Between Kierkegaard and Descartes: Faith, Reason, and the Ontology of Creation
Avron Kulak
Assoc. Professor, Department of Humanities
Vanier College, York University
Friday, April 11, 2014, at 7:15 pm,
in
Divinity Common Room, Trinity College
6 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto
416-978-2522 (for directions)
SYNOPSIS
Kierkegaard opens Fear and Trembling by invoking Cartesian doubt as the challenge to modern philosophers. Unlike modern philosophers, Kierkegaard insists, Descartes was willing to undertake the enormous task of doubting everything, which was possible, Kierkegaard holds, because, like Abraham, Descartes did not doubt with respect to faith - he did not doubt that God necessarily existed. Yet, what are we to make of Kierkegaard aligning Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, with Abraham, the father of faith, especially given the insistence in Fear and Trembling that faith begins where thought stops? Are the single individual and the doubter presented to us by Kierkegaard and Descartes faithful or rational, religious or philosophical? In my paper I shall argue that, in showing that the being whose necessary existence must be affirmed is no less human than divine, the texts of Kierkegaard and Descartes teach us that faith and reason are dialogically interconnected, insofar as each involves the confrontation with or call from God and, therefore, the ontology of creation from nothing.
Avron Kulak (Ph.D York) teaches in the Department of Humanities, the Graduate Program in Humanities, and the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought. His research focuses on the relationship between religion and philosophy in modern European thought. His recent publications include 'Between Singularity and Plurality: Kierkegaard and the Paradox of Absolute Difference.' in Kierkegaard, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism, ed. Andrew J. Burgess, Mercer University Press, forthcoming fall 2014; and “Nietzsche, the Bible, and the Memory of Modernity,” in Parcours Judaïques XI, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, edited by Danièle Paycha, September 2011; ‘Reason as Love, Love as History, History as Faith: Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Christianity,” in Acta Kierkegaardiana, Volume 6: Kierkegaard and Human Nature, May, 2013 “Between Kierkegaard and Kant: Dividing Faith and Reason,” in the Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, July, 2012
Inquiry: Professor Abrahim H. Khan
Trinity College
6 Hoskin Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1H8
416-978-3039 (Off)
khanah@chass.utoronto.ca
www.chass.utoronto.ca/~khanah
