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influenced by Hegel (though perhaps as much by reacting against Hegel's system as positively).
But as a result, more so than perhaps any Christian in history, his work is pervaded by an
unusual interest in paradox. In light of Hegel's efforts to take paradox seriously (and likely
Luther's love of paradoxical thought), Kierkegaard brought it into the center of his
understanding. That the eternal God could become a historical being struck Kierkegaard as
absurd and incomprehensible to human reason and provided an intellectual scandal with only
one way out: a leap of faith in the gospel.
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A related paradox concerned how humans can stake
their eternal well-being on a historical person like Jesus and an historical event like his death.
Kierkegaard believed paradox lurked nearby much of significant human understanding.
Kierkegaard's notion of paradox is of course controversial, and many philosophers have
argued it is incoherent.
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To say that the incarnation involves a genuine contradiction, an
unresolvable paradox, an absurdity, would seem to suggest that Christianity is fundamentally
irrational. As stated above, an absurdity is meaningless, nonsensical; yet clearly the notion of
the incarnation has meaning. Kierkegaard himself spent a great deal of time demonstrating (we
might say, negatively) the "hidden rationale" of the incarnation and the compelling sensibility of
committing oneself to the historical person of Christ and his death. So upon closer reflection, it
would seem that Kierkegaard himself did not believe that the paradoxes of Christianity were
genuine contradictions. Rather, he used the terms "paradox" and "absurdity" to highlight the
scandal and challenge that Christian truth presents to human reason. Though Kierkegaard's use
of the term "absurdity" was an unfortunate overstatement, it served to highlight the limitations of
reason to resolve all the mysteries of the faith, and the superlative value of a faith beyond and (in
some ways) against human reason.
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