Strength of the Absurd
“If there were no eternal conciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?” - from the cover of Fear and Trembling
I am reading Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I must admit that I approached this book with much fear and trembling. It has been a long time since I have tried to tackle anything in the realm of Philosophy. I am surprised at how approachable this book is. So far Kierky has made everything clear. For those of you who don’t know, this book revolves around the events of Abraham and Isaac. So far Soren is talking through the paradox of that fact that although Abraham is a ‘father of the faith’ and praised by many, he is also to an extent a murderer. There are many things I wish I had time to write about. There is much to ruminate and ruminate I will. I want to share one thing that jumped out at me today. This nugget of philosophical/theological wisdom is that of relying on the strength of the absurd.
I must confess that I often do not do this. I struggle with the absurdity of God. I don’t expect the absurd. If only we were to focus in on the absurd how much more would we see the divine and experience that which is transcendent? Does it take suspending human reason to truly enact faith?
Kierky also talks about the idea that in the physical world we are bound by finitude, that which has limits or bounds. But, in the spiritual world there is infinitude. Options are limitless and therefore can be absurd.
Again, a paradox. Why is it that faith and spirituality involve so many of these? Perhaps it is so that we learn to function in both realms. It is impossible to function in just one. Many try to solely make sense of the world in the spiritual or infinite and others try to use reason and human calculations. Each of these bring one to a point and then it dead ends. Perhaps that is faith, a collision of the infinite and finite. Maybe this is what creates absurdity. It is the infinitude of God and faith that collides with human reason and makes unexpected things happen. If it weren’t for our reason an act of faith would be nothing. For reason is what makes us doubt, that which makes a sacrifice that much more difficult to give up. Take the rich young ruler who is told to give up all his possessions, his reason tells him not to and thus he denies the opportunity for his faith and reason to collide. It takes the suspension of sensible reason and the enacting of ludicrous reason in order bring about the strength of the absurd. If Abraham had not trusted in the absurd thought that God would provide, because humanity is so used to living the world of scarcity, how different would this event in history be? If we were to trust in the strength of the absurd how different would our lives be?
May we be granted the grace to look for the absurd, to trust in that which seems ludicrous to the rest of the world. For God chose what is foolish, faith is foolishness and reason walking the fine line together. It takes balance to walk the tight-rope. Perhaps it takes living in this paradox to walk the tight-rope of faith and a life of absurdity.
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