The World of Majesty and the World of Faith

The world of majesty and the world of faith: A comparative discourse between Soloveitchik, Kierkegaard and Mendelssohn

Intro

First I must make the reader aware of that the comparison is more of a dual one then a trilateral in the sense that I will compare the respective thinkers to Joseph Soloveitchik and not vis-a-vis each other. It must also be noticed that the categories with which I operate, based upon the various philosophers, are not identical in the sense that they address the exact same phenomena, but at the same time not too unlike for there to be no grounds for comparison whatsoever. Thirdly the reader must take into consideration that the limited space does not allow for explicit definitions of the terms with which the philosophers operate in each case: in these cases I would suggest for the reader to refer to the source.

The example of Yaakov and Esau

Adam is submissive humble and creative majestic; confronted by a divine norm he also has temporal not to say worldly obligations. At once he is a representative of the individual and of his nation; simultaneously a stranger and a sojourner. But these assertions are contradictory you say. So it may be, Soloveitchik would answer, but this is immaterial, for "the Jew of old defied this time-honored principle" (that no cognitive judgment may contain mutually exclusive terms) “and did think of himself in contradictory terms".1 This we see in the example he brings forth about Yaakov who tells his agents that his brother Esau2 will address them three questions. The first two: "Whose art thou?" вЂ" to whom do you as a soul belong, "And whither goest thou" вЂ" to whom have thou consecrated thy future. Soloveitchik brings down that both refer to your identity as a member of the covenantal community, whereas the third question "And whose are these before thee?" refers to the general society. The latter question could be paraphrased as "Are you willing to contribute your talents and efforts toward the material and cultural welfare of general society"? And Yaakov told them to answer in positive as regards the third question: "It is a present unto my Lord, even unto Esau".3 But as regards the first to questions they were to answer in the negative, for their soul and spiritual future belong exclusively to God and His servant Yaakov. As is obvious from what has here been stated there are certain instances, according to Soloveitchik, where the covenantal faith community is to be used only for the sake of God and to be guarded with the utmost care, but there are also instances where you can translate parts of this into temporal aspects without however compromising.

What is written on the subject of the relationship between the Jews and the nations also translates easily into the dichotomous condition of man in general, or in Soloveitchik’s terms majestic man and the man of faith, which we soon will become more familiar with, and as Soloveitchik himself writes the aforementioned twofold task applies also to other nations.

I

Soloveitchik and Kierkegaard’s three stages

I The aesthetical stage VS the natural stage

Kierkegaard describes man as passing through three stages: the first being the aesthetical. This is comparable to Soloveitchik's natural man living in the world of majesty,4 the world in which man is created betzelem Elohim and like Him is to subdue nature and through this make use of one's creative power.

II The ethical stage VS the confronted stage

In Kierkegaard’s next stage, the ethical, you will experience the conflict of on one side wanting to realize yourself completely as an individual and on the other hand as a citizen having to take responsibility for others. This is then reconciled as thesis and anti-thesis in the synthesis that is the social self in society. This is to a certain extent Solovetichik’s solution, although he doesn’t consider the social self as synthetic, in the sense of harmonious, but rather as a constantly moving dialectical relationship between the self and general society on the on hand and the self and separate community on the other. Kierkegaard is however not satisfied with this synthesis, even when understood in non-Hegelian dialectical terms, because Kierkegaard discovers a despair of not managing to be a self, even though wanting it more than anything (as opposed to the aesthetic stage where one doesn't will one's self) and finds that one has to try to understand what one's guilt consists of. This will then lead to the religious stage.

In Soloveitchik's confronted stage which corresponds vaguely to Kierkegaards's ethical stage man is being confronted: natural man suddenly casts a contemplative gaze upon his environment as an outsider and encounters "something wholly other than his own self… an objective order limiting the exercise of his power and offering opposition to him"5(which is the divine norm or the world of faith). This dichotomous experience of being restricted and unredeemed at the same time as being powerful and capable of reaching far above his environment results in him no longer being happy. He finds himself perplexed and fearful and very lonely. In opposition to the typical Christian guilt, which Kierkegaard sees as the ethic's challenge, we find here loneliness as being what will (or not) cause confronted man to make a leap into the next stage of normative man living in the world of faith - in which Adam is created by God by breathing into him the breath of life: He is as a humble human being whose task is to cultivate and keep the "garden", not subdue it, and he has to sacrifice in order to have authentic relationships and ultimately redeem the world. At this stage he has to sacrifice himself to God; it is in the next stage he will have to sacrifice himself to an equal subject, Eve: only by giving away his rib bone to Eve can he come into existence as normative man.

III The religious stage VS the normative stage

In Kierkegaard's religious stage commitment to God contradicts with living an ethical life at all times. In Kierkegaard, as well as in Soloveitchik's view, the belief in God is absurd. Kierkegaard points to Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac as an example of the absurdity of faith.6Abraham