Taking the Red Pill

You know that feeling in sleep when you're partially conscious and not completely unconscious? You're not functioning but still lie prostrate while starting to awaken. That's where I was when I first heard that the World Trade Center was attacked. When I was thirteen I had a clock radio for an alarm that went off in the early part of the morning. While in this subconscious state I heard "the World Trade Center has been hit". As crazy as it might sound, I fell back asleep for another fifteen minutes or so and dreamed of plans hitting large buildings. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was or how it was attacked. But it was vivid. I woke up and told my mother who turned on the television to find the news on every channel. Commercial planes had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

I was in 8th grade at the time and had an early morning Spanish class. Most classes would open up with turning in an assignment, one or two people getting berated by Mr. Cepeda for not having the assignment completed, and on to rigorous linguistic training (which were also berated for). But that didn't happen this morning. This morning the TV in the portable room was on full blast. We sat in relative silence watching the footage. When one questioned if we would be doing anything else that day, Mr. Cepeda replied, "No, you need to see this. From this day forward, your lives will never be the same."

And he was right in more ways than one. Perhaps the infamous line from Morpheus in the Matrix epitomizes the feeling -- "Welcome to the Desert of the Real". I guess everyone has that kind of loss of innocence at some level. You get your first dose of reality outside of your own scope. For me I found there was much more than Spanish, Sportscenter, and Sunday church services. There was a great big world with many people who looked upon the United States with disdain and would wish harm upon its citizens, military and civilian kind alike.

I suppose every generation has a defining moment. For one it would be the assault on Pearl Harbor or Normandy or the bombing of Hiroshima. For another it might be the Kent State shootings or the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. or JFK. These events are so violent. As such, they shake a human being to the very core. They invoke what Slavok Zizek would call "the passion for the real". It doesn't necessarily take a person with a passion for the real to enact such an event. On the contrary, I think that often times these events are generated out of ideological difference. But the passion for the real truly comes when ideological difference clashes against ideological indifference in merciless violence.

In the aptly named, Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Zizek talks about how such an event opens up the desert of reality where we see beyond ideology, beyond media, and beyond whatever filter through which we view the world. Reality is brutal, cold, and utterly simple. In the wreckage of the twin towers, you see a bit of what reality truly is. As abstract as that sounds, I think that what comes out of viewing reality without an ideological filter are genuine human emotions--violent compassion and shuttering bitterness. You have compassion for the victims and their families. You have bitterness and hostility for the perpetrators.

Earlier this year Osama bin Laden was killed, finally. I considered writing this piece back then but held off for a number of reasons. I recall a number screaming that justice had been done while others wept, feeling a sense of peace. I don't know what justice is any more than Thrasymachus or Glaucon. I admit I felt a sadistic reward at the thought of his death, but wonder that I should ever rejoice at the death of another human being. I still have mixed feelings on the matter.

Regardless of how you feel about the attacks or bin Laden's demise, there's so much more to take away. The attacks transformed my generation and brought me into the desert of reality for the first time. But the value of such an anniversary is to remember those real human emotions, the compassion and love that poured out. It serves as a reminder to put off ideology and to look to one another with love and compassion. And if there's a lasting effect that 9/11 has had on my life, it's evident in two things -- I'm a non-ideological Christian and anti-partisan towards politics. The truth is that that message of the cross goes beyond the rule of any denomination or ideology. As flawed as a human being is, he (or she) should always strive to see reality for what it is and to see fellow human beings for what they truly are.

Title Track

This is the song after which the blog was named. I think the title represents what I aim for in my writing, while the lyrics say something much more beautiful.



Something Like Laughter - Five Iron Frenzy

People say they know a girl
Who's lost her way, she's always angry
No one bothers to ask her
What she hears or what she hopes for
The air is cold, she lives alone
And tires of being her only provider
She can't fathom grace tonight
No not tonight, it's not an option

Searching for more than mere tastes of living water
Tired eyes tend to wander, seek the light
Create in her a sense of awe that sees Your beauty
Let Your splendor flash with blinding light

Cities slowly suffocate
What once was bright is now moth-eaten
As young girls filter thoughts that once were
Fresh now worn and beaten
Clutching pity like a prize
To her side her fingers grow weary
He cares so much for sparrows
Won't He toss something out my way?

Searching for more than mere lies disguised as dogma
Tired eyes tend to wander, seek the light
Create in her a sense of awe that sees Your beauty
Let Your splendor flash with blinding light
Standing tall, all the aspen trees drink water
As the rain falls down like laughter from the sky

Doing Otherwise

In the spirit of fourth of July, I want to write a short piece on freedom. It's an idea that I've been musing over for a while now, particularly in the days surrounding this holiday. I've never really gotten into fourth of July for a few reasons, not to be discussed here. This year I worked all day and came home to eat an Italian dinner (if you call Hamburger Helper Italian). But with regard to freedom, I hope to keep this short.

Freedom is the capacity or ability to do otherwise. With regard to ethics, it is the choice to save one's self instead of another. In politics it is the option of choosing one candidate over another. At the simplest physical level, it is the almost passive decision to climb a flight of stairs two at a time, instead of one. In choosing sin, there is always the opportunity to opt for virtue, inasmuch as there is always chance to sin when pursuing a virtuous life. Even apart from such areas, there is freedom in every waking moment -- which cereal one eats in the morning, how fast one drives on the freeway, how one responds to ridicule or encouragement.

I said that freedom is the capacity to do otherwise. In any given scenario, there is always another option. No matter how monotonous the day feels, you are never obligated to continue on as you were, to regularly make the same decisions day after day. Freedom violently contrasts with obligation. Sometimes I think that we need a radical display of freedom to break the cycle of regularity, to break free from what is expected of us. Even in the bleakest of times, when it seems as though there is no safe way out except the easy way--there is always the opportunity to bear down, toughen up, and find a way to persevere. The soldier paralyzed by fear, wishing for nothing more than to be miles away from harm's way, must decide to fight on or to fall back. Choosing neither leads to certain death. Even in choosing neither, it is still a free choice to not choose. This is freedom--simple and extravagant.

So often, especially around holidays such as these, I hear about how blessed we are to live in a land with freedom and opportunity. But here is the unpopular truth: You can't legislate freedom. Freedom is inborn into every fiber of my being. In virtue of being a person and having consciousness, I have this capacity. Yes, I gain many benefits from living in this country that I am thankful for--that I have the ability to write this without fear of persecution and contempt (at least not by the state). But even if I lived under severe oppression and darkest tyranny, I still would have the capacity to do otherwise. The freedom that whispers in the ear of brute adversity is infinitely more beautiful than the freedom that is met with open applause.

Writing this is an exercise of freedom. I could be off watching a movie, out to see fireworks, or sleeping quietly. But I chose to do otherwise. The choices that I have made are mine and mine alone. In light of this fact, whatever consequences that come of this freedom are also mine and I am responsible for them. Freedom endows responsibility. I am responsible, not for what I could have done, but for what I did. I chose this school. I chose this job. I chose to live in this place. And with those things comes so much more. I love this freedom, because if I wake up tomorrow and forcibly pick it all up, I could choose otherwise and pursue a different direction.

I choose otherwise.

Down below in the resistance
Sheer defiance builds in cadence
Pure and passionate that's right
There's nothing here to lose

Real change doesn't come a mandate
Real love you cannot legislate.

Finding the Heart-Room: Talbot Thus Far

I should note ahead of time that I had initially intended to write this to one person, and then to a few people, to tell him/them about how things have been down south. The more I wrote, the more I thought it would be appropriate to just post it here. Enjoy!

Dear _____________,

Long time no see, no talk. It’s been about a month and half since I’ve been down here and correspondence is long overdue! I actually meant to write a long time ago, but I kept finding myself with something to do, somewhere to go, someone to see, and distracted by the comings and goings of life. So far it’s been a little bit of good and a little bit of bad.

I enjoy living in Whittier. It’s a smallish town about 4 ½ miles from campus. The house itself is close to most basic things: grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, etc. The only thing that it isn’t close to is a freeway. While the town isn’t that far from where I was before, in Costa Mesa, it’s a 10-15 minute drive to a freeway to get to those places. Consequently, I’ve been trying to mix up where I go to church; i.e. the main Rock Harbor in Costa Mesa and the Rock Harbor campus in Fullerton.

One funny anecdote about where I live. My room stands on its own away from the main house. It used to be a garage of sorts but has been remodeled to house one person. A couple weeks after moving in I found that the door handle jiggled. A screw was starting to come loose. Initially I thought, “I’ll get a screwdriver and fix that later.” A few days went by and later never came. I came in late one Monday night, closed the door behind me and the handle fell off. At that point I was too tired to try and fix it so I went to bed intending to work on it in the morning. Well, morning came and I got up, tried to go out to go to the bathroom and realized: I was trapped. It took roughly an hour to get a hold of one of the owners of the house to come help me. I was two minutes away from e-mailing one of my teachers the following message, “Dear Professor, I regret to inform you that I will not be able to attend class today. I am currently trapped in my one-room-palace with no means of getting out.”

My feelings about Talbot have been a bit mixed. I maintain that the main reason that I chose the school was to get an education in philosophy while still getting basic theological training. I have to remind myself of that as I’ve found myself frustrated at times with the school and some of its students.

The first thing I noticed when I set foot on the Biola campus was that many of the stereotypes that I had heard about it were being realized before my eyes. For many years I’ve spent time just watching people: how they behave, interact, speak, etc. It really seems like Biola is a bubble. A few times every week I plop down at a table near the bookstore or in the Eagle’s Nest restaurants to study and observe. The students operate as if they were cut off from the outside world, yet still somehow egocentric. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s kind of like watching small circles (of people), cliques even, move about, hardly interacting with neighboring circles and holding what is going on in their own circle as if it is the most important thing. It makes for a very strange community. The other stereotype that is very true is how Christians go there to meet other Christians, date, and then marry. It’s been rather amusing to watch over the weeks how guys and girls slowly come together. In the first two weeks there was minimal interaction between the two. In weeks three and four, they began talking. And in the last two weeks I’ve noticed many more couples walking around campus holding hands. It’s a comical phenomenon to say the least.

You may be wondering if I have been so fortunate and/or have partaken in this “ritual practice”. But, no. I’ve found Talbot to be a bubble within a bubble. While Biola is a breeding ground for Christians, Talbot is 90% male. About half of the women in my classes are at least 15 years older than me. Facetiously, I say that I’ve gotten all of the stigma of going to Talbot/Biola, but none of the benefits. But hope is not lost! Ha. I’ve had the privilege of making a few new friends and realized that I know a few others there as well. For example, on my second day I saw a guy that I graduated with from UCI. While I didn’t know him well, I did have a few classes with him there. On my first Saturday class I found myself sitting with a fellow in the MA Philosophy of Religion and Ethics program. As it turns out we both went to the same junior college, DVC, at the same time, but did not know each other then.

I was able to get into the two Saturday classes that I wanted to. Both meet every third Saturday, staggered, from 9am-4pm for a total of 7 hours. Fortunately, both allow for frequent breaks. Still, they are mostly lecture and are not terribly interesting. My Bible Exposition class is probably the more interesting of the two. It’s taught by Benjamin Shin, but he emphasizes much of the work of another Talbot professor, Walt Russell. I’ve enjoyed the more casual of texts for that class, “Playing with Fire” by Russell, as it presents much of what is covered in class but in a more personal manner and really displays how Hermeneutics kind of mediates between Systematic Theology and Spiritual Formation. I’ll comment on the other text for the class later. The other Saturday class is Theology 1, Theology proper or Systematic Theology. Taught by Henry Holloman, it’s not terribly interesting. I’ve found it mostly thus far to be theory of the theory of systematic theology. I don’t think I’ve learned much actual theology in it yet, only how one might create a theory of systematic theology, if one were so inclined. The main text for that class is “Christian Theology” by Millard Erickson. Like the text for Bible Exposition, I’ll comment on that later.

A third class I have is Theological Research Methodologies. It’s a once a week class, less than an hour long. I don’t have much to say other than that I find it pointless. Some of the things, like how to cite sources, might be useful for those who are coming back to school after a long time off (there are quite a few of them) but not as much for me.

One of the more interesting and challenging classes, thus far, is Introduction to Spiritual Theology and Formation. Initially it was the one class that I was not thrilled that I had to take. It’s the one class that every Talbot student, regardless of program, has to take. The first week in it brought a few surprises. First, it’s not just one class that I have to take. It’s a three course program over the first three semesters at Talbot. Second, I found a mandatory “lab fee” to pay on my student bill for the class. Only after that were we told that we have to attend a mandatory retreat for a weekend that is pre-assigned for your group. On top of all of that, every person in the class is mandated to take a psychological evaluation, the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and then attend a follow up counseling session.

It’s the psychological evaluation that is the most distressing to me. I do believe that, if they could get away with it legally, Talbot would mandate the test prior to granting admission. But seeing as when you apply, you check a box recognizing that Talbot does not discriminate against you based on ethnicity, disabilities, and so on, they probably could not do it. Consequently, they make initiate students take a class that requires the test as a requirement for getting a grade. Discriminatory qualms aside, the test itself was a bit concerning. It is composed of 568 statements for which you answer true or false based on how you agree with it (3 hours long). It then measures your answers against 10 different scales—personal health, depression, emotionality, need for control/rebellion against control, masculinity/femininity, paranoia/trust, anxiety, cognitive/perceptual/emotional experiences, energy level, and sociability. On the outside of the packet the copyright said 1948 and then revised in 1975 and again sometime in the 80’s. This is a test that is 20-30 years outdated. I found that most evident with the statements that were obviously indicative of supposed masculinity. For example, the first statement was “You read mechanics magazines.” I’ve never touched a mechanics magazine, but does that make me not masculine?

A couple of my favorites:

- You enjoy teasing animals. (I worked in a pet store for almost 5 years, half of the toys we sold were for teasing animals)

- You want to be a park ranger. (This one made me think of Seinfeld, Uncle Leo is really proud of Jeffrey for being a park ranger)

- You have spit up blood. (I had to answer true to this one as on 2 occasions in Jiu-Jitsu I was kicked in the mouth or headbutted causing me to spit up blood)

- You have a healthy sex life. (I thought single Talbot students weren’t supposed to have sex lives)

- You are always being followed. (I actually looked over my shoulder after reading that one, causing my friend next to me to laugh hysterically)

I’m curious about my results. I’ll be getting them in my counseling session on October 20^th. I pity the grad student who has to evaluate me.

My favorite class thus far has been the one philosophy class I am taking. But it is also the most frustrating. The full title of the class is Contructivism: Postmodernism and Naturalism. Basically the aim is to look at how both postmodern and naturalist philosophers are contructivist (how they piece reality together). The material is fascinating to me. Most of the classes that I took at UCI as electives were focused on early 20^th Century metaphysics and analytic philosophy. I’ve found myself several times, in class or doing the readings, recalling some of the most confusing concepts that I had encountered in those classes. But there have been a number of frustrations that have come out in this class but I’ve also found in other classes. Simply stated, my frustration has been the manner in which many of the students in the classes, as well as the two texts for Bible Exposition and Theology that I mentioned early, refer to, describe, consider, and evaluate the philosophers/theologians that are presented in class.

This takes two forms. The first is that they fulfill the fallacy of Appeal to Authority. That is, they take to a philosopher or thinker and then treat everything that they say as if it were gold. An argument is true, not by the validity or truth of the premises, but by virtue of the person who said it. The biggest ones that I’ve found here at Talbot are Dallas Willard and JP Moreland. (Also of note, I think Christians do this with CS Lewis very often as well). Three of the four classes with actual content that I’m taking have readings by Dallas Willard. I’ve heard some students refer to him as St. Willard. One student somehow managed to say the full name, Dallas Willard, four times in two sentences.

The other side of this is the use of ad hominem arguments. While many students idolize Willard, they demonize philosophers that they disagree with and/or, worse, don’t understand. This has happened a few times with regard to David Hume, Frederich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I may not agree with some of their theories or ideas, but that does not mean that they have no value or that they are crazy. Some students have commented on how one has to be crazy or ludicrous to hold the views of these philosophers. I found this very discouraging as I continued on to other classes. In the texts mentioned, philosophers and theories characterized as existential or postmodern are displayed within a very negative light. Anything that is postmodern is instantly liberal, and liberalism and freedom in thought will not be tolerated.

To quote one student last week, “I haven’t read the Murphy article yet, but I can’t see how she (Nancy Murphy) can be a physicalist and call herself a Christian. Physicalism always leads to atheism.” This statement is wrong on three levels: metaphysical, logical, and ethical. The belief that the physical dictates the mental (a major tenet of physicalism) says nothing about belief in God, theory about God, or how there cannot be a God. There is no direct logical link between the physicalism and atheism, other than that it would be possible to have a worldview that included both. On what ethical grounds can one declare another not to be of Christian faith for holding a particular metaphysical view, without actually knowing how or why the person came to this view?

One note I want to state explicitly. The professors I have had should be vindicated of the accusations made. They do not encourage the students to take such views. At the same time, the students have not been corrected for doing so.

The narrow view in which philosophy is presented here at Talbot had me worried for a while. Many of the students in the class are in the MA Apologetics program. A few are in other programs. A number of the students in the Philosophy program, in the one class and in others, attended Biola for their undergrad. Not to say that this is an expressly negative thing. I want to merely contrast the majority of students with my own secular philosophical training at UC Irvine. I have been taught to examine each philosopher and theory with an open mind for anything and everything that they might be saying or meaning. This approach may be characterized by some as postmodern, which is a frightening thing at a school where postmodernism is largely (but not entirely) bastardized.

These things had me frustrated and worried for a few days. Even now I encounter frustrations. But I’ve resolved to push through it. It was very appropriate for God to allow me to have such troubles, not two days before entering Seek Week at Rock Harbor. Seek Week is a time that Rock Harbor as a church set aside to seek God and find what He is calling it to. There was fasting. Services were held in the mornings and evenings for prayer and worship. The building itself was opened up and reserved for giving and receiving prayer. Many stories emerged over the course of the week. Some people receiving callings to one ministry or another, some to resolve a pending issue, some to simply seek God more eagerly.

As for me, I fasted from certain forms of media for the week. Consequently, I had one of the most productive weeks in my life. Had I not fasted as such I would not have finished all of immense preparation for my Saturday class. It also opened me up to what God wanted me to do about the problems I was having with Talbot. At this time I was also bothered by being mandated to take a psychological exam and go away on a retreat. Disillusioned and discouraged with Talbot, I went to 3 of the 4 evening services. I found an openness, an intensity of worship and prayer, that I had not felt in a long time. One of the songs really resonated with the problems I was having, “Christ be the center of our lives…”

God brought me to an important realization. That is that my thought and argument need to be honoring to God. In anything that I write or say, even this letter, my hope is that it may honor God. If I am cast aside as a liberal or postmodernist for taking a different approach or view of a thinker or theory, then so be it. As long as I aim to glorify God in thought and deed then I can rest peacefully with clear conscience, fully confident in the faith that I have and the insight that God has granted me. Talking through these things with my friends, John Clanton and Lacey Cooke, has helped me to come to this conclusion. I expect much criticism and further frustration, but also to glorify God.

And so I carry on, or at least try to do so. As Kierkegaard (another philosopher cast in a negative light by Christians) writes, “Oh, where heart-room is, there is house-room always to be found. But where was there ever heart-room if not in His heart?” God calls all to him. I’ve found the heart-room and am trying to take hold of the house-room.

Contemporariness of Kierkegaard's Christian Conclusions

This is the final paper I wrote for my History of Western Philosophy Class. The prompt was to choose a philosopher we studied this year and an area of their work and then write about it. I chose Soren Kierkegaard and Christianity. I'm sure that the essay I wrote doesn't do the man justice, nor does it point out the parts of him that absolutely blow my mind.

Introduction

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and theologian. During his short life of forty-two years, Kierkegaard wrote dozens of books on a variety of topics ranging from critiques of Christianity to personal thoughts and feelings. More often than not, he would publish these many volumes under pseudonyms as he felt he was not worthy to place his work on an absolute scale with that of God’s. By the time of his death in 1855, Kierkegaard had dedicated countless hours to studying, to writing, and to living a life dedicated to the God of Christianity. His thoughts and feelings on God and Christianity are manifest in his work. Soren Kierkegaard sought a personal and submissive relationship to God outside of dogmatic religious institutions.

Critique of Religious Institutions

Kierkegaard lays out his thoughts on the establishment of religious order in his Training in Christianity, which he considered to be his most important work. Early on in the work, Kierkegaard purports that the Christian faith should be open and welcoming to persons of all faith. What he seeks is quite simple. He writes, “Oh Lord Jesus Christ, would that we also might be contemporary with Thee, see Thee in Thy true form and in the actual environment in which Thou didst walk here on earth.”[1] Contemporariness is not something that Kierkegaard speaks at long lengths on. Yet, it is fundamental for his faith. He seeks to see Jesus Christ as he was when he walked on earth. For Kierkegaard, the works and actions of Jesus Christ have become skewed over time. He goes to great lengths to explain how the eighteen hundred years between the time of Christ and the time of his writing do not matter much whatsoever.

Kierkegaard has much distaste for the Christian establishment. In his mind, both Protestant and Catholics alike have taken great liberties with the Christian faith that Jesus and his disciples laid down eighteen hundred years ago. He continues, “Thou didst walk here on earth; not in the form in which an empty and meaningless tradition, has deformed Thee; for it is not possible in the form of abasement the believer sees Thee…”[2] His critiques of religious institutions have an oddly familiar ring to them. In many respects, his thoughts correlate well to the critiques that Martin Luther levied against the Catholic Church in his 95 Theses. Amongst Luther’s complaints were against the practices of simony and the selling of indulgences. Both practices are not from the preaching of Jesus Christ, but rather, from the human beings who have taken over the Church and skewed the faith. A part of Kierkegaard’s ideological thought is to move Christianity back to where it should have been. He writes, “Christendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom.”[3] A part of Kierkegaard’s critique of what has happened to Christendom is an indirect attack on G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of history. According to Hegel, humanity would move towards a more perfect unity with a supreme purpose and end. Religion would play its part in the movement towards the ultimate end. For Kierkegaard, this is an abominable thought. It is one that allows human beings to potentially alter the teachings of Christ. It forces one to move away from the contemporariness that is vital for true Christianity.

The Changelessness of God

Kierkegaard develops his construct for what Christianity should be based on a contemporariness with Christ and his apostles. It is founded upon Jesus’ teachings that are found in Holy Scripture—the Bible. One of Kierkegaard’s final publications before his death in 1855 was an essay on The Changelessness of God. He begins by rooting everything that he argues in actual Biblical text. It is an essay based on James 1:17-21, which purports that “every good and perfect gift” comes from God “with whom there is no change or shadow of variation.” Kierkegaard takes the issue of God’s changelessness head on. In many ways his argument, constructed at the end of his life, in many ways relates to his thoughts about contemporariness. He writes, “God is changeless. Omnipotent, he created this visible world—and made himself invisible. He put on the visible world as a garment; he changes it as one changes a garment—himself unchanged.”[4] God is constant and unchanging—this brings up many important points for how we, as human beings, are to interact with him and the idea of him. A part of the recognition that God is infinitely unchangeable is the counterpart of human beings being infinitely changeable. Human thought fluctuates from day to day in accordance with its experiences in the world. Humanity evolves and changes itself regularly, but God does not change with it—only one’s perception of God changes. Kierkegaard explains this beautifully when he writes,

Now change takes place around us and the shadow of variation slides changingly over us; now the changing light from the surrounding world falls upon us, while we ourselves in all this are in turn changed within ourselves. But God is changeless.[5]

From this image of changelessness, Kierkegaard derives a simplified model for how a Christian man or woman is to act.

For Soren Kierkegaard, this infinite changeless and omnipotent power of God is something that brings about “fear and trembling”, and rightfully so. For many it is hard, even impossible, to imagine that there exists a being whose might and power rival and surpass that of our own volition. A part of the ominous power of God is an undying plan for human beings, that they might have a subjective experience within God’s objective glory. Kierkegaard writes, “If then your will is not in accord with his, consider this: you will never escape him. Thank him if he through gentleness or severity teaches you to bring your will into accord with his.”[6] That is to be the goal of the contemporary Christian—to align one’s will in accordance with that of God. It is a fallacy to believe that one might control God—that he would give every person everything that they desire as if they have a view of the grand scheme of their lives, let alone humanity as a whole. The message is loud and it is clear. Once again it alludes to many teachings found in Biblical text, particularly 1 Peter 5, which discusses submitting oneself to God with all humility and meekness that are do. The power of God is to be feared and revered. Often a mistake made by the changeful human beings is to expect God, the changeless, to operate on their short time table. The hundreds of years of human existence might be but seconds for an eternal God in the same way that all the riches of this world might be but pennies for him. One might ask God for his two cents, but they shouldn’t be surprised to find that it takes Him a couple seconds.

The Full Power of God

Soren Kierkegaard’s best known and most read work is undoubtedly Fear and Trembling. In it Kierkegaard provides further account of the awesome power of God over humanity. This book has been cited by many existentialists, including Jean-Paul Sartre , as being infinitely influential—though Kierkegaard would never be characterized as an existentialist. Once again, he pulls the derivation for his thoughts from Biblical scripture; this time from the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac. The Jewish ethical law that supposedly perpetuates at the time of Abraham boldly states that murder is prohibited in all cases. Yet in this story, God has asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. With odd argumentation, Kierkegaard writes,

It is an ordeal, a temptation. A temptation—but what does that mean? As a rule, what tempts a person is something that will hold him back from doing his duty, but here the temptation is the ethical itself, which would hold him back from doing God’s will. But what is duty? Duty is simply doing God’s will.[7]

From Kierkegaard’s perspective, Abraham’s predicament is paradoxical. The universal law is that one should not kill. Therefore in accordance with one’s duty to ethical law, he could not kill his own son. Yet, by being tempted to escape from following God’s will in sacrificing Isaac, Abraham is forced to choose between following universal ethical law that comes from God or following God’s will itself.

Kierkegaard explains how this story could possibly work without God being put on trial for planning to commit murder. He dubs the action a “teleological suspension of the ethical”. He writes, “As the single individual he became higher than the universal. This is the paradox, which cannot be mediated. How he entered into it is just as inexplicable as how he remains in it.”[8] By human understanding and practice of ethical laws, the actions taken by Abraham were out of order and inexplicable. This is a supreme example of how God, in all of his vast power, is not constrained to follow human law. He can remove ethical law as he chooses and if he chooses. He can do this, because it is fully within the capacity of his unchangeable plan. Yet these are not grounds to commit murder and then shirk guilt by claiming that God said he would teleologically suspend the ethical.

Summation

The thoughts of Soren Kierkegaard concerning Christianity and his thoughts about the divine are scattered throughout his many works. Firstly, he believed that the teachings of Jesus Christ should be kept in their contemporary state, without alterations and evolution of history. Secondly, God is infinitely changeless and humans are infinitely changeable. Thirdly, human beings should align their will in accordance with that of God, within the realm of subjective experience. Fourthly, the power of God is far and away greater than any human being. Therefore, God is not restricted to the same laws that he gave to govern humanity. Encompassing all of these thoughts is the motivation and goal of moving truly pure Christianity back into Christendom.

---

[1] Kierkegaard, Soren. Training in Christianity (New York, New York: Random House, Inc. 2004) 5

[2] Ibid. 5

[3] Ibid. 31

[4] Kierkegaard, Soren. The Changlessness of God (The Essential Kierkegaard); (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 2000) 485

[5] Ibid. 485

[6] Ibid. 488

[7] Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling (The Essential Kierkegaard); (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 2000) 100

[8] Ibid. 101