Kierkegaard's Argument For The Existence Of God

I. Soeren Kierkegaard, a famous theologian of the 19th Century, wrote Fear and Trembling in 1843 in response to Hegelianism. Kierkegaard takes on the pseudonymous role of Jonannes de Silentio and speaks on modern peoples' attitudes toward doubt and faith. He believes humans are creatures entrenched in reason and doubt but not in the same sense as Descartes, a French mathematician, scientist and philosopher. Descartes doubted everything he had ever learned; his way of thinking is called hyperbolic or Cartesian doubt. According to his philosophy, within the world of ideas there is clearance sale; everybody has a shop

Religious Anxiety Through millennia, religion has been a source of assurance to people in a world of unpredictability. Christianity promises forgiveness for sins through grace, a glorious afterlife, and a loving community. No wonder it is the most popular religion today. But religion is analogous to a two-sided coin. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Christian ideas about morality and the afterlife introduces uncertainty and hindrance to Hamlet’s life.

Every section of the populace has two contrasting forces within them: doubt and belief. However, when these powers battle, faith rises over indecision, arriving victorious and announcing its triumph to the world. The quotation by Kierkegaard proves this concept of conquest within credence, as he discusses how the positive nature of belief holds ones thoughts together and allows for a superior planet to be created. Without belief the world would be a harsh, cynical wasteland, but with faith rising above doubt, the composition of optimism, love, and unity takes place, allowing for a planet that holds a promising future for humanity.

Johannes de silentio is a character made up by Kierkegaard that starts and finishes as a peculiar person who questions how one may take the leap of faith to a religious belief. Our introduction to Johannes dialogue provides his idea of genuine versus cheap faith. His idea of genuine faith would be someone who can continually look up to a religion against all

Kierkegaard: Faith is truly a marvel and no single human being can ever be excluded from it and its greatness.

trusting religion to act as his foundation as he then learns the stupefying truth of his God’s

Polkinghorne says that in theology there is no assumption that newer insights are better than older ones just by virtue of their being newer. He says, “Theology’s anchorage in human encounter with the divine means that it is more sensitive to experiential context than is the case for science.” To ask the question that is often posed in the 21st century, does God exist?, Polkinghorne says “The discourse of theology is not concerned with ‘proofs’ of God’s existence that only the stupid could deny.” So one doesn’t ask the question. But one can learn that theology is very clear that one can know God by being open to the experience of awe, respond to the duty of worship and the mandate to obey. But in this world we need to know the insights

Does God exist? This question has been in debate for centuries with many opposing views, some arising from philosophers on the same side while others refute Gods existence altogether. However for this particular paper I will be taking the best explanations approach. What I mean by this is I do not have proof of God’s existence but the existence of God is the best explanation for the universe around me. With this statement in mind we will discuss arguments in support of God’s existence as well as philosopher H.J McCloskey’s article On Being an Atheist.

In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard differentiates between the subject as the knower, and the world (object) as the known: the only way we know the world is through ourselves. Kierkegaard emphasizes the importance of "how" the subject is related to the truth,

Kierkegaard’s position on faith is represented with the Knight of infinite resignation and the Knight of faith. The Knight of faith is regarded as the one who believes in that which is absurd. For, he is the knight that is able to believe in the things that are

Kierkegaard is one of the defenders of God's existence, this author states that "true understanding of God is beyond our comprehension", because it exist in a "realm that is beyond time and space". He mentions Jesus as the son of God that came to form part of our human time and space and became a paradox. From Kierkegaard's view reality is relative and subjective, and even if believing in God might be seen as irrational is not impossible. This author claims a more idealistic approach and provides an important term which is the complexity of God for our human standards.

In his famous work Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard declares that “no person has a right to delude others into the belief that faith is something of no great significance, or that it is an easy matter, whereas it is the greatest and most difficult of all things.” The difficulty of faith lies in the requirement of sacrifice. The story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his beloved son, Isaac, is what Kierkegaard utilizes to demonstrate how costly faith in God is. Here is a man, who after seventy years of waiting for God’s promise of offspring finally received his son, is commanded by God to slay his promised son with no stated reason for doing so. Kierkegaard, in attempting to experience what Abraham might have experienced in those moments, cries, “Now all is lost, God demands Isaac, I shall sacrifice him, and with him all my joy – but for all that, God is love and will remain so for me.” What bold words! The cost

Starting with Kierkegaard, it is best to understand that he has a deep fulfillment to God and that he feels is the absolute. This absolute is to live in the realm of a paradox and that paradox is proving the existence of God and experiencing it for yourself. To understand this is to go through the different stages, of aesthetic, moral and religious. The aesthetic is all about the individual and focuses on oneself as an individual. The moral is having to be antagonistic towards yourself in

So it is the HOW which is important to Kierkegaard, not the WHAT. The strongest example of his reasons for this comes in his

In this essay, I will try to summarize, analyze and discuss several pages of Søren Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity. I will try to focus on his approach to sacred history, a general Christian history and Christianity, which he discusses in this work in relation to faith in God. In other parts of this essay I will attempt also to relate these pages of his work to some key ideas of Kierkegaard’s theology and philosophy and support this with some concrete quotations from the text. In the end I will very briefly compare different philosophies of Hegel and Kierkegaard and try to relate Kierkegaard’s work to a few topics, which