I wrote this here about two years ago. I'm still an agnostic, but if I were to believe in a god, this is what he would be like.
Okay, you seem to really know this stuff, so I'm going to ask you a question that, AFAIK, an insular European such as Kierkegaard didn't feel the need to address. After one ponders spiritual issues, if one decides to make a leap of faith and believe in a god, why should one decide to believe in the christian god rather than some other deity? Is it simply a cultural issue? It seems to me that, just as with positing the idea that the existence of a universe necessitates some unspecified creator, deciding on the need to believe in some kind of creator does not get you to a justification for believing in a specific creator.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read any of these theological works. Most of my copies of their books are in a box in the attic. (You can see how far I have fallen away.) All I have on my computer are quotes from them that I’ve kept.
Here is a very Kierkegaard like one from Hans Kung:
“historical arguments; traditional apologetics breaks down here. Since man is here dealing with God and this by definition means with the invisible, impalpable, uncontrollable, only one attitude is appropriate and required : believing trust, trusting faith.”
FWIW, I don’t remember Kierkegaard ever addressing even the question of Judaism. For him, Christianity is an absolute.
A few of their books are still in my bookcases, and I’ll see if I can find some pertinent quotes.
I can say that personally, if I were to be a believer, I would be a Christian.
Christianity, and Judaism before it are totally different from paganism and the eastern religions-Hindusim, Buddhism, Tao.
My reason leads me to believe in a transcendent God, the creator of the universe, not a god(s) who is part of the universe. The pagan gods were just immortal men, subject to all the vices and sins of ordinary men. Buddhism and Hinduism, while they are profound religions which exhibit deep reflection on the nature of reality, the divine, and the meaning of life and suffering, are really pantheistic religions in which, reduced to their essence, the godhead is basically the universe itself.
It’s only in the monotheistic religions of the Near East that we have an individual transcendent God who creates the universe. That makes more sense to me.
Moreover, he is a God who manifests himself in history and with whom we can communicate. He is a personal God.
Also, the eastern religions do not, in my opinion, satisfactorily address the question of human suffering. The “solution” to suffering in the eastern religions is to stop existing. That is the goal. When, after multiple reincarnations you have learned the necessary “lessons”, you will be rewarded by never being incarnated again, and merging into the formless universe. In Christianity, suffering is the means…it’s through the redemptive suffering of Christ and our participation in that suffering, that we and the world are redeemed. That redemption leads to an afterlife in which the individual identity remains intact.
To use the old formulation, death will be no more, not because we will be blessed by non-existence, but because we will have a different, but still unique, individual existence.
Also, in Christianity there is, contrary to the eastern religions, a definition of the godhead as a loving God. A God, moreover, who, to quote Kierkegaard again, became man and suffered because of that love for mankind, and in the process could say to mankind, "See, here is what it is to be a human being."
The differences between Christianity, Judaism and Islam would be a whole other long post, but I think some of the differences can be inferred just from what I have written.
Of course, I’m aware that the form my logic, my reasoning takes, even my preference, perhaps, if you will, for this definition of God, for this theology, is grounded in a very “western” oriented, “humanistic” philosophical and theological view of the world, God, and man."
. I also think that the Father in the Christian religion has been pushed to the background in favor of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
