This post concerns two types of belief, or faith according to Kierkegaard: ordinary, everyday beliefs and specifically Christian faith. There is only one word in Danish for both types of belief: Tro. 

A journal entry from 1852 exhibits the concept that most scholars have in mind when talking about Kierkegaard’s views on Christian faith.

πιστισ—επιστημμη

So here we have it πιστισ as it is used in good Greek (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) is regarded as signifying something somewhat lower than επιστημμη. πιστισ relates to what is probable. Therefore πιστισ, to produce faith, according the the classics, is the orator’s task.

Christianity now comes and brings up the concept of faith in an entirely different sense, precisely in relation to the paradox (that is, improbability), but then again as signifying the highest certainty [Vished] (see the definitions in Hebrews), consciousness of the eternal, the most passionate certainty that causes a per[son] to sacrifice everything, life itself, for this faith.” (KJN 9, 81.)

The Danish for this passage is:

See der har vi det. πιστις saaledes som det bruges i godt Græsk (Plato, Aristoteles o: s: v:) ansees for at betegne noget langt lavere end επιστημη. πιστις forholder sig nemlig til det Sandsynlige. Derfor er  πιστις at frembring Tro, ogsaa efter Clasikkernes Mening, Talernes Opgave.

Nu kommer Christendommen og bringer Begrebet Tro op, i en ganske anden Forstand, Tro just som forholdende sig til det Paradoxe (altsaa det Usandsynlige) men saa igjen betegnende den høieste Vished (cfr. Definitionen i Hebræerbrevet) Evigheds-Bevidstheden, den meest lidenskabelige Vished, der lader et Msk. offre Alt, Livet med for denne Tro.

It’s important to appreciate Kierkegaard’s observation that the task of the orator, according to classical philosophers, was to “produce” [frembringe, which literally means “to bring forth] faith. That is, faith, or belief in the ordinary sense, is for Kierkegaard, as for classical philosophers, a passion, or an essentially passive thing. It appears to be something that happens to a person, rather than something that person does. Orators “produce” faith. They do not incite their listeners to make decisions that what they are saying is correct, they persuade, or produce belief by making what they are saying appear more probable than alternative views. No rational person, when presented with a multiplicity of views will adopt one that appears less probable to them over one that appears more probable. 

Kierkegaard appears to believe that convictions evolve naturally in people as apparent probability increases. Some people are less credulous than other people, and hence require more persuading, but credulity is arguably the default state of human beings. Kierkegaard was well aware of this. That, I believe, is where the “leap” comes in. People form beliefs based on their perceptions of probability and are generally unaware of the fact that probability is very different from formal certainty. To form beliefs is to go just a little bit beyond the evidence on which they are based, because that evidence (outside mathematics anyway) is always only probabilisitic and probabilities are not proofs in the strict sense. That is, beliefs are underdetermined by the evidence on which they are based.

I described this dynamic in “Kierkegaard on Rationality” where I explain that we appear “compelled” to make judgments based on their perceptions of probability, or improbability “simply by virtue of the kind of creatures we are.” I did speak there about “choosing between” different interpretations of existence, but I believe now that I was wrong. I was less familiar with Kierkegaard’s thought then than I am now (that was actually a paper I wrote in graduate school) and I was making an argument against Alasdair MacIntyre’s claim in After Virtue that “Kierkegaard considered moral commitment to be ‘the expression of a criterionless choice,” or “a choice for which no rational justification can be given” (After Virtue, 38). That is, I was more concerned to refute the idea that there was no rational justification for the movement from one interpretation of existence to another, than I was with the issue of whether that movement was the expression of a choice. 

In fact, Kierkegaard does not describe the movement from an aesthetic interpretation of existence to an ethical one as a choice. What he says there is that the aesthetic view of existence sees suffering as a result of misfortune. The more misfortune, the more suffering. Hence the aesthete who experiences persistent suffering, starts to view the aesthetic interpretation of existence as less plausible than the ethical interpretation because the latter sees suffering as essential to human existence. If an aesthete experiences persistent suffering, asserts Kierkegaard, “he despairs, whereby immediacy ends, and the transition to another understanding of misfortune is made possible, that is, to comprehending suffering, an understanding that does not merely comprehend this or that misfortune, but essentially comprehends suffering” (CUP, 434 emphasis added).

The Danish for this passage is “fortvivler han, hvorved Umiddelbarheden hører op og Overgangen er gjort muligt til en anden Forstaaelse a Ulykken: til at fatte Lidelsen, en Forstaaelse der ikke blot fatter denne eller hiin Ulykke, men væsentligen fatter Lidelse.” (SKS 7, 394.) 

The expression that is translated as “comprehend” is fatte, and this translation is indeed correct. To fatte something means literally “to catch it,” and figuratively to “apprehend,” or “comprehend” (see Ferrall-Repp). Persistent suffering facilitates a more accurate understanding of the true nature of suffering. The sufferer doesn’t chose a better understanding of suffering. That is, they don’t chose an ethical interpretation of existence over an aesthetic one. Their persistent suffering helps them to get a better grasp of suffering, of its place in human existence, and hence of the nature of human existence. It is more like an act of perception than like a choice. 

That said, there is some element of volition here. Kierkegaard says that persistent suffering makes the transition to another understanding of existence possible, not that it forces this understanding on the sufferer.  The suffer can chose to persist in despair, can chose to continue to doubt what now seems increasingly plausible to him. That is, one can refuse to assent to the truth of a perception. That’s a negative expression of volition, though, rather than the positive expression we would generally associate with a choice.

This highlights how unlike the secular existentialists Kierkegaard is. We cannot make meaning out of nothing. There are objective truths about reality.  We cannot chose to believe whatever we want about reality. Reality impresses itself upon us and our choices are limited to either accepting or rejecting these impressions, or to inquiring further into whether they are correct. That is, our impressions concerning the true nature of some particular aspect of reality, do not appear to be free choices, according to Kierkegaard, but something produced in us independently of our will. 

The will does have a role, however, in belief formation, even with respect to objective reality, to the extent that we can decide the extent to which we want to inquire into the truth of a particular proposition. We sometimes have conflicting impressions relative to the probability of the truth of a particular proposition. If the majority of the scientific community subscribes to a particular theory, that will likely give rise to the impression that that theory is correct. On the other hand, if we are personally acquainted with a scientist whom we respect, who argues persuasively (in the loose sense of persuasive) that that theory is incorrect, then we may well be torn concerning whether to accept the theory as true. In instances such as these, which are likely many, we don’t generally decide what to believe, we simply keep looking into the issue until it seems to us that we have identified the view that is most likely correct, and we determine this, when, after some period of investigation, we find ourselves believing one or the other of the two views about which were were originally torn. 

This goes against what I said in Ways of Knowing, where I asserted that Kierkegaard was 

aware that the impression created in the scholar, or scientist, by the direction in which a particular set of data is tending can be so great that we would seem to have little choice but to accept the data as conclusive and he is not, for the most part, concerned to preclude such acceptance. Indeed, he recognizes full well, unlike the Pyrrhonist to whom he is so indebted, that a life without beliefs is impossible. His concern is rather to expose the nature of such acceptance, that it is a choice, no matter how well-founded or reasonable is may appear relative to alternative choices. (Ways of Knowing, 93.)

But again, I believe I was wrong in that I don’t think Kierkegaard was concerned to expose that the acceptance of one view of empirical reality, or one scholarly theory, over another was a choice, but rather that such acceptance was undetermined by the evidence that led to the acceptance. That is, I think he was concerned to point out that we cannot have certainty in any discipline outside of mathematics. Such an appreciation is important, because it highlights that the will does have some role in the search for scholarly and scientific knowledge. But that role, I believe now, is restricted to the decision of whether to continue collecting evidence rather than to accepting or rejecting a particular theory. 

I realize that this is an extremely fine distinction in that that decision is going to be related to how strong has become the impression that one theory is more probably correct than another. But I think it is none-the-less an important distinction because not only does it make sense of the actual language he uses when describing the transition from an aesthetic interpretation of existence to an ethical one, it coheres with the fact that Kierkegaard clearly believed that there was an objective reality that would impinge upon the perceptions, both literal and figurative of the observer, or subject. 

There are passages in Kierkegaard’s works that might appear to go against the view I’m presenting here, such as in the second volume of Either-Or where Judge Wilhelm refers to the subject’s choice of himself (cf., e.g., EO II, 215), but choosing oneself is a very different sort of choice than choosing to believe something.

Kierkegaard does refer to Troens Valg, i.e., “the choice of faith” (KJN 8, 146) when he observes “Holy Scripture demands ‘faith,’” and for precisely this reason there must be inconsistencies, so that there can be a choice of faith, or so that faith becomes a choice.”

That is the only place, however, in the entire Kierkegaard corpus (at least according to the online edition of SKS) where he uses that expression. He uses similar expressions in other places, but always, according to my cursory research, with respect to Christian faith, never (at least according to the online edition of SKS) with respect to any other sort of belief. That is, I did a search on vælge at tro (chose to believe) and on beslutte at tro (or decide to believe) and there were no hits whatever for either phrase in the entirety of the Kierkegaard corpus. 

Before I proceed with my argument, I want to caution against starting with word searches of that sort. I’ve been reading Kierkegaard for more than forty years. I feel that I know how he thinks. That’s a dangerous assumption, of course, but I have so far, anyway, generally been proved right in what I’ve assumed was his position on a particular issue. I don’t do word searches on SKS to learn what Kierkegaard’s views on a particular subject are. I go looking for passages to cite to support what I believe to be his views, and also occasionally, as in this instance, to see if I might be wrong, if there are perhaps passages that suggest Kierkegaard held some view other than the one I’m inclined to attribute to him, or that might appear to suggest this and hence be used by scholars less familiar with Kierkegaard’s thought to support erroneous interpretations of it. 

Word searches on SKS are a dangerous place to start in trying to understand Kierkegaard’s views because the hits will take the searcher to passages in works where the context of the occurrence of the term in question will be crucial to understanding what Kierkegaard is talking about. Kierkegaard uses the term Tro, for example, like he uses so many other terms, in a variety of ways. Sometimes it refers to the faith that is a momentary phenomenon (pun intended), and other times to Christian doctrine, and still other times diachronically to the life of a Christian who strives to continually renew the faith that is experienced in “the moment.” One needs to know the context in which the word, or expression, occurs to understand the meaning it has in that context, to say nothing of in the authorship as a whole.

But back to the issue of this post. One has to chose the believe the truth of Christianity, according to Kierkegaard, precisely because belief in that truth cannot form naturally, as do other beliefs. It is important to appreciate, however, that while this choice is necessary to Christian faith, it is not sufficient. Faith is what Kierkegaard in Philosophical Crumbs, calls “the condition for understanding the truth,” and that is given to the believer by Christ in the believer’s encounter with Christ, or, as he expresses it in Crumbs, with “the god in time.”

Kierkegaard asserts in Crumbs that “the conclusion of belief [Slutning] is not an inference but a decision [Beslutning]” (Crumbs, 150/SKS 4, 283) where he is not obviously talking about Christian faith or belief. The context of this reference, however, is a grasp of becoming as such and this is not an ordinary epistemological activity. Historians are generally concerned with what historical facts were rather than with how they came about. That is, historians are concerned with determining what happened in the past, not whether it happened freely or was the product of deterministic forces.  And becoming is never an issue in the natural sciences because the only “becoming,” in Kierkegaard’s technical sense, that can be attributed to nature is restricted to the moment of its creation. The changes that subsequently characterize nature do not represent becoming in the genuine sense.

“Becoming” appears to be a specifically Christian concept, according to Kierkegaard. What he refers to in Crumbs as the “Socratic” perspective, which he appears, at least there, to consider the only possible alternative to the Christian, makes time unreal. The changes that characterize temporal phenomenal existence from the “Socratic” perspective are like the changes Kierkegaard says characterize nature. They do not involve genuine becoming. So when Kierkegaard is talking about the “conclusion of belief [Tro]” being a decision, he is likely talking specifically, if indirectly, about Christian faith and not about belief in a more generic sense. 

So ordinary beliefs are formed in us more or less independently of our wills. The will can have a role, according to Kierkegaard, but it appears that role is restricted to deciding whether to keep investigating the truth of some candidate for belief or to give in to the impression that the object of the belief is true. What distinguishes Christian faith, or belief, from ordinary faith, or belief, for Kierkegaard, is that it is not the natural product of an impression of the increasing probability that Christianity is true, but an antidote to the anguish of the consciousness of sin, the importance of which increases in proportion to the increase in that anguish. The more desperate the need of the sinner for forgiveness, the greater the attraction of Christianity. But the attraction is not the product of an impression of the increasing probability of the truth of forgiveness. Quite the contrary. The greater the sinner’s anguish, the less credible to him will be the claim that his sins are forgiven. 

That, I would argue, is the true paradox of Christianity. The believer believes against probability, or the impression of probability, in contrast to every other belief, he or she might have, but out of need. That is, the Christian must decide to believe the truth of Christianity in a sense in which they do not actually decide to believe anything else, precisely because the belief will not form naturally in them. That is why, I believe, Kierkegaard argues that “Christianity now comes and brings up the concept of faith in an entirely different sense, precisely in relation to the paradox (that is, improbability).”