"Hegel's philosophic optimism maintained that the difficulties of Christianity had been completely "reconciled" or "mediated" in the supposedly higher synthesis of philosophy, by which process religion had been reduced to terms which might be grasped by the intellect. Kierkegaard, fully voicing the claim both of the intellect and of religion, erects the barrier of the paradox, impassable except by the act of faith. As will be seen, this is Tertullian's Credo quia absurdum."