More from Soren...So Good!!!

Here are some more thoughts from Soren Kierkegaard, on the issue of truth and its being objective or subjective.

"When approached objectively, the question of truth is only about categories of thought. Approached subjectively, however, truth is about inwardness. At its maximum, the how of inwardness is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the essential truth. Decision exists only in subjectivity. Thus the passion of the infinite, not its content, is the deciding factor, for its content is precisely itself. In this way the subjective how and subjectivity, not the objective what and objectivity, are the truth" (Provocation 59-60).

"God is a subject to be related to, not an object to be studied or mediated on. He exists only for subjective inwardness. The person who chooses the subjective way immediately grasps the difficulty of trying to find God objectively. He understands that to know God means to resort to God, not by virtue of objective deliberation, but by virtue of the infinite passion of inwardness. Whereas objective knowledge goes along leisurely on the long road of deliberation, subjective knowledge considers every delay of decision a deadly peril. Knowing subjectively considers decision so important that it is immediately urgent, as if the delayed opportunity had already passed by unused (60)."

I do not think we humans can know objective truth. I am a dabbler in philosophy and what comes next are some of my thoughts about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity. Feel free to critique and show me my flaws, I need to hear other people's thoughts on this issue.

It is my understanding that a philosophical definition of 'objective truth' would go something along the lines of the following: a proposition that is true no matter what, whether or not a person acknowledges it. I am not sure I like this concept, if my understanding of objective truth is correct. My dilemma is this: the only way a person knows truth is through subjectivity. We can only understand truth through the lenses of our biases and experiences. We do not understand life in an objective manner. Also, to compound the issue, we have a relationship (very loose meaning to this word here) to every truth we know. So because we only understand truth through subjectivity it would seem that we can never know if there is objective truth.

I will try to demonstrate: suppose you see a person sitting in a chair facing a wall, behind that person is a large pink elephant. Now the person looking at the wall does not see (have a relationship) with the pink elephant, all that person sees is the wall. You tell this person that behind her is a pink elephant and she calls you crazy. Finally she turns around and sees the pink elephant. What she has done is create a relationship with the pink elephant. She did not know that there was a pink elephant behind her until she turned around, thus she CAN NOT possibly know if the elephant was there the whole time. She only knows the elephant in relation to her experience with it. Whether or not the elephant was there is impossible for her to know. In the same way, we cannot know if truth is objective. It is out of our realm of understanding.

Some thoughts on Truth and Jesus

Here are some thoughts from Soren Kierkegaard's Provocations, enjoy:

"he whose life is expressly the truth and who at every moment demonstrates more powerfully by his life what truth is than all the most profound lectures of the cleverest thinkers" (pg. 51-52).

"Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only true explanation of it; the only true way of acquiring it. Truth is not a sum of statements, not a definition, not a system of concepts, but a life. Truth is not a property of thought that guarantees validity to thinking. No, truth in its most essential character is the reduplication* of truth within yourself, within me, within him. Your life, my life, his life expresses the truth in the striving. Just as the truth was a life in Christ, so too, for us truth must be lived.

*Reduplication is Kierkegaard’s term meaning to exist in what one understands, to manifest the truth in one’s life. It means to live out in life the challenges of thought, to be what one says" (pg. 52).