Taking for Granted the Community and Cultural Commonality

Humanity often seeks to build an artificial means to heaven through its own perceived strengths, only to be scattered by divine intervention of the very real consequences of such attempts. Kierkegaard’s philosophy, in its insistence on individual faith, is a structure built on the ruins of reason, with no shared foundation upon which community could stand. The result? A world where truth becomes fragmented, where each person carries their own version of reality and none can communicate it fully to another.

This is not merely an academic concern; it has real-world implications. In a culture that celebrates individualism above all else, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the self as the sole arbiter of meaning risks fostering isolation, fragmentation, and a profound sense of disconnection from others. Heideggerian conflation of the Christian theology with subjective modernity is echoed here: if faith is reduced to personal experience, then it ceases to be a shared tradition and becomes an endless series of subjective “leaps,” since nothing can be taken for granted in any communication. Every event may be defined a million different ways, but few advantageous and only one perfectly, yet impossibly for mortals.

Yet there is also hope in this critique of Kierkegaard, for I do appreciate the man and there is very little not to like. You see, while Kierkegaard’s philosophy may lead us into a solipsistic Babel Tower, it also forces us to confront the limitations of our own understandings. The manteic theory, with its emphasis on the interplay between imagination and reason, offers a path forward taking these lessons in tow, one that does not reject logic or language but seeks to refine them in service of the deeper truths. Ultimately, Kierkegaard was one of ours, a believer under heavy philosophical assault, attempting to describe the magic he felt, and encouraging people to accept something beyond the material. Manteic theory suggests that we should not have to, and that it is more of a guided step along Christ’s path; manteia is in the bridging of this gap through synthesis. It is a moderation; accepting of the need for empiricism but also of consequent meanings as well as our limitations. It is narrow and straight, but it is most certainly not invisible. By reducing truth to subjectivity, we risk losing sight of the very frameworks that make common understandings in truth possible.

The Babel Tower of existentialism teaches us that humanity cannot build its own order without divine guidance, while our language is necessarily imperfect. Our imperfections, however, are not to be construed to be reflections of imperfections in order; if there is order below then there must be order above. Accuracy is a testament to correctness. Truth cannot and must not be sought in isolation alone, but must ultimately come through in communion. Kierkegaard’s philosophy failed to encapsulate this lesson, perhaps out of reaction. The primary point of a complete philosophy, however, must challenge us to seek greater understanding and more refinement, not through a top-heavy tower of understandings, but through the bridges of reason, faith, and shared human experience.

Envision a world where imagination and reason work in harmony, where truth is not some individualist leap away from common understanding but a collective journey, where the divine design of our souls, minds, and material self are honoured in all the glorious complexity that is life, and God’s gift in it. For in this balance lies the truest form of wisdom, not wisdom in isolation, but the wisdom of universal order.