XV
D2: Religious Faith
PHI2010 INTRO TO PHIL
Thursday, 19 September 2013
This week's readings all center on the topic of faith - so what do you think of the idea of faith? Is faith more of a belief, or an idea that we have, in a god-like being as Pascal suggests? Do you believe that Kierkegaard is right and that faith can only work as a deep, meaningful relationship with a god? Or is faith just a made up concept that misguides people?
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Thinking of how higher-order knowledge matters such as the concept and/or existence of God and the subject of religious faith; matters with communal, local and global culture repercussions are addressed at the beginning of our philosophy course, when we are least informed and capable of addressing them, as opposed to later-on or at the end, when we'd be more informed and capable of addressing issues with such historic and yet topical interest, as well as how Pascal's Wager, so-called, is taken seriously hand-in-hand with the approach of that illuminating and necessary leap-of-faith presented by Kierkegaard provokes in me a great desire to cuss, and to use colorful metaphors unsuitable for minors and those with gentler social customs than fishermen and construction-workers may possess, comparing prostitution and marriage, and the like.
Pascal is about as wrong as I imaginable with his wager:
He supposes faith, is nothing more than a choice... like what tie or shoes we'll wear on a given day. How many believe, trust, and love, by choosing??
Pascal supposes a god fit for worship, in the custom of his community on their own formative faith journey, that might yet somehow condemn one's soul (that being most souls) for not carrying themselves as his own faith community does, professing faith in YHWH, Jesus and the Holy Church, despite their circumstance... to the reward of an infinitely-happy Paradise if they do, and the eternal condemnation of Hell if they don't. Such a monstrous-puppeteer god, who would see no worthy nobility in unprofessing men of good will without the intervening of a formal dogmatic profession would not be fit for service.
Pascal follows that all noble men must eventually come to believe, thus being able to live noble lives, where only the wretched and miserable would choose (choose!) not to believe. And what of the Church's since-refined teaching on free-will versus predestination, master? Perhaps in a couple weeks...
Kierkegaard, he gets it. Faith is a cliff. It is Jesus walking over the abyss of the unknown and threatening deep, calming the waters as "Who is this man, that even the wind and seas obey him?"... the seas of the in-group beyond, into, and amidst the out-group. It is that trust, hoped-for-but-unproven in the support and enduring loyalty of a loving spouse. It is a gift given and sought to and from the beyond, unknown that, once having and dynamically participating with it, opens up progressing new avenues of accepting, of allowing, of understanding - a lens, and perspective to connect and relate that Known, and the previously and constantly Unknown.
Faith, is a leap, not a choice; a bridge, not a wager; a gift, not a gamble. Faith is not the utterly analytic, impersonal, flawed and unthinkable proposition we see in Pascal's Wager. Faith... is a relationship that Great Other has with our very personal, immediate, vulnerable-and-yet manifest self.
