Kierkegaard and Radical Fideism

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses fideism, a philosophical view extolling theological faith by making it the ultimate criterion of truth and minimizing the power of reason to know religious truths. The paper looks at how, for strict fideists, there is no place for reason in finding or experiencing the fundamental tenets of religion and how blind faith is the only way to becoming confirmed and saved. In particular, the paper looks at how 19th-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard used fideism in his approaches to philosophy.

From the Paper:

"Soren Kierkegaard held the fideist position that God's existence cannot be known and that one's faith cannot be founded on needs or rational justifications, but on simply believing in God. This belief became known as Christian existentialism and many of Kierkegaard's works, including Fear and Trembling, written under various pseudonyms, representing works of fiction whose viewpoints are as varied as their supposed authors and espouse hypothetical positions that Kierkegaard did not, himself, especially espouse, rebut his beliefs, or are rebuttals of others' beliefs."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Alastair, Hannay and Kierkegaard, Soren,. Fear and Trembling - Penguin Classics, 1986.
• Clifford, William Kingdon. Lectures and Essays (ed. Pollock, F.). London, Macmillan. 1879.
• Idinopulos, Thomas A. (ed.) The Erosion of Faith. Michigan: Quadrangle Books. 1971
• Martin, Michael. "A Critique of Fideism." Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1990.
• McDonald, William. "The Epistemology of Religion." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 10 Jul, 2006. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-epistemology/>.

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