Jeffrey W Roop

Kierkegaard’s Works of Love

May 12, 2008

Love, Upbuilding and the Gift of Prophecy as a Metaphor for a Possible

Kierkegaardian View of the Church

In this essay, I intend to examine Kierkegaard’s understanding of the activity of

upbuilding from his Works of Love. I will attempt to provide a context for this

understanding by way who Kierkegaard addresses and how he addresses them through

direct and indirect communication. I will also draw parallels between upbuilding and the

Biblical gift of prophecy as explained in the writings of the apostle Paul. This grace gift

as explained by Paul has a place within the community of believers and as such, I will try

to elucidate some Kierkegaardian possibilities for an understanding of the church. After

considering the possibility for genuine community among believers, I will seek to explain

how the gift of prophecy plays a part in building up the activity of love in the church. I

will attempt to show how this activity of prophecy calls the body of believers to strive for

divine love and that this was Kierkegaard’s objective in his Works of Love.

The first point in providing a context for Kierkegaard’s understanding of

upbuilding is who makes up the audience that Kierkegaard addresses. In the preface of

Works of Love, Kierkegaard states that these Christian deliberations are for, “That single

individual who first deliberates with himself whether or not he will read…”1 The

singular individual is the audience yet numerically it is all the singular individuals in the

Church of Denmark. The singular individual is in contrast to the crowd who tries to

objectify the individual. Kierkegaard elucidates in the following:

1
Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 3.

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 I am charged with inducing young people to rest satisfied in their
subjectivity. Perhaps, for a moment. But how is it possible to get rid of
all these mirages of objectivity, such as the public etc., without
emphasizing the category of individuality. Under the guise of objectivity
people have wanted to sacrifice individualities completely. This is the
whole question.2

And this is precisely the question Kierkegaard seeks to answer, in a Christian way, in his

Works of Love. Though he speaks to the individual, it is not the individual in isolation

but neither is the individual in the crowd. It is in the context of the individual treating

others, that is neighbors, lovingly and by loving the other, draws the other closer to God.

Kierkegaard contrasts the singular individual against the crowd, especially when

any notion of truth is involved. He speaks to this notion of truth as majority rule; that the

crowd determines the truth by declaring, “There is another view of life that holds that

wherever the crowd is, untruth is…”3 Even when individuals in the crowd possess truth,

by yielding to the power of the crowd, that truth has lost any of its power. This

concession of power to the crowd concerning the truth is a prime point of opposition by

Kierkegaard to uphold the power of the individual. He elucidates this in the following:

To be sure, the crowd is formed by individuals, but each one must retain
the power to remain what he is—an individual. No one, no one, not one is
excluded from being an individual except the person who excludes himself
—by becoming many.4

So for the individual to maintain the power of truth, in Kierkegaard’s view, she must hold

to that truth no matter what the crowd says or does. This is also relevant to the time of

his writings in relation to the National Church of Denmark. Kierkegaard’s resistance to

the crowd is what drives him to speak both directly and indirectly to the singular

individual in these Christian deliberations on the works of love.

2
Ibid, 409-410.
3
Ibid, 404.
4
Ibid.

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 The methods of direct and indirect communication by Kierkegaard come into play

in these reflective discourses to the individual. Pia Soltoft summarizes both types of

communication concisely in the article, “To Let Oneself be Upbuilt.” Soltoft states, “A

communication of knowledge is a direct communication. A communication of activity is

an indirect communication.”5 Although Kierkegaard employs indirect communication

more often than direct, in Works of Love he blurs the line by using both. So by using

both forms of communication he can address both the nominal Christian and the real

Christian. Kierkegaard speaks of this even more directly in the deliberation, “Love

Builds Up,” from the second set of deliberations in Works of Love. He states,

…the most insignificant word, the slightest action with love or in love is
upbuilding. Therefore knowledge puffs up. Yet knowledge and the
communication of knowledge can indeed also be upbuilding, but if they
are, then it is because love is present.6

Kierkegaard uses both forms in love to help upbuild another. In a way, this

complementary way of speaking is an attempt to communicate knowledge of an activity,

with the activity being love. Now with both types of communication in the context of the

deliberations, let us venture on to Kierkegaard’s understanding of upbuilding.

Kierkegaard, in considering what the meaning of the expression “to build up” is,

he first examines the ordinary usage of the expression and then explores the spiritual

sense of the phrase. At the beginning of the “Love Builds Up” deliberation, Kierkegaard

speaks of the metaphorical nature of spiritual language. This metaphorical nature applies

to the aforementioned phrase because of its frequent use in Scripture. Although he

acknowledges this metaphorical sense, he seeks to comprehend the ordinary significance

of the phrase. As he understands this activity, in the ordinary way, it is in relation to the

5
Pia Soltoft, “To Let Oneself be Upbuilt,” 20.
6
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 215.

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building of a house or similar building. He states that, “… to build up is to erect

something from the ground up. This ‘up’ does indeed indicate the direction as upward,

but only when the height inversely is depth do we say ‘build up.’”7 The height would

refer to the actual structure whereas the depth refers to the foundation of the structure.

Accordingly, the higher the structure the deeper the foundation will be. With this in

mind, let us see how Kierkegaard understands the spiritual sense of the expression, “to

build up.”

Kierkegaard frames the question regarding the spiritual sense of “to build up” in

terms closely related to the ordinary sense by clarifying the inquiry into the ground and

foundation for the spiritual life. He answers this question as follows:

It is love. Love is the source of everything and, in the spiritual sense, love
is the deepest ground of the spiritual life. In every human being in whom
there is love, the foundation, in the spiritual sense, is laid. And the
building that, in the spiritual sense, is to be erected is again love, and it is
love that builds up. Love builds up, and this means it build up love.8

Both the height and depth of the building is that of love; that which is built up and that

which is built upon. This echoes Kierkegaard’s reference to the teaching of the apostle

Paul. “Wherever upbuilding is, there is love, and wherever love is, there is upbuilding.”9

So framed in this way, upbuilding is not an idea separate from the world but is an activity

in the world.

Soltoft elucidates this understanding of upbuilding in relation to the

communication that occurs. “In this way ‘the upbuilding’ becomes a strategy of

communication that implies a dialogical relation between the one who builds up and the

one who lets himself be upbuilt.” 10 The communication like the upbuilding takes as a
7
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 211.
8
Ibid, 215.
9
Ibid, 214.
10
Soltoft, 22.

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given that another person is involved. As Soltoft states regarding upbuilding, “…it is

only present in the action or communication between at least two parties: man and man

or God and man.”11 This activity of love and upbuilding rests on an assumption

regarding the foundation of the spiritual life, which is love. Kierkegaard explains this

supposition in the following:

The one who loves presupposes that love is in the other person’s heart
and by this very presupposition builds up love in him—from the ground
up, provided, of course, that in love he presupposes its presence in the
ground.12

Holding to this presupposition in love has a certain paradoxical consequence to oneself in

relation to upbuilding. Soltoft states that presupposing love in the other, “…even when

everything this other person says or does seems to contradict this presupposition, is to do

something to oneself.” So as you love your neighbor as yourself, likewise you can

upbuild your neighbor as yourself. The expression or action you extend to the other is

how you would express or enact that love or upbuilding to your self. This self –

reciprocity of love and the various aspects of love is constant throughout these

deliberations.

Before moving on to an explanation of Pauline teaching regarding prophecy, I

would like to touch on the metaphorical essence of spiritual language. I believe this

relation of the metaphorical to the spiritual is important since prophetic discourse,

whether in relation to Scripture or to ministry in the church, is metaphorical. As

Kierkegaard explains this notion of metaphor, he understands it as any language that

leads one to be ‘carried over’ to the spiritual. This leads to an ‘infinite difference’

between the sensual and the spiritual persons even when they use the same words. He

11
Ibid.
12
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 216-217.

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clarifies this difference of the two in that, “…the one has made the transition or let

himself be carried over to the other side, while the other remains on this side; yet they

have the connection that both are using the same words.”13 This is probably akin to how

poets use the same language as a native speaker does, but open up multiple layers of

depth and meaning to those same words. In a sense, the metaphorical language of

prophetic communication points to a spiritual meaning and a depth that the average

person may overlook. In this way, Paul Tillich’s understanding of religious language is

helpful. His defining of signs and symbols in general, as terms pointing away from

themselves to some other reality, is an excellent point in general.14 He further elucidates

the broad representative nature of symbols in opening hidden levels of reality beyond the

empirical both internally and externally.15 Religious symbols take this representation a

step further by opening reality at the most fundamental level to that which is holy. 16 [Not

all metaphors lead to the spiritual, but all spiritual language uses metaphors] With this in

hand, let us continue by examining Pauline teaching regarding the gift of prophecy to the

church.

The apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians speaks of the gift of

prophecy as a sign for those who believe. He further elaborates on this in the passages as

follows:

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is

convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are
disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that
God is certainly among you.17
13
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 209
14
Paul Tillich, “Religious Language as Symbolic” in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, edited by
Michael Peterson et al, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 379.
15
Ibid, 381.
16
This, of course, is not a necessity. Consider Wittgenstein’s example of the signpost. It may have an
arrow pointing a specific direction but one does not have to go that way.
17
1 Corinthians 14:24-25, NASB

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Of course, the context for such an occurrence would be a gathering of believers in which

such a gift is found in operation. This is in the Biblical context of Paul’s letter in

explaining the proper place of spiritual gifts in the church. Granted theologically I am

Protestant and believe in the priesthood of all believers; I also believe this priesthood

extends to the ministry of all believers as well but that would be another paper. So as the

apostle explains the function of these grace gifts in the gathering of saints, the gift of

prophecy as exercised by the prophet(s) is both a sign and an edification. This edification

is synonymous with Kierkegaard’s understanding of upbuilding; it is the act of building

up an edifice. This may be what he had in mind when addressing upbuilding in the

deliberation since the Scripture passage he quotes at the beginning of the discourse

precedes these passages just mentioned. Though at times it seems that the apostle ranks

certain spiritual gifts, the conclusion is that no matter what ranking one’s grace gift

obtains, if one does not exercise the gift in love it amounts to nothing. This is Paul’s

point in showing the Corinthians a better way, the way of love.

Since the believer exercises the gift of prophecy in the community of faith, I

would now like to entertain some possibilities for community and how a Kierkegaardian

understanding of such a community would come about. Pursuit of such community will

uncover certain attempts at community that result in the crowd. In looking at the

possibilities for Christian community, I will examine the place of the individual in both

the crowd and in a community.

The pursuit of Christian community takes many forms yet certain points of

common unity do arise in this quest. While I am speaking in general terms in regard to

certain Christian denominations, these are generalizations and are not indicative of all

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groups in a given denomination. Generally, what distinguishes these common points of

unity is that of being either a community ‘of the book’ or ‘of the tradition.’ As I was

raised in a Southern Baptist congregation, it was often emphasized that as Baptists we are

people of the book. This book, of course, was the Bible and we were to look to it for

answers regarding Christian life and doctrine. This is not a troubling position since the

Bible is a source of authority in Christianity. Trouble does arise when the book is

elevated to something akin to divinity, by declaring that the Bible is the written Word of

God as opposed to man’s written testimony of the Living Word of God revealed in Jesus

Christ. This shift in emphasis leads one down the path of fundamentalism and an undue

reverence for the Bible as the ultimate answer book. This strong emphasis on the inerrant

truth of scripture is not limited to Christianity but is also evident in certain strains of

Judaism and Islam.

A similar point of contact for drawing people together is closely related to being

people of the book. This group draws a common unity from particular teachings from the

book sometimes as the result of differing interpretations of scripture. With Baptists, the

emphasis is on declaring the gospel so some may receive salvation. For Nazarenes, the

point is sanctification and personal holiness. The focus of Pentecostals is on the baptism

of the Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues. This trend is probably more prevalent

among Protestants with even the slightest change in doctrinal emphasis leading to

division and new denominations and sects. While I am sure genuine community can be

found among such groups, this marks out the human tendency to divide rather than to

unite.

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 The next general point of unity is found in the community ‘of the tradition.’ This

in general applies to Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. While not denying the role

of tradition in Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches hold to a

tradition they trace back to the apostolic faith and teaching. In this context, the emphasis

is on both Scripture and tradition, with tradition guiding the interpretation of the Bible.

While a certain latitude is given in the application of tradition and ritual formed doctrine,

the tradition gives the church its structure as an institution. With this view of tradition

and its implicit hierarchy, the church becomes imposing in structure to point of

monolithic.

A point closely related to any tradition, either protestant, catholic or orthodox, is

that of a liturgical nature. The traditions of the various communities shape the public

gathering of worship in differing ways. This variety covers a spectrum of worship from

the catholic and orthodox tradition holding to a very formal or high expression of worship

to charismatic congregational churches having a very informal and free expression in

worship. Granted, this does not hold itself across the varieties of traditions, with some

congregational churches favoring a more formal worship and Roman Catholic churches

embracing contemporary praise and worship influenced by the charismatic movement.

Now given this vast array of traditions, structures, doctrines and other influences

on the community of believers, let us distinguish Kierkegaard’s notions of the individual

and the crowd, then once this distinction is made how both of these ideas relate to a view

of genuine community. As discussed earlier, the audience for the Works of Love is the

singular individual, the one who stands alone, free and responsible. This singular stance

is not in total isolation but is actively engaged in the world. Brian Prosser speaks of this

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singularity as, “…not meant to be alone with God, but rather one standing with,

‘engaging with,’ others who have also constituted themselves such that they are able to

stand alone before ‘Truth’”18 It is the stance in relation to truth that sets apart the

distinction of the individual and the crowd. Prosser clarifies this point of Kierkegaard’s

denial of identifying the crowd with truth. He states, “It is this form of otherness, the

crowd as criterion for truth, which for Kierkegaard points to inauthenticity and requires

that one, as ‘Individual,’ remove oneself from any essential relationship to it.”19 It is the

emphasis of the crowd determining the truth that troubles Kierkegaard, in that the crowd,

by means of its numbers, overrules any notion of a singular relation to truth. Prosser

speaks more clearly of Kierkegaard’s warning in the following passage.

By claiming that the essence of the crowd is its numericalness,

Kierkegaard wants to warn us of the tendency, in such forms of social
organization, to annihilate the individuality of its constituents. The crowd
mentality does not allow the Individual to preserve a sense of personal
identity and personal responsibility. Thus Kierkegaard is very specific
about the form of otherness from which he wishes to exclude his
Individual: it is the “numerical” other, an entity that holds the numerical
as its essence, as opposed to being a group of particular Individuals.20

The caution is not against otherness per se, but a certain type of otherness that diminishes

the status of the singular individual. With this in mind, let us see what possibilities avail

themselves to a Kierkegaardian view of community.

Kierkegaard’s focus on the individual, especially in relation to God, is taken by

some as a preclusion to any sort community relationship. Though he is explicit about the

place of the individual in his thought, he is implicit regarding the possibility of genuine

community among singular individuals. Prosser takes Kierkegaard’s outworking of the

18
Brian Prosser, “Chary about Having to Do with ‘The Others’: The Possibility of Community in
Kierkegaard’s Thought,” International Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 39, number 4, 413-427, 1999, 415.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.

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singular religious devotion of the individual, as being honest before God, as the

groundwork for community. Prosser states, “...it is in an honest recognition of this

allowance that Kierkegaard claims that genuine community emerges.”21 The ability for

one to be honest with God permits one the opportunity to engage in the extraordinary by

being free and responsible before God. Honesty before God allows honesty with others.

Prosser speaks of this requirement of individual honesty as that which, “…brings to light

the possibility of the extraordinary and the possibility of the genuine other.”22 This seems

to place the individual in community as honest toward God and toward others. Prosser

further states, “It is through this complex of interrelated Individuals, essentially bound

together by the truth, or ‘idea,’ that we begin to discover the real depth of the possibility

of community in Kierkegaard’s thought.23 So in relation to Works of Love, it is love that

binds relations within the community. In such an understanding, the common unity is in

the love of God. Now, God is not just the middle term between two individuals but is the

middle term between all the individuals in the community. Applying this view of

community to the church, one can view the church as a community of believers, standing

as singular individuals, loving one another with God as the middle term between them all.

The place of God as the middle term can now shed an interesting light on the

Biblical references to Jesus Christ as the head of the church. If one is to take a

Kierkegaardian view of the Christ as the head of the church, it is not in a hierarchical

sense with Christ at the top, rather it is of Christ as the prototype. Here, Christ is the

example for all followers of what the God-relationship is like and how it is lived in the

world. Prosser states in the following that,

21
Ibid, 419.
22
Ibid, 420.
23
Ibid, 422.

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 …Christ is able, as one alone, fully to express the idea of Christianity that
is his life. If Christ as the ‘God-Man’ is the prototype by which the
Christian is measured then one of the criteria is Christ’s ability alone to
express Christianity—without the help of others.24

This distinction is what makes Christ the head of the church and exposes human

weakness. This weakness shows our need as humans to depend on others in the believing

community as individuals lovingly expressing the truth of Christianity. Christ is the only

one who alone can express Christianity. The church is only able to express Christianity

as a community of individuals loving one another with God as the middle term or in a

sense, the God-Man as the head, the common point of unity.

This possibility for community works itself out by building on the foundation of

love, a living edifice in the world that exemplifies love. Such an example embraces a

unity in diversity that the apostle Paul spoke of as the body of Christ. The unity is

ecumenical in nature by holding a common grounding in love as opposed to an agreement

in doctrine. This unity also allows for the expression of diversity by treating those

persons in community as the singular individuals they are.

In a sense, Kierkegaard’s call to the National Church of Denmark is a prophetic

call to singular individuals to come out of a nominal Christendom and into an authentic

expression of Christianity as singular individuals. The implication is that the individuals

can find genuine community in love and support of one another as long as the numerical

does not become the essence of the community. Kierkegaard expresses this prophetic

call, if it can be called that, in explicitly critical terms, but one can find an implication of

the positive as well. The critical aspect of the prophetic call to divine love is an exercise

in contrast. The contrasts take many forms: the crowd and the individual, Christendom

24
Ibid, 421.

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and Christianity, the possible and the actual, the finite and the infinite. As far as the

possibility for a Kierkegaardian view of the church, the contrast of Christendom and

Christianity would seem of greatest import. Kierkegaard speaks rather clearly of this

contrast in his deliberation on “Our Duty to Remain in Love’s Debt.” In speaking of

what is essentially Christian he finds, “If it is necessary, we should not hesitate either,

under the highest responsibility, to preach against Christianity in Christian –yes,

precisely in Christian sermons.”25 Just as the Hebrew prophets spoke against the

departure of Israel from the truth, so too does Kierkegaard speak against the departure of

the Danish Church. The difference between Kierkegaard and the Hebrew prophets is that

the prophets of old spoke of the moral failings of the community whereas Kierkegaard

addresses the illusion of morality that does not consider the demands of Christianity. It is

precisely the demands of Christianity that Kierkegaard finds both the highest good and

the danger of that goodness. It is the danger that is the offense of essential Christianity.

Kierkegaard contrasts the offense of Christianity with the acceptance easily found in

Christendom in the following:

When Christianity came into the world, it did not itself nee to point out
(even though it did do so) that it was an offense, because the world, which
took offense, certainly discovered this easily enough. But now, now when
the world has become Christian, now Christianity above all must itself pay
attention to the offense. …No wonder, then, that Christianity, its salvation
and its tasks, can no longer satisfy “the Christians”—indeed, they could
not even be offended by it!26

The criticism by Kierkegaard is that of living as an actual Christian in the midst of a

Christianity that is inoffensive. A Christianity of this sort is likewise vigorously

defended but at the price of distorting and even removing the power of essential

25
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 198.
26
Ibid, 199.

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Christianity. When Christianity becomes offensive, Kierkegaard states, “—then

Christianity will need no defense.”27 and likewise need not be defended. It seems as if

Kierkegaard is advocating the abandonment of apologetics in favor of advancing an

authentic expression of Christianity. Though Kierkegaard’s critical task of explicating

essential Christianity is in negative terms, I see an implicit possibility of communicating

the essence of Christianity in the positive as well.

The positive aspect of essential Christianity implicit with Kierkegaard is the

promotion of orthopraxy over orthodoxy. Right action as expressed in love will always

override right belief. The emphasis he has throughout these deliberations is that of works

of love not some concept of love. Love is an activity, not a state of mind. The positive

message implicit to the negative is that Kierkegaard is provoking the individual to action.

One could see this call to action as the compliment to refraining from action. The

demands of divine love are not just positive and good but eternal. This eternal aspect of

love allows the believer to participate in the eternal activity of love. This cooperation

with the very love of God seeks to make the possible actual in the world. Kierkegaard

speaks of this joining in the work of God in disjunctive rather than conditional terms. He

elucidates this in the following:

…it is eternally certain that it will be done for you as you believe.
Christianity guarantees you that, but whether you, precisely you, have
faith certainly does not belong to Christianity’s doctrine and proclamation,
so that it should declare to you that you have faith.28

Kierkegaard sees the person as either having faith and love or not. The demand of

Christianity is not believe then do but rather if you believe at all. On Kierkegaard’s view,

the belief is in the doing; or better yet in the loving.

27
Ibid, 200
28
Ibid, 378.

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 In summary, the possibility of a Kierkegaardian view of the church is likely

provided the essence of the community is individuals and not numbers of people. In the

likelihood of such a community, the gift of prophecy, when judged as divine and loving,

will edify that community. This edification is the same activity as Kierkegaard’s

upbuilding and will build up on the foundation of love as a building of love. The

community finds its center in the activity of God’s love. Such a community of believers

both united in love and diverse in individuality will stand apart from other groups who

hold to a different point of unification. Ultimately, a genuine community of believers

will reveal the love of God, a love the world deems foolish and offensive. Hopefully

such a revelation will be a metaphor that draws the world ever closer to the actuality and

activity of God.

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