Man and the Absolute

PHENOMENOLOGY OF GOD
Pius Morados

Man is a finite and fallible being who searches fro meaning. His primary task is to create order and meaning in an ambiguous situation through his freedom. Sore Kierkegaard enumerates three stages in the search for meaning.

The Aesthetic Stage (The Life of Pleasure). “Boredom is the root of all evil.” The chief goal of existence therefore should be to escape boredom and to fill life with novel and interesting experiences. In this way of life, the aim is pleasure. The aesthetic individual admits of no restraint and constantly satisfies himself in new and different ways. Enjoyment of life is his aim, his focus is the self.

Freedom is understood as the absence of dependence and commitment. The aesthetic man seeks to avoid dependence on people and things which threaten his freedom. He therefore rejects marriage and other similar relationships. For him the immediate moment, the now, takes precedence over long-range commitment.

There is a resistance factor in human existence. Inner stability and the achievement of lasting meaning are incompatible with the dispersal of the self that is required for the pursuit of and aesthetic life style. To avoid or to extricate oneself from the ultimate self destruction that can emerge from an aesthetic life, a fundamentally different orientation is needed. At the very least, what is required is a turning within to cultivate a sense of resolute commitment to a goal or ideal that transcends the capriciousness of the aesthetic life.

The Ethical Stage (The Realm of Duty). This stage is arrived at by the radical decision on the part of the individual to avoid despair of the aesthetic level.

The ethical is the universal, the realm of objective moral truths that everyone ought to accept or love by. The ethical individual is thus the person who has morality as the chief principle of his conduct. The ultimate aim of the ethical individual is to perform his duty.

The ethical individual is personified by the person who commits himself to marriage for he finds this relationship to provide a lasting sense of meaning and self identity. Through commitment to another person and to the fulfillment of the duties that marriage entails, continuity and stability emerge.

Whereas the aesthetic individual must be constantly on the move to avoid boring repetition, the ethical individual lives so that the repetition of everyday activities and responsibilities become a source of deepened commitment and satisfaction.

If the inescapable boredom of the aesthetic individual can drive one to despair, the inescapable guilt of the ethical stage can do the same and the result is likely to be the experience that life seems hollow and that fulfillment is negated.

The experience of guilt can heighten the self-awareness and inwardness of the ethical man. He may come to reflect on the despair that guilt can produce and on the possibility of release from both guilt and despair. Such possibility is realized in the religious stage. To move to that stage requires a fundamental reorientation of his will, a definite choice and commitment.

The Religious Stage (The Life of Faith). Its essence is the affirmation of allegiance to and dependence on God, the transcendent but personal source of existence.

The religious individual shapes his life in terms of the faith that God has acted upon man, to redeem him from sin and endow him with peace, meaning, and eternal life.

The content of faith is not something that can be conclusively verified, demonstrated, or rationalized so as to assure everyone that it is highly probable, if not absolutely certain. Instead, it offers hope and meaning to individuals, a hope and meaning which ultimately depends on a movement of faith that goes beyond the boundaries of reason.

To have faith is to make a decision entirely on our own without the security of objective reasons to back it up. It is such difficult decision and one that must be constantly renewed in order to be maintained. Faith is absurd.

The person who has faith arrives at self-awareness because in faith the relationship to God involves one conscious self activity and self creation. When I subjectively believe that God exists I understand that what I believe cannot be rationally understood or justified, since it is objectively a paradox. Yet, if in spite of the lack of external support, I still believe, then it must be because I consciously decide, with all the passion of the infinite to choose to bring this commitment into existence. In faith I confront myself as an existing individual, since I am entirely responsible for my faith and I know that I am alone with my faith.

There is a fundamental difference between knowledge and faith. The former involves a cognitive relation between a subject and an object, an object whose existence owes nothing to the passionate interest or commitment of the subject. The latter owes its existence to an infinite passion and a continual will and commitment to believe in light of objective uncertainty.

Religious faith is irrational. Religious beliefs cannot be supported by rational argument for true faith involves accepting what is absurd. Kierkegaard insisted that it is absurd and logically irrational for Christian belief to hold that God who is infinite and immortal was born as Jesus Christ who was finite and mortal.

When one lives in faith he is truly an existing individual. A man who lives in faith recognizes that he is a finite creature in a precarious world. At the same time he acknowledges that he is a being who seeks meaning and who hopes for fulfillment and understanding. In faith, both awareness of the precariousness of existence and the qualities of hope and desire for meaning are extended to a maximum.

Reference:

Source taken from the outlines of Professor Ranilo Hermida of Ateneo de Manila University.