"Faith is therefore no aesthetic emotion, but something far higher, exactly because it presupposes resignation; it is not the immediate inclination of the heart but the paradox of existence." - Søren Kierkegaard
Inspired by a quote of his, I attempted Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling a while back. Flailing in my struggle with a philosophical discourse beyond my depth, there was one particular notion of faith I found within grasp.
Expressing what he termed the "paradox of faith" in analogy, Kiekergaard writes:
It is said that the dancer's hardest task is to leap straight into a definite position, so that not for a second does he have to catch at the position but stands there in it in the leap itself. Perhaps no dancer can do it - but that knight [of faith] does it. The mass of humans live disheartened lives of earthly sorrow and joy, these are the sitters-out who will not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers too and they have elevation... But when they come down they cannot assume the position straightaway, they waver an instant and the wavering shows they are nevertheless strangers in the world... But to be able to land in just that way, and in the same second to look as though one was up and walking, to transform the leap in life to a gait, to express the sublime in the pedestrian absolutely - that is something only the knight of faith can do -
It took many readings and re-readings afterwards but this description really spoke to me. I love it because in a single picture it captures the tension of living the everyday in light of eternity.
According to Kierkegaard, Faith is the concentration of our heart, soul, mind, strength into a single, precise movement in which simultaneously assume two postures at once - to be wholly not of the world, but to live wholly in it. Fully detached but fully engaged. Finding in the finite pearls of infinite value. Counting all as loss, but all for Him as gain. Etc.
It all sounds right somehow - in the way that some of life's deepest truths are formed from paradox - but it's still pretty abstract stuff to me. What does a life of Faith really look like?
I often wonder if religion is a retreat from reality; simple solace for real-life sorrow, ready relief from real-life pain. But more and more I'm being taught that belief is not a balm for suffering, or even an explanation. Instead of removing suffering, it enters into it and fill it with meaning - because He chose to enter into it and fill it with meaning.
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden" - the weightier the purpose, the lighter the load. It's been said that our deepest fear isn't of pain itself, but of empty pain - without sense and without purpose. As Nietzsche put it, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how".
Overall, a reminder that a life of Faith is not one of resignation, but resolve. Not being afraid to join in the dance.