between the objective and subjective thinker, which is essentially a distinction between reason and faith. The objective thinker strikes an intellectual, dispassionate, scientific posture toward life. In effect, the objective thinker adopts the view of an observer. In contrast, the subjective thinker is passionately and intensely involved with truth. Truth for the subjective thinker is not just a matter of accumulating evidence to establish a viewpoint, but something of profound personal concern. Because questions of life and death, of the meaning of one’s existence, of one’s ultimate destiny, often preoccupy subjective thinkers, Kierkegaard sometimes calls them existential thinkers. Although Kierkegaard is primarily concerned with subjective thinking, he never denies that objective thinking has its place. He simply asserts that not all of life’s concerns are open to objective analysis. From Kierkegaard’s view, it would be fair to say that life’s most important questions defy objective analysis. A good example is religious belief. Religious belief is not open to objective thinking because it involves a relationship with God. In the end, rational thinking, which is the religious expression of objective thinkers, points to the existence of God but gives individuals little on which to erect a relationship with God. Faced with objective uncertainty, with the inconclusiveness of objective analysis and rational debate and “proofs,” we are anguished. We must make a decision. Kierkgaard calls this decision the “leap of faith”; it consists of a commitment to a relationship with God that defies objective analysis. Of course, we may choose not to make the leap of faith; we may, instead, try to minimize our suffering through professional understanding and knowledge, through objective analysis. But for this alternative, Kierkegaard has only sarcasm. “The two ways,” he...
