Scholarly Inquiry and a Faith Beyond Mere Legitimation1

Todd C. Ream

Someone might succeed, for our generation does not stop with faith, does not stop with the miracle of faith, turning water into wine-it goes further and turns wine into water.
-Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Introduction

For over twenty years, James W. Fowler's work Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning served as one of the key conceptual frameworks within various forms of scholarly inquiry concerning religious faith. Prior to Fowler's work, modern forms of academic research often treated faith as an exercise in futility. While many individuals perceived faith to be the antiquated remnant of a prior era in academe, others perceived faith to be epistemologically antithetical to their means of pursuing truth. As a result, faith proved to be of little or no significance to the larger world of scholarship. However, the volume of recent studies that incorporate Fowler's conceptual framework into their efforts indicates scholars in a host of disciplines are once again seeking to assess the role and the place of faith (Jardine & Viljoen; Webb-Mitchell).

Faith's renewed sense of presence within various forms of research, as made possible by Fowler's work, came by a costly compromise made with the very ethos of modernity. The establishment of such a compromise was the byproduct of what Jürgen Habermas identified as modernity's ability to foster a crisis of legitimation within religion itself. In light of the critical understanding provided by Habermas, the following material looks to Søren Kierkegaard's Faith and Trembling, originally published in 1843, as an inspiration for a genealogical critique of Fowler's Stages of Faith. The outgrowth of such a critique results in the establishment of narrative as a means of understanding faith beyond mere legitimation.

Scope and Nature of This Critique

Scholars have raised numerous arguments concerning the nature of the psychological sources that Fowler incorporated into the methodology that he employed in Stages of Faith. In addition, scholars have also raised a host of issues related to Fowler's selection of theological sources (Jardine & Viljoen). However, these two sets of concerns center on how and why he chose the works of psychology and theology he explicitly incorporated into his work. By contrast, Kierkegaard's approach to faith in Fear and Trembling propels individuals to come to terms with the genealogical structure of sources that exist beneath Fowler's theological and psychological sources. In many ways, method and content are not entirely separable. This study will limit its analysis to the tradition that gave life to the methodological dimension of the psychological sources.

The sense of awareness that allows one to see the tradition in which intellectual efforts stand was initially brought forward by Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morals. Martin Heidegger may have offered a more comprehensive understanding of this element of Nietzsche's work. In What Is Called Thinking?, first published in 1954, Heidegger reflected Nietzsche's contribution and commented, "People still hold the view that what is handed down to us by tradition is what in reality lies behind us-while in fact it comes toward us because we are its captives and destined to it" (76). As a result, one can begin to see that the methodological weaknesses that Fowler's work possesses exist below the surface of his text. An assessment of Fear and Trembling will make evident that Stages of Faith embodies the qualities of a crisis of legitimation. These qualities are the result of the relationship that the methodology of Fowler's work shares with the methodology of G.W.F. Hegel's work.

A Crisis of Legitimation

Habermas's notion of a crisis of legitimation serves as a critical means of understanding the context which gave rise to work such as Fowler's Stages of Faith. For Habermas, a crisis is associated with "the idea of an objective force that deprives a subject of some part of his normal sovereignty" (1). By way of explanation, a force of some nature infringes upon a particular entity (a person and/or a community) and encroaches upon the sense of identity that this entity once created for itself. In this case, an entity can range from being a particular individual to being an entire social system.

Such a predicament eventually befell religious communicants as a result of the encroachment of reason upon the sovereign sense of space religion once enjoyed. As a social entity, Habermas noted that the methodological means by which religious communities created their sense of identity were subsumed by the commitments of the objectivating sciences. He argued, "The sciences eventually established a monopoly on the interpretation of outer nature; they devalued inherited global interpretations and transformed the mode of faith into a scientistic attitude that permits only faith in the objectivating sciences" (119). The establishment of any form of discourse concerning faith had to methodologically conform to the legitimation paradigm set by modern science. Practices established by virtue of faith were now displaced in favor of practices established by virtue of the force of reason.

The crisis of legitimation described by Habermas arose out of a deep sense of commitment to methods that drew upon the force of reason. Scholars interested in understanding faith found themselves enveloped by a new means of knowing. All things true or untrue were deemed such by virtue of a new criterion. Science and the domain which it sought to appropriate became normative in one's pursuit of knowledge. In these terms, speaking of faith became a difficult endeavor. As an extension of the radical Enlightenment, Hegel attempted to establish speculative philosophy as a science and as a means of reuniting humanity with the religious dimension of human nature. In his 1807 book, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel argued, "It [Spirit] unfolds its existence and develops its processes in the pure ether of life and is Systematic Science" (591). While Hegel's efforts exist as part of a wider tradition that sought to displace understandings of God apart from reason, such efforts were not atheistic in nature. Hegel's rendition of Spirit or God was a spiritual reality that lived through humanity and embodied the universal order. By contrast, Kierkegaard warned that the nature of the crisis operative within the forces of the radical Enlightenment was insatiable. As a result, Kierkegaard offered in Fear and Trembling, "Someone might succeed, for our generation does not stop with faith, does not stop with the miracle of faith, turning water into wine-it goes further and turns wine into water" (37). Under the impulse of a crisis in legitimation, the inexplicable must once again become explicable. The issue that remains is whether Fowler's work, like Hegel's work, ends with simply turning water into wine, or does it go so far as to turn wine back into water?

A Brief Overview of Stages of Faith

Fowler attempted to work within the methodological criterion set by the radical Enlightenment to establish a behavioral framework that could discover and identify the contours of faith. The culmination of his work originally appeared in Stages of Faith in 1981. In this work, he contended, "I believe that faith is a human universal.. Faith is [also] interactive and social: it requires community, language, ritual, and nurture" (xiii). The concept of faith development carried with it the understanding that one could simultaneously grasp, measure, and clarify faith while understanding that such a "complex process will not be exhaustively contained in our theoretical frameworks" (xiii). Faith simultaneously embodies and exceeds descriptive efforts; however, the fundamental and universal dimensions of faith prompted Fowler to launch an endeavor to empirically come to terms with the nature of faith's existence.

Fowler found verification for his contention that faith existed as an empirically identifiable phenomenon in faith's ability to be projected upon a developmental scale. As a result, Malene M. Jardine and Henning G. Viljoen claimed, "Fowler has situated faith development squarely within the domain of the human developmental processes" (1). The theoretical scale that Fowler constructed is similar in nature to scales gleaned from the behavioral sciences. These types of endeavors yield the understanding that a human agent can grow or make progress in relation to a given phenomenon over the course of time. Growth or progress is charted in terms of one's ability to move sequentially from one step to the next step. This sense of movement is dependent upon the dialectical interplay that develops between critique and advancement. An individual is inspired to critique his or her current assumptions by virtue of the possibility that a higher form of understanding may exist. These varying sets of assumptions manifest themselves in the form of developmental stages. Each stage, along with the sense of movement that it takes to move between them, serves as empirical verification to their respective phenomenon. For Fowler, he claimed that his work offered "a theory of growth in faith" (xiii). This sense of growth is inherent in Stages of Faith where "you will find an account of seven stagelike, developmentally related styles of faith that we have identified" (xiii).

Fowler's account of the seven stagelike theories of faith includes one pre-stage and six developmental stages. The pre-stage is identified as one of infancy or of undifferentiated faith. Essential to this pre-stage is the sense of trust and mutuality that an infant is able to develop. The qualities "developed in this phase underlie all that comes later in faith development" (121). Beyond the pre-stage, the first stage is identified as intuitive-projective faith. Typical of children three to seven years of age, intuitive-projective faith is typified by fluid thought patterns and strong imaginative skills. By contrast to the characteristics that typify intuitive-projective faith, the second or the mythic-literal stage is embodied in individuals that work "at sorting out the real from the make-believe" (135). As a result, the network of narratives that emerge from the immediate community in which the individual finds himself or herself offers meaning to the various experiences he or she encounters in life. The third or synthetic-conventional phase of faith development invites one to expand the narrative context found in the intuitive-projective and encounters the narratives that shape an expanding sense of community. One begins to see faith as a dialectical system of meaning. For Fowler, the characteristics of the synthetic-conventional phase are embodied in a sense of faith that "must synthesize values and information; it must provide a basis for identity and outlook" (172).

In terms of this stagelike construct, Fowler contended that a critical and often turbulent transition is made between stages three and four. The dialectical interplay between critique and advancement continues at this level as the dialectical system of meaning that one encountered in stage three is expanded. In stage four or the individuative-reflective stage, one begins to differentiate between his or her own sense of self and outlook and the one that he or she inherited from others. The context of faith is removed from expanding circles of communal identity to one of individual identity. The narratives inherited from an individual's larger community are superceded by "intuitions of coherence in an ultimate environment in terms of an explicit dialectical system of meaning" (182). The move from communal identity to individual identity often produces the sense of energy needed to fuel the dialectical interplay that brings an individual to the fifth or the conjunctive stage. "What the previous stage struggled to clarify, in terms of boundaries of self and outlook, this stage now makes porous and permeable" (198). In the fifth stage, the individual is now invited to speak of what Fowler referred to as dialogical knowing. Faith comes to life through "paradox and the truth in apparent contradictions." This stage aspires to "unify opposites in mind and experience" (198). An individual who embodies the characteristics in this stage understands that his or her religious tradition is part of a mutual movement of faith that it shares with other religious traditions. Dialogical knowing may afford someone a transforming vision of justice for the world. It also affords that person with the realization that this sense of justice is also verifiably absent.

Finally, the potential exists in the characteristics of faith embodied in stage five to be superceded by the qualities embodied in stage six or what Fowler referred to as universalizing faith. The tension inherent in stage five between a transforming vision and an untransformed world creates the dialectical interplay needed to potentially bring someone to this final stage. In terms of universalizing faith, Fowler described such an understanding as one where "qualities of redemptive subversiveness and relevant irrelevance derive from visions they see and to which they have committed their total beings" (203). Universalizing faith finds itself in the lives of individuals where a commitment to justice is inextricably tied to corresponding actions. This stage of faith development embodies "a righteousness in which each person or being is augmented by the realization of the futurity of others" (205). This sense of concern for the futurity of others propels individuals to act in radical ways on behalf of the call of justice. In the end, the network of methodological sources that Fowler cultivated in his book gives rise to the argument that his effort stands as an intellectual descendent of the work of Hegel.

Stages of Faith and Its Methodological Sources

Fowler's efforts in Stages of Faith are important in terms of the particularities of the argument made in this text; however, a greater level of significance resides in the operative network of methodological sources that Fowler employed in the development of his argument. The rationale for such a claim is that one's methodological commitments define the horizon of possibility for the nature of the particular argument one seeks to make. In terms of Stages of Faith, the work of Jean Piaget, Erik H. Erikson, and Lawrence Kohlberg served as the primary methodological sources upon which Fowler drew for his work. Individually and collectively, these sources provided Fowler with the means he needed to make the argument that faith development was a valid endeavor in the eyes of modernity's legitimation criterion. However, grounds for such an argument are found in the ability of each one of these sources and for Fowler's work as a whole to reflect the qualities inherent in the work of Sigmund Freud and, more importantly, Hegel's pursuit of Spirit by means of a systematic science.

As a dialectical systematic science, Hegel's work in The Phenomenology of Spirit offers two distinct qualities that manifest themselves in the methodological sources that Fowler seeks to incorporate in Stages of Faith. First, Hegel sought to establish a method by which reason could apprehend truth. Such an endeavor became known in his work as his dialectical system. In the preface to The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel contended, "In my view, which can be justified only by the exposition of the system itself, everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject" (10). According to Merold Westphal, advancement in this dialectical system is induced by the recognition "that the negation of one form of consciousness is itself a new form of consciousness which has a positive content of its own" (History 11). By virtue of the nature of this dialectical movement, Hegel's system sought "to establish an 'encyclopedia' of knowledge, in which all significant reality is included, and rationally demonstrated as necessary existence" (Milbank 147).

Second, the continual implementation of Hegel's dialectical system would lead to an understanding of truth as a whole or as a universal. This sense of truth would also have implications for what Hegel called the Absolute. Hegel offered:

The truth is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it truly what it is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz. to be actual, subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself. (12)

Hegel's dialectical system was designed to bring reason into interaction with the Absolute in the sense that the Absolute would stand as the whole of substance or even stand as the unity of the finite with the infinite. However, Westphal contended, "This description of the goal is only an account of what Absolute knowledge would be.. We are only told that short of achieving this goal in actual knowledge there will be a kind of cognitive dissonance required to keep the process moving" (History 12). In Hegel's dialectical system, Immanuel Kant's separation of theoretical and practical reason once again finds commonality in the universal. As a result, Hegel's dialectical system makes the ethical rational and the rational ethical.

Hegel's dialectical system is present in the methodological approaches afforded to Fowler by Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg. However, Freud's work stands as the intellectual mediator between these three behavioral scientists and Hegel. In Freud, one finds the transition from Hegel's dialectical system to the beginning of what is now known as stage theory. Such a movement is most particularly evident in his 1905 work entitled Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In this work, one's need to find an object of affection "represents the consummation of the preexisting instinctual force in the subject" (Sussman 188). For Freud, "The object choice of the pubertal period is obliged to dispense with the objects and start afresh as a 'sensual current'. Should these two currents fail to converge, the focusing of all desires upon a single object, will be unattainable" (200). According to Henry Sussman, "This passage may be read as a thinly disguised Hegelian machine, replete with not only dualistic oppositions but also temporal stages of instinctual assertion, remission, and synthesis" (188). While the ethical dimension of the universal failed to make the transition into Freud's work, Freud looked to Hegel for a system that dialectically worked toward an apprehension of the universal.

Julia Kristeva made a similar observation in her work entitled Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection concerning the relationship shared by Hegel and Freud. Kristeva connected Hegel and Freud by virtue of the relationship they share in the larger tradition of Western thought. She contended that psychoanalysis grew out of the underlying intellectual aspirations of this tradition. Kristeva saw the elements that formed the origins of modern psychoanalysis in the work of Hegel. Kristeva also saw how Freud's efforts to formally construct what came to be known as psychoanalysis depended upon Hegel. Kristeva claimed, "But one can also argue that the Freudian stance, which is dualistic and dissolving, unsettles these foundations" (30). According to her, Freud discarded the metaphysical foundations of Hegel's work. However, Kristeva also indicated that the dualistic and dissolving nature of Hegel's dialectical system gave Freud's efforts a methodological sense of shape and focus. As a result, Freud possessed the means he needed to make universal claims on behalf of psychoanalysis and the behavioral sciences. Freud passed these methodological aspirations on to Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg. In turn, they offered them to Fowler.

Returning to Stages of Faith, Fowler offered credit to Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg for the nature and structure of the stage theory he developed in regards to faith. Fowler offered this form of credit through a fictional conversation that he moderates between these three figures. Fowler wrote, "I propose that we bring these three men together in our imaginations so that we can overhear them talking about stages of human development from their various points of view" (41). These figures each began by offering some opening remarks concerning their personal background and research interests. As the fictional conversation moved along, each figure offered insights into the relevance of his respective work to the work of faith development.

Amongst the methodological sources that Fowler cited, the linkage to the nature of Freud's appropriation of Hegel's work is most clearly replicated in the work of Erikson. In terms of fictional representation, Erikson's character offered, "The origins of the stage concept in the psychoanalytic and ego psychology traditions in which I stand derive from Freud's suggestive work on psychosexual stages" (46-47). Such a commitment is evident in Erikson's work Childhood and Society (1950) when he claimed, "It is one purpose of this work to facilitate the comparison of the stages first discerned by Freud as sexual to other forms of development (physical, cognitive)" (270). For Erikson, the operative component inherent in this process is epigenesis. Erikson's character explained that epigenesis is defined by either the emergence of new organ modes/capacities or responses that an individual generates in relation to new challenges or opportunities that surface in its environment. Essential to this sense of developmental advancement is what Erikson referred to as a crisis that drives the individual to advance his or her own sense of selfhood.

Fowler's representation of Piaget adds a layer of complexity to the assumptions Erikson offered. In contrast to Erikson, the nature of Piaget's relationship to Freud is one of contradistinction. Piaget sought to take Freud's Hegelian inheritance in a new direction. In Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood (first published in 1951), Piaget noted: "It must be emphasized that Freud's contribution is essentially a new technique, and that although his theoretical conceptions now require a general overhaul, this technique continues to be the only systematic method so far discovered of exploring the 'unconscious' schemas" (182).2 Piaget's desire to overhaul the work of Freud is evident in his effort to develop and clarify the nature and role of a stage in developmental psychology. In this context, the dialectical system is revised to include the notion of equilibrium. As a result, Piaget's character in Stages of Faith claimed, "A stage represents a kind of balanced relationship between a knowing subject and his or her environment" (49). Developmental progress occurs when a challenge emerges that the knowing subject cannot assimilate into the structure of the current stage. As a result, the impetus surfaces for the knowing subject to move from one stage to the next stage.

Finally, Kohlberg's character is cited by Fowler as contending, "Piaget's work has strongly influenced me. His focus on an active knowing subject interacting with a dynamic environment has shaped our approach" (46). The legacy of Kohlberg's research resides in his ability to transform Piaget's empirical sense of psychological inquiry into a form of moral and ethical enquiry. In his chapter in the book Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and Social Issues (1976), Kohlberg contended, "To understand moral stage development, it is helpful to locate it in a sequence of developmental personality.. There are also other stages that individuals must go through, perhaps the most basic of which are the stages of logical reasoning or intelligence studied by Piaget" (31).3 Kohlberg transformed Piaget's scale of stages into one that measured moral development. Kohlberg's character argued that "we see a stage of moral judgment as characterized by a formally describable (describable apart from any particular content) pattern of thought or reasoning employed by a person in the adjudication of moral claims" (Fowler 49). For Kohlberg's character, empirical verification of this developmental process is available because the "cognitive core of moral judgment occurs in the interaction of persons with the social conditions of their lives" (Fowler 49). As a result, Fowler found significance in Kohlberg's claim that the stages present in this scale or dialectical system are sequential and universal in nature.

As a result of the outflow of dialogue that emerged from the fictional conversation between Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg, Fowler was able to move forward with his attempt to construct a scale that could chart the progress of one's faith development. This developmental scale includes two overlapping sets of commitments that are drawn from what Fowler labeled as the structural-developmental tradition of Piaget and Kohlberg and from the psychosocial development tradition of Erikson. The combination of these two traditions provided Fowler with the methodological means that he needed to establish a dialectical system that can universally assess matters of faith development. From the structural-developmental tradition, Fowler inherited "a commitment to take seriously the fact that we are formed in social communities and that our ways of seeing the world are profoundly shaped by the shared images and constructions of our group or class" (49). By contrast, the psychosocial development tradition offered Fowler the "interpretive mind-set that I bring to research on faith development" (49). As a result, his research reflects "a commitment to relate structural stages of faith to the predictable crises and challenges of developmental eras and to take life histories seriously in its study" (Fowler 110). However, Kierkegaard's presentation of faith in Fear and Trembling will inspire a genealogical critique of Fowler's Stages of Faith that strikes at the root of the Hegelian nature of Fowler's methodological commitments.

A Brief Overview of Fear and Trembling

At its most basic level, Fear and Trembling is a philosophical exploration of faith that is undertaken through the embodiment of the biblical character of Abraham. In particular, this sense of embodiment focuses on God's command to Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice (Genesis 22:1-19). Kierkegaard retells this story through four expanding narrative circles. Each circle supercedes the content of the previous circle by adding reflective layers to this troubling narrative. The troubling element of this narrative resides in the fact that God promised to Abraham and Sarah, despite their advanced age, that they would conceive a child. God makes this promise, fulfills this promise, and then commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (the physical fulfillment of that promise).

Kierkegaard also retells this narrative from Abraham's life by using the preface to develop a pseudonymous author and character, Johannes de Silentio. This author does not claim to be a philosopher. By contrast, Johannes refers to himself as a poetic and refined supplementary clerk. One of the first references to Hegel's dialectical system in this work emerges in the preface when Johannes, referring to himself, offers, "He has not understood the system, whether there is one, whether it is completed; it is already enough for his weak head to ponder what a prodigious head everyone must have these days when everyone has such a prodigious idea (Kierkegaard 7). The implications of God's demand of Abraham fail to conform to any semblance of systematic understanding. However, the insights embedded in Johannes' treatment of this narrative begin to come to life in the three questions posed in the Problemata segment of the text.

In the Problemata segment of Fear and Trembling, God's command that Abraham sacrifice Isaac provides Johannes with the opportunity to ask three questions concerning the nature of faith. In Problema I, Johannes asks, "Is there a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical?" (Kierkegaard 54). In the context of this narrative, such a question attempts to identify whether Abraham's faith in God goes beyond the teleological dimension in which commandments as significant as the prohibition of murder find their meaning. In Problema II, Johannes inquires, "Is there an Absolute Duty to God?" (Kierkegaard 68). For Johannes, wrestling with the possibility of the teleological suspension of the ethical leads him to wrestle with whether one's duty to God transcends the ethical. In Problema III, Johannes poses, "Was it ethically Defensible for Abraham to Conceal His Undertaking from Sarah, from Eliezer, and from Isaac?" (Kierkegaard 82). In a world where the ethical is universal in nature, one struggles with whether justification exists for Abraham's silence over God's command to sacrifice Isaac. In summary, each problema seeks to define the nature of faith at deeper and deeper levels by comparing it to the relationship that it shares with ethics. Johannes is not seeking to obscure the significance of ethics. By contrast, he is attempting to emphasize the significance of faith.

Johannes closes this exploration of faith with the unrelenting assertion that "Faith is the highest passion in a person" (Kierkegaard 122). He goes on to contend, "There perhaps are many in one generation who do not come to faith, but no one goes further" (Kierkegaard 122). Johannes identifies that the characteristic that unites humanity at the level of its essence is the relationship that it shares with passion. However, diverse manifestations of passion carry individuals in a host of different directions. The individual often finds himself or herself divided by a multitude of passions. These forces invariably compete to stand as the conviction that surpasses all others. In terms of the tournament of passions which compete within the human individual, no passion, regardless of its significance, can exceed the passion of faith. However, this brief overview of Fear and Trembling concludes with Johannes's haunting argument that faith is the highest passion. As a result, faith can only exist in any capacity as an individual's highest passion.

Fear and Trembling as a Critique of The Phenomenology of Spirit

The argument inherent in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling serves as a critique of the methodology inherent in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This critique also has implications for the work of Fowler by virtue of the nature of the genealogical relationship shared by Fowler and Hegel. As demonstrated in the previous section, Hegel's methodological commitments were transmitted to Freud who in turn transmits them to Erikson and Piaget (and from Piaget to Kohlberg). Fowler drew upon Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg as he sought to develop his own work concerning faith. As a result, Kierkegaard's interaction with Fowler is present in the ability of his work to cast an argument forward in the direction of Hegel's intellectual descendents. Such an argument has ramifications for the works of Freud, Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg. However, its most significant point of interaction is leveled against the work of Fowler. In the end, Fear and Trembling inspires the acknowledgment that Stages of Faith exists as a Hegelian rendition of modernity's ability to foster a crisis of legitimation within the larger realm of religious discourse.

As previously stated, Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel begins in the preface of Fear and Trembling. However, Westphal contended that Kierkegaard developed the prologue and the epilogue to work together to "form a satirical frame for the retelling of the Abraham story" ("Abraham" 63). This satirical frame and its contents as manifested in the Problemata come together to form a challenge to the notion of faith that Hegel presented in Phenomenology of Spirit. In terms of the preface, the character of Johannes de Silentio suggested Hegel's appropriation of faith as a science exists within a larger cultural milieu where "an author who desires readers must be careful to write in such a way that his book can be conveniently skimmed during the after-dinner nap." (Kierkegaard 7-8). By contrast, Johannes suggested that "He writes because to him it is a luxury to write that it is all the more pleasant and apparent the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes" (Kierkegaard 7). As a result, Johannes presented faith as a pursuit standing in defiance of systematic explanation. One might argue that Hegel's dialectical system is complex. By contrast, Johannes redefined the nature of complexity by recasting it in light of what he called the absurd.

The three Problema add unique layers to the paradoxical complexity of Johannes's discussion of faith. The primary means used to accomplish this task is to compare the portrayal of Abraham in this particular narrative with the literary notion of the tragic hero. In the Problemata, Johannes introduced figures such as Socrates, Agamemnon, the Virgin Mary, and the knight of faith to help him draw this comparison. The sense of progress created by Hegel's dialectical system identifies faith with the ethical as universal. By contrast, these figures are employed by Johannes in his attempt to create an understanding of faith as the highest passion.

Problema I presents the faith of Abraham as a teleological suspension of the ethical. For Hegel, the sense of progress offered by his dialectical system is invested in a universal appreciation of the ethical. By contrast, Johannes contended that Abraham "acts by virtue of the absurd, for it is precisely the absurd that he as the singular individual is higher than the universal" (Kierkegaard 56). Johannes extended this notion by drawing a comparison between Abraham and the tragic hero. He wrote, "The tragic hero is still within the ethical. He allowed an expression of the ethical to have its τέλος [telos] in a higher expression of the ethical" (Kierkegaard 59). The tragic hero, as an embodied exemplar of the Hegelian absolute, knows of no form of progress that suspends the ethical. However, "Abraham's situation is different. By his act he transgressed the ethical altogether and had a higher τέλος [telos] outside it, in relation to which he suspended" (Kierkegaard 59). By contrast to the absolute nature of the ethical in Hegel's dialectical system, no other passion was found in the life of Abraham that exceeded the passion of faith.

Problema II poses the dilemma as to whether faith is manifested in an absolute duty to God. Johannes offers his response by building upon the critique of Hegel that he offered in his discussion of Problema I. In particular, he contends, "The ethical is the universal, and as such it is also the divine. Thus it is proper to say that every duty is essentially duty to God, but if no more can be said than this, than it is also said that I actually have no duty to God" (Kierkegaard, 68). The universal dimension of ethical obligation is superceded by faith. Johannes adds to this assertion by arguing that ethical commitments are external to a particular person while faith commitments are internal. He contends, "Faith cannot be mediated into the universal, for thereby it is canceled. Faith is this paradox and the single individual simply cannot make himself understandable to anyone" (Kierkegaard 71). By way of example, Johannes offers the tragic hero as a contrast to a character that he identifies as the knight of faith. For the tragic hero, rest comes with the assurance that his or her ethical commitments resonate with the Hegelian understanding of the universal. "But the knight of faith, on the other hand, is the paradox; he is the single individual, simply and solely the single individual without any complications" (Kierkegaard 79). As a result, Johannes concludes that even the universal appeal of the ethical stood in the way of the absolute duty that Abraham and the knight of faith have to God.

Problema III explores the ethical dimension of the silence Abraham maintained in relation to God's command. As previously stated, the ethical commitments of the tragic hero demand that he or she speak and find rest in the universal. However, Abraham remained silent. His silence concealed the nature of God's command. Sarah, Eliezar, and even Isaac were left unaware of the implications of Abraham's faith commitment. As a result, Johannes asks if Abraham's silence is ethical. For Johannes, the notion of the tragic hero once again offers a foil that brings to life the critical remarks this work launches against Hegel's commitments. The tragic hero "sacrifices himself and everything that he is for the universal; his act and every emotion in him belong to the universal; he is open, and in this discourse he is the beloved son of ethics" (Kierkegaard 113). By contrast to the tragic hero, Abraham remained silent. "Now we are face to face with the paradox. Either the single individual can stand in absolute relation to the absolute, and consequently the ethical is not the highest, or Abraham is lost." (Kierkegaard 113). For Johannes, faith is the paradox. Silence maintains this paradox as faith defies the descriptive power embodied by language. Abraham's silence also reasserts the notion that this paradox of faith can only exist as an individual's highest passion. Even the Hegelian universal appeal of the ethical must be superceded by faith.

Finally, the epilogue, along with the prologue, completes the frame that Johannes constructs around the Problemata section of this text. He opens this section by detailing how merchants in Holland once sunk some cargo in the sea in order to increase the price. In response to this narrative, Westphal commented that such an effort "might be needed in the realm of the spirit" ("Abraham" 63). Johannes seeks to establish faith as a commitment worthy of the greatest price. Such a price must exceed the ethical and the dialectical system that develops an understanding of the ethical. Each generation must struggle with its own pursuit of faith. One cannot simply pursue faith by participating in the remnants of a dialectical system left by a previous generation. In the end, "Faith is [still] the highest passion in a person. There perhaps are many in a generation who do not come to faith, but no one goes further" (Kierkegaard 122).

Fear and Trembling and Stages of Faith: Critical Implications

As a result of his critique of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling drives the methodological efforts related to faith beyond legitimation. The crisis that Habermas's work brought to light is one that Kierkegaard seeks to exceed. Hegel confined faith to the ability of his dialectical system to pursue the universal or the ethical. By contrast, Kierkegaard contends that faith itself be an individual's highest passion. Faith exceeds the capabilities of reason to draw a correlation between faith and the ethical. In explicit terms, Kierkegaard's critique is limited to Hegel. However, the work of Hegel and Fowler are bound by genealogical connections. As a result, Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel has ramifications for Fowler's work as well.

Kierkegaard's work calls into question the methodological commitment that faith relates to a dialectical system. While Fowler admits that the stages present in his dialectical system are unable to fully represent the complexities of faith, these stages are able to embody enough of the distinguishable qualities of faith to establish a dialectical system. For Kierkegaard, the paradoxical nature of faith immediately calls into question the feasibility of such a construct. For the sake of argument, Fowler's individual stages may be malleable enough to encompass an understanding of faith as a paradox. However, these classifications only hold true for so long. For example, Fowler claims that the paradoxical dimension of the commitments inherent in a stage such as Stage Five may seek resolution. For Fowler, "The transition to Stage Six involves the overcoming of this paradox through a moral and ascetic actualization of the universalizing apprehensions" (200). For Kierkegaard, faith manifests itself in moments when the paradox of faith runs so deep and so true that one cannot find a resolution. In terms of the life of Abraham, "He can say everything, but one thing he cannot say, and if he cannot say that-that is say it in such a way that the other understands it-then he is not speaking" (113). By contrast, Fowler's dialectical system forces individuals such as Abraham to resolve the paradox of faith. The universal appeal of the dialectical system is premised upon one's ability to transcend paradox in an effort to pursue the universal. According to Kierkegaard, Abraham is left speechless by the passion which he only knows to be his highest.

However, Kierkegaard's work also calls into question the byproduct of the implementation of this methodology. When faith is committed to find its expression through the universal aspiration of a dialectical system, it finds itself needing the object of the ethical to give it voice. For Fowler, progression through the stages of faith eventually may lead an individual to Stage Six or universalizing faith. The byproduct of the genealogical connection that binds the legacy of Hegel to Fowler is seen most acutely at this point. For Fowler, the unique quality that defines stage six is embodied by an individual who possess "a radical commitment to justice and love of selfless passion for a transformed world, a world not made in their images, but in accordance with an intentionality both divine and transcendent" (201). As his highest passion, Abraham refused to relate faith to the universal or to the ethical. By virtue of faith, Abraham teleologically suspended the ethical. By virtue of faith, Abraham acknowledged his absolute duty. By virtue of faith, Abraham concealed his undertaking from Sarah, Eliezer, and even Isaac. At no point can any of these commitments be confused with the universal appeal of the ethical. By going beyond legitimation, the faith of Abraham transcended the systems of Hegel and Fowler by refusing to appeal to the ethical embodiment of the universal.

A Faith Beyond Legitimation

The significance of Kierkegaard's work does not end with the implications of its genealogical critique of Fowler's work. In relation to faith, Kierkegaard sought to denounce methods that employ terms such as system and universal. However, by telling the story of Abraham, Kierkegaard may have inherently established the notion of narrative as a method that adequately embodies and represents faith. In most simple terms, a narrative is a story. A narrative finds its significance in its ability to have formative ramifications upon the lives of people who come into contact with it. Each narrative becomes a defining component of the identity of each person. For Alasdair C. MacIntyre, a narrative is a powerful method of relating the significance of ethical virtues to one's sense of self-understanding. In After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981), MacIntyre wrote that one's ability to understand him or herself is related to "a concept of self whose unity resides in the unity of a narrative which links birth to life to death as narrative beginning to middle to end" (205). In this example, a narrative is simultaneously represented in terms of its formative qualities and in terms of its ability to forge a coherent sense of selfhood within each individual.

At its essence, Fear and Trembling is an exploration of a narrative. The paradoxical qualities of faith defy representation in any systematic manifestation of the universal. Faith is the teleological suspension of the ethical. Faith is an absolute duty to God. Faith restrains itself from finding words that can explain its demands to even the most cherished of loved ones. In the end, faith stands paradoxically before reason because "Faith is the highest passion in a person" (Kierkegaard 122). A systematic understanding of faith would explain away the paradoxical by projecting it upon the universal. By contrast, the method of narrative allows the paradoxical to define the nature of faith. A systematic understanding of faith must stop with the universal. By contrast, a narrative understanding of faith goes beyond the universal. It relentlessly seeks to understand the particular nature of the demands of faith when it manifests itself as one's highest passion. In a similar manner, Lasse Horne Kjaeldgaard claimed that even the conclusion of Fear and Trembling "by way of one single pregnant moment keeps us forever in the middle of the narrative" (321). Kierkegaard's usage of the method of narrative provided him with a way to present this component of the life of Abraham. However, the method of narrative also offered Kierkegaard with a way of speaking of faith to all who seek to hear the story of Abraham.

The method of narrative may stand in stark contrast to any dialectical system that seeks to speak in terms of the universal. However, the method of narrative precedes the Enlightenment and the crisis of legitimation that the Enlightenment fostered within religion. It allows faith to speak even when it speaks in terms of absurdity and paradox. For example, the method that Kierkegaard inherently offered to his audience places him in a tradition that includes figures such as Augustine. In the Confessions (400), Augustine told the story of his own struggle with faith. Initially, he sought to find faith in and through a system that could find peace among his previous philosophical commitments. In Book 7, Augustine found himself seeking a way to explain the nature of his faith in terms of his relation to God. The explanations that he sought were rich in both scope and scale. Regardless, he discovered even these explanations were fraught with limitations. Augustine wrote: "For my mind ranged in imagination over shapes and forms such as are familiar to the eye, and I did not realize that the power of thought, by which I formed these images, was itself quite different from them. And yet it could not form them unless it were itself something, and something great enough to do so" (134).

For Augustine, "This was the theory to which I held, because I could imagine you in no other way" (134). His system, regardless of complexity, failed to be complex enough to embody an understanding of faith.

By virtue of the method of narrative, Augustine eventually found peace with faith and with the miracle of turning water into wine. In Book 8, Augustine presented the story of how he eventually found himself in the company of Simplicanus. He told Simplicanus that he had drifted from error to error in terms of his efforts to offer an explanation of faith. Simplicanus responded to Augustine by telling him the story of Victorinus. This story had a profound impact upon Augustine as it re-shaped Augustine's methodological sensibilities. In describing this portion of his own life, Augustine offered: "Then to encourage me to follow Christ's example of humility, which is hidden from the wise and revealed to little children, he told me about Victorinus, whom he had known intimately when he was in Rome. I shall repeat the story here, because it shows the great glory of your grace and for your glory I must tell it" (159). The Confessions as a whole as well as the material which the Confessions seeks to give voice are formed by the method of narrative. This method offers faith in a manner that creates unity in one's life by linking birth to life to death. Faith is not offered through a system with universal reach. Augustine, like Kierkegaard, finds faith in the formative details that come with the sharing and with the hearing of one's story.

Conclusion

Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling provides inspiration for a genealogical critique of James Fowler's Stages of Faith. Fowler's work is heavily dependent upon sources from theology and psychology. Genealogically, the methodological nature of the psychological sources present in Fowler's work cast him as an intellectual descendent of G.W.F. Hegel. In summary, Sigmund Freud drew upon the work of Hegel. Erik H. Erikson and Jean Piaget drew upon the work of Freud. Lawrence Kohlberg drew upon the work of Piaget. Fowler drew upon the work of Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg.

The qualities Fowler inherited from these figures reside in the dialectical system he created and in the ability of this system to eventually equate universal faith with ethical practice. Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is a critique of the work of Hegel. As a result, Kierkegaard's critique also has critical implications for the work of Fowler. These critical implications reveal that Fowler's efforts accepted the terms of the legitimation crisis fostered within religion by the Enlightenment. However, Kierkegaard's efforts deliver more than a critique. Fear and Trembling also inherently establishes the method of narrative within various forms of scholarly inquiry as a means of offering an understanding of faith beyond mere legitimation. Through narrative, the absurd and paradoxical dimensions of faith are not seen as being ambiguous to one another or even to faith. By contrast, they are seen as essential. Birth, life, and death are connected and given unity and a sense of meaning. Faith offers peace in the miracle of turning water into wine. As a result, the need to turn wine back into water is condemned as an exercise in mere futility.

Notes

1 I dedicate this article to my daughter, Addison Danielle Ream, who was born on the eve of its completion. I hope for nothing greater for her than she be renewed and sustained by God's gift of faith. May those of us who speak and write of such a gift do so only with fear and trembling!

2 In this section, Fowler also drew upon works such as Erik H. Erikson, Identity, Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968) and Eric H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility (New York: Norton, 1964).

3 In this section, Fowler also drew upon works such as Jean Piaget, The Child and Reality (Trans. Arnold Rosin. New York: Grossman, 1973); Bärbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget, The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (Trans. Anne Parsons and Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books, 1958); Jean Piaget, The Insights and Illusions of Philosophy (Trans. Wolfe Mays. New York: World Meridian Books, 1971); Jean Piaget, The Psychology of the Child (Trans. Helen Weaver. New York: Basic Books, 1971) and Jean Piaget, Six Psychological Studies (Trans. Anita Tnezer. New York: Vintage Books, 1968). In this section, Fowler also drew upon works such as Lawrence Kohlberg, "The Child as Moral Philosopher" (in Psychology Today Sept. 1968: 25-30); Lawrence Kohlberg, "Continuities in Childhood and Moral Reasoning Revisited" (in Life -Span Developmental Psychology. Eds. Paul B. Baltes and K.Warner Schaie. New York: Academic Press, 1973. 179-204); Lawrence Kohlberg, "From Is to Ought: How to Commit the Naturalistic Fallacy and Get Away with It in the Study of Moral Development" (in Cognitive Development and Epistemology. Ed. T. Mischel. New York: Academic Press, 1971. 151-284); Lawrence Kohlberg, "Education, Moral Development and Faith" (in Journal of Moral Education 4.1 (1974). 5-16); and Lawrence Kohlberg, "Stage and Sequence" (in Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Ed. David A. Goslin. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1971. 347-480).

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TODD C. REAM <Todd_Ream@Baylor.edu> is Assistant Visiting Professor of Educational Administration-Higher Education at Baylor University. He earned a B.A. from Baylor University, an M.Div. from Duke University Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to coming to Baylor, he served as an administrator at Oklahoma Baptist University and at Messiah College. His research interests include historical, philosophical, and theological explorations of higher education.