CUP; Preface, Contents, Introduction

In the Introduction to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Johannes Climacus goes to discusses the systematic dialectic often employed when we talk about faith.  Climacus says it promises everything and yet yields nothing.  So what's the problem with the system?  He seems to think there are 3 problems. I think it would be best to talk a little more in depth about what, precisely, those problems are.

1. The system presupposes faith as something given (a system that has no presuppositions).
2. Further, the system divorces faith from passion; which, in itself, is insulting to faith and shows that faith has never been something that is a 'given'.
3. The system's total presupposition that faith is 'given', so to speak, "dissolves into conceit into which the system  has deluded itself, that it knew what faith is".

What I take Climacus to mean in the first problem is this: in the systematic dialectic of faith, faith is treated as a tool, or, as a means to an end.  What that end may be is up for debate, but the faith is simply a presupposition within the discussion and otherwise irrelevant or overwhelmingly regarded less than it should be. Faith is, in this case, penultimate at best. This is a problem for Climacus, who, it seems, would rather think of faith less as a path or a pair of shoes, but more as the whole journey itself. This is incredibly important in regards to the second problem.

The second problem follows from the first, in that faith, then, is divorced from passion. This is going to be major for Climacus.  Faith can not be seen merely as an objective reality, but as something in relation to us. If faith becomes an objective reality, we are no longer talking about a God in relation to us.  If faith is something given us by God, or at the very least something we have IN RELATION to God, then we can not divorce it from passion.