No sequence of proofs brings one to faith; between objective uncertainty and religious commitment there is a qualitative leap. Faith believes “by virtue of the absurd” — like Abraham, who believed he would both sacrifice Isaac and get him back.
Critics: Albert Camus called it “philosophical suicide” — escaping the absurd by worshipping it. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi‘s salto mortale is an earlier version.
Sententiae
phrases in the originalCredo quia absurdum
Origin. Popularly attributed to Tertullian (c. 155–220 CE). What he actually wrote, in De Carne Christi 5, about the death and resurrection of Christ, is “credibile est, quia ineptum est … certum est, quia impossibile” — “it is credible because it is foolish … it is certain because it is impossible.” — Tertullian
⚠ The exact words “credo quia absurdum” never appear in Tertullian; the sharpened slogan circulated centuries later. Kierkegaard’s leap of faith made the attitude famous again.
When faith is defended precisely by its defiance of reason — and for the paradox at the heart of the absurd.
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related by shared connections
Søren Kierkegaard
The melancholy Dane, father of existentialism, who set the passionate individual against Hegel’s System and faith against reason — “truth is subjectivity”.
Karl Marx
Philosopher, economist and revolutionary who turned Hegel’s dialectic into historical materialism — the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Phenomenology of Spirit
Hegel’s first masterpiece — the “voyage of discovery” of consciousness through sense-certainty, self-consciousness, reason, spirit and religion to absolute knowing.
Dialectic
The movement of thought — and for Hegel, of reality — through contradiction toward a richer unity.
Faith vs. Reason
Can God be reached by argument — or does faith begin exactly where reason fails? From Tertullian’s Athens and Jerusalem to Kierkegaard’s leap and Camus’s refusal.
German Idealism
The extraordinary philosophical movement after Kant — Fichte, Schelling, Hegel — that tried to complete his revolution by showing reality itself to be the work of mind or Spirit.