Kierkegaard on the Bible

[Received]

"Fundamentally a reformation which did away with the Bible would now be just as valid as Luther’s doing away with the Pope. All that about the Bible has developed a religion of learning and law, a mere distraction.… The Bible Societies, those vapid caricatures of missions, societies which like all companies only work with money and are just as mundanely interested in spreading the Bible as other companies in their enterprises: the Bible Societies have done immeasurable harm. Christendom has long been in need of a hero who, in fear and trembling before God, had the courage to forbid people to read the Bible. That is something quite as necessary as preaching against Christianity."​

The Bible societies have done immeasurable harm. I can only see this in two ways: on the one hand, people have used the Bible in tribalist ways to dehumanize or exclude people or cultures they don't like; and on the other, speaking in Kierkegaardian terms, reading the Bible can limit one's conception of God to the aesthetic (seeing from afar) without the needed commitment of faith, which is a day-by-day project involving responding to God via one's conscience (or what Kierkegaard called the "eternal consciousness"). That is, people read the Bible as an excuse for being a Christian -- for actually living lives of faith and love.

What I wonder is what a society of Christians would look like if one day they all woke up and weren't able to read. Would Christ fritter away and die in their lives? Would there be a whole new flavor of faith, perhaps better or worse, than what was there before?

 

[Paradoxum]

If Christians didn't have the Bible they would be better people. The legalism of following the rules in the Bible kills a love and respect based morality.

 

[Received]

Are you saying that the Bible inherently causes people to be worse off, or that people are by and large misreading it, causing them to be worse people?

I'd say the latter. But only with the tag that the Bible isn't the clearest book in history.

 

[variant]

Are you saying that the Bible inherently causes people to be worse off, or that people are by and large misreading it, causing them to be worse people?

I'd say the latter. But only with the tag that the Bible isn't the clearest book in history.

I would say that having a supposed set of instructions (that is horribly flawed) causes people to not think about the "why" of morality and developing one for themselves.

Instead people who are supposedly religious get caught up in thinking that the ceremonial ritual they go through every week makes them a good person instead of actively thinking about what makes people or action good in the first place.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I personally think that the Bible is a mixed bag.

It has everything one needs to make someone a horrible person.

It also has everything one needs to launch a spiritual journey that could make one a compassionate and caring individual.

The problem here is that horrible people will most likely be attracted to the horrible in the Bible, and the loving people will be attracted to the loving in the Bible. Just as with Luke (that is, Luke Skywalker), you bring something of yourself into the cave with you, and that plays a significant role in shaping what you get out of the experience.

That's even if one has a transformative experience. Some of the biggest jerks on the planet are born again Christians.

Ironically, the Bible contains the keys to both heaven and hell.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

Are you saying that the Bible inherently causes people to be worse off, or that people are by and large misreading it, causing them to be worse people?

I'd say the latter. But only with the tag that the Bible isn't the clearest book in history.

It depends what you think it means to correctly read the Bible. If you think the Bible is a fallible book you can learn from, then reading it like an infallible book would be wrong.

I'd say when people read the book as if it were infallible, it makes them worse people than they would otherwise be. Even if people think it is fallible, but respect it, I'd wonder if it would still distort moral thinking in a bad way.

Of course the Bible isn't all bad. It can inspire greater love and forgiveness, etc. I am still inspired by some bits of the Bible. My problem is that I think you can be a caring person without the Bible, and I'm not sure the amount of love inspired by the Bible out-weighs the harm it does.

So I can see how it can help make some people better, but I'd say generally it makes good people support bad things, and they don't question these things because 'the book says so'.

The problem here is that horrible people will most likely be attracted to the horrible in the Bible, and the loving people will be attracted to the loving in the Bible. Just as with Luke (that is, Luke Skywalker), you bring something of yourself into the cave with you, and that plays a significant role in shaping what you get out of the experience.

I don't think that is completely true. Caring people can still support bad things if the book tells them to, because if the book says it then it must be okay. My parents are loving people, yet they think homosexuality is wrong because the book says so. I consider myself a 'loving' person, but I used to be against homosexuality because the book said so.

The problem is that people don't consistent base their morals on care and respect for others. They become legalistic and follows rules regardless of whether they are based on a harm or helping others.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Caring people can still support bad things if the book tells them to, because if the book says it then it must be okay.

If "caring" people do not act caring, they aren't caring in the full sense of the term. They may, of course, be caring at some times, but not at others. They may be conflicted. But there is an incompleteness present that makes it difficult to say that they are caring people in their character and in their essence.

The problem is that people don't consistent base their morals on care and respect for others. They become legalistic and follows rules regardless of whether they are based on a harm or helping others.

Yes, what they bring into the cave with them is unfortunately a willingness to be legalistic and unthinkingly obedient.

In any case, I wasn't saying that loving people will only ever notice the loving aspects of the Bible. Yes, they may certainly notice some of the bad aspects as well, and be influenced by those. I didn't mean to make that sound so black or white. It's more a tendency than a rule.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[grasping the after wind]

"Fundamentally a reformation which did away with the Bible would now be just as valid as Luther’s doing away with the Pope. All that about the Bible has developed a religion of learning and law, a mere distraction.… The Bible Societies, those vapid caricatures of missions, societies which like all companies only work with money and are just as mundanely interested in spreading the Bible as other companies in their enterprises: the Bible Societies have done immeasurable harm. Christendom has long been in need of a hero who, in fear and trembling before God, had the courage to forbid people to read the Bible. That is something quite as necessary as preaching against Christianity."​

The Bible societies have done immeasurable harm. I can only see this in two ways: on the one hand, people have used the Bible in tribalist ways to dehumanize or exclude people or cultures they don't like; and on the other, speaking in Kierkegaardian terms, reading the Bible can limit one's conception of God to the aesthetic (seeing from afar) without the needed commitment of faith, which is a day-by-day project involving responding to God via one's conscience (or what Kierkegaard called the "eternal consciousness"). That is, people read the Bible as an excuse for being a Christian -- for actually living lives of faith and love.

What I wonder is what a society of Christians would look like if one day they all woke up and weren't able to read. Would Christ fritter away and die in their lives? Would there be a whole new flavor of faith, perhaps better or worse, than what was there before?

A society of illiterate Christians would surely come to resemble a previous society of illiterate Christians that accepted the Inquisition as God's will. They would of course, do whatever their leaders told them to do and accept whatever their leaders told them to accept as they would have no reasonable basis for protesting that their leaders were not God's infallible representatives on earth that they claimed to be.
It amazes me that anyone could possibly think that increasing the degree of ignorance in the world would be a good thing.

 

[Paradoxum]

If "caring" people do not act caring, they aren't caring in the full sense of the term. They may, of course, be caring at some times, but not at others. They may be conflicted. But there is an incompleteness present that makes it difficult to say that they are caring people in their character and in their essence.

All people are incompletely caring. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if all people had moral beliefs which are inconsiderate towards others. I think it makes sense to think someone is caring, yet is corrupted at times by legalistic and obedient thinking.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Yes, what they bring into the cave with them is unfortunately a willingness to be legalistic and unthinkingly obedient.

In any case, I wasn't saying that loving people will only notice the loving aspects of the Bible. Yes, they may certainly notice some of the bad aspects as well. I didn't mean to make that sound so black or white. It's more a tendency than a rule.

I agree. I also like your sig. Are they real heat pictures, or representations of the emotions?

 

[Eudaimonist]

All people are incompletely caring.

Perhaps, but I don't see how you can know that. That strikes me as an empirical question.

I think it makes sense to think someone is caring, yet is corrupted at times by legalistic and obedient thinking.

It doesn't to me. Actions are what reveal character. If I am going to call someone caring, it's not because they have a desire to be caring, or feel warm fuzzy feelings at humanity, but rather based on how they act. "Caring is as caring does".

Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm looking at this from one particular virtue ethics perspective. We probably don't share that perspective, and so we're looking at the issue differently. I'm guessing that you are looking at the issue more internally or subjectively.

I also like your sig. Are they real heat pictures, or representations of the emotions?

Those are real heat pictures, or perhaps a compilation of known data. It is about heat. Emotions have an interesting physical presence in the body.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[grasping the after wind]

If "caring" people do not act caring, they aren't caring in the full sense of the term. They may, of course, be caring at some times, but not at others. They may be conflicted. But there is an incompleteness present that makes it difficult to say that they are caring people in their character and in their essence.



Yes, what they bring into the cave with them is unfortunately a willingness to be legalistic and unthinkingly obedient.

In any case, I wasn't saying that loving people will only ever notice the loving aspects of the Bible. Yes, they may certainly notice some of the bad aspects as well, and be influenced by those. I didn't mean to make that sound so black or white. It's more a tendency than a rule.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I do not subscribe to the theory that there are caring and uncaring people. I do not know if you actually do either but your posts today seem to indicate that you believe that there are two sorts of people one sort inherently caring and another sort inherently uncaring. IMO there are people and people can be caring or uncaring as the mood strikes them.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I do not subscribe to the theory that there are caring and uncaring people. I do not know if you actually do either but your posts today seem to indicate that you believe that there are two sorts of people one sort inherently caring and another sort inherently uncaring.

I'm not talking about people being "inherently" anything. I'm talking about moral character.

IMO there are people and people can be caring or uncaring as the mood strikes them.

Character is a matter of habit and conviction, not moods. Someone who acts in good ways completely based on mood has no good character whatsoever.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[OldWiseGuy]

The bible is like the ACA; there will be casualties because of it, perhaps many.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I'm not talking about people being "inherently" anything. I'm talking about moral character.

How does one judge whether another has moiral character if one cannot know what another's morality entails? I do not ascribe to the theory that there is an objective morality. Since, i am not a mind reader, I cannot tell whether an action taken by someone else is in line with what they perceive to be moral or contrary to it. I am assuming by moral character you mean abiding by a moral code even when it is not what one would prefer to do. In order for me to judge that I would have to know what moral code the person ascribed to.

Character is a matter of habit and conviction, not moods. Someone who acts in good ways completely based on mood has no good character whatsoever.

eudaimonia,

Mark

I would not dispute that but I would contend that normal human beings( including caring ones and one's that other people might even describe as good) often times act in that sort of capricious manner and that they will excuse themselves by saying the ends justify the means or some such other rationalization or they may simply fashion a moral code that allows them to act in ways that suit their moods.

Even if I were to allow as a given that there was an objective morality( which i do not), the way one carries out adhereing to that objective morality could very well differ from one person to the next depending upon their POV. Does giving money to a starving addict help or harm them? Which is the caring or good action? Is there also an objective answer to that? I think not. I think the problem in that case is that it depends on the person with the money and the addict as both possessor of the money and the addict may act out of either selfish or selfless motives and by so doing either harm or helo the person in need. Knowing what is right and objectively moral in such a case is beyond our capabilities to determine and condemning either course of action by another in a case like that, IMO entails engaging in a bit more self righteousness than I am willing to engage in. To me , it would mean that I believe I have an almost omniscient power of insight to judge the motives of the giver of the money and I believe I also know for certain that, that giver has the same sort of power in relation to the motives of the addict in accepting the money.

 

[Received]

I would say that having a supposed set of instructions (that is horribly flawed) causes people to not think about the "why" of morality and developing one for themselves.

Instead people who are supposedly religious get caught up in thinking that the ceremonial ritual they go through every week makes them a good person instead of actively thinking about what makes people or action good in the first place.

So you're saying that ethics is moot unless one has a metaethical consideration beforehand?

 

[Received]

I personally think that the Bible is a mixed bag.

It has everything one needs to make someone a horrible person.

It also has everything one needs to launch a spiritual journey that could make one a compassionate and caring individual.

The problem here is that horrible people will most likely be attracted to the horrible in the Bible, and the loving people will be attracted to the loving in the Bible. Just as with Luke (that is, Luke Skywalker), you bring something of yourself into the cave with you, and that plays a significant role in shaping what you get out of the experience.

That's even if one has a transformative experience. Some of the biggest jerks on the planet are born again Christians.

Ironically, the Bible contains the keys to both heaven and hell.


eudaimonia,

Mark

The question is how it creates horrible or good people. This is a ridiculously complicated question, but I think that the Bible can be blamed for good or bad insofar as it commands or instructs goodness or badness -- not, take note, the commandments of groups of people in the past (e.g., God supposedly commanding people to commit genocide), but commandments that stand, basically, for the reader of the Bible in his present life.

And I don't think the Bible is bad with this consideration. Nonetheless, it can be pretty vague or ambiguous as to what something means when it's commanded, and many people have misrepresented the Bible through incorrect theology and twisting of certain verses.

And the destructive ideology Kierkegaard is critiquing when he loathes Bible societies is the idea that all you have to to do to be a good Christian is read the Bible, add a little prayer, and you're good to go. This is an instance of instrumentalizing the Bible rather than actually reading the Bible -- because when you do that, you're forced to accept or reject ideas such as "die to yourself" or "love your enemies", or in the deeper Kierkegaardian sense to live a life of faith that transcends ideas and moves into a moment-by-moment relational life with God who gives commandments via the Logos.

If we're going to put it into a process, I think it goes something like this:

A person is born into a Christian society and is forced upon Christian beliefs and rituals, including going to church, where he is told to read his bible, pray a bit, but whatever he does it's all okay, because grace covers everything. Nowhere in this process does he really "own" his belief, given that Christianity is culturally mediated to him; it's handed down to him like any other ritual. This "grace" basically has the meaning that "whatever you do, you'll go to heaven when you die," which crystallizes a type of life that has minimal changes in consideration of Christ: often these changes translate to standing up for the idea of Christianity (i.e., cultural hegemony and tribalism) and speaking slowly and considerately when God is brought up in conversation. It's this broader type of bad theology that K has in mind in condemning Bible societies, and this theology could only be possible if 1) the Bible were unclear enough to allow for an interpretation that works this way, and 2) people were unwilling enough to be actual Christians and look at what the Bible really says.

 

[quatona]

What I wonder is what a society of Christians would look like if one day they all woke up and weren't able to read.

Each of them would come up with their own god concept (or none).

Would Christ fritter away and die in their lives?

How would they know about "Christ", in the first place?

Would there be a whole new flavor of faith, perhaps better or worse, than what was there before?

Many of new flavours...some better, some worse.

Then again, with the bible being highly interpretable and making it necessary to cherry-pick one way or the other, one might suspect that many Christians have always been reading the god concept of their preference into it, anyway. Which would suggest that there´d be no significant change in the "flavours of faith" in the absence of the bible.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

No true Christian minister or lay person believes that prayer, ritual observance, generous giving, etc. is what faith is about. It is all about changing the heart of the convert over time.

To determine the efficacy of the Christian religion on people's minds and hearts one looks to those who have been in the faith for many years, not to the majority who are still floundering around with one foot in the world and the other in the faith.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Each of them would come up with their own god concept (or none).

How would they know about "Christ", in the first place?

Many of new flavours...some better, some worse.

Then again, with the bible being highly interpretable and making it necessary to cherry-pick one way or the other, one might suspect that many Christians have always been reading the god concept of their preference into it, anyway. Which would suggest that there´d be no significant change in the "flavours of faith" in the absence of the bible.

Absent the bible God would still send his inspired ministers to gather and teach his chosen, and the Holy Spirit would still guide the behavior of the church.

 

[Eudaimonist]

How does one judge whether another has moiral character if one cannot know what another's morality entails?

I don't see how this would be impossible. I could simply ask whoever it is what their morality entails.

But I would not let them determine which traits of character are good. I would have my own idea about this, and I could simply watch how someone acts and form a judgment about what their virtues and vices are. I might not have perfect knowledge of this, but so what?

I would not dispute that but I would contend that normal human beings( including caring ones and one's that other people might even describe as good) often times act in that sort of capricious manner and that they will excuse themselves by saying the ends justify the means or some such other rationalization or they may simply fashion a moral code that allows them to act in ways that suit their moods.

In that case, they lack the virtue. I suppose that it is not "normal" to be virtuous, if "normal" means commonplace. A virtue is a personal excellence, and as with any other excellence, this is something that is rare.

Even if I were to allow as a given that there was an objective morality( which i do not), the way one carries out adhereing to that objective morality could very well differ from one person to the next depending upon their POV.

Yes, certainly. That's fine. I don't think that virtues are necessarily identical in different individuals. There is always an element of personal judgment. Two chess players won't necessarily perform the same chess move in the same situation, but they both might be grand masters.

Knowing what is right and objectively moral in such a case is beyond our capabilities to determine and condemning either course of action by another in a case like that, IMO entails engaging in a bit more self righteousness than I am willing to engage in.

I don't believe that knowing right and wrong is beyond our capabilities. Whether or not we should condemn anyone depends on the circumstances. I have no problem with calling a spade a spade, but I wouldn't do so without strong justification. Usually, it becomes apparent with time if someone is filled with vice.


eudaimonia,

Mark