Re: Soren Kierkegaard on Faith and Reason

Bruderhof wrote:

> It is in the interest of faith to make a final, absolute decision. It
> is in the interest of the understanding to keep “deliberation” alive.
> Just as the police would be embarrassed if there were no crimes, so
> the understanding is embarrassed if deliberation were completed. Faith
> wants the absolute; the understanding wants prolongation of thought.
> 

What then is the absurd? Quite simply, it is that I, a rational being,
must 
act in the situation where my understanding says to me both: you can just 
as well do the one thing as the other – and you cannot act but you must 
act. Thus the absurd is to act in this situation in an unwavering 
confidence in God. Quite simply, I must act, but my intellect has blocked 
the passage, so I take one of the possibilities and turn pleadingly to God

and say: This is how I am doing it; please bless it. I cannot do
otherwise, 
for I am brought to a halt by my understanding.