Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Chapter 6.3 (Fideist arguments)


Kierkegaard’s Leap of Faith: According to Kierkegaard, God needs not be proved because -at best- He would become "probable." He agrees with Tertullian's motto: "I believe because it is absurd." The best solution is to believe by faith. We need St. Paul's definition of faith: Faith is the certainty in things that although one cannot see, yet one believes. The more absurd the predicament, the more intense the faith. What’s important with faith is not "what" one believes but "how" one believes. Kierkegaard defines it as "subjective truth." Counterargument: 1- What if one is wrong? 2- How about the result of blind faith in fundamentalism or fanaticism?

Evidentialism: It holds that not only we need evidence to support our beliefs, but that we have a responsibility to have adequate evidence to avoid unnecessary wrongs to innocent people (Torquemada and Savonarola during the Inquisition are good examples: They had faith in what they were doing, yet, they didn’t have evidence. Same with the kind of religious fundamentalism that Bin Laden defends.

Existentialism: In a world without a God, humans are free and responsible for what they do. We constantly create ourselves in the act of making choices. Life is absurd: There is no single explanation for the way things are.