Why is Christianity So Hard To Accept?

As I mentioned in my last post, Kierkegaard believed that you only had to believe that God came down as man and died to be a Christian. However, I also said that this was hard for most people to accept. But why? One of the greatest mysteries of Christianity is that it bases a truth of reason on a truth of fact. A truth of reason is a spiritual thing, or more correctly it is trans-physical. A truth of reason exists because it has to exist, and we cannot imagine it any other way. Truths of reasons, such as mathematical laws and spiritual ideals of virtue, are unchanging, and are exactly what the Eleatics concerned themselves with. On the other hand, truths of fact are based in the physical world, and cannot truly be proven. They include such things as Barack Obama is currently president. These two types of truth are thus in completely different realms, which makes them hard to combine. However, Christianity expects you to do just that.

Christianity expects its followers to believe that the birth and death of Jesus Christ, both of which are truths of fact, has altered humans abilities to have eternal life, which is a truth of reason. Once you think about it, this is mind blowing. However, my professor made a great point today in class when she says that humans face this type of paradox every day. Any time that we attempt to say that a physical act was 'good' or 'bad', we are mixing truths of reason and truths of fact. An event taking place, such a man giving food to a homeless woman, is a truth of fact, while saying that that is 'good' involves a truth of morality, which is a truth of reason. Thus, every opinion we have is paradoxical in way, though I believe that Kierkegaard would argue that Christianity takes it a step further. After all, it's not uncommon for people to question how people before Christ were supposed to obtain eternal life and forgiveness. In fact, I would suspect that most Christians would have a hard time imagining salvation before Christ, or even that there were souls on the line before the critical moment.