end p.337
practical knowledge we need is given in and through a relationship to God incarnate in
the person of Jesus the Christ. If we have faith that Jesus is God, then we have a God who
can be for us the Pattern to be imitated, as well as the Redeemer (Kierkegaard 1990, 147).
Faith as Against Reason
Many of the writers classified as fideists do not, however, content themselves merely
with affirming that faith may legitimately involve belief without reasons, or belief in that
which is above reason's capacity. Rather, they seem to affirm that faith may require belief
that is against reason. Tertullian, for example, is famous for his claim that the death and
resurrection of Jesus “is by all means to be believed, because it is absurdthe fact is certain
because it is impossible” (1951, 525).
Among modern thinkers it is Søren Kierkegaard who is best-known for such statements.
Kierkegaard, or (more commonly) one of the pseudonymous characters he invented to
“author” many of his works, frequently says that faith, particularly faith in the incarnation
of God as a human person, involves a belief in what is “impossible” or “absurd,” and that
such a belief involves a “contradiction” (1992, 211, 233). Is this simply irrationalism, or
is there a defensible claim in this neighborhood as well? I myself do not think that
Kierkegaard holds that belief in the incarnation requires a belief in a logical
contradiction, but a full defense of this view would require a lengthy detour into
Kierkegaard interpretation.^6
What might Kierkegaard mean by such claims if he does not intend to embrace
irrationalism? To answer this question we must reflect more on the character of what
might variously be termed “reason” or “the understanding.”^7 The term “reason” is partly
a normative term; it denotes whatever patterns or practices of thinking are likely to help
us humans arrive at truth. To attack reason in this normative sense is simply to attack
truth and would indeed be a form of irrationalism.
However, the term “reason” is not purely normative but has descriptive content as well,
just as is the case for such ethical terms as “good” and “just.” A purely normative
conception would be entirely abstract and unable to give practical guidance. It is only
when we have some idea as to what is to actually count as “rational” or “just” that these
terms can guide our behavior. Every concrete human society holds up particular practices
of thinking and belief formation as those that embody “reason,” those that are thought to
give us the best chance of arriving at truth. However, which practices are regarded as part
of “reason” is not
end p.338
something that is historically and culturally invariant. Rather, we find substantial changes
over time in the weight attached to such things as the testimony of authoritative texts,
tradition, experimental evidence, and deductive theorizing. The question of what counts
as “reason” is itself one about which reasonable people may disagree. If we distinguish
between what we might call “ideal reason,” those practices, whatever they might be, that
are best suited to arrive at truth, and “concrete reason,” those practices that are actually