Walter Kaufmann - The Faith of a Heretic

Kierkegaard saw that reason and philosophy were unable to tell him what idea he should choose to live and die by. Hence, he despised philosophy and reason. What he, like millions of others, overlooked is a very simple but important point: reason and philosophy may well safeguard a man against ideas for which he might better not live or die. Indeed, if reason and philosophy had no other function whatsoever, this alone would make them overwhelmingly important. (p.87)

[Theologians] resemble lawyers in two ways. In the first place, they accept books and tradition as data that it is not up to them to criticize. They can only hope to make the best of these books and traditions by selecting the most propitious passages and precedents; and where the law seems to them harsh, inhuman, or dated, all they can do is have recourse to exegesis. Secondly, many theologians accept the morality that in many countries governs the conduct of the counsel for the defense. Ingenuity and skillful appeals to the emotions are considered perfectly legitimate; so are attempts to ignore all inconvenient evidence, as long as one can get away with it, and the refusal to engage in inquiries that are at all likely to discredit the predetermined conclusion: that the client is innocent. If all else fails, one tries to saddle one's opponent with the burden of disproof; and as a last resort one is content with a reasonable doubt that after all the doctrines that one has defended might be true. (p.126)

The attempt to solve the problem of suffering by postulating original sin depends on the belief that cruelty is justified when it is retributive; indeed, that morality demands retribution. (p.172)

The crucial point that should never be forgotten in the history of ideas can be put into a single sentence: one may have been influenced profoundly by others and yet be strikingly original and even revolutionary. (p.183)

In India, the Jina and Buddha, founders of two new religions in the sixth century BC, came to be worshiped later by their followers. In China, Confucius and Lao-tze came to be deified. To the non-Christian, Jesus seems to represent a parallel case. In Egypt, the Pharaoh was considered divine. In Israel, no man was ever worshiped or accorded even semi-divine status. This is one of the most extraordinary facts about the religion of the Old Testament and by far the most important reason for the Jew's refusal to accept Christianity and the New Testament. [...] Why, then, was Moses never defied or worshiped? The most obvious explanation is that he himself impressed his people with the firm idea that no human being is divine in any sense in which the rest of mankind isn't. (p.220)

According to the Gospels, Jesus' conception of salvation was radically otherworldly [...] The perspective of the prophets was reversed. They, too, had taught humility and love, but not this preoccupation with oneself. The accent had been on the neighbor and the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and the poor. Social injustice cried out to be rectified and was no less real because it meant a lack of love and a corruption of the heart. Man was told to love others and to treat them justly -- for their sake, not of his own, to escape damnation. To the Jesus of the Gospels, social injustice as such is of no concern. Heaven and hell-fire have been moved into the center. (p.221)

Consider the rich man who, according to Luke (18:18ff), asked Jesus the identical question [How to inherit eternal life?]. To him, Jesus cites five of the Ten Commandments before adding: "One thing you still lack. Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, and follow me." It is no longer the poor that require love and justice; it is the giver who is to accumulate treasure in heaven. The social order, with which Moses and the prophets were centrally concerned, counts for nothing; the life to come is everything. If what truly matters is treasure in heaven, what do the poor gain from what they are given? (p.222)

The Pharisees had tried to build what they themselves called "a fence around the Law" -- for example, by demanding that the observation of the Sabbath should begin a little before sunset, to guard against trespasses. It might seem that Jesus, in the sermon of the Mount, was similarly erecting a fence around morality. For he introduces his most extreme demands: "Till heaven and earth pass away, not a iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven... Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Then Jesus goes on to say that it is not enough not to kill: "Whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to hell fire." It is not sufficient not to commit adultery, nor not to covet one's neighbor's wife, but "every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart". On reflection, the old morality is not protected but undermined, not extended but dissolved; and no new morality is put in its place. Where murder is not considered importantly different from calling a man a fool, nor adultery from a lustful look, the very basis of morality is denied: the crucial distinction between impulse and action. If one is unfortunate enough to have the impulse, no reason is left for not acting on it. (p.226)

[...] we confront the objection that faith and morals are quite different [...] men of different faiths can live together in peace, provided they agree on standards of behavior; but without moral agreement men cannot live together in peace. This objection is half-true but quite insufficient to establish any absolute morality. Where there is much traffic, there have to be traffic rules to avoid needless injuries and deaths and to ensure the attainment of the purposes of traffic. There has to be an agreement on what side of the road one is supposed to drive. It does not matter whether the rule is to drive on the right or on the left; what matters is that everybody should follow the same rule. [...] it would be silly to insist that driving on the right is absolutely preferable, true or moral, while driving on the left is absolutely false and immoral. To live together peacefully, men need rules, and these rules may even have to be enforced, if all else fails, with penalties. It does not follow that these rules are absolutely right or that every act that conflicts with a rule, even if the rule should be important, is immoral in some absolute sense, unless, of course, we define immorality as violations of mores, of conventions -- as non-conformity. (p.311)

Most discussions of morality rest on the false assumption that 'moral' have one single central meaning. [...] Agreement that stealing is immoral may be comparable to a case in which five men refuse to eat beef and warn others not to eat it either: the first does not like the taste and either does not believe that taste differ or, admitting that they do, considers his own taste the only 'true' one. The second one loves the taste but wants to punish himself; and he too thinks that what is right for him is right for others. The third thinks that meat is poisonous or dangerous. The fourth is a Hindu. The fifth, who is not a Hindu, is a vegetarian. Their superficial agreement is not altogether unimportant. As long as they do not enter into questions of meaning, faith, or morals, they may get along; and they may even suppose erroneously that they agree on certain facts -- absolutely true facts -- which moral idiots who eat beef deny. (p.313)

Some people think moral disagreements are like disagreements about facts; others claim they are like differences of taste. Actually, moral judgments are almost invariably elliptical [ie, they miss relevant information], and when they are spelled out they are found to involve all kinds of assumptions about facts as well as an element of taste. And moral disagreements generally involve disagreements about facts, differences in taste, or both. Spelling out the factual disagreements may at times dispel a moral disagreement; but even when it does not, it will generally lead to a drastic reduction of heat. (p.315)

An ethic cannot be proved; to be held responsibly, it has to be based on encounter upon encounter. This notion of encounter is of the most philosophic importance. It makes possible safe passage between the untenable claim of proof and the unwarranted charge of irrationality. A position may be rational through it cannot be deduced from universally accepted premises, and a man may be rational without claiming that his views, his ethic, or his faith are susceptible of such proof. The pose of Socrates, always willing to subject any view to objections, was that of the rational man par excellence. (p.333)

Negative thinking is what save us from relativism. One has to show why alternatives are untenable. (p.334)

A man who does not consider how his actions are likely to affect other people is to that extent irresponsible, even if he acts on 'principle'. Moral judgments on specific actions are also irresponsible insofar as they are passed in ignorance of the background, the interests involved, and the probable consequences -- even if such judgments appeal to 'principle'. The principles themselves may be held in a more or less informed, responsible, rational manner. To be responsible and rational in such matters, one must consider what can be said against one's moral principles and standards. The man who gives no thought to objections and alternatives is, to that extent, irrational. (p.335)