2.1 Blaise Pascal and Fideism
Another form of fideism is assumed by Pascal's Wager. Blaise
Pascal invites the atheist considering faith to see faith in God as a cost-free
choice that carries a potential reward. He does not attempt to argue that God
indeed exists, only that it might be valuable to assume that it is true. Of
course, the problem with Pascal's Wager is that it does not restrict itself to
a specific God, although Pascal did have in mind the Christian God as is
mentioned in the following quote. In his Pensées, Pascal writes: Who then will
blame Christians for not being able to give reasons for their beliefs, since
they profess belief in a religion which they cannot explain? They declare, when
they expound it to the world, that it is foolishness, and then you complain
because they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their
word; it is through their lack of proofs that they show they are not lacking in
sense.[1]
2.2 Alvin Plantinga and Fideism
Alvin Plantinga defines "fideism" as "the
exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent
disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical
or religious truth." The fideist therefore "urges reliance on faith
rather than reason, in matters philosophical and religious," and therefore
may go on to disparage the claims of reason. The fideist seeks truth, above
all: and affirms that reason cannot achieve certain kinds of truth, which must
instead be accepted only by faith. Plantinga's definition might be revised to
say that what the fideist objects to is not so much "reason" per se it
seems excessive to call Blaise Pascal anti-rational but evidentialism: the
notion that no belief should be held unless it is supported by evidence.
2.3 Hamann and Fideism
Considered to be the father of modern antirationalism, Johann
Georg Hamann promoted a view that elevated faith alone was the only guide to
human conduct. Using the work of David Hume he argued that everything people do
is ultimately based on faith. Without faith (for it can never be proven) in the
existence of an external world, human affairs could not continue; therefore, he
argued, all reasoning comes from this faith: it is fundamental to the human
condition. Thus all attempts to base belief in God using Reason are in vain. He
attacks systems like Spinozism that try to confine what he feels is the
infinite majesty of God into a finite human creation.
2.4 Martin Luther and Fideism
The fideist approach to apologetics, though by no means limited
to one theological or denominational camp, is most deeply rooted in the
Lutheran tradition. Not surprisingly, key aspects of fideism can be traced back
to Martin Luther himself. We are not classifying Luther as a fideist, but
rather saying that key elements of fideism have their seed in the views of the
German Reformer. Luther’s view of apologetics; for Luther forgiveness of sins
is a gift of God through faith alone, a gift needed by all human beings because
of their bondage to sin. This spiritual bondage is so radical that the human
mind is simply incapable of knowing anything significant about God and his will
or about understanding the liberating truth of the gospel apart from the work
of the Holy Spirit.
In this context, Luther takes a very dim view of human reason.
In the temporal affairs of human beings in the kingdom of earth, “the rational
man is self-sufficient.” But in the eternal issues of life in the kingdom of
heaven, “nature is absolutely stone-blind” and human reason is completely
incompetent. Worse, reason is an enemy of God, “the devil’s whore,” whom Luther
nicknames “Frau Hulda.”
2.5 Wittgenstein and Fideism
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein did not write systematically
about religion, though he did lecture on the topic. Some of his students' notes
have been collected and published. On the other hand, it has been asserted that
religion as a "form of life" is something that intrigued Wittgenstein
to a great degree. In his 1967 article, entitled "Wittgensteinian
Fideism," Kai Nielsen argues that certain aspects of Wittgenstein's
thought have been interpreted by Wittgensteinians in a "fideistic"
manner. According to this position, religion is a self-contained, and primarily
expressive, enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or
"grammar". This view commonly called Wittgensteinian fideism, states:
(1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that
religious concepts and discourse are essentially self-referential; and (3) that
religion cannot be criticized from an external (i.e., non-religious) point of
view. Although there are other aspects that are often associated with the
phenomena of Wittgensteinian fideism, Kai Nielsen has argued that such
interpretations are implausible misrepresentations of the position. It is worth
noting, however, that no self-proclaimed Wittgensteinian actually takes
Nielsen's analysis to be at all representative of either Wittgenstein's view,
or their own. This is especially true of the best-known Wittgensteinian
philosopher of religion, D. Z. Phillips, who is also the best-known "Wittgensteinanfideist."
In their book "Wittgensteinian fideism?" D. Z. Phillips and Kai
Nielsen debate the status of Wittgensteinian fideism. Both agree that the
position "collapses," though they think it fails for different
reasons. For Nielsen, the position is socially and politically irresponsible
since it ignores prudential, practical, and pragmatic considerations as a basis
for criticizing different language games. For Phillips, the position fails
because it is not Wittgensteinian, and thus is a caricature of his position.
Amongst other charges, Nielsen argues, most forcefully in an article entitled
"On Obstacles of the Will," that Phillips' Wittgensteinian view is
relevantly fideistic and that it, therefore, fails on the grounds that it cannot
account for the possibility of external, cultural criticism. Phillips, in turn,
in the last article in the book, entitled "Wittgenstein: Contemplation and
Cultural Criticism," argues that the position is not Wittgensteinian at
all, and that Wittgenstein's considered view not only allows for the
possibility of external, cultural criticism, but also "advances"
philosophical discussion concerning it.[2]
2.6 William James and Fideism
Mackie's contention that fideism is intellectually irresponsible
was anticipated in the nineteenth century by W.K. Clifford, who famously
declared that, it is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe
anything upon insufficient evidence. The American pragmatist William James
(1842–1910) called Clifford “that delicious enfant terrible,” and in his essay
“The Will to Believe” he argued that Clifford had overstated the case against
faith. In the paper, James delineates a set of conditions under which, he
argues, it can be reasonable to believe in the absence of proof.[3]
These conditions are met whenever we are confronted by what James
terms a “genuine option” i.e., a choice between two (or more) “hypotheses” (or
candidates for belief) which is “live,” “forced,” and “momentous” and that
option cannot be decided on intellectual grounds. An option is live (as opposed
to dead) just in case each of the hypotheses at issue is “among the mind's
possibilities.” Insofar as it depends upon an individual's willingness or
ability to entertain it, a hypothesis' “liveliness” is an extrinsic, agent-specific
property. By contrast, an option is forced (rather than avoidable) just in case
the candidate hypotheses are both mutually exclusive and exhaustive of the
possibilities. Finally, an option is momentous (as opposed to trivial) just in
case the opportunity is unique, the stakes are significant, or the decision is
irreversible.
James points out that as people who hold beliefs, we generally
have two goals: to avoid error, and to believe the truth. Though related, these
aims are in fact distinct: one can, for example, avoid error by suspending
belief. James argues that the scientific method is oriented around the goal of
avoiding error, but that in other aspects of life, the avoidance of error is
inadequate. For instance, in our relationships with others, we first have to
believe that others will meet us half-way in order for this to be true. If we
refused to interact with others until we had “sufficient evidence” of their
willingness to reciprocate, we would no doubt appear stand-offish and unapproachable,
thus cutting ourselves off altogether from the possibility of entering into
mutually rewarding relationships.
According to James, something similar is true in the case of
religion. Religion, he says, teaches two things: (1) that “the best things are
the more eternal things” and (2) that we are better off now if we believe.
These two assertions together comprise what James refers to as the “religious
hypothesis.” He contends that if the religious hypothesis is a live hypothesis,
the option with which it confronts us is necessarily also a genuine option, i.e.,
it is momentous and forced. In cases like this, James contends, it is not
enough simply to avoid error; we also have to seek truth. We cannot escape the
issue by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we
do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be
true, just as certainly as if we positively chose to disbelieve. As in the
social example, the religious hypothesis must, as it were, be met half way.
2.7 Søren Aabye
Kierkegaard and Fideism
Søren
Aabye Kierkegaard (pronounced Keer-ka-gard in its Anglicized pronunciation)
(1813-1855) lived a relatively short life, during which he was not widely known
outside his native Denmark. Yet in the twentieth century he became one of the
dominant influences in Western philosophy and theology. Kierkegaard is
generally regarded as the father of both religious and atheistic
existentialism. His thought profoundly influenced such theologians as Karl
Barth, Emil Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Brunner, in fact, hailed him as “the
greatest Christian thinker of modern times”[4] as
well as “incomparably the greatest Apologist or ‘eristic’ thinker of the
Christian faith within the sphere of Protestantism.”[5] Brunner’s description of Kierkegaard as an
“Apologist” will surprise those who are used to thinking of fideism and
apologetics as mutually exclusive.
Like many profound
thinkers, Kierkegaard is often cited but rarely understood. Perhaps it would be
best to say that the project of understanding Kierkegaard is still under way.
He is the subject of an unending stream of books and articles analyzing his
life and thought in minute detail. Scholars interpret his thought in radically
different ways; such diversity exists among interpreters sympathetic to
Kierkegaard as well as among those critical of him. Evangelicals generally view
Kierkegaard negatively in light of his role in the rise of modern
existentialism and neo orthodox theology. While not denying the problematic
aspects of his thought, our focus will be on explaining what many Christian
thinkers have found of positive value in Kierkegaard in order to understand the
appeal of fideism.
Kierkegaard’s writings
need to be interpreted in the context of his life experiences.[6] More
so than most theologians or philosophers, he wrote out of the intensity of his
own spiritual journey.
Two individuals
dominated Kierkegaard’s life, and his relationships with them are profoundly
mirrored in his writings. The first was his father, Michael Pedersen
Kierkegaard, an extremely strict and pious man overwhelmed with guilt. As a
child Michael had cursed God, and for this and other reasons he feared his
family was under a divine curse. In midlife he began reading seriously in theology
and philosophy, an interest he passed on to Søren, the youngest of his seven
children. Two of Søren’s brothers died while he was a young child, and his
mother died when he was a young adult, seemingly proving the elder
Kierkegaard’s fear valid. (In the end, only one member of the family, Peter,
outlived Søren.) A year after his mother died, Søren rebelled against his
father and sought his escape in a life of wanton pleasures. His conduct was so
colorful that he became the inspiration for a character in a novel written by
Hans Christian Andersen, Søren’s childhood classmate and Denmark’s other famous
nineteenth-century son. The prodigal son eventually realized the emptiness of
that path and returned home to his father, who died soon thereafter (in 1838).
Søren followed his father’s passion for theology and philosophy, completing his
graduate studies with a dissertation entitled “The Concept of Irony, with
Continual Reference to Socrates” (1841).
The second person of
life-changing importance for Kierkegaard was Regina Olsen, a young woman of
fourteen he had met during his prodigal days. In 1840 Søren became engaged to
her, and he immediately regretted it. The following year he broke off the
engagement, feeling that God had called him to a life of solitude and internal
suffering. Kierkegaard never married, and he carried his love for Regina to his
grave.
During the next seven
years Kierkegaard wrote most of the books for which he is now well known,
including Either/Or (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), Philosophical Fragments
(1844),Stages on Life’s Way (1845), and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to
“Philosophical Fragments” (1846). He wrote these books under pseudonyms such as
Johannes de Silentio (“Johnny Silent”) and Johannes Climacus (“Johnny Climax”).
To this day there is considerable debate as to whether or to what extent these
pseudonymous “authors” actually spoke for Kierkegaard. What is clear is that
his use of the pen names was part of his method of, as he called it, “indirect
communication.” This seeks to communicate ideas not by directly asserting or
arguing for them, but by speaking in such a way as to provoke people to think
about those ideas and come to embrace the truth “on their own,” as we sometimes
say. It is interesting that Hans Christian Andersen is famous for his own
method of indirect communication, namely, his popular children’s stories.
Two primary sources
will guide our interpretation of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. First, he
wrote voluminously in journals and other unpublished papers, and often
indicates there his agreement or disagreement with something attributed in his
books to one or another fictional writer or speaker. We will be referring to
these materials frequently in discussing his position on various apologetic issues.
Second, he capped off
seven years of literary output, during which he produced his major writings,
with a book that was not written under a pseudonym: The Point of View for My
Work as an Author. A Direct Communication: A Report to History (1848). As the
title indicates, this book was “a direct communication,” setting forth plainly
how his earlier writings should be interpreted. Those writings seemed to be
largely “aesthetic” at first, becoming more “religious” toward the end.
However, Kierkegaard insists that “the religious is present from the
beginning,” and he denies being “an aesthetic author who with the lapse of time
has changed and become a religious author.”[7]
Between the strongly aesthetic writings and the later overtly religious
writings was his Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which centered on the
problem of the whole authorship: how to become a Christian. Kierkegaard goes on
to explain that in his day virtually everyone was considered a Christian, and
yet Christendom fell woefully short of the true Christianity of the New
Testament. In such a situation, he realized, he could never get people to see
the problem by attacking their status as Christians directly. If it is an illusion
that all are Christians and if there is anything to be done about it, it must
be done indirectly, not by one who vociferously proclaims himself an
extraordinary Christian, but by one who, better instructed, is ready to declare
that he is not a Christian at all. A
direct attack only strengthens a person in his illusion, and at the same time
embitters him.
Kierkegaard took just
this approach in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in which his pseudonymous
author, Johannes Climacus, explicitly disavowed being a Christian. We see here
a kind of “apologetic” at work, but an unusual one in that its purpose is not
to convert people of other religions to Christianity but to convert people of
the Christian religion to authentic Christian faith. Kierkegaard viewed himself
ideally called to this work because he himself struggled to become a Christian.
The ancient Greek
philosopher Socrates had troubled Athens with his message that the Athenians
did not really know what they thought they knew; he had claimed to be wiser
than the rest of them only in that he knew that he didn’t know. Socrates sought
to communicate this message indirectly by acknowledging his ignorance and
asking his fellow Athenians to share their wisdom with him. Likewise,
Kierkegaard (who had written his thesis on Socrates) troubled Copenhagen with
his message that the people of Christendom thought they were Christians but
were not. He communicated this message by acknowledging that he himself was not
a Christian in the true sense of the word and by raising questions designed to
bring those who were confident of their own Christianity face-to-face with the
problem.
After 1848 Kierkegaard
wrote fewer books, as he apparently saw his primary mission as already
fulfilled. Two of his most notable publications during this last period of his
life, The Sickness unto Death (1849) and Training in Christianity (1850), were
written under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus (“Anticlimax”), suggesting that in
these works he was correcting or balancing some of the things he had published
under the pseudonym of Johannes Climacus. The central point of Training in
Christianity epitomizes his message: to be a believer in Christ, a true
Christian, is not to know that Christ lived in the past but is instead to live
as a contemporary of Christ in the present. In 1854 and 1855, he published a flurry
of articles and pamphlets protesting the self-assurance of the establishment
church. These writings, later published as a book entitled The Attack upon
“Christendom,” took Kierkegaard’s nominally Christian culture to task not so
much for failing to live up to the ideal of Christianity as for failing to have
the humility to admit that it fell short. Kierkegaard evidently burned himself
out in the effort, falling ill and dying in 1855.
Kierkegaard is
commonly, and we believe rightly, described as a fideist. However, the context
in which he advocated a fideistic approach to the truth of Christianity is
all-important. He was sharply opposed to the traditional defenses of Christian
orthodoxy because he believed they led only to a conceited sense of intellectual
triumph among philosophers and theologians and distorted the essence of the
Christian faith. “If one were to describe the whole orthodox apologetical
effort in one single sentence, but also with categorical precision, one might
say that it has the intent to make Christianity plausible. To this one might
add that, if this were to succeed, then would this effort have the ironical
fate that precisely on the day of its triumph it would have lost everything and
entirely quashed Christianity.”[8]
A “plausible,” non paradoxical,
inoffensive Christianity is not, Kierkegaard insisted, the Christianity of the
New Testament. When Christianity is reduced to a set of propositions that can
be demonstrated by rationalistic and historical argumentation, the dimension of
personal encounter, inner suffering, and decisive response to truth is lost.
Kierkegaard’s intention was to bring people to the realization that becoming a
Christian requires more than membership in the church or assent to a doctrinal
formula. My intention is to make it difficult to become a Christian, yet not
more difficult than it is, and not difficult for the obtuse and easy for the
brainy, but qualitatively and essentially difficult for every human being,
because, viewed essentially, it is equally difficult for every human being to
relinquish his understanding and his thinking and to concentrate his soul on
the absurd.
If becoming a Christian
is not more difficult for the obtuse than for the brainy, then it cannot depend
in any way on following the rational arguments traditionally used to prove that
Christianity is true. In fact, Kierkegaard concludes that such arguments
actually become obstacles to genuine faith, because they obscure the radically
scandalous and personally challenging nature of the Christian message.
Although Kierkegaard
opposed traditional apologetics, he offered a kind of “indirect” apologetic for
Christianity in keeping with his method of indirect communication. C. Stephen
Evans has identified four basic apologetic arguments in Kierkegaard’s
Philosophical Fragments.
The no human author
argument, in setting forth the Christian position as a thought
experiment, Johannes Climacus (Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author) presents it
as hypothetical or imagined, to which his interlocutor objects that the
position is already well known. Climacus admits this, but suggests that while
he cannot take credit for it, no other human being can either; it is not
something anyone would make up[9] “Everyone
who knows it also knows that he has not invented it.” From this “oddity”
Climacus concludes that the lack of any human author demonstrates its truth:
“It tests the correctness of the hypothesis and demonstrates it.” There is some uncertainty as to what this
claim that no one would invent is. Evans suggests that in context Climacus’s
point is that the idea that human beings are spiritually dead and incapable of
overcoming this problem “is not one that could ‘naturally’ occur to any human
being, but can only be known after God has revealed it.”[10]
The argument from the
uniqueness of the Incarnation, the second apologetic
argument is very much like the first. Climacus’s “poem” about God becoming a
man in order to be our Teacher and Savior is again shown not to be his
invention or the creation of any other human being; it must have come from God
himself.
The argument from
offense, those who hear the story of the Incarnation and
disbelieve it is always offended at it, a fact that Climacus takes as
confirmation of its truth. The absurdity of the Incarnation is viewed as an
objection and an offense by the unbeliever, but Climacus views the reaction of
being offended as an indirect testing of the correctness of the paradox. Evans
explains that since we would expect people to find the Incarnation absurd and
offensive, the fact that they do is indirect confirmation of its truth. A
person who wanted to make up a story would make up something much more
plausible. Evans contends that the argument of the book as a whole is that the
Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is a plausible idea. This interpretation
of Kierkegaard is certainly ironic, given his emphatic condemnation of attempts
to make Christianity plausible. “Chapter 1 argues that any genuine alternative
to Socrates will have God as our teacher.” That is, either we follow a great
human teacher or we follow God as teacher. Chapter 2 argues that God can be our
teacher ultimately only if he gives himself in love by becoming one of us.
Chapter 3 argues that natural theology (rational proofs of God’s existence) is
a failure, and therefore that if we are to know God, he must reveal himself.
“Chapters 4 and 5th chapter is imply that historical apologetics is
pointless” because faith is produced by an encounter with God and cannot be
grounded on argument or evidence. Unbelievers are offended by the Incarnation,
not because it supposedly lacks evidence but because they find it absurd.
Evans’s reading of
Philosophical Fragments shows that we must be careful not to read too much into
Kierkegaard’s rejection of apologetics. On the one hand, Kierkegaard rejected
attempts to make Christianity “plausible” in the sense of making it into an
intellectual system to which one might comfortably give assent. True
Christianity always requires leaving our “comfort zone.” On the other hand,
Kierkegaard offered constructive suggestions for ways to show indirectly that
Christianity is true while retaining its radical, life-changing character.
Ironically, he turns the fact that Christianity is not “plausible” (in the
intellectually comfortable sense) into an indirect argument for the truth of
Christianity. Kierkegaard was thus far from advocating a thoughtless,
uncritical, or irrational faith. What he advocated was a careful thinking about
faith that recognized that faith was not itself merely a matter of thought.
There is, to be sure, a naive and irrational fideism that waives all questions
and squelches all doubts with a demand to “just believe,” but this is not the
kind exemplified by Kierkegaard. Indeed, from his perspective it is the nominal
Christian who assumes he is a Christian because of his baptism, doctrinal
belief, church membership, morality, or even piety that has failed to think
seriously and clearly about the Christian faith.
2.8 Summarising Kierkegaard’s Fideism
To substantiate his view of the relationship of faith and reason,
Kierkegaard put forth three arguments, the first of which is the
Approximation Argument. According to Kierkegaard, arguments can never prove
things with absolute certainty because it is always possible that the evidence
to support the argument has been misinterpreted, or that an error in reasoning
has occurred. He believed that since faith requires absolute certainty, which
cannot be attained through rational argument, then faith must always go beyond
the evidence, and, therefore, it cannot be supported by reason.
His second argument was the Postponement Argument. This
argument is based on his belief that there is always the possibility of new
data or evidence that will invalidate previous conclusions. Therefore if we
were to base our faith on rational scientific investigation, we would have to
wait forever until all the data is in. In order to have the certainty that
faith demands, one must choose to believe what cannot be acquired from
scientific investigation.
His third argument was the Passion Argument. This argument
emphasizes the personal commitment that in inherent in faith. He felt that
since our evidence is imperfect at best, there is risk involved in believing
any conclusion. He thought that the faith that goes against all known evidence
is the most valuable because it is the riskiest faith of all. His view was that
if we had conclusive evidence for God’s existence then belief in God would be
unremarkable and uninteresting. In other words, if we could prove God’s
existence through evidence or reason, then faith would be unnecessary. Christian
fideism has both strengths and weaknesses. One of its strengths is that it
correctly acknowledges that rational and logical arguments cannot ultimately
prove the existence of a transcendent God as revealed in Scripture. It also correctly
acknowledges neither evidence nor reason is an adequate basis for faith in God.
That is because faith is based on who God is and the surety of His promises and
not in the evidence of His existence.
On the other hand, one of the shortcomings of Christian fideism is that a faith which is not both reasonable and logical will only be as strong as we feel at that given moment in time. The strength of our faith then rests upon our own strength and will likely wax and wane depending on our circumstances. However, faith that is founded on fact is both reasonable and logical and as such has many outside evidences to support it and strengthen it. Understanding the rational and logical foundations of our faith in Christ helps to lay a very solid foundation that will help us withstand life’s storms. While we cannot prove God’s existence scientifically, we certainly have ample evidence of His existence in creation alone (Psalm 19:1-3; Romans 1:18-32).
Conclusion
As we have seen, there
is a significant tradition in Christian theology taking a distinctive approach
to faith and reason that runs from Martin Luther to Kierkegaard, and (among
others). There are three chief epistemological approaches to the study of God
or obtain the metaphysical knowledge, namely, the rational approach, the
empirical approach, and the fides (faith or revelational) approach. Neither
the rational approach nor the
empirical approach is theologically effective; it is only through a subjective
urge of faith and a rational fideistic appropriation of
revelation that one
can ever come
to know God. Therefore, the knowledge
of God can
be certified through
faith alone that
is based on a revelation which is rationally verified.
[1] T. S. Eliot, Pascal’s Pensees: A Justification of Christianity that is a masterpiece of
religious philosophy (New York: E. P. Dutton &
Co., 1958), n. 233, p. 60.
[2] Wiki fideism
[3] William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Will to
Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover, 1956), 35.
[4] Emil Brunner, Truth as
Encounter (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 112.
[5] Emil Brunner, The Christian
Doctrine of God, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950), 100.
[6] Walter Lowrie, Kierkegaard, 2
Vols. (New York: Harper, 1962),
[7] Søren Kierkegaard, The Point
of View for My Work as an Author, in A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed.
Robert Bretall (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1946), 325.
[8] Søren Kierkegaard, On
Authority and Revelation, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton
University Press, 1955), 59.
[9] Donald G. Bloesch, Jesus Is
Victor! Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Salvation (Nashville: Abingdon,
1976).
[10] Donald G. Bloesch, The Future
of Evangelical Christianity: A Call for Unity amid Diversity
(Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, 1983), 121.
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