Sárospataki Füzetek 15. (2011)
2011 / 4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Kónya Péter: Szlovák reformátusok a 17-18. században
Kierkegaard - a flag in the winds of change OBJECTIVE THOUGHT — “In the objective sense, thought is understood as being pure thought...and the truth becomes the correspondence of thought with itself. This objective thought has no relation to the existing subject.”28 (‘I think’ does not equal ‘I exist’.) PARADOX — for S. Kierkegaard there is no (Hegelian) synthesis: subjective & objective sides of life, body & spirit, sin & grace, are always in dialectical tension without any guarantee of progress in freedom nor guarantee of progress in morality and faith). PHILOSOPHY, THEOLOGY — are too detached and speculative. Like most detractions, they settle us in comfort, while the ‘ship is drifting toward the rocks while the helmsman delays to turn the ship’.29 “Philosophy moves farther and farther...from actual life [which] is reduced to a shadow existence.”30 We may recall Plato’s shadows in the cave. PSYCHOLOGICAL/RELIGIOUS MADNESS - S. Kierkegaard quoted Socrates who said madness can be a gift of the Gods, and Aristode & Seneca who said there is no genius without madness. S. Kierkegaard often refers to divine madness (as when Abraham took steps to sacrifice Isaac), and he distinguishes divine madness from its opposite, demoniacal madness. Paul Tillich had a lot to say about the de- monization of religion and other ‘goods’ (moral, technological, etc.). (Fear and Trembling) POET — S. Kierkegaard calls himself a ‘poet’ in a harbour market town (Copenhagen). By ‘poet’ he means one who deals with inner feelings of beauty, suffering, paradox, and can only communicate indirecdy (eg. through ambiguous metaphors, even if they become longer parables or stories). REASON — objective reasoning works in the objective sphere but is insufficient for the subjective sphere: what should I do? How should I live? What should I choose? The most basic questions and the many choices and crisis situations in life cannot be solved by mere calculation. What may be the right answer in a certain situation for one individual cannot be applied to another individual who by definition is situated differendy. If this is S. Kierkegaard’s ‘situation ethics’, it was not meant to weaken general ethical guidelines and norms, but to make them stronger. S. Kierkegaard was not looking for an ‘aesthetical’ answer of an easy way out; the real self is formed through challenges and crises. SYNTHESIS/RECONCILIATION — S. Kierkegaard reacted to Hegel’s logical synthesis and harmonization of everything (in the philosopher’s mind). Yet S. Kierkegaard does have his own synthesis. For example: “By faith I make renuncia28 S. Kierkegaard, Postscript, in Anthology, 205. 29 Quoted in Lowrie, A Short Life, 85. 30 From Kierkegaard’s Postscript, quoted in James Brown, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Buber and Barth: Subject and Object in Modem Theology (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 39. 2011/4 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 63
