Human Subjectivity and the absolute Interpretive Authority of the Catholic Church

The following was originally the first segment in a much longer piece of writing, which I decided to post as its own entry. It is long, meandering, and not to be taken as a serious argument for any given position. More than anything, it is merely a representation of my thoughts at present. That said, I hope it does not offend, and that it stimulates your thoughts in some way.

In the months since I have earned my Bachelor's Degree, I have a lot of free time. Some of it is spent in not very productive ways, some of it is spent working, and some of it is spent in reflection on what I have come to believe. There is no question in my mind that my perspective has broadened in recent years, due in no small part to the academic rigors of my education at Calvin College. But broadened perspectives and answered questions tend to lead to new investigations, wherein old axioms are questioned and new beliefs can come into play. The struggle to navigate between already acquired truth and these new beliefs as diplomatically as possible can be an anxious one.

One such new belief of mine that came about by way of reflection is the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is a paradoxical blend of indispensable insights and disturbing errors. On the one hand, the Church displays profound understanding on the contemporary issue of the supposedly mortal conflict between science and faith, that is, they understand that there is no conflict between the two, as they are more intimately related than many today may feel comfortable admitting. The Catholic Church has shown no timidity in addressing advances in science in an affirmative and constructive manner. The theory of evolution, the Vatican has said, is not a threat to the unchanged relevance of holy scripture. In short, the Catholic tradition, which is a very rich and nuanced tradition indeed, is one of the most credible and reasonable voices in the debate of science and faith.

On the other hand, however, the Catholic tradition strikes me as exceedingly dogmatic in more social/cultural contexts. The hot button topics of female ordination and homosexual exclusion immediately come to mind. Moreover, the common Catholic perspective I've experienced is that the sole authoritative interpretation of scripture is a Catholic one. True church authority is to be found exclusively in the Roman Catholic view of things. This is, after all, the church founded on a rock by Christ himself, and it is the Holy Spirit that guides it.

But as I live my life and think on what truth God has revealed to me through my own experiences, I find that the Gospel is a message intended for the ears of all people, not just a few. I find that God reveals himself to the subject, wholly of his own initiative and in his own good time. It seems that humanity does not ascend to meet God, but that God descends to address each and every person to whom his call beckons. God's word is revealed as objective reality, which the individual appropriates as subjective truth that gives rise to a life of faith defined by deep reflection and robust action. Simply put, the process by which God reveals himself to his creation is as subjective as it is objective.

And why should anyone neglect human subjectivity in favor of objectivity? After all, we each cannot avoid the uniqueness of our respective existences; when God reveals himself, we cannot avoid perceiving what is revealed from our own perspectives. There is no view from nowhere. As Heidegger would put it, we are each thrown into the world, each in possession of a unique facticity which we cannot help having. This is the situation on the scale of the individual. But what happens when a group of people, to whom God has revealed himself, comes together? We band together as subjects, each answering God's call as best as possible, within communities that we call churches or denominations. Within the activities and liturgies of these communities, the subjective truth implanted in the individual by God blossoms outward into something objective. What was inwardly real now gains external reality. The implication is that each community will be unique in its personality and outlook while remaining fixed upon the common element, which is God's word. These communities are diverse, because the people that constitute them are diverse, and that is how God made us.

With these thoughts in mind, I discover that my issue with the Catholic Church is that it places too much importance on its own interpretation of scripture. God's word is an objective reality to which all must comply, the church says. Well and good. But the additional claim is that there is only one interpretation of scripture that is valid, meaning that the subject's interpretation of God's word must fit within the Church's interpretation, or else risk falling into error. The uniqueness of one's facticity has no bearing on your reception of God's word, because there is only one way to receive God's word in truth. It does not matter that people are diverse and that this is how God made us; the only valid human authority on the interpretation of scripture is the Roman Catholic Church, and the only valid perspective is the Church's perspective.

The church's authority is an objective reality, and this is how the eyes of the Catholic subject are meant to interpret scripture. The objective shines into the subject, never the other way around. The conclusion is that under Catholic authority, human perspectival diversity is not accounted for. This, I find, is a terrible state of affairs, because it closes the subject off to what Christ may say them in favor of what the Church may say. Christ alone is divine. It ought not to be that the Church shapes the perspectives of individuals. It ought to be that individuals come together, in prayer, humility and honest reflection, to shape the perspective of whatever orthodox church they constitute. The Gospel is meant for human subjects to interpret, not for a single abstract entity we call the Catholic Church.

If I seem to have left anything out, don't worry. More to come.

Idiot, signing out, etc etc.

Kierkegaard vs Hegel - Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Faith

The following is a paper I submitted during my undergrad studies at Calvin College. I hope you find it beneficial and that it clarifies some of the nuances existing between thinkers like Kierkegaard and Hegel.

I'd like to note, however, that if you wish to make use of my work, remember to cite your sources, including this webpage. The general rule of thumb is this: whenever you use anything, even an idea or concept, that you did not come up with yourself, use proper citation. The integrity of your project is too important to risk through acts of plagiarism.

So cite any and all sources you end up using. Yes, even if it's a paper posted by some schmuck on an online blog somewhere.

Cheers.

Philosophy 333

James Sellers

10/11/13

Writing Assignment #02

Kierkegaard often disagrees with Hegelian ideas. In this case, he disagrees with Hegel's definition of what constitutes truth with regard to the question of Christianity as truth. Hegel would say that truth is an absolute and objective certainty; this certainty is possible through having complete knowledge in its final form. Kierkegaard pseudonymously disputes this idea through Climacus when he asserts that truth as objective certainty has no power to transform the subject as an individual, and neither is it conducive to the passion and inwardness that are important conditions for truth relevant to the subject as an existing individual. For these reasons, Climacus states that truth is subjective and that how the subject relates herself to truth has greater significance than what she relates herself to. This comes to expression in the passage in Concluding Unscientific Postscript that compares the virtuous pagan praying to an idol and the nominal Christian who prays to the true God. In this paper, I will explore what truth means both objectively and subjectively and what these different interpretations mean for the definition and location of truth that Climacus wishes to espouse.

Climacus understands objective truth as a mutual agreement between thinking and being (189). Essentially, one's thinking must correspond with reality, or what is, and vice-versa; the subject must approach truth without biases of any kind, and the subject's beliefs must correspond to what factually is the case. For Climacus, however, this two-way agreement falls short. It turns Christian truth into mere approximation, whereby Christianity, were it to ever be proven as objective truth, would become a mere obligation instead of the object of passion, an abstraction instead of a personal reality. Additionally, this agreement between thinking and being does not take into account the problem of flux that is inherent to human existence:

“If, in the two definitions given, being is understood as empirical being, then truth itself is transformed into a desideratum [something wanted] and everything is placed in the process of becoming, because the empirical object is not finished, and the existing knowing spirit is itself in the process of becoming. Thus truth is an approximating whose beginning cannot be established absolutely, because there is no conclusion that has retroactive power” (189).

By this account, truth has only partial reality as approximating abstraction and not as a timeless reality. If truth as a two-way correspondence between thinking and being is the ideal, then it will always be in a process of approximation.

These problems with the objective account lead Climacus to reject it in favor of a subjective account. Climacus suggest that people think of truth not as an abstract approximation external to the subject to which she must comport herself dispassionately, but rather something that the subject reflects upon inwardly in order to exist in subjectivity. In other words, the question is not necessarily what human beings believe, but rather how they relate themselves to what they believe; the issue is how human beings can live in truth in a subjectively authentic manner. The divergence of the objective and the subjective comes to a head when Climacus writes:

“When the question about truth is asked objectively, truth is reflected upon objectively as an object to which the knower relates himself. What is reflected upon is not the relation but that what he relates himself to is the truth, the true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the true, then the subject is in the truth. When the question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual's relation is reflected upon subjectively. If only the how of this relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth” (199).

Climacus does not necessarily deny the existence of objective truth as something to which the subject must relate herself. However, he goes one step beyond this, stating that the manner of subjective relation to objective truth is more important than the content of the subject's beliefs. If the question is whether or not one can have knowledge of God, the objective relation to truth encounters the problem of approximation, whereby objective knowledge of God deliberates dispassionately in the hopes of somehow proving God objectively. This is problematic, however, because “God is a subject and hence only for subjectivity in inwardness” (200).

The subjective relation, on the other hand, has personal and urgent reality for the subject. Climacus endorses this mode of relation. An objective seeker of God can only approximate the truth of God as an idea, but a subjective seeker of God is infinitely concerned with how she relates to truth. The person who knows the truth objectively but relates to the truth impersonally prohibits truth's genuine, transformative effect in her life. But the person who, while objectively in untruth, relates to it in truth allows herself to experience truth nevertheless on account of her intensely personal and authentic passion and need. If the question is where more truth can be found, in the objective relation or in the subjective relation, Climacus feels that the answer reveals itself in the comparison of the nominal Christian with the virtuous pagan:

“If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol—where, then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol” (201).

Put simply, actions speak louder than words. The pagan who prays with life-transforming intensity feels the effects of genuine faith, which inwardly spurs him to action, whereas the Christian who goes to church out of a sense of obligation and prays dispassionately feels no such effects of genuine faith and is not inwardly prompted to action. The pagan likewise struggles with uncertainty and takes hold of faith, while the Christian settles for a mere approximation of God. Acknowledging the truth intellectually is by itself an insufficient belief, because belief must be practiced to have effectual value. What one believes must be reflected in one's actions. As an example, Climacus considers the figure of Socrates, who was willing to die for belief in immortality. “He stakes his whole life on this “if”; he dares to die, and with the passion of the infinite he has so ordered his life that it might be acceptable—if there is an immortality” (201). So with regard to the prayers of the virtuous pagan and the nominal Christian, the transforming power of their beliefs decides whether a subject is in truth or not. As such, the truth ultimately lies in the subjective. Climacus supports this conclusion further when he states that the objective emphasis is on what is said and the subjective with how it is said (202). “At its maximum,” he writes. “this 'how' is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the very truth. But the passion of the infinite is precisely subjectivity, and thus subjectivity is truth” (203). In this way, it is preferable (according to Climacus) to pray to a false god in truth rather than praying to the true God in untruth.

With truth being located in subjectivity, Climacus provides a definition of this truth: “An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person” (203). This means that past a certain point, objective knowledge becomes suspended for the subject, and the infinite passion of inwardness grows stronger in this objective uncertainty. The subject thus chooses objective uncertainty, fueled by infinite passion. Climacus observes that this definition also expresses what it means to have faith. Without a sense of objective uncertainty and risk, one does not need something like faith. “If I am able to apprehend God subjectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith” (204). Only in the absence of objective certainty can something as hopeful as faith occur. Praying in truth thus means to let faith guide one through inward passion in how one relates to one's beliefs.

In short, Climacus concerns himself primarily with the authenticity of the subject's relation to objective truth. The orientation of the subject and the power of a belief to transform the subject in a real and life changing way ultimately makes the most important difference. Truth is thus found in subjectivity, in the heart of the believer as her beliefs drive her to action. The Hegelian idea of absolute knowledge becomes unattainable to the subject, but this very suspension of objectivity brings faith's value to light. In this sense, Climacus implies that Christianity as truth does not lend itself easily to the modern understanding, but is rather something best understood through the genuine and earnest practice of faith.

Works Cited:

Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Hong ed. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1846. 189-204. Print.