Kierkegaard’s Humility
The first instance of irony is the stance that Kierkegaard assumes in offering his insight on the Truth. He acknowledges that religious truth can only be lived and hardly expressed or conveyed by the teacher. Though he approaches the text to enlighten the reader on the nature of truth he insists an individual has to possess it beforehand. In that, the teacher cannot offer or teach the concept of religious truth. His admission of inadequacy in accomplishing this undertaking is ironical taking to account the nature of philosophical works.
The Offended Christian
Through the concept of Either/Or Kierkegaard delves into the existential dilemma of choosing to be a Christian. He subverts the notion that Christianity is a construct to be proven through philosophy by emphasizing the significance of faith. Simply put, Christianity should be adopted in freedom where the individual either believes or is offended. Faith is a prerequisite in Christianity and in the absence of it the individual is ironically an offended Christian. A person with faith in God has accepted the paradox in the Christian belief as it cannot be taught but a choice arrived by oneself.
Learner’s Paradox
In the Socratic view, the learner’s paradox is that man cannot search what he already knows and cannot seek what he does not know. Kierkegaard incorporates this paradox in his philosophy to assess the path towards religious truth. The individual has the truth since birth but has to access it through the new birth. To understand the truth the learner has to be presented with the right condition by the teacher. Basically, an individual cannot seek the truth whether he knows it or he does not because there is no need or he won’t recognize it respectively.
The Irony of Reason
Man understands his reality through reason which is based on himself as the reference point. God as the unknown makes Man completely different from Him therefore the paradox of acquiring faith. For God to be understood by Man He has to be like Man yet He does not sin like Man. The path of knowing God and religious truth is thus devoid of reason. The leap of faith has to abandon reason for man to reconcile the paradox of his being and his belief in God.
