The Faith of a Heretic

449 Pages·2015·1.897 MB·English

by  Walter A. Kaufmann, Stanley Corngold

The
Faith
of a
Heretic

The

Faith

of a
Heretic
Walter Kaufmann
With a neW foreWord by Stanley Corngold
PrinCeton univerSity PreSS
PrinCeton and oxford
Copyright © 2015 by the Walter Kaufmann Copyright Trust
Foreword copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be
sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Original cloth edition published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1961
Anchor Books Edition, 1963
First Princeton University Press paperback edition, with a new foreword
by Stanley Corngold, 2015
Library of Congress Control Number 2014951277
Paperback ISBN 978- 0- 691- 16548- 6
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Janson Text
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To My Uncles
Walter Seligsohn
who volunteered in 1914 and was shot off his horse
on the Russian front in 1915
Julius Seligsohn
and
franz Kaufmann
both Oberleutnant, Iron Cross, First Class, 1914– 18,
one a devout Jew,
one a devout convert to Christianity,
one killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942,
one shot by the Secret Police in 1944,
both for gallantly helping others
in obedience to conscience, defiant

Jeremiah: They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
Kant: All the interest of my reason (speculative as well as practi-
cal ) comes together in the following three questions:
1. What can I know?
2. What ought I to do?
3. What may I hope?
—Critique of Pure Reason
Whitman: Piety and conformity to them that like,
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like . . .
I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue,
questioning every one I meet,
Who are you that wanted only to be told what you
knew before?
Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in
your nonsense?
—By Blue Ontario’s Shore
Nietzsche: Is it really so difficult simply to accept . . . what is
considered truth in the circle of one’s relatives and of many good
men, and what, moreover, really comforts and elevates man? Is that
more difficult than to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experi-
encing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of
one’s feelings and even one’s conscience, proceeding often without
any consolation. . . . Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive
for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a dev-
otee of truth, then inquire.
—Letter, 1865
Tolstoy: I do not believe my faith to be the one indubitable truth
for all time, but I see no other that is plainer, clearer, or answers bet-
ter to all the demands of my reason and my heart; should I find such
a one I shall at once accept it. . . . But I can no more return to that
from which with such suffering I have escaped, than a flying bird can
re- enter the egg shell from which it has emerged. “He who begins
by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his
own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving him-
self (his own peace) better than all,” said Coleridge.
—Reply to Edict of Excommunication
Wittgenstein: What is the use of studying philosophy if . . .
(See § 10)
Sartre: If a writer has chosen to be silent . . . (See § 16)
ContentS
Foreword
Stanley Corngold xi
Preface xxvii
I Prologue 1
II The Quest for Honesty 14
III Philosophy and Revolution 39
IV Commitment 66
V Against Theology 90
VI Suffering and the Bible 137
VII The Old Testament 170
VIII Jesus vis- à- vis Paul, Luther, and Schweitzer 207
IX Organized Religion 250
X Morality 280
XI Freud and the Tragic Virtues 332
XII Death 355
XIII Trilogue on Heaven, Love, and Peace 380
XIV Epilogue 399
Bibliographical Index 411
Acknowledgments 419