Kierkegaard Part 1, Part 2
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – Reality is not found in the objective world of universal reason but in the subjective realm of individual choice.
Life’s Three Stages
In the ethical stage one chooses life but in the religious stage he chooses God. The ethical man has utmost respect for the moral law, but the religious man gives an ultimate response to the moral law Giver. In moving to the religious center of gravity one leaves the realm of the objective and propositional for the subjective and personal; he moves from the essential to the existential.
The Nature of Religious Truth
Religious or existential truth is personal, not impersonal; it is not something one has but what he is; it is not what one know but what he lives. Objective truth is something we grip but religious truth is something that grips us. It is appropriated and not merely acknowledged. It is discovered by commitment and not by alleged correspondence to the world. It a word, truth is subjectivity. It is subjectivity that Christianity is concerned with, and it is only in subjectivity that its truth exists.
God cannot be known intellectually by reason but only existentially by faith. Truth is not testable objectively by logical criteria but only subjectively by a personal commitment. Faith, not reason, is the door to truth.