“And what, according to Kierkegaard, is a man?”
“It’s not possible to say in general terms. A broad description of human
nature or human beings was totally without interest to Kierkegaard. The only
important thing was each man’s ‘own existence.’ And you don’t experience
your own existence behind a desk. It’s only when we act—and especially
when we make significant choices—that we relate to our own existence.
There is a story about Buddha that illustrates what Kierkegaard meant.”
“About Buddha?”
“Yes, since Buddha’s philosophy also took man’s existence as its
starting point. There was once a monk who asked Buddha if he could give
clearer answers to fundamental questions on what the world is and what a
man is. Buddha answered by likening the monk to a man who gets pierced by
a poisoned arrow. The wounded man would have no theoretical interest in
what the arrow was made of, what kind of poison it was dipped in, or which
direction it came from.”
“He would most likely want somebody to pull it out and treat the wound.”
“Yes, he would. That would be existentially important to him. Both
Buddha and Kierkegaard had a strong sense of only existing for a brief
moment. And as I said, then you don’t sit down behind a desk and
philosophize about the nature of the world spirit.”
“No, of course not.”
“Kierkegaard also said that truth is ‘subjective.’ By this he did not mean
that it doesn’t matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really
important truths are personal. Only these truths are ‘true for me.’ “
“Could you give an example of a subjective truth?”
“An important question is, for example, whether Christianity is true. This
is not a question one can relate to theoretically or academically. For a person
who ‘understands himself in life,’ it is a question of life and death. It is not
something you sit and discuss for discussion’s sake. It is something to be
approached with the greatest passion and sincerity.”
“Understandable.”
“If you fall into the water, you have no theoretical interest in whether or
not you will drown. It is neither ‘interesting’ nor ‘uninteresting’ whether there
are alligators in the water. It is a question of life or death.”
“I get it, thank you very much.”
“So we must therefore distinguish between the philosophical question of
whether God exists and the individual’s relationship to the same question, a
situation in which each and every man is utterly alone. Fundamental
questions such as these can only be approached through faith. Things we can
know through reason, or knowledge, are according to Kierkegaard totally
unimportant.”
“I think you’d better explain that.”
“Eight plus four is twelve. We can be absolutely certain of this. That’s an
example of the sort of ‘reasoned truth’ that every philosopher since Descartes
had talked about. But do we include it in our daily prayers? Is it something we
will lie pondering over when we are dying? Not at all. Truths like those can be
both ‘objective’ and ‘general,’ but they are nevertheless totally immaterial to
each man’s existence.”
“What about faith?”
“You can never know whether a person forgives you when you wrong