Kierkegaard's Argument For The Existence Of God

Kierkegaard argued that religious faith and objective reasoning are incompatible. Faith is higher than reason and is the highest human virtue and thus is necessary for fulfillment. He defines faith as “contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual’s inwardness and the objective uncertainty” (206). He claimed that faith should not be based on objective evidence since they are both different processes and that faith requires passion rather than reflection. Also, faith is due to human striving and thus it should be result of subjective experience. God can only be known through subjective and personal experience and never objectively.

I think there is contradiction in claiming that faith should be subjective and one should commit to a belief subjectively. There are many different belief and most individuals only commit to some belief

Kierkegaard claimed that historical evidence always includes some margin of error but faith involves acknowledging possibilities of error and still taking the risk. But what if there are many evidence that go against a belief? Believer shouldn’t ignore these evidence. For example, if there were several evidence that supports that God doesn’t exist and the concept of God had been invented few centuries ago by humans. In this case believers should take into consideration these evidence and not blindly have faith in a belief that is false.

Kierkegaard also went on to say that the greater the risk, greater the passion and faith. But why is greater risk required for greater faith? Why not just little to no risk? Adam presents two scenarios with different level of risk involved:

“(A) You plunge into a raging torrent to rescue from drowning someone you love, who is crying for help. (B) You plunge into a raging torrent in a desperate attempt to rescue someone you love, who appears to be unconscious and may already have drowned.”