Karl Jaspers
By Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
During the nineteenth century it was widely
held that the universe was neat and tidy. Everything could be clearly understood because everything was properly tucked away in its proper
pigeon hole. This view was dominant both in
philosophy and in religion, not to speak of
science and popular literature. Although Jaspers himself entered philosophy through his
scientific studies, science and Positivism did not
contribute so directly to the background of Jaspers' thought as did Hegelianism. Hegel had
shown how Absolute Reason could arrange the
categories from which nothing (well, almost
nothing) could escape. Modernism, descending
from Schleiermacher, may not have been so
streng wissenschaftlich, but it viewed man as
rational and fundamentally good. God's in His
heaven; all's right with the world.
Hegel had not long been dead when Karl
Marx and Soren Kierkegaard attacked this
scheme of rational perfection. At first it seemed
that the work of these two men would have no
effect. Marx's influence went into underground
plotting and came to light in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Kierkegaard lay quite forgotten
and was discovered only after World War I.
There was a reason why these two thinkers burst
into prominence at the same time. If people
at large could not grasp the technical criticism
directed against the Hegelian Absolute, the
brutal wars of this century convinced them that
not all is right with the world and that man
is neither good nor rational.
These trends, and in particular the repudiation of reason, produced national socialism (Hitler) and international socialism (Stalin) in
politics, existentialism in philosophy, and neoorthodoxy in religion. Although religiously
minded people might be inclined to restrict their
attention to neo-orthodoxy, on the ground that
it is more directly their concern, nonetheless
some knowledge of the wider existential philosophy is useful for understanding the basic philosophic ideas which these theologians apply to
religious problems. For such a purpose this
article will discuss Karl Jaspers.
Jaspers became interested in philosophy
through his studies in psychopathology. He was
confronted with that dogmatic materialism
which held that all mental illness was a physical
disturbance of the brain. This theory, Jaspers
saw, went far beyond the evidence. Undoubtedly an abnormal condition of the brain is sometimes the cause of mental illness, and in such
cases physical treatment may cure the brain and restore sanity; but other cases are purely
mental or spiritual. At this time also Freud was
attempting to explain man in terms of sexual
impulses. Sexual desires may of course cause
mental aberrations, but the absolutization of
sex is as mistaken as the absolutization of materialism. Similarly the Marxian attempt to explain by absolutizing economics is grossly one-sided.
From studies as these Jaspers concluded that
there is no single viewpoint, no one principle,
no single method by which to explain man.
Each has some value, as a partial explanation,
in a few cases. All should be used from time to
time as the instance dictates. But the being of
man cannot be exhausted by even the best
theory. Now, this conclusion Jaspers did not
restrict to psychopathology. He generalized it,
and in doing so he obtained the guiding theme
of all his later philosophy. In this: There is
no absolute whatever. No explanation of anything is ever complete and final.
There are many philosophies and many worldviews; they are all legitimate psychologically;
all fill some human need; but there is no super-standpoint from which to judge among them.
Conceptualization, best exemplified in Hegel,
is superficial. Linear implication, as he terms
traditional logic, and the belief that one possesses the truth are hypocrisy and inauthenticity.
Concepts are at best indefinite subjective approximations. We make schemes and we remake them. We never attain a true world-view.
There is no fixed and final standpoint.
This theme Jaspers is never tired of repeating
and defending. Kant's antinomies are evidence
for it. They show the limits of knowledge.
When one asks whether the world is finite or
infinite, either in space or time, no answer is
forthcoming. Or, worse, both answers are equally
arguable. Now, in the case of an ordinary contradiction, if the terms are unambiguous, we
always believe that one part is wrong and that
the argument to support it is invalid. Kant's
antinomies, however, are supported by equally
valid arguments on both sides. The reason for
this impasse is that the question concerns the
world as a whole.
Yet the world as a whole is
never an object of human experience. No one
has ever seen the world as a whole. Maybe there
is no world as a whole. The appearance of the
antinomies is therefore a warning that we have
passed beyond the limits of knowledge. All our
knowledge concerns parts of the world, particulars, individual things. These always stand in relation to other parts. We know such a particular only in its relation to its surroundings. We know it only from the viewpoint which at
that moment we take. We cannot know it as it is
in itself, for this would require us to know the
world as a whole.
Hegel, when he tried to subsume everything
under general rational categories, lost the individual things in their particularity. Only the
general remained. (His grudging admission of
certain exceptions only betrays his failure.) Positivism seems at first to insist on the individual
things: but here too the individual is lost in
the generality of mechanical law. In spite of
its early protests against Hegelian absolutism.
Positivism is equally absolutistic. And the one
absolutism is as mistaken as the other.
What then must be done? In answer it will
be impossible to follow jaspers through his thousands of pages: but, I believe, it will not really
misrepresent him to attend to one basic consideration.
Jaspers says (not too intelligibly in my opinion) that we must be our authentic selves by
transcending the relativism of knowledge. This
is not to say that there is a knowable object beyond the world on the basis of which we can
solve the problem of philosophy. There is no
super-absolute beyond the absolutes of Hegel
and the Positivists. Rut there is some dimly
dreamed background which makes our known
world meaningful even while remaining meaningless.
But, you say, this cannot be. Reality must be
either meaningful or meaningless; it cannot be
both. How are we better off transcending the
antinomies to a position that is not a position?
What reason can be given in favor of making
an existential choice that is not based on reason?
To such objections Jaspers gives a disconcerting reply. This choice, this transcending, this
authentic self cannot be explained or understood. To demand reasons, as this objection
does, betrays a failure to "understand" what
Jaspers has been saying. The objection assumes
some sort of absolute, some definite standpoint,
by which such questions should be answered.
Rut this is what Jaspers claims to have proved
impossible.
Endless dialectic, all embracing relativism, insoluble antinomies do not allow any fixity.
When applied to religion this means that there
is no one religion good and valid for all men.
All religions are partial and relative; all satisfy
some need; all are good so far as they go . .
with perhaps the exception of the Christian religion. Jaspers has no place for a history of redemption, for this presupposes a beginning, a
middle, and an end of the world. To conclude
all men under sin is to treat all men by one
method. No such generality is permissible. In
particular, the Incarnation is an absurdity because it establishes a fixed center of meaning.
Worse perhaps than other absurdities the Incarnation is a threat to human dignity. It prevents man from being a free personality, for it
implies that man exists for the glory of God
and not for and in himself alone.
The objections a Christian makes against Jaspers must assume what Jaspers denies. If Jaspers cannot persuade the Christian to relativize his position and to view Christianity as
merely one limited viewpoint among many, what
further can jaspers sav? All he can do is to pronounce anathemas, as he did upon Calvin: "In
uncharitable intolerance he is the horrible antithesis of philosophy both in theory and practice
. . . He is the apex of that incarnation of Christian intolerance against which one can oppose
nothing but intolerance."
The Calvinist. however. can do something
more than anathemize. When Jaspers said that
reality was both meaningful and meaningless,
he repudiated the law of excluded middle. As
mentioned before, he looks with disfavor on
straight line implication. But if logic is untrustworthy and if x is both x and not x, words lose
their definite meaning, all statements become
ambiguous, and intelligible discussion ceases.
This, rather than Calvin is the horrible antithesis of all philosophy; and this is what Jaspers
has treated us to. But no man has ever broken
logic without logic breaking him.
The neo-orthodox theologians come out of
the same general movement that produced Jaspers. They all more or less clearly despise
reason, clear cut concepts, and definite positions.
They do not agree with Jaspers on every point.
On the contrary they usually show an attachment to the idea of incarnation. A study of
I heir existentialist background. however, leads
one to wonder whether they can possibly combine a truly Christian view of the Incarnation
with their irrational, relativistic philosophy. Do
they perchance use the term Incarnation in
some vague and ambiguous sense? If they repudiate all conceptual framework, as some of them
explicitly admit, can they retain an intelligible
concept of the Incarnation, or of anything else?
At any rate, a better understanding of Neoorthodoxy is to be had through a study of the
pit from which it, like Karl Jaspers, was digged.
(footnote) The expository part of this article
is based on R. D. Knudsen's monograph, The Idea of Transcendence
in the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers.
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