. Honestly, I prefer Sartre's take on existentialism over Kierkegaard's approach. It might be a case of unfortunate hypersensitivity toward attempts of religious appropriation of otherwise purely humanistic ideas (if there's such a dichotomy in the first place), but I sure hope it's not. Possibly, and hopefully, I think it's because I find Kierkegaard's ideas a tad inconsistent at times. However, this kind of generic, overgeneralized criticism is quite useless, so I'll stop my rambling and wasting your time now, and wait until I have more free time (and more sleep) to write something that bears resemblance to coherency :-)

[mitchellmckain 0]

I have many "hard-swallows" with 19th century's philosophies in general. I definitely do appreciate their usefulness -- they have served us beautifully for a long time. Still, I firmly believe that we've "outgrown" them now. We need new, better models to perceive and deal with the world around us.

I agree with this in the sense that these are only steps we can use on our own "journey to the truth". There are two sides to this. On the one hand, our basis for claiming any kind of superiority over the thinkers of the past is that we read what they have written and go from there. On the other hand, those who make these writings into some kind orthodoxy of human thought are being ridiculous.

Let me take two examples to illustrate. The first is in regards to my OP in this thread. This represents what I have learned from Kierkegaard and NOT the least bit any attempt to accurately or objectively represent what Kierkegaard has said. This is my attempt to breathe life and meaning into his ideas and should definitely not be considered appropriate for any kind of encyclopedia article on Kierkegaard.

For my second example, I often tell people that I am fan of Aristotle. BUT that most certainly does not mean that I agree with his conclusions. Considering some of his enormous blunders in the area of physics I consider such an approach to Aristotle to be absurd. The value I see in Aristotle is in how some of his ideas can be adapted to the concepts and discoveries of modern science.

[mitchellmckain 0]

But when all is said and done, and even though I don't think of myself as an existentialist (per se) anymore, I must admit that it still remains near and dear to my heart. Honestly, I prefer Sartre's take on existentialism over Kierkegaard's approach. It might be a case of unfortunate hypersensitivity toward attempts of religious appropriation of otherwise purely humanistic ideas (if there's such a dichotomy in the first place), but I sure hope it's not. Possibly, and hopefully, I think it's because I find Kierkegaard's ideas a tad inconsistent at times. However, this kind of generic, overgeneralized criticism is quite useless, so I'll stop my rambling and wasting your time now, and wait until I have more free time (and more sleep) to write something that bears resemblance to coherency :-)

I suppose I could get uptight about Sartre's appropriation of Kierkegaard's ideas and the humanist appropriation of Quaker ideas, but if you look at my blog you will see just how much I despise the whole "us and them" mentality. We all can and do learn from one another regardless of the things we disagree upon. Besides I like some of Sartre's writings. My effort to downplay the role of Sartre in existentialism has more to do with the fustration I have with fellow Christians who demonize existentialism because they equate it with the ideas of Sartre. This strikes me as rather silly when you consider that the father of existentialism was a Christian (Kierkegaard) and a large part of his philosophical efforts can be described as apologetical (defending the rationality of Christianity). Edited February 23, 2009 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)