Greek and Christian Models of the Truth Essay -- Philosophy Religion E

Greek and Christian Models of the Truth In his Philosophical Fragments, SÃ ¸ren Kierkegaard, writing under the pseudonym of Johannes Climacus, poses the question, "How far does the Truth admit of being learned?" (154). A more direct and succinct formulation of Climacus' question is "How is the Truth learned?" since his question does not concern the extent of human knowledge, which "How far" implies, but the possible modes through which one comes, or may come, to know the Truth. For Climacus, there are two possible modes of knowing, or two theories of how one comes to know the Truth: the Greek and the Christian. Both of these modes lead one not to truths, but to "the Truth"; Climacus' concern is not with those modes of knowing that yield particular truths about the world and humans, as in science, but with those modes that yield ultimate Truth, that highest and purest dream of philosophy. The central purpose of this deliberation on the two modes of knowing the Truth, according to Niels Thulstrup, is to point out "the deep essential difference between Platonism and Christianity because of the fact of the incarnation" (lxxxvii). Climacus wants to demonstrate that the Greek, Platonic, or Socratic mode of knowing the Truth contradicts the Christian mode of knowing the truth. Many theologians and philosophers hold that Climacus succeeds in his demonstration and therefore extol the genius of Kierkegaard. My reading of Climacus' "Project of Thought" is also that he succeeds, but that his success is a fundamental failure. For even though Climacus indicates an essential difference between the Greek mode of knowing the Truth and the Christian, he does not fully recognize that his whole thought-project is itself Greek, and that it puts a q... ... method does more, however, than simply put a question to Christianity which it does not and cannot answer: By generating an answer from a misreading of Christian revelation, Climacus distorts the nature of Christianity and Christian revelation. Works Cited Ellul, Jacques. The Subversion of Christianity. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986. Kierkegaard, Soren. Philosophical Fragments. A Kierkegaard Anthology. Ed. Robert Bretall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946. 153-171. Nielsen, H.A. Where the Passion Is: A Reading of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragements. Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1983. Thulstrup, Niels. "Commentator's Introduction." Philosophical Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962. xlv-xcii. Tillich, Paul. A History of Christian Thought. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968.