Faith the paradox... understanding how it is a paradox

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding Soren Kierkegaard's arguments about faith being a paradox. Can someone help clarify this a bit for me?

He says:

"Faith his precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior - yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, inasmuch as the individual as the particular stands in an absolute reaction to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation comes about precisely by virtue of the universal; it is and remains to all eternity a paradox, inaccessible to thought. And yet faith is this paradox..."

What I think he's trying to say is that the ethical is universal and applies to everyone all the time, basically it's what we should be doing or what we "ought" to be doing all the time. But if the ethical can be superseded for faith than a single individual can be higher than the universal and that is .. paradoxical?

I'm a bit confused, does anyone have any background in this or maybe can make this a bit clearer.

I will try to reduce this....

Soren Kierkegaard seems to view universals in what is apparent of "innocence" in this world. We are born with an inherent universal perspective related to things. An instinct(Survivalism) if you will that one action will result in a desired reaction.

Once the reaction comes, our association("slate") is no longer in contrast to universals, but becomes the product of the particular individual, developing then through the reasoning of cause and effect.

That once a person explores greater their own understanding of the particular individual, they superimpose this understanding over initial universals. In imposing universals with individual particulars they contradict because an individual particular belies the prerequisite of "innocence" or any true objectivity. Without this true objectivity inherent to universals alone, there is no reasoning, only presuppositions.

Since all individual particulars are a product of and must adhere to universals, they can not supercede them, and yet the very concept of faith implies that they do.
Therefore it is a paradox.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard did not believe that humans had the capacity to understand God.
The faith argument seems to be meant to disqualify faith in and of itself and disassociate individuals with organised religion, to re-ascert itself in individuals manifested in their trust in the absurd.

On a similar note, I seem to have found another interesting concept related to this.
The Paradox of Experience.

A man is injured in a minor accident involving a bicycle in which he's fallen upon the frame of the bike. He grimaces in pain. A pain particular to this individual.

This man sees an accident some weeks later in which a skate boarder travelling exceedingly fast collides with a sign only to have his legs wrapped around the sign pulverizing his groin. The pain is particular to this individual.

Yet the first man still experiences distress in that indirectly he relays his experience of a similar nature and can and as often is the case does magnify the experience as he interprets this pain using his own frame of reference. While this experience relived is not pain in the true sense of the word, this is often the root cause and underlying reason for sympathy.

In contrast to this people have the capacity to imagine pains that are not there and were never there through developing a false sense of experience.By cross-referencing experience with sympathetic experience then magnifying or objectifying them in the third person someone may feel a sense of empathy.

We are not feeling pain and yet we are in the experience be it sympathetic or empathetic.
There are other instances of this phenomena in a number of psychological traumas.

Regarding the original post, a question you might ask yourself is:

If the answer depends on the question...
How can you have a deeper understanding of something that in seeking to have a deeper understanding of it, changes?

Things as they are observed change by being observed.

Yeah it sounds crazy zen...it's not...I just don't know yet how to explain it clearer.

Blondin?

Whenever I try to imagine the answer I'm reminded of the paradox of infinite.
Without a frame of reference, no beginning and no end there is no infinite and if there is a beginning or an end, the existence of a frame of reference eradicates the idea of infinite.
I found the solution in understanding time, since time has not always existed and time is the scale by which we measure things infinite, infinite does not exist.

There was no before time.
Before uses time as a reference point. It becomes a negative argument.
Before time there was no time, thus there was no frame of reference to time ;therefore no before.

Second attempt at reduction....

Basically it posits that faith claims knowledge of things known before faith is established and using it as an argument to support a claim makes it absurd.

It becomes a paradox wherein before faith is established there is no frame of reference to define a "universal" so people try to take the place of "universals" with "particulars".

In using a particular to define a universal, it becomes an individual particular and by it's function is not a universal.

Yet universals are the chief argument that faith is defined by a frame of reference.

The individual is superior to the idea of the universal since the universal is contained within the individual.

The concept of the universal is within the mind of the individual so therefore the individual is superior.

You don't need faith to understand that the "Kingdom of God is within you." It is self-evident.

The "universal" can't be found by looking here or there. You will never find God outside of yourself.

and yet, Metatron

Faith(specifically in God) claims you can.
That is the paradox.

I have no use for faith then.

I know that "the kingdom of God is within you"

Originally Posted by metatron

I have no use for faith then.

I know that "the kingdom of God is within you"

/facepalm

That's still faith.