Understanding Faith through a Knight and a Saint (original) (raw)
Related papers
"Fides virtus". The Virtue of Faith from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century
M. Forlivesi - R. Quinto - S. Vecchio (eds., with G. Liboni - C. Tarlazzi), "Fides virtus". The Virtue of Faith from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, (Archa Verbi. Subsidia, 12), Münster: Aschendorff, 2014. ISBN: 9783402102282., 2014
Tracing the history of the doctrines on the nature of faith is an immense endeavour. What the Middle Ages and the Renaissance felt on this subject resulted in a huge literary production, involving an extensive number of authors and taking a variety of themes into account. Compared to this vast literature, the contributions constituting the present volume have a limited and defined scope: they aim to analyse 12th- to 16th-century doctrines specifically concerned with faith as a theological virtue. In this perspective, a number of recurrent problems of exegetical, theological, pastoral, or political nature have been identified. Among the most significant challenges faced by medieval and Renaissance authors, one can notice the attempt to hold together two key-features defining faith: on the one hand, the gnoseological "weakness" of faith, which is considered an assent, maybe a sort of obscure understanding, yet not a sight, either of God or of anything else; on the other hand, the absolute "certitude" and "truth" of faith, which were the matter of no controversy. These features gave rise to a crucial gnoseological problem, that is to say, how a person adhering to the allegedly true and undeniable faith can really know that his/her faith is not a mere opinion. Another exemplary case concerns the reasoning on faith’s political and ecclesiological dimension. In this respect, faith is not seen primarily as an intellectual attitude, but rather as a sort of theological-anthropological prerequisite, generating, when present, a person’s belonging (or, when absent, a person’s not belonging) to the political community of believers. Precisely the political dimension of faith makes the problem of infidelitas so immediate and momentous for many medieval and Renaissance authors, and elicits the will to reduce the extent of infidelitas and the number of infideles thanks to a widespread work of predication, persuasion and repression. Facing problems like the ones now recalled, medieval and Renaissance authors, in a supreme effort to solve them, begot the kaleidoscopic variety of differing theories that is the subject of the present publication and that – paradoxically as it may seem – paved the way for medieval, Renaissance and modern discourses on relativism and toleration. The volume contains contributions by Paolo Bettiolo, Magdalena Bieniak, Christopher Burger, Charles M.A. Caspers, Mark J. Clark, Marcia L. Colish, Carlo Delcorno, William Duba, Michael Embach, Matthew Gaetano, Christophe Grellard, Fortunato Iozzelli, Tiziano Lorenzin, Fabrizio Mandreoli, Thomas Marschler, Constant J. Mews, Hideki Nakamura, Richard G. Newhauser, Antonino Poppi, Riccardo Saccenti, Silvia Serventi and Francesco Siri.
The Paradox of Faith and the Single Individual
The paper aims to explain the concept of the single individual as well as what de Silentio means by the paradox of faith. It relates this to de Silentio’s account of the paradox and the distinction between the tragic hero and the knight of faith. In this discussion, the concepts of interiority and exteriority, subjectivity, and mediation will are associated with the broader explanation.
Faith and Reason: An Inquiry into the Concept of Faith in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling
International Journal of Indonesian Philosophy & Theology
Faith is often accused of being irrational and considered lower than reason because it is not objective and universal. In other words, at a practical level, believers cannot always obey God’s commands communicated in their inwardness. However, they must always be subject to the demands of a universal and objective reason. This elaboration attempts to counter this assumption departing from the description that Kierkegaard presented in his work, Fear and Trembling. There, Kierkegaard states that a single individual believer is higher than the ethical-rational demands that bind him. In other words, the purpose of this text is to show that faith has its rationality and is not subject to reason. Therefore, through the textual analysis method of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, this paper would like to analyze the constitutive elements of faith, how they work, and why faith is not subject to ratio. The point of view used in this elaboration is Kierkegaardian subjectivity. The analysis fi...
"The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time" (Benedict XVI) This study begins with a detailed historical reconstruction of the relationship between faith and reason from the particular point of view of the Catholic Magisterium. It then considers how Catholic thought has dealt with this question. In reconsidering the relationship between faith and reason, it suggests a key understanding based on the concept of truth as "meaning"; in this way reason is conceived as a "sought meaning" and faith as a "given meaning." This idea, united with the necessary presupposition of Truth as a horizon of both Reason and Faith, suggests new ways for a fruitful dialogue between faith and reason in the postmodern age - an age in which a reductive concept of reason and an inadequate idea of faith seem to prevail.
SELF-DECEPTION AND THE LIFE OF FAITH
This paper is concerned with the question whether faith can be judged, in principle, as an instance of self-deception. Exploring various manifestations of faith, I argue that for some non-cognitive manifestations, the question of motivationally biased believing, in principle, cannot arise. The threat of self-deception, however, may arise, e.g., as a an external critique of the values to which one is committed, or as an internal struggle with despair and doubt concerning the kind of life that one is committed to living. The paper has four parts. In the first part, I discuss the nature of self-deception. In the second part, I discuss various manifestations of faith, taking faith as a family resemblance concept. I explore the relevance of the diversity of manifestations to the question whether faith is an instance of self-deception. In the third and fourth parts, I focus on the manner in which faith shows itself in Kierkegaard's Works of Love and on the ways in which the knight of faith that comes to light in Works of Love can be said to be self-deceived.
Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
In this article, I present some reflections on the relationship between faith and knowledge in some of Kierkegaard’s works, primarily the Philosophical Fragments from 1844. I ask, what the project of Climacus consists in, and proceed to show that his opposition between faith and knowledge includes a number of decisions that are neither trivial nor particularly stable. By doing so, I want to present my own doubts as to whether the opposition between faith (by Climacus connected to history, becoming and paradox) and knowledge (connected to intellectual understanding, logic, timelessness and necessity) itself is reasonable. Based on the analysis, I argue that the texts authored by Climacus presuppose a substantial acquaintance with Christian thought and doctrine. This is only indirectly acknowledged by Climacus, and perhaps incompatible with his “thought-project.” Further, I discuss whether his denial of intellectual understanding of traditional Christian thought as a path to faith giv...
"Kierkegaardian Deconstruction and the Paradoxes of Faith"
This paper argues that a properly "Christian deconstruction" of reason, for Kierkegaard, depends on the necessity of finitude and guilt and their rootedness in an existential anthropology. That is, the paradoxes of reason (perhaps practical reason in particular) that lead to reason's own self-deconstruction are precisely exposed in an existential anthropology that conceives of the human being as spirit and thus as task, and as such, inevitably finite and (ironically) powerless vis-à-vis this task. Christian deconstruction then hinges, I argue, on Kierkegaard's existential anthropology, which in turn depends upon finitude or the essential impotency of the human being vis-à-vis an ironic task of selfhood. First, I will discuss Kierkegaard's conception of the self as task from The Sickness Unto Death, as well as the conditions for the possibility of conceiving of such a self. Then I will argue that the conditions for the task of selfhood reveal an ironic paradox at the root of the task itself, and yet this paradox enables the recognition of the impossibility of such a task, allowing for the deconstruction of the self and reason and the moment of grace and decision. Finitude qua impotency and guilt prove then to be a necessity for grace and faith.
Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review, 2020
In this article I discuss Kierkegaard's "rule of faith" for reading Scripture in accordance with what he sees as its inherent divine nature as a love-communication. I present this interpretation of Kierkegaard's rule in counterposition to that of Timothy Houston-Polk in The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith and in alignment with Augustine's "rule of love" in On Christian Doctrine. I frame Kierkegaard's rule in the terms of John Searle's rules for the Illocutionary Act in Speech Acts arguing that faith fulfils the conditions for the felicitous fulfilment of the divine imperative to love, which Augustine sees as the overall divine intention of Scripture. This is expressed, in turn, in Kierkegaard's parable of the love letter in For Self-Examination, in which Kierkegaard illustrates an approach to Scripture that contrasts with what in Sickness Unto Death he calls "despair." In For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard speaks of "defending oneself against God's Word," which I use to explain Kierkegaard's rule of faith by negative contrast.
An Enquiry into Kierkegaard's Concept of Faith
duo.uio.no
This Master’s Thesis aims at presenting a comprehensive picture of Kierkegaard’s concept of faith. It particularly stresses the fact that Kierkegaard argues for faith on an existential basis, and therefore tries to show how faith must not simply be understood as an absolute belief in God, but as a state that has a specific existential function. It argues, furthermore, that this function is to place man in a state of emotional autonomy, which it understands as a state wherein the individual is immune to being adversely affected emotionally by exterior circumstances – it is immune to angst and despair.