Willed Faith and Belief An essay on Kierkegaard 1. Introduction Can we will to believe what we choose? Are there times when we should at least try to believe in something? If it were easy to manipulate our own beliefs, low self-esteem would vanish, the divorce rate would decline, and over-consumption would disappear with the reminder: "I already have enough stuff." Yet there is something suspect about willed beliefs. Perhaps it is not ethically responsible to …
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…of Religion 27 (1990):41-61. References in this paper are to the following edition: Soren Kierkegaard [Johannes Climacus], Philosophical Fragments, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). References in this paper are to the following edition: Soren Kierkegaard [Johannes Climacus], Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragmemts, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). M. Jamie Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).