Part 1 : Resource Material

Quakerism and Existentialism

 Existentialism is a philosophical movement exploring the human struggle to lead an authentic life in an uncertain, often absurd world. It stresses that individuals are born without inherent purpose, and must therefore forge their own values, identity, and meaning through their personal choices and actions.

Christian existentialism is a philosophical and theological movement asserting that authentic faith requires individuals to take passionate, personal responsibility for their beliefs and choices. Rather than relying on rigid, objective church dogma, Christian existentialists argue that a meaningful relationship with God demands a subjective, often agonizing "leap of faith".

 a Quaker might look at an existentialist and see someone who has successfully cleared away the illusions of societal dogma, but stopped just short of finding the Divine Light waiting in the quiet. An existentialist might look at a Quaker and admire their radical personal responsibility and commitment to action, even if they don't share the underlying faith.

Kierkegaard and Quakerism - How They Relate

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Quakerism developed separately — Kierkegaard in Lutheran Denmark, Quakerism in England and America — but their thought has striking parallels.

Where They Line Up

1. Direct, inward relationship with God
Kierkegaard said truth must be inward, subjective, lived — not just doctrines. Quakers call that the Inward Light, or that of God within. Both say you don't need a priest, bishop, or philosophical system to mediate for you.

2. Critique of the established church
Kierkegaard criticized the Danish State Church for being formal, comfortable, and 'Christendom without Christianity.' Early Quakers made the same critique of the Church of England — empty forms and rituals without inward transformation.

3. Truth as lived, not just believed
For Kierkegaard, Christianity isn't a set of ideas to agree with, it's an existence to live out. For Friends, it's a testimony — your life itself testifies to what you believe.

4. The individual before God
Both put the single individual standing alone before God ahead of the crowd. Kierkegaard called it 'the single individual.' Quakers would call it answering to conscience.

Where They Diverge

1. Solitary vs. Communal
Kierkegaard's individual is very alone — anxious, making the leap of faith by himself. Quakerism, while inward, moves quickly to community: meeting for worship, meeting for business, communal discernment in silence.
2. Leap vs. Listening
Kierkegaard emphasizes paradox, dread, sin, and a radical, almost absurd leap. Quaker spirituality emphasizes quiet waiting, listening, stillness, and gradual unfolding of guidance.

3. Outward Testimony
Quakerism from the start had strong social testimonies — pacifism, simplicity, equality, abolitionism. Kierkegaard was much less focused on social reform; his focus was the individual's eternal salvation.

Summary: If a Quaker and Kierkegaard were in the same room, they would agree that going to church on Sunday does not make you a Christian, and that God is met in inward silence. Then the Quaker would say "let's sit in silence together and listen," and Kierkegaard would say "it's you, alone, in fear and trembling, who must choose."

Søren Kierkegaard - Brief Summary

Existential Philosophy

Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher often called the first existentialist. He was reacting against big, abstract philosophical systems that tried to explain everything. He said philosophy should start with the individual person — your actual, lived existence.

Core Ideas

1. Life is about individual choice, not abstract truth
For Kierkegaard, truth isn't just what you can prove logically. It's how you live. "Subjectivity is truth" — what matters is the passion and commitment with which you live your beliefs.

2. The Three Stages of Life
He thought people live in one of three stages, and you move between them only by radical choice, not by logic:
• The Aesthetic stage: Life lived for pleasure, novelty, and avoiding boredom. Interesting but ultimately empty.
• The Ethical stage: Life lived by rules, duty, marriage, career, and responsibility. More stable, but can become rigid.
• The Religious stage: Life lived in direct relationship to God. This requires going beyond reason.

3. Anxiety and Despair
Anxiety is the dizziness you feel when you realize you are free and must choose your own life. Despair is deeper — the feeling that you are not truly being yourself.

4. The Leap of Faith
Reason cannot tell you how to live or prove that God exists. In the end you have to make a leap — a passionate, personal commitment made without guarantees. His famous example is Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. It makes no rational or ethical sense, only religious sense.

In short: You can't think your way to a meaningful life. You have to choose it, commit to it, and take responsibility for it — alone.

Is He a Post-Enlightenment Philosopher?

Yes. The Enlightenment (late 1600s to late 1700s) emphasized reason, science, and universal truth. Kierkegaard lived 1813-1855, well after that.

He is post-Enlightenment in two senses:
1. Chronologically: He comes after the Enlightenment and after system-builders like Hegel.
2. Philosophically: He pushes against Enlightenment ideals.

The Enlightenment said objective reason can find universal truth for everyone. Kierkegaard said reason has limits — it can't tell you how to live, how to deal with anxiety, guilt, love, or faith. Those truths are subjective and must be lived and chosen, not just thought.

That is why he is often called a bridge to existentialism — he keeps the Enlightenment focus on the individual, but rejects its faith in pure reason.

Paul Tillich's Theology - Brief Summary

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a German-American theologian who tried to connect Christian faith to existential questions, much like Kierkegaard.

1. Ultimate Concern
Tillich's most famous phrase. Faith is not believing things you can't prove. Faith is being grasped by an ultimate concern — something that matters more than anything else and gives your life meaning. Whatever functions as your ultimate concern is your god, whether you call it that or not. The question is whether your ultimate concern is truly ultimate.

2. God as Being-Itself, not a being
We make a mistake when we think of God as a big person in the sky — one being among other beings. God is not a being, God is Being-Itself, the ground and power of all being. That's why you can't prove God exists like you prove a chair exists — God is the reason there is anything at all.

3. Method of Correlation
Theology should answer the real questions people are asking. Philosophy and existentialism ask the questions — 'What is the meaning of my life? Why do I feel anxious and estranged?' — and Christian symbols give the answers.

4. Symbols and Myths
Religious language — God as Father, Heaven, fall, resurrection — is not literal science. It's symbolic. Symbols point beyond themselves to something you can't say directly. They die if taken too literally, but have power to open up reality when taken seriously.

5. Anxiety, Estrangement, and The Courage to Be
Like Kierkegaard, Tillich was influenced by existentialism. Modern people suffer three anxieties: anxiety about death, about meaninglessness, and about guilt. We feel estranged — cut off from ourselves, others, and the Ground of Being.

His answer is not trying to be perfect. His answer is accepting that you are accepted — even though you are unacceptable. That acceptance is what he calls grace, and accepting it takes 'the courage to be.'

In one sentence: For Tillich, religion is what you do with your ultimate concern, God is not a being but the depth of being itself, and faith is the courage to accept that you are accepted despite all your anxieties and estrangement.

Twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich and Quakerism connect primarily through shared concepts of direct spiritual experience, non-creedal focus, and a non-dogmatic understanding of God as the "Ground of Being". Today, liberal Quakers often use Tillich’s philosophical framework to articulate an open, experiential faith that bypasses traditional religious boundaries. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

he "Ultimate Concern" and Quaker "Concerns"

·         Defining Faith: Tillich famously defined faith as the state of being "ultimately grasped by an ultimate concern".

·         Resonating Language: Modern Friends frequently map Tillich's phrasing onto their own traditional use of a "weighty concern".

Practical Spirituality: For liberal unprogrammed Quakers who may not hold traditional supernaturalist views, Tillich provides a vocabulary where devotion is anchored in what matters most deeply to human existence rather than rigid dogmatic definitions.

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