Kierkegaard On Religion

Kierkegaard saw Kantian and Enlightenment notions of human autonomy as resulting in despair since, in the end, everything relies on human judgement, which is always subject to doubt. His belief was that regardless of the amount of effort, thought, and analyzation we put into our decisions, there is no way to guarantee that those decisions are the correct ones. The ethics of our society are constantly being changed by us, as we give ourselves “ethical” laws, however, we repeatedly repeal and ignore them in favor of newer, “better” ones (Soccio, 412). There is no exact way of knowing at what point our laws reach the best that they could ever be or whether we have reached that point but continued to repeal and replace in an effort to better …show more content…
As he struggled with the predicament of choice and commitment, Kirkegaard grew increasingly fascinated by what it means to be Christian. This fascination led to the belief that institutionalized Christianity suffered from the same inauthenticity that other institutions did, and Kierkegaard put himself to the task of distinguishing inauthentic “institutionalized Christianity” from authentic Christianity (Soccio, 396). Kierkegaard countered what he saw as inauthentic Christianity with his idea of the “leap of faith”, a blind commitment made to God at each instant, without guarantees, alone, in fear. He saw his “leap of faith” as being entirely “existential”, with absolutely no assurance of any kind, no support, and no logical reason. Kierkegaard saw authentic Christianity as something which needed to be done entirely individually, whereas traditional religion involved “group salvation” in the form of masses, etcetera. He saw the “leap of faith” as a requirement, and as something that could not be accomplished as a group, but was required to revolve around independently making choices in the name of God (Soccio, …show more content…
Though I personally do not view myself as religious, I do think that it is possible to rely entirely on your religion and have true faith in it without having a teleological suspension of the ethical. I have always thought of stories such as the story of Abraham as an example of an extreme case. Oftentimes, examples put forth when trying to convey a concept are extreme, though still valid, versions used to make the point obvious. I have always seen Bible stories in this type of way. Extreme versions of concepts that are believed in Christianity. Abraham obeyed God without a second thought, but this extreme example, in my eyes meant to illustrate the point, portrayed that as Abraham having to turn a blind eye to his ethical beliefs and kill his son in order to obey God. That being said, I believe that it is possible to be devoted to obeying God without losing your morals. In my eyes, anyone with a belief in the Christian religion is a true Christian. A belief in a certain religion makes you a true member of that religion, I do not see a leap of faith as necessary to be truly Christian. Individuals may have different levels of belief but still all be true Christians in my