Kierkegaard’s Socratic Task: Delivering a Christianity of Inward Faith

Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of (being) the single individual, especially in the subjective pursuit of truth. Before Socrates, truth (and morality) was to be found externally, in culture and tradition, and thus in an objective sense. Kierkegaard learned from Socrates the value of the individual’s subjectivity in the pursuit of truth; that truth can be internal without devolving into relativist nihilism. The Danish philosopher appropriated what he had learned from Socrates methodologically in the self-declared “Socratic task” of auditing “the definition of what it is to be a Christian.”[i] Behind Kierkegaard’s authorship is “the task of becoming a Christian.”[ii] This applies to helping others—as a Socratic midwife!—to become Christian and, relatedly, to Kierkegaard’s own willingness accept the inexpressible grace of being sacrificed by the Danish Church—those self-declared Christians actually oriented to money. Kierkegaard ironically exclaims, “I am not a Christian.”[iii] Such irony! “I do not call myself a Christian,” Kierkegaard wrote strategically, “but I can make it manifest that the others are that even less.”[iv] Herein lies the acceptance of being sacrificed in the interest of truth. Kierkegaard observed that “’Christendom’ lies in an abyss of sophistry that is even much, much worse than when the Sophists flourished in Greece.”[v] The success of comfortable pastors justifying their earthly wealth theologically under the auspices of the Prosperity Gospel renders the Socratic Kierkegaard still relevant today.[vi] Fortunately, Kierkegaard would assure us that the individual Christian can still find truth within rather than outwardly comprehending the doctrines that the pastors, whose claim to being Christians is dubious at best, claim to know. In this essay, I show how Kierkegaard appropriates Socrates’ method in service of this point. The Danish philosopher gained from his Greek model the tools with which to undercut the doctrines as knowable (by the theologians and pastors), so he could privilege becoming and being a Christian as a matter of personally discovered inward faith yet without positive epistemological content getting in the way.

The full essay is at "Kierkegaard's Socratic Task."

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[i] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 341.

[ii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View: On My work as an Author, the Point of View for my Work as an Author, Armed Neutrality, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 55.

[iii] Soren Kierkegaard, The Moment, in The Moment and Late Writings, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 340.

[iv] Ibid., 341.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] On the historical shift in theological interpretation from anti-wealth to pro-wealth, see Skip Worden, God's Gold (Seattle, WA: Amazon, 2016).

Agora: Putting Religion in Perspective

Film has the potential to be so engrossing perceptually for the viewer-auditors that the medium can engage the human condition at a deep, unconscious level. At that level, the subconscious protects us in the games we so seriously play.  If done well, film-making crafts a coherent and complete story-world into which the voyageur can be temporarily lodged before returning to the ordinary world that now looks somehow different. The subtle perceptual change can result from part of the viewer’s subconscious having been made transparent, or realized, while in the film’s story-world. As concerns the religious domain, I contend that the medium has only touched the surface in holding a mirror up to ourselves. This is not to say that more anti-religion movies, such as Last Temptation of Christ, are the answer; neither are more palliative, apologist films, like The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Story Ever Told, the way to greater self-awareness for homo religious.  On account of their un-questioning, one-dimensionality (even when viewed with 3D glasses!), these films are more alike than their respective leitmotifs would suggest. Most importantly, none of these films raises penetrating questions that assume the validity of “the other side.” Nietzsche advocates approaching truth itself as a problem rather than as something whose validity is held to be beyond question (i.e., sacred).  A film can subject truth itself as a problem (rather than as a conveniently partisan given) and enhance, thereby, human awareness of just what we are up to when we take ourselves as religious, whether in self (or group) identification or conduct. Once a film gets a grip on a truth and makes it a problem rather than a pallid backdrop, you can bet the river Styx in the human unconscious will be stirred, lapping over its banks as it tries to order its new-found energy gained from the antiseptic sunlight. My question here is whether Agora transcends below the patina of reactionary anti-religion films to widen our collective consciousness at the expense of hypocrisy and denial. 

The full essay is at "Agora"