Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: My goal in this article is to explicate the perspective of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author, Johannes Climacus, on the leap to faith, based on Climacus’ presentation in Philosophical Crumbs. I will argue that for Climacus, during the moment in which this leap is a possibility, while God must bring to the individual both the truth and the condition for understanding it, the leap is a decision by the individual, an existential decision to believe. In attempting to understand Climacus, it is important to use his definition of faith—namely, that faith is a passion and that it is the condition for understanding the paradox of the Christian conception of the Incarnation (as opposed to a synonym for religiosity), because this allows us to understand why faith is not an act of will but is simultaneously a decision (because belief is a free expression of will).
Source: Horizons
DOI: 10.1017/hor.2018.70
Author: Prabhu Venkataraman
Institution: Eureka College
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2895833037