Sorean Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich's Views on the Role of Faith

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The role of faith has been debated among many theologians, scientists, and philosophers. It has been greatly discussed and depicted throughout history as whether faith is logical when it comes to religion or whether faith is completely absurd. In this essay, I will focus on the role of faith through the lenses of Christian philosophers Sorean Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich. Faith plays an important role in Kierkegaard and Tillich theology; I will critically examine their depiction of faith and compare and contrast their passages. Kiergarrd view of faith is that it is completely absurd where as Ti

Søren Keiekgaard was one of the greatest inspritational philosphers of his time and most of his inspirations came from The Holy Bible. He was born on May 5, 1813, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Søren Kierkegaard went on to pursue work as a philosopher, where he critiqued dominant Christian ideology and Hegelianism. He soon became the founder of Extenilism which “is the belief that the world has no intrinsic meaning or purpose and, consequently, that individuals alone bear the responsibility for their actions and decisions”. (Ref) His opinions differed from the mainstream thorolions of his time because his focus was more on the individual and there personal relationship with God, he didn’t think that God could be understood or found by logic. In his opinion, “God was greater than, not equicalent to, logic”. Therefore the only way to understand God, is through the leap for faith which is the opposite of reason. For it demands that one embrace the abusudity of the unexplaiable. Kierkegaard's faith is one that he refers to as authectic faith because it relies on one knowing that the it is impossible to explain and there is no reason for s...

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...ltely believe the act is good even though the act of killing is wrong. Another prime example is one that KIERKGARRD illustration of a knight who in love with a princess and has unwavely faith that he will ultimately be with her in the end. His knowledge that its impoosible to be in a relationship with the royal princess makes him plunge into the absurdity that some way he will be with her. Being convinced of the impossibility of such a relationship, the knight of faith states, "I nevertheless believe that I shall get here, namely on the strength of the absurd, on the strength of the fact that for God all things are possible." (fear and trembling, pg 39). According to kiergarrd , the virtue and embracing of the aburd is in accepting the impossibility and believing that the aburd is the right choice. We follow this life because of our passion not because of reason.

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