PHIL304: Existentialism

Kierkegaard wanted to understand how humans can live an authentically-religious life while they are surrounded by those who are inauthentically religious. He opposed any philosophy that relies on reason and science to make life easier and make Christendom more palatable. In this context, "Christendom" did not refer to Christianity alone but to the official Church of Denmark, which had merged with Danish cultural society. His duty was to inform his fellow citizens that Christendom was giving "lip service" to original Christian theology and that Christianity in Denmark had become shallow.

Kierkegaard's critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), a popular philosopher in Denmark, provided fodder for his analysis of Christendom. Hegel believed he could explain all of reality, including religions such as Christianity, through a philosophical or conceptual system. Hegel's logical approach reduced God to the understandable, which God is not, according to Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard mocked Hegel's assertions by demonstrating plenty of things in the world that philosophy cannot explain. Kierkegaard feared that Hegel's devotion to systems or masses would negate the individual – he argued that subjectivity is far superior to abstract, systemic theories. For example, he suggested that we cannot easily grasp the concept of "faith" through some universal, objective theorizing. Individuals would understand faith better through actual, subjective living experiences.

Using similar logic, Blaise Pascal suggested that humans have more to gain by believing in God, even though God is entirely beyond our understanding. According to Pascal, faith is not "a given": we do not inherit faith from tradition or social norms. Rather, faith is entirely an individualized commitment. Individuals cannot shrink from faith: "you must choose". The wager is your life, and only the individual can make this gamble. Consequently, existential choice is at the core of Pascal's wager about God's existence.

For Kierkegaard, religious belief is an outrage to reason because it demands a belief in the absurd. Most Christians are in despair; they are in the wrong relationship with themselves but do not know it. They run from themselves in various ways – in pursuit of philosophy, science, and the crowd (the church community) – which all facilitate the individual's escape. Kierkegaard believes one should stand alone against these promoters of despair (Kierkegaard and the Crisis in Religion Part 2, 19:35).

Listen to the second part of this lecture on the life and philosophy of Kierkegaard. Do things stand out to you as you ponder your relationship with yourself, your culture, and your spirituality? Do you think Kierkegaard's solutions would work for everyone, or might he only be addressing certain segments of our global community?