Suppose that someone wanted to communicate the following conviction: truth is inwardness; objectively there is no truth, but the approximation of the truth. Suppose he had enough zeal and enthusiasm to get it said, because when people heard it they would be saved. Suppose he proclaimed this truth to all people. … The main point was to become understood, and the inwardness of the understanding would indeed be that the single individual would understand this by himself. Now he has even gone so far as to obtain barkers, and a barker of inwardness is a creature worth seeing. Actually to communicate such a conviction would require art and self-control; enough self-control to comprehend inwardly that the God-relationship of the individual human being is the main point, the meddling busyness of a third person is a lack of inwardness.
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Concluding Postscript, Hong p. 77Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
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Suppose that Christianity does not at all want to be understood; suppose that, in order to express this and to prevent anyone, misguided, from taking the road of objectivity, it has proclaimed itself to be the paradox. Suppose that it wants to be only for existing persons and essentially for persons existing in inwardness, in the inwardness of faith, which cannot be expressed more definitely than this: it is the absurd, adhered to firmly with the passion of the infinite. Suppose that Christianity does not want to be understood and that the maximum of any eventual understanding is to understand that it cannot be understood. Suppose that it so decisively accentuates existing that the single individual becomes a sinner, Christianity the paradox, and existence the time of decision. Suppose that speculating is a temptation, the most precarious of all. Suppose that the speculator is not the prodigal son but a naughty child who refuses to stay where existing human being belong, in the children’s nursery and the education room of existence where one becomes adult only though inwardness in existing, but who instead wants to enter God’s council, continually screaming that, from the point of view of the eternal, the divine, the theocentric, there is no paradox. Suppose that the speculative thinker is the restless resident who, although it is obvious that he is a renter, yet in view of the abstract truth that, eternally and divinely perceived, all property is in common, wants to be the owner, so that there is nothing to do except to send for a police officer, who would presumably say, just as the subpoena servers say to Gert Westphaler: We are sorry to have to come on this errand.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
Here is such a definition of 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. At the point where the road swings off (and where that is cannot be stated objectively, since it is precisely subjectivity), objective knowledge is suspended. Objectively he then has only uncertainty, but this is precisely what intensifies the infinite passion of inwardness, and truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite. I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see omnipotence and wisdom, but I also see much that troubles and disturbs. The sum total of this is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness is so very great, precisely because it grasps this objective uncertainty with all the passion of the infinite. In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
It would indeed also be strange if an insignificant person like me were to succeed in what not even Christianity has succeeded-bringing the speculative thinker into passion. And if that should happen, well, then my fragment of philosophy would suddenly take on a significance of which I had scarcely ever dreamed. But the person who is neither cold nor hot is an abomination and God is no more served by dud individualities than a rifleman is served by a rifle that in the moment of decision clicks instead of firing. If Pilate had not asked objectively what truth is, he would never have let Christ be crucified. If he had asked the question subjectively, then the passion of inwardness regarding what he in truth had to do about the decision facing him would have prevented him from doing an injustice.
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
To search for truth should be the main goal in one's life. This is a very difficult task. Let us begin by asking what is truth? What is untruth? To make this decision itself is difficult. Once the decision has been made, it is even more difficult to understand the limitations possible even in truth: elements of doubt and illusion. The Ultimate Truth is still far away, even if we are anywhere near relative truth, it should be deemed a great achievement. Those who live by truth sometimes become so dogged in their pursuit that even their truth seems a lie. Without control over passions and practicing neutrality, purity and straightforwardness, do we have a right to seek the truth?
Acharya Mahapragya
The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.
Alan Moore
Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye
Kiernan, Caitlin R.
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