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ABSTRACT
Hegel famously accuses Christianity of ‘unhappy consciousness’: it has a normative goal – union with the divine – that it cannot, in principle, satisfy. Kierkegaard was intimately aware of this criticism and, unlike some of Hegel’s other accusations, takes it seriously. In this paper my co-author and I investigate the way in which Kierkegaard addresses this issue in two texts published in 1843: Fear and Trembling and ‘The Expectancy of Faith’. We are especially interested in how the two texts describe faith’s relationship to finitude: for instance, whether the person of faith is permitted to expect that God will bless her in particular and concrete ways. My co-author and I offer competing interpretations. I argue that there is a deep tension in the way faith is described in the two texts; my co-author argues that there is consonance.
Acknowledgements
Ryan would like to acknowledge the help and input of several people who influenced the paper for the better along the editorial way. In no particular order: Michael Morgan, Drew Bjorklund, Greg Lynch, Gordon Marino, Jessica Kemp, the editors at BJHP and the paper's careful, perceptive and courteous referees. Extra thanks are due to his patient interlocutor: Michael Mullaney. Michael would like to thank Ryan for suggesting that they write this paper together, for encouraging him along the way, and for challenging him to deeper, more patient thinking. He would also like to thank his wife Rebecca for reading drafts of this paper and patiently listening to him. Last he would like to thank all those present at the Søren Kierkegaard Society panel at the 2017 APA Pacific Division meeting who heard an earlier version of this paper.
Notes
1 I fully grant that there are other differences, for instance, moral.
2 Again, this is an epistemic evaluation.
3 See the ‘Self-Consciousness’ section of the Phenomenology of Spirit for Hegel's full account (119–38).
4 As for the less controversial claim that the Upbuilding Discourses reflect Kierkegaard's considered view, see George Pattison's excellent work on this issue (Kierkegaard's Upbuilding Discourses).
5 The arguments made in this section do not purport to be original. I offer more detailed versions of the same arguments in Kemp, ‘In Defense of a Straightforward Reading’ and ‘Johannes de silentio: Religious Poet or Faithless Aesthete?’. Some of the arguments from those papers are included here, in a significantly abridged form, for the sake of convenience.
6 L. A. Paul uses this example in her essay ‘What You Can't Expect When You’re Expecting’.
7 This example is not meant to suggest that this interview would settle all of our questions. Abraham's inability to speak (i.e. his inability to provide justificatory reasons for his actions) suggests that his explanation of why he must act as he does may be less than convincing. This does not mean, however, that he cannot communicate a whole host of other relevant things about faith, for instance, that it involves: an expectation of finite return (receiving Isaac again) or a certain degree of anxiety. I raise the example of the interview only to suggest that if there is anything one can say about faith, then it is not clear why, in principle, someone like Johannes de silentio cannot say it. Such a person could, in theory, gather all the information one can have about faith from a person who possesses it.
8 Citations to Kierkegaard's published works are to the fourth Danish edition, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (SKS). I also include references to the relevant English translations abbreviated as follows: CUP1 = Concluding Unscientific Postscript (trans. Hong), EO2 = Either/Or, Part II (trans. Hong), EUD = Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses (trans. Hong), FTP = Fear and Trembling (trans. Hannay), FT = Fear and Trembling (trans. Hong) and PF = Philosophical Fragments (trans. Hong). Full bibliographic information is included in the Bibliography.
9 I make this argument in Kemp, ‘Johannes de silentio: Religious Poet or Faithless Aesthete?’.
10 A referee for this journal worries that, here, I transgress the bounds of interpretive charity. The referee cites the fact that Lippitt puts in place a continuity condition that prevents something like ‘receiving a good meal’ from counting as a state of affairs in which Abraham can plausibly say that his expectation has been satisfied (‘Learning to Hope’, 135). This condition states that while one's expectations can be radically open-ended they must also, in some important respect, be continuous with a person's current idea of what it means to, for instance, receive Isaac back again (Abraham) or belong to a particular tribe (Plenty Coups). While I endorse such a condition, I worry that it limits one's expectations in a way that clearly falls afoul of the discourse's restrictions. For instance, I might be the sort of person who thinks that a life that includes severe harm to my children is not a life that manifests God's goodness. Given this presumption, I am utterly incapable (from my current lights) of seeing a life that includes such harm as satisfying God's promise to work all things out for the good. From the perspective of the discourse, however, this kind of brash requirement that God's blessing fit within my pre-existing conceptual scheme is precisely what is being criticized. The idea seems to be that one must be open to the possibility that God's goodness can be manifest in ways that utterly transcend one's current expectations, i.e. ways that are potentially radically discontinuous with one's current way of seeing things. Thus, I worry that Lippitt's reference to such a condition is a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too.
11 To be clear, my worry is not that Lippitt does not acknowledge that Abraham's expectations are in some sense particular, but rather the way in which Lippitt construes the sense in which they are particular. Lippitt writes, ‘Abraham's faith in God enables him to believe that … he will get Isaac back in this life (whatever that would come to mean). In this way, his faith is not in “something particular” in the problematic sense’ (‘Learning to Hope’, 137, emphasis added). This suggests that an expectation can count as genuinely particular even when it is entirely unclear to the expectant person what it would mean to satisfy the expectation. I take it that this account of what it means to have a particular expectation is both philosophically and textually problematic. (More on this below.)
12 This is my translation. I explain why I re-translate this passage later in the paper.
13 To be clear, Lippitt does not claim that Abraham's faith can be fulfilled by literally any state of affairs. In fact, Lippitt specifies two things that Abraham expects: (i) that all will work out for the good and (ii) that he will get Isaac back in this life (‘Learning to Hope’, 137). Though apparently specific, Lippitt thinks these expectations are unproblematic because the person who possesses them does not know what it would look like for the expectation to be fulfilled. She says, ‘I expect x, whatever that would come to mean’. We worry that this final clause, the ‘whatever that would come to mean’ proviso, may radically undermine an expectation's ability to count as specific. It looks like this kind of expectation can, as we say above, be fulfilled by literally any state of affairs. With this basic worry in mind, Mullaney's task is to provide further content to Abraham's expectations, to give a positive account of what Abraham takes God's promises to mean. Understood in this way, Mullaney's project is a continuation and defense of Lippitt's: it fills in something that Lippitt's account leaves underdeveloped.
14 It could also be noted that the ‘average believer’ receives particular promises from God, for instance, receiving eternal life. This is yet another consideration which, I think, speaks against seeing Abraham as a truly special case. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this point.
15 Kierkegaard appeals to this ignorance in ‘Every Good and Every Perfect Gift is From Above’ when he writes, ‘You wanted God's ideas about what was best for you to coincide with your ideas, but you also wanted him to be the almighty Creator of heaven and earth so that he could properly fulfill your wish’ (SKS 5, 46/EUD, 37).
16 Lippitt makes this basic point in his citation of John Macquarrie. See ‘Learning to Hope’ (137-8).
17 See, for instance, SKS 5 (34)/EUD (26).
18 In other words, this paper could easily be much longer!
19 To be clear, when I refer to ‘Plenty Coups’ or ‘Sitting Bull’ I am assuming, for the sake of argument, that Lear's portrayal is accurate. I make no claim about the historical accuracy of his account.
20 Hubert Dreyfus makes this point in his review of Radical Hope. See ‘Comments on Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope’.
21 I take up this very complex question in a forthcoming book where I examine the differences between Plenty Coups and Sitting Bull in closer detail.