Kierkegaard S Concepts Tome VI Salvation To Writing

KierKegaard’s ConCepts
tome Vi: salVation to Writing

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources
Volume 15, Tome VI
Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources

is a publication of the søren Kierkegaard research Centre
General Editor
Jon steWart
Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Editorial Board
Finn gredal Jensen
Katalin nun
peter ŠaJda
Advisory Board
lee C. barrett
maría J. binetti
istVÁn CzaKÓ
HeiKo sCHulz
Curtis l. tHompson
Kierkegaard’s Concepts
tome Vi: salvation to Writing
Edited by
steVen m. emmanuel, William mcdonald
and Jon steWart
First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © steven m. emmanuel, William mcdonald, Jon stewart and the contributors 2015
steven m. emmanuel, William mcdonald and Jon stewart have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

a catalogue record for this book is available from the british library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

library of Congress Control number: 2014957874
Cover design by Katalin nun
ISBN 13: 978-1-4724-6179-7 (hbk)

Contents
List of Contributors ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
salvation/eternal Happiness
Roe Fremstedal and Timothy P. Jackson 1
scriptures
Kyle A. Roberts 9
seduction
Camilla Sløk 17
self
Pieter Vos 23
self-deception
Claudia Welz 29
sickness
Jakub Marek 35
silence
Alejandro González Contreras 41
sin
Leo Stan 45
skepticism/doubt
Matthew Brake 53
society
Jamie Aroosi 59
speculation/science/scholarship
Curtis L. Thompson 65
vi Kierkegaard’s Concepts
spirit
Marcia Morgan 75
spiritlessness
Gabriel Guedes Rossatti 83
stages
Lydia Amir 89
state
Leo Stan 97
story-telling
Will Williams 101
striving
Christian Fink Tolstrup 109
suffering
Sean Anthony Turchin 115
suicide
Robert B. Puchniak 121
sympathy/empathy
Victoria Davies 127
teacher
Matthew Brake 135
teleological suspension of the ethical

Thomas P. Miles 141
temptation
Sean Anthony Turchin 147
theater/drama
Mads Sohl Jessen 151
thoughtlessness
time/temporality/eternity
William McDonald 163
Contents vii
tragic/tragedy
Leonardo F. Lisi 169
Transfiguration
Daniel Marrs 177
transition
Gerhard Schreiber 185
trial/test/tribulation
Geoffrey Dargan 193
truth
Jamie Turnbull 203
understanding/Comprehension
Matthew Brake and William McDonald 209
Vaudeville/Farce
Mads Sohl Jessen 215
Vortex
Voting
Narve Strand 229
Will
Narve Strand 235
Witness
Ulrich Lincoln 243
Women
Céline Léon 251
Wonder
Robert Wyllie 259
Worldliness/secularism
David Coe 267
Writing
Thomas J. Millay 271
list of Contributors
Lydia Amir, school of media studies, College of management academic studies,

7 Yitzhak rabin blvd., 7502501 rishon lezion, israel.
Jamie Aroosi, Yeshiva university, department of political science, 500 W. 185th st.
new York, nY 10033, usa.
Matthew Brake, george mason university, 4400 university dr., Fairfax, Va

22030, usa.
David Coe, Concordia seminary, 801 seminary place, st. louis, mo 63105, usa.
Geoffrey Dargan, university of oxford, regent’s park College, oxford, oX1 2lb,
united Kingdom.
Victoria Davies, st John’s College, st giles, oxford, 0X1 3Jp, united Kingdom.
Roe Fremstedal, university of tromsø, department of philosophy, 9037, tromsø,

norway.
Alejandro González Contreras, Fakultät der philosophie, universität Wien,

universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna, austria.
Gabriel Guedes Rossatti, universidade Federal de santa Catarina—uFsC,

Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Campus Universitário—Trindade—CEP
88.040-970—Florianópolis, santa Catarina, brazil.
Timothy P. Jackson, Candler school of theology, emory university, 1531 dickey

drive, atlanta, ga 30332, usa.
Céline Léon, grove City College, 100 Campus dr., grove City, pa 16127, usa.
Ulrich Lincoln, german protestant ministry london, 22 downside Crescent,

london nW3 2ar, united Kingdom.
Leonardo F. Lisi, the Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins university, gilman Hall
216, 3400 n. Charles st., baltimore, md 21218, usa.
x Kierkegaard’s Concepts
Jakub Marek, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, U Kříže 8, 158
00 praha 5 Jinonice, Czech republic.
Daniel Marrs, baylor university, department of religion, one bear place #97284,
Waco, tX 76798-7284, usa.
William McDonald, school of Humanities, university of new england, armidale,

nsW, 2351, australia.
Thomas P. Miles, philosophy department, boston College, Carney Hall 268, 140
Commonwealth avenue, Chestnut Hill, ma 02467-3806, usa.
Thomas J. Millay, duke university, duke divinity school, box 90968, durham,
nC 27708-0968, usa.
Marcia Morgan, department of philosophy, muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew

street, allentown, pa 18104, usa.
Robert B. Puchniak, st paul’s High school, 2200 grant ave, Winnipeg, manitoba,
r3p 0p8, Canada.
Kyle A. Roberts, bethel seminary, st. paul, mn 55112, usa.
Gerhard Schreiber, Johann Wolfgang goethe universität, Fachbereich ev.

theologie, systematische theologie, grüneburgplatz 1, d-60323 Frankfurt am
main, germany.
Camilla Sløk, Copenhagen business school, Kileveje 14a, 2000 Frederiksberg,

denmark.
Mads Sohl Jessen, department of scandinavian studies, university of Copenhagen,

njalsgade 120, 2100 Copenhagen s, denmark.
Leo Stan, department of Humanities, York university, 262 Vanier College, 4700
Keele st., toronto, on, m3J 1p3, Canada.
Narve Strand, lillehammer university College, Faculty of social sciences, post

box 952, 2604 lillehammer, norway.
Curtis L. Thompson, thiel College, 75 College avenue, greenville, pa 16125,

usa.
Christian Fink Tolstrup, Holte Kirke, skovlodden 17, 2840 Holte, denmark.
Sean Anthony Turchin, university of maryland university College, academic

Center at largo, 1616 mcCormick drive, largo, md 20774, usa.
List of Contributors xi
Jamie Turnbull, Hong Kierkegaard library, st. olaf College, 1510 st. olaf ave.,
Northfield, MN 55056, USA.
Pieter Vos, protestant theological university, p.o. box 7161, 1007 mC amsterdam,
the netherlands.
Claudia Welz, Faculty of theology, university of Copenhagen, Købmagergade 44-

46, third floor 354, 1150 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Will Williams, baylor university, morrison Hall 101.8, one bear place #97350,
Waco, tX 76798-7350, usa.
Robert Wyllie, the miller school, 1000 samuel miller loop, Charlottesville, Va
22903, usa.
list of abbreviations
Danish Abbreviations
B&A Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, ed. by niels
thulstrup, Copenhagen: munksgaard 1953–54.
Bl.art. S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død,

udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by rasmus nielsen,
Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1857.
EP Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by H.p. barfod

and Hermann gottsched, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1869–81.
Pap. Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. i to Xi–3, ed. by peter andreas Heiberg,
Victor Kuhr and einer torsting, Copenhagen: gyldendalske boghandel,
nordisk Forlag, 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. i to Xi–3, by niels
thulstrup, vols. Xii to Xiii supplementary volumes, ed. by niels thulstrup,
vols. XiV to XVi index by niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Copenhagen: gyldendal
1968–78.
SKS Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, vols. K1–K28, ed. by niels Jørgen
Cappelørn, Joakim garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, alastair
mcKinnon and Finn Hauberg mortensen, Copenhagen: gads Forlag 1997–
2013.
SV1 Samlede Værker, vols. i–XiV, ed. by a.b. drachmann, Johan ludvig
Heiberg and H.o. lange, Copenhagen: gyldendalske boghandels Forlag
1901–06.
English Abbreviations
AN Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

princeton university press 1998.
AR On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by Walter lowrie,

princeton: princeton university press 1955.
ASKB The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by
H.p. rohde, Copenhagen: the royal library 1967.
xiv Kierkegaard’s Concepts
BA The Book on Adler, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:
C The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by Howard V. Hong
and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.
CA The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by reidar thomte in collaboration with

albert b. anderson, princeton: princeton university press 1980.
CD Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

CI The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

CIC The Concept of Irony, trans. with an introduction and notes by lee m.
Capel, london: Collins 1966.
COR The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by Howard V.
Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.
CUP1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1992.
CUP2 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

CUPH Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by alastair Hannay, Cambridge

and new York: Cambridge university press 2009.
EO1 Either/Or, part i, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:
EO2 Either/Or, part ii, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:
EOP Either/Or, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books

1992.
EPW Early Polemical Writings, including From the Papers of One Still Living;
Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New Soap-
Cellars, trans. by Julia Watkin, princeton: princeton university press 1990.
EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H.

Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.
List of Abbreviations xv
FSE For Self-Examination, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,
FT Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

FTP Fear and Trembling, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin

books 1985.
JC Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard V.

JFY Judge for Yourself!, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:
JP Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vols. 1–6, ed. and trans. by
Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, assisted by gregor malantschuk (vol.
7, index and Composite Collation), bloomington and london: indiana
university press 1967–78.
KAC Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by Walter

lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1944.
KJN Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by niels Jørgen
Cappelørn, alastair Hannay, david Kangas, bruce H. Kirmmse, george
pattison, Vanessa rumble, and K. brian söderquist, princeton and oxford:
princeton university press 2007ff.
LD Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik rosenmeier, princeton: princeton

university press 1978.
LR A Literary Review, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin

books 2001.
M The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H.
Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.
P Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by todd W. nichol, princeton: princeton

PC Practice in Christianity, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

PF Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

xvi Kierkegaard’s Concepts
PJ Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmonds-
worth: penguin books 1996.
PLR Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require,
trans. by William mcdonald, tallahassee: Florida state university press
1989.
PLS Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by david F. swenson and Walter

lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1941.
PV The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View

for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V.
PVL The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an

Author, trans. by Walter lowrie, new York and london: oxford university
press 1939.
R Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

SBL Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna
H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.
SLW Stages on Life’s Way, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,
SUD The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,
SUDP The Sickness unto Death, trans. by alastair Hannay, london and new York:
penguin books 1989.
TA Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review,
trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton
TD Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

UD Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

WA Without Authority including The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air,
Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on
Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion
List of Abbreviations xvii
on Fridays, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:
WL Works of Love, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

WS Writing Sampler, trans. by todd W. nichol, princeton: princeton university

press 1997.
salvation/eternal Happiness
roe Fremstedal and timothy p. Jackson
Salvation (Frelse—noun); Eternal (evig—adjective); Happiness (Salighed—noun;

Lyksalighed—noun; Lykke—noun)
the lexical meaning of Frelse, from the old norse frelsi, frjálsi, is personal freedom,
being safe, being helped or saved as well as salvation, release, and deliverance.1
Evig, from the old danish evig and middle High german ewich, can refer to a
whole lifetime or to something imperishable and everlasting, without beginning
or end. it also has the meaning of being present, long, incessant, or endless.2 the
term Salighed, from the old danish salighet, middle low german salicheit, and
the german Seligkeit, may mean well-being, comfort, safety, happiness, bliss,
blessedness, salvation, immortality, eternal life, being well-pleasing to god, and
taking part in his kingdom.3 in english, evig Salighed is usually translated “eternal
happiness,” although “eternal salvation” is also used.4
the concept “salvation” occurs in a large number of writings, notably the early
upbuilding discourses, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept
of Anxiety, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Upbuilding Discourses in Various
Spirits, Works of Love, Christian Discourses, The Sickness unto Death, Practice
in Christianity, and The Moment. the concept “eternal happiness” occurs mainly
in the early upbuilding discourses, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Upbuilding
Discourses in Various Spirits, Christian Discourses, and The Moment. the way
Kierkegaard usually uses the concepts of eternal happiness and salvation appears
to be consistent with how they are used by the pseudonyms Johannes Climacus
in the Postscript and Johannes de silentio in Fear and Trembling, although these
pseudonyms speak from the perspectives of non-believers, whereas Kierkegaard
typically speaks from the perspective of the believer.
1
Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 5, columns 1216–18.
2
ibid., vol. 4, columns 564–72. Cf. vol. 5, columns 422–3 (forevige; Forevigelse).
3
ibid., vol. 18, columns 461–5. Cf. vol. 13, columns 175–83 (Lykke); vol. 13, columns
195–6 (Lyksalighed).
4
Cf. SKS 5, 250–68 / EUD, 253–73.
2 Roe Fremstedal and Timothy P. Jackson
I. Salvation
Kierkegaard does not believe it is possible to deserve happiness, since this would
require moral perfection. neither is it possible to save oneself by one’s own, unaided
powers. in this context, Kierkegaard consistently criticizes pelagianism for involving
self-glorification and vanity.5 He also criticizes other positions that attribute a
positive role to human agency in salvation for not appreciating the importance of
the atonement.6
Kierkegaard’s soteriological views are anti-pelagian and lutheran. However,
this does not mean that Kierkegaard goes to the other extreme by embracing
predestination. Kierkegaard criticizes predestination on ethical grounds, claiming
that it can foster passivity.7 He dismisses the view that god’s grace is irresistible and
that some are predestined to salvation while others are predestined to damnation,
regardless of how they live their lives. “[i]n eternity everyone as a single individual
must make an accounting to god,”8 but, with respect to “the highest…every human
being, god be praised, is capable of it if he wills.”9
thus, Kierkegaard dismisses both pelagianism and predestination, opting for
some kind of intermediate position. He is sensitive to the fact that religious faith is,
in some sense, both a divine gift and a human task. as he says in his journals,
in order to constrain subjectivity, we are quite properly taught that no one is saved by
works, but by grace—and corresponding to that—by faith. Fine. but am i therefore
unable to do something myself with regard to becoming a believer? either we must
answer this with an unconditional “no,” and then we have fatalistic election by grace,
or we must make a little concession…subjectivity cannot be excluded, unless we want
to have fatalism.10
it is not perfectly clear that Kierkegaard claims to solve the problem of exactly how
divine and human agencies are related, however. He tends to leave the question open
without resolving all tensions or paradoxes. nevertheless, it makes sense to discuss
what kind of view he is committed to and what would be the best way of making
sense of his overall position.
there exist passages where Kierkegaard seems to suggest that salvation and
faith must be prepared by a step on the part of the individual.11 However, this step
appears to consist in the removal of hindrances rather than a real move towards god.
instead of saying that we contribute positively towards our own salvation (notably
by performing good works), Kierkegaard is concerned with the task of accepting
divine grace. the idea is that we open up to the reception of divine grace by dying to
5
Cf. SKS 27, 98, papir 59 / JP 2, 1463.
6
Cf. SKS 22, 123–4, nb11:201 / JP 2, 1464; SKS 22, 373–4, nb14:46 / JP 2, 1473.
7
SKS 27, 93, papir 49 / JP 2, 1302; SKS 27, 93–4, papir 51:1 / JP 2, 1230; SKS 27, 94,
papir 51:3 / JP 2, 1231; SKS 24, 289–90, nb23:175 / JP 3, 3550; SKS 18, 23, ee:50 / JP 3,
3548.
8
SKS 8, 228 / UD, 128.
9
SKS 8, 224 / UD, 123.
10
SKS 22, 415, nb14:123 / JP 4, 4551.
11
SKS 24, 260–1, nb23:111 / JP 2, 1142; SKS 7, 25 / CUP1, 16.
Salvation/Eternal Happiness 3
the world. the role of human freedom lies in accepting or refusing divine grace, not
in moving towards god on our own.
Kierkegaard claims that having an “anguished conscience,” that is, being
conscious of one’s failure to meet the requirement of the law, is a prior condition
for serious interest in the Christian offer of salvation.12 this suggests that the ethical
requirement, and the failure of fulfilling it, lies at a level that precedes religious faith.
put differently, the leap to Christianity and the reception of divine grace is preceded
and motivated by the failure of non-Christian ethics (the so-called “first ethics”13).
because of human guilt and sinfulness, Kierkegaard holds that we are neither
capable of realizing moral virtue nor eternal happiness by our own unaided powers;
we are only capable of realizing our incapability and of choosing whether or not to
accept divine grace.14 Hence, for Kierkegaard, salvation and eternal happiness are
ultimately defined in terms of receiving divine grace rather than in terms of virtue.15
eternal happiness is the state of the person who is saved by receiving god’s grace.
Kierkegaard begins not with the human desire for happiness but rather with
the divine gift of holiness, rejecting the entire eudaimonistic moral tradition as un-
Christian. as he writes in Works of Love,
We human beings want to look upward in order to look for the object of perfection
(although the direction is continually toward the unseen), but in Christ perfection looked
down to earth and loved the person it saw….Christianly to descend from heaven is
boundlessly to love the person you see just as you see him. therefore if you want to be
perfect in love, strive to fulfill this duty, in loving to love the person one sees, to love
him just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses, to love him as you
see him when he has changed completely, when he no longer loves you but perhaps
turns away indifferent or turns away to love another, to love him as you see him when
he betrays and denies you.16
Kierkegaard defines agape as, in effect, the willingness permanently to surrender

one’s own good for the sake of a concrete other. this is the imitation of Christ, and
it will lead to suffering in this life.
the free acceptance of suffering and temporal loss makes Christian love un-
eudaimonistic, according to Kierkegaard.17 Eudaimonia is often translated as
“happiness,” but greek scholars are wont to point out that it means full human
flourishing, including moral excellence or virtue, not merely subjective pleasure or
personal hedonism. even so, the greek starting point is irreducibly anthropocentric
and self-referential (that which contributes to my well-being), whereas Kierkegaard’s
biblical starting point is theocentric and other-regarding (what emulates god and
serves the neighbor). the Hellenistic motive is my desire for permanent or eternal
12
SKS 20, 69, nb:79 / JP 3, 2461; SKS 21, 285, nb10:55 / JP 4, 4018.
13
Cf. SKS 4, 323–31 / CA, 16–24.
14
SKS 7, 390–1, 421 / CUP1, 429–30, 463; SKS 5, 267–8 / EUD, 272–3; SKS 10, 228 /
CD, 220–1; SKS 24, 190–1, nb22:159 / JP 2, 1482.
15
Cf. SKS 5, 264 / EUD, 268.
16
SKS 9, 174 / WL, 174.
17
Cf. SKS 8, 138–84, 220, 319–431 / UD, 24–79, 119, 217–341; SKS 7, 367, 385, 387,
546 / CUP1, 403, 423, 426, 602; SKS 12, 170 / PC, 167.
possession of the good, while the Christian motive is dispossession of my desires in
order to be a temporal vehicle of god’s grace.
salvation comes, to repeat, not from our ascent to god but from god’s descent to
us. as Johannes Climacus marvels in Philosophical Fragments, god becomes man
in Jesus Christ, and as such he is more than socrates. a socratic teacher is a midwife,
helping to reveal important truths to a learner by throwing the latter back on his own
resources (for example, meno and his ἀνάμνησις). as such, the socratic teacher
seeks to “disappear” and to let the learner stand on his or her own. Christ, in contrast,
makes a new reality, including a newly justified self of the disciple (for example,
paul and his δικαιοσύνη). because Christ does not merely disclose pre-existent
facts but generates “a new creature,” he has “decisive significance.” He will not
withdraw and can never be forgotten. thus Christ is a “savior” to be worshipped, not
simply a mentor to be thanked.18 To follow him is to know hardship and sacrifice, but
it is already to have “eternal life.”19
II. Eternal Happiness
the Postscript claims that “eternal happiness, as the absolute good,” has “the
remarkable quality that it can defined only by the mode in which it is acquired.”20
this refers not so much to an activity whereby one realizes eternal happiness as
a mode where one receives the gift of divine grace. Kierkegaard aligns eternal
happiness with Christian faith,21 saying that the highest good is to love god.22
Implicit here is not only an identification of eternal happiness with the concept of
highest good,23 but also a distinction between two senses of eternal happiness (or the
highest good). eternal happiness in the strong sense involves everlasting bliss and
salvation in the afterlife. eternal happiness in the weak sense is the happiness in this
life made possible by Christian religiousness through anticipating everlasting bliss
in the afterlife by expecting or hoping for it.24 eternal happiness in the strong sense is
something that transcends the happiness we can experience in this world, belonging
to the afterlife.25 this type of happiness is stable, designating a state where one lacks
nothing, since one is independent of needs and pressures. in this context Kierkegaard
approves of paul’s saying that he who only hopes for this life is the most miserable
of all.26
18
SKS 4, 226–8 / PF, 17–19. see also the comments on “the maieutic teacher” in SKS
12, 145–6 / PC, 142–3.
19
Cf. John 5:24.
20
SKS 7, 388 / CUP1, 426–7.
21
SKS 5, 19–21, 24–5 / EUD, 9–11, 14–15.
22
SKS 10, 209 / CD, 200.
23
SKS 7, 353–9, 388, 524 / CUP1, 387–94, 426–7, 502; SKS 9, 240–1 / WL, 239–40.
24
SKS 5, 19–21, 24–5, 250–68 / EUD, 9–11, 14–15, 253–73.
25
SKS 7, 354ff., 368, 560 / CUP1, 389ff., 405, 617; SKS 10, 219, 230–5 / CD, 211,
222–8.
26
SKS 7, 355 / CUP1, 389; SKS 8, 329 / UD, 228.
rather than seeking to give an objective and detached description of eternal
happiness in the afterlife, the Postscript tries to delineate our this-worldly notion of
eternal happiness and how it makes it possible to orient oneself in this world by being
religious.27 the Postscript is highly critical of those who act as spectators, wanting
an objective and detached description of eternal happiness that does not affect their
way of living. Kierkegaard claims that “the specific sign that one relates oneself to
the absolute [telos, eternal happiness] is that not only is there no reward to expect
but suffering to endure.”28 presumably, one suffers by virtue of being separated from
one’s final end (absolute telos), eternal happiness.29 suffering seems to have a general
meaning—passivity—and a specific meaning—Qval (agony, anguish, or torment).
We are passive insofar as we cannot save ourselves, being dependent on divine
assistance in order to realize our final end. And we are subject to agony insofar as we
experience injustice and hardship, since moral virtue or goodness results neither in
happiness in this world nor in the kingdom of god.30
the Postscript claims that Christianity presupposes an infinite interest in eternal
happiness as the sine qua non.31 However, the interest in eternal happiness is not
reserved for Christians but also found within immanent religiousness.32 although
the interest in eternal happiness is found among non-Christians, Kierkegaard
claims that the realization of eternal happiness is made possible by Christianity.
We have an interest in eternal happiness at the pre-Christian level, and Christianity
“contracts to give one [betinger En] this good.”33 the Postscript goes as far as to
claim that everybody expects eternal happiness and that the concern for it cannot be
relinquished.34 this is not a psychological thesis or the empirical observation that
everybody is conscious of expecting eternal happiness, since the Postscript talks
about a person who has “lost a sense [tabt Sandsen]” of eternal happiness, saying
that it is presumably (vel) impossible for such a person to become eternally saved.35
27
this is consistent with the account in Fear and Trembling that stresses that (abrahamic)
religious faith concerns our relation to this life (SKS 4, 116, 131 / FT, 20, 36). However, in
Kierkegaard’s account, Judaism involves believing that it is possible to realize true happiness
in this world since an ordeal is something that passes. Fear and Trembling therefore says that
abraham believes he can become happy (lyksalig) here (SKS 4, 131, 115–16 / FT, 56, 19–20).
Christianity, by contrast, sees our whole existence as an ordeal or examination (SKS 12,183 /
PC, 183; SKS 20, 392, nb5:48 / JP 1, 481).
28
SKS 7, 366 / CUP1, 402. Cf. SKS 5, 326–8 / EUD, 337–9.
29
Cf. SKS 4, 148 / FT, 54; SKS 7, 353–9, 388, 524 / CUP1, 387–94, 426–7, 502.
30
Fear and Trembling says that “imperfection is the fundamental law of the external
world, and…he who does not work does get bread, and he who sleeps gets it even more
abundantly than he who works. it is different in the world of the spirit. Here an eternal divine
order prevails…only the one who works gets bread” (SKS 4, 123 / FT, 27).
31
SKS 7, 25 / CUP1, 16.
32
SKS 7, 522, 529 / CUP1, 574, 581.
33
SKS 7, 560 / CUP1, 617. Cf. SKS 7, 25 / CUP1, 15–16.
34
SKS 7, 355, 524 / CUP1, 389–90, 577. Kierkegaard elsewhere describes eternal
happiness the one thing necessary (det ene Fornødne). see SKS 5, 255 / EUD, 258–9.
35
SKS 7, 25 / CUP1, 16, translates vel “certainly,” but it can also mean “presumably” or
“arguably.”
This appears to be the idea that we need a single final end for life as a whole, an end
described as the absolute telos, eternal happiness, and the highest good.36
the Postscript suggests that the individual’s relation to eternal happiness is
internally related to his or her moral duty.37 it is stated that one must will the highest
good absolutely and at every moment,38 suggesting that one should give absolute
priority to eternal happiness. Unlike other goods, so-called poorer goods or finite
goals (for example, honor, reputation, power),39 eternal happiness is unconditionally
good, deserving of infinite interest. Other goods must therefore be renounced insofar
as they collide with eternal happiness (or virtue) or insofar as they depend on
contingent states of affairs beyond our control.
although man is incapable of realizing eternal happiness and salvation on his
own, it is nevertheless possible to realize eternal happiness and salvation with god’s
grace. even though non-Christian ethics collapses on its own terms, Christian ethics
still makes virtue and neighbor-love possible. Kierkegaard’s ethical views are based
on the conviction that we should seek good because it is good in itself, not because
it is merely a means towards happiness.40 Yet Kierkegaard also believes that doing
good will lead to our final end, an end that includes happiness. Happiness should
thus be the consequence of striving for good rather than the motive for striving in
the first place. A slightly different way of interpreting this is to say that we should
do good because it is good in itself and since it leads to our final end or final good.
Being motivated by our final good seems unproblematic as long as one gives priority
to morality (virtue) over happiness in cases where morality is at stake. although
Kierkegaard criticizes eudaimonism,41 he nevertheless seems to rely on a teleological
view of human nature here where eternal happiness makes up our final end.
III. The Kingdom of God as Ingredient in both Salvation and Eternal Happiness
Kierkegaard’s accent on “that single individual” standing before god,42 makes it

somewhat unclear how social his vision of salvation is and how it relates to the
church. Christian theologians often speak of “the city of god” or “the kingdom
of god,” and Kierkegaard himself declares: “oh, what blessed happiness god’s
kingdom must be!”43 unlike much of the tradition, however, Kierkegaard holds that
eternal happiness is open in principle to all, regardless of institutional affiliation (but
not practical commitment and application). that said, eternal happiness (in the strong
sense) involves not only individual salvation but also a community of believers.
36
SKS 4, 148 / FT, 54; SKS 7, 353–9, 388, 524 / CUP1, 387–94, 426–7, 502.
37
SKS 7, 354–9, 388 / CUP1, 389–94, 426–7.
38
SKS 7, 358, 364–5 / CUP1, 394, 400–1.
39
regarding poorer goods, see SKS 10, 230–5 / CD, 222–8. Regarding finite goals, see
SKS 4, 459 / CA, 160.
40
SKS 8, 139–84 / UD, 24–79; SKS 7, 125–7, 129ff., 144, 270–1, 367, 385, 387, 546 /
CUP1, 134–6, 138ff., 155, 296–7, 403, 423, 426, 602.
41
SKS 7, 367, 385, 387, 546 / CUP1, 403, 423, 426, 602.
42
SKS 8, 121 / UD, 5.
43
SKS 8, 306 / UD, 212.
Quite consistently, Kierkegaard describes eternal happiness or the highest good as
the kingdom of god (or the kingdom of heaven),44 simultaneously specifying that
the highest good and the greatest happiness are “truly to love, and next, truly to be
loved.”45 being loved in return is not a precondition or motive for loving others,46 but
the kingdom of god involves the communion of the saints, something Kierkegaard
associates with the teaching of the word and the administering of the sacraments.47
although Kierkegaard thinks that the church should teach, preach, and minister
in this world, the realization of the kingdom of god and the communion of the saints
belongs to “the life to come” in heaven, when humanity will be broadly redeemed.
On earth, Kierkegaard is wary of all collectives—“the crowd is untruth”—and tends
to accent the inner transformation of the person rather than the outer reformation of
society. speaking of this life, he avers: “Christianity does not want to make changes
in externals; neither does it want to abolish drives or inclination—it wants only to
make infinity’s change in the inner being.”48 His so-called attack on Christendom
toward the end of his life, however, arguably evinces a growing dissatisfaction
with such a stark inner vs. outer divide. the kingdom is not yet, and no temporal
institution is redemptive as such, but the danish church, like the singular individual,
must be responsible to and for the salvific truth of the Gospel here and now.
see also atonement/reconciliation; Church; dogma/doctrine; duty; dying to/

Renunciation; Earnestness; Ethics; Faith; Grace; Happiness; Immediacy/Reflection;
immortality; inwardness/inward deepening; leap; love; passion/pathos; patience;
religious/religiousness; suffering.
44
SKS 7, 356 / CUP1, 391; SKS 8, 303–4 / UD, 208–9; SKS 5, 255 / EUD, 258–9; SKS
10, 65 / CD, 56; SKS 9, 240–1 / WL, 239–40.
45
SKS 9, 240 / WL, 239.
46
Cf. SKS 9, 339–52 / WL, 345–58.
47
SKS 24, 324, nb24:7 / JP 1, 600.
48
SKS 9, 141 / WL, 139.
scriptures
Kyle a. roberts
Scriptures (den hellige Skrift—noun)
“scriptures,” usually rendered in danish as den hellige Skrift (“Holy scripture”),

is perhaps one of the more underestimated concepts in Kierkegaard’s corpus.1 as
a theologically orthodox lutheran, Kierkegaard accepted the authority of the bible
as Christian Scripture. For Kierkegaard, the bible (the protestant, sixty-six book
canon), was a divinely inspired book, given by god as an instantiation of and medium
for divine revelation. “the importance of Holy scripture,” he suggested in one of his
religious discourses, “is to be an interpreter of the divine to mankind…its claim is to
want to teach the believer everything from the beginning.”2 the bible communicates
god’s will for humanity’s existential development in the ethical and religious life.
nonetheless, Kierkegaard was also clear that the bible was not to be worshipped and
was not to replace the contemporaneity of Christ as the apex of divine revelation.
in a journal entry, he wrote: “the Holy scriptures are the highway signs, Christ
is the way.”3 the scriptures narrate the basic elements of theological information
necessary for salvation and discipleship; namely, the story of Jesus Christ. reading
the scriptures provides an opportunity for responding to god’s commands and for
receiving divine forgiveness. For Kierkegaard, the bible—in particular the new
testament—stood in stark contrast to the religion of Christendom.4
Kierkegaard did not have a “flat” view of biblical authority and of divine
inspiration, so common to fundamentalist brands of Christianity, in which every
biblical text is assumed to bear equal authoritative weight for the Christian life.
His experience with the moravian brethren group he attended with his father, the
1
t.X. Croxall notes, “if the intellectual background of Kierkegaard’s thought is
eighteenth-century speculative philosophy (and towards this his attitude is, by and large,
negative, i would emphasize here that a still more potent background is biblical thought; and
toward this his attitude is wholly positive” (Kierkegaard Commentary, new York: Harper and
brothers 1956, p. 34).
2
SKS 5, 317 / EUD, 327.
3
SKS 20, 105, nb:161 / JP 1, 208.
4
For an informative collection of essays on Kierkegaard’s understanding of and use
of the bible as scripture, see Kierkegaard and the Bible, tome i, The Old Testament, tome
ii, The New Testament, ed. by lee C. barrett and Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2010
(Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 1).
10 Kyle A. Roberts
“brothers of the Common life” had a profound impact on Kierkegaard.5 While
he acknowledged that we do “have both the old and the new testament” in Holy
scripture, he emphasized the primacy of the new testament, in particular its
Christocentric focus.6 nonetheless, the new testament renders the “ideal” which
Christians are to follow: the imitation of Christ, the “prototype” or “pattern.”7
Vernard eller summed up Kierkegaard’s view of the new testament’s importance:
In the first place, S.K. was very insistent that the New Testament constitutes the norm
and definition of Christianity. Not the creeds, catechisms, or symbols; not the tradition of
the church; not the theological formulations of either the past or the present; not personal
experience or one’s own understanding of existence; not the demands of the age; but the
new testament is the norm and definition.8
I. Historical Background to Kierkegaard’s Concept of Scripture
Kierkegaard’s understanding of the bible as Scripture is best clarified in relation

to several currents in his context. The first was Hegelianism and its influence on
dogmatic theology, which—Kierkegaard argued—subsumed the bible under a
theological (and rational-philosophical) system. similarly, lutheran doctrinaire
orthodoxy was also guilty, in Kierkegaard’s view, of prioritizing a rational system
over the authority of the Word. a second current was represented by the “church
theory” of the influential pastor and hymn-writer, N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–1872).9
grundtvig viewed the church as a living repository of god’s truth over and above the
authority of the bible. He believed that because the bible could be misinterpreted
and put to use by critical, enlightenment (rationalist) minds in destabilizing
Christianity and fragmenting the church, it should be avoided as a regular source
of revelation. Consequently, he privileged the sacraments, including the eucharist,
lord’s prayer, and the apostles’ Creed (and the recitation of the creed at baptism);
these enabled the reception of the “living Word” by the church. the third current
was the burgeoning “objective” approach to the bible, which emphasized historical,
linguistic, and other “rationalist” hermeneutical methods. it was epitomized by the
“quest for the historical Jesus,” in the form of david Friedrich strauss’ (1808–74)
Das Leben Jesu. in Jolita pons’ assessment, for Kierkegaard, strauss’ goal was not
5
see Christopher barnett, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness, aldershot: ashgate
2011.
6
SKS 18, 188, JJ:146 / JP 1, 206
7
Kierkegaard suggested that the old testament and new testament comprise
“altogether different categories. What, indeed, would the n.t. say about a faith which believes
it is going to be well off in the world, in temporality, instead of giving this up in order to grasp
the eternal?” SKS 18, 188, JJ:146 / JP 1, 206.
8
Vernard eller, Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship: A New Perspective, princeton:
princeton university press 1967, p. 410.
9
Kierkegaard, via Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript,
labeled grundtvig’s view of divine revelation as located in the church’s sacraments an aspect
of the “historical point of view” (SKS 7, 42–52 / CUP1, 34–45).
Scriptures 11
to “explain the historical, but to reject it altogether.”10 these historicist and higher-
critical approaches to the bible had already been prominent in the universities and
had been making strong inroads into the church. the new testament professor H.n.
Clausen (1793–1877) represented a more romantic brand of linguistic hermeneutics,
in the spirit of his teacher Friedrich schleiermacher. For grundtvig (and, in a
different way, for Kierkegaard), Clausen’s preoccupation with biblical interpretation
illustrated the problem of the church’s approach to divine revelation.11
Kierkegaard charted a course beyond the perceived inadequacies of these
approaches. against the systematizing of lutheran dogmatics (and that form of
dogmatics influenced by Hegelian philosophy), Kierkegaard insisted on the primacy
of the scriptures. For Kierkegaard, the bible took primacy over a theological system,
even if that necessitated the embrace of paradoxes.12 Furthermore, against grundtvig’s
“church theory,” the bible was superior to the sacraments and to the creeds as a medium
of divine revelation. through the bible, the “single individual” is confronted with
the contemporaneity of Christ and divine commands, which were to be individually
appropriated. Contra grundtvig’s “matchless discovery,” Kierkegaard proclaimed
that the “written Word” is not dead.13 Kierkegaard’s emphasis on subjectivity in
interpretation and personal appropriation had little in common with the cultural and
ecclesial approach of grundtvig, in which the locus of authority was found in the
church’s creeds and practices, rather than in the confrontation between the single
individual and Christ. For Kierkegaard, scripture served to facilitate that confrontation,
because it narratively pointed people to the living Christ.
Kierkegaard’s prioritizing of scripture over theological system or confession is
reflective of the strong influence of Moravian pietism on his thought. The Bible
10
see Jolita pons, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York:
Fordham university press 2004, pp. 53–4.
11
Clausen, a quasi-rationalistic biblical interpreter, in the tradition of schleiermacher,
emphasized the biblical text and the linguistic-historical methodological interpretation over a
subjectivist one. While, like Grundtvig, Kierkegaard was dissatisfied with an overly rationalist
and linguistic methodological approach to the bible (a “scholastic” approach), he preferred
Clausen’s approach to grundtvig’s.
12
so Kierkegaard: “perhaps you say, ‘but, after all, it is god himself who has created
this world with all its delight and joy; therefore it is a self-contradiction on his part that
Christianity comes and changes it all to sin and lays down the requirement of dying to the
world.’ in a certain sense i have no answer to this; such things are no concern of mine. if it
simply remains firm that this is the teaching of Christianity, then I have nothing to do with this
sort of objection. but, incidentally, is it not a self-contradiction on your part that you accept
Holy scripture to be the word of god, accept Christianity as divine teaching—and then when
you bump up against something which you cannot square with your ideas and feelings—then
you say that it is a self-contradiction on the part of god, rather than that it is self-contradiction
on your part, inasmuch as you must either dismiss entirely this divine doctrine or take it just
as it is” (SKS 24, 330, nb24:20 / JP 3, 2888).
13
in a journal entry, Kierkegaard wrote, “i do not maintain, despite pastor grundtvig’s
claim that the written word is powerless and dead…that his (written) words were dead and
powerless—i still do [not] believe i dare maintain that”(SKS 17, 198, CC:12 / JP 5, 5181).
grundtvig’s “matchless discovery” was the notion that god revealed himself primarily
through the living Christ in the form of the apostles’ Creed, sacraments, and lord’s prayer.
12 Kyle A. Roberts
determines one’s theology, not the other way around. Confessions and theological
systems ought not determine what “counts” as biblical truth. For Kierkegaard, the
order is important because the bible facilitates an ongoing, dynamic confrontation
between the single individual and god. the single individual, in fear and trembling,
must determine in relation to the bible how he or she is to live and what he or she is
to do in response to the reading or hearing of the Word.
Another deficient approach to the Bible, for Kierkegaard, was viewing it as an
aesthetically pleasing or poetically entertaining literary phenomenon. this was also
to undermine its nature as divine inspiration. in his critique of the danish pastor
adolph peter adler, who claimed to have received a revelation from god on a par
with the bible, Kierkegaard took him to task for his “frivolous” misuse of the bible.
While he says “many a beautiful word about the bible,” “[w]ith a strange, fantastical
willfulness he sometimes usurps the bible’s words and makes them his own without
quotation marks; indeed, there are passages where he in this frivolousness begins
to identify himself with Christ.”14 this criticism of adler’s misuse of scripture
is another indication of Kierkegaard’s esteem for scripture’s authority; it is not
something to be appropriated as one’s own without the conscious recognition of
its divine source, particularly when the words are from Jesus Christ himself (in the
“first person”). Kierkegaard insisted on maintaining a clear distinction between the
words of a literary genius and the divinely authoritative, biblical words of an apostle.
against the historicist quest for the “historical Jesus” (or the attempt to discredit
Jesus’ historicity) represented by strauss and others, Kierkegaard averred that to
approach Jesus through a historical methodology is to miss the point entirely and is
to substitute the vagaries of historical “approximation”15 for the spiritual conviction
of subjectivity and personal appropriation. instead of the impulse toward objectivity,
in the forms of rationalism, historicism, and philology, Kierkegaard emphasized
subjective, personal appropriation. He had little use for attempts to epistemologically
secure, or “prove,” the bible’s historical validity against its critics. For Kierkegaard,
were everything “assumed to be in order with regard to the Holy scriptures,” this
would not bring a person a “single step closer to faith,” because,
Faith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation, nor does it come
directly; on the contrary, in this objectivity one loses that infinite, personal, impassioned
interestedness, which is the condition of faith, the ubique et nusquam (everywhere and
nowhere) in which faith can come into existence.16
the bible is not given that we would acquire objective knowledge for its own sake;
rather, it serves as a medium for finding eternal happiness in one’s personal relation
to god. the attempt rationally or historically to establish scripture’s authority is
wrong-headed.17
14
SKS 15, 229 / BA, 282.
15
SKS 7, 42–4 / CUP1, 36–8.
16
SKS 7, 36 / CUP1, 29.
17
timothy Houston polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, macon, georgia: mercer university
press 1997, p. 75.
Scriptures 13
in a late journal entry (1850), Kierkegaard suggested that in the patristic
period of Christianity, the allegorical method of interpretation, as an exercise of
the theological imagination, ended up being an “indirect attack on Christianity,”18
because it undermined the significance of the actual historical existence of Christ.
but now, post-reformation, he said, “we are veritably drowning again in sound
scientific philology. It is readily forgotten that the Bible is Holy Scripture; whereas
at first, in the period of imaginative interpretation, the position that the Bible is Holy
scripture was everything.”19 Kierkegaard was dissatisfied with the phenomenon of
treating paul’s letters as if they were a historical curiosity and an objective document,
rather than an opportunity for ethical and religious transformation.
Kierkegaard’s emphasis on biblical authority became increasingly pronounced
as he moved toward his attack upon Christendom. assessing the development of
his own authorship, in this respect, Kierkegaard suggested that, as he transitioned
from a poetic, “indirect” form of communication to a more direct confrontation
with established Christianity (Christendom), the “poet suddenly changed; he—if i
may say it this way, threw away his guitar and—took out a book called The New
Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ….”20
the bible’s status as a divinely inspired text calls for a submissive acceptance
and obedience on the reader’s part. Kierkegaard sensed that the new testament’s
commendation of the imitation of Christ, which invites suffering and conflict with
the world, was lacking in Christendom.
II. The Scriptures and the “Primitive” Reader
For Kierkegaard, the fatal flaw of Lutheran Orthodoxy was its perception of
Christianity as being only—or primarily—a doctrine or a system of doctrines.
A doctrine can be understood objectively in a comprehensive and final way, even
from the beginning of one’s acquaintance with it. Viewed objectively, Christianity
is a closed, cognitively oriented system that requires no rigor, passion, or action.
Kierkegaard insisted that the new testament “belongs solely to the ethical”; therefore
“it wants you to begin quite simply by taking a single ethical point—but then see to it
that you do it.”21 The difficulty, then, lies not in conceptual understanding but in the
attempt to do what one already understands.
the problem of Christendom was an unwillingness to read god’s word
subjectively, with a view to appropriating it in passionate response. the majority
read it as “an obsolete ancient book one puts aside.”22 this collective readership, in
Kierkegaard’s perception, shifted the view of what earnestness is: from the fervent
obedience to the commands of the text to the dispassionate attempt to understand
conceptually. Christendom overflowed with “objective” interpretations of biblical
texts (for example, commentaries), but lacked passion.
18
SKS 23, 148, nb16:78 / JP 4, 4781.
19
ibid.
20
SKS 13, 174 / M, 130.
21
SKS 23, 336, nb19:12 / JP 3, 2874.
22
SKS 13, 60 / FSE, 33.
14 Kyle A. Roberts
Kierkegaard calls the kind of passionate reading which authentic appropriation
requires “primitive reading.”23 an individual reads primitively when he or she stands
before god in fear and trembling and attempts to relate to him with honesty and
passion. this kind of subjective reading was superior, in Kierkegaard’s view, to the
application of sophisticated, higher-critical methods—or to any reading method in
which a “third party”24 (biblical scholar, theologian, or pastor) interfered with the
primitive god-relationship. For Kierkegaard, god “wants the person, the Christian,
to be an individual and thus to endure the enormous strain of not being able to get
information from other men but having to involve himself with god primitively,
taking before god the responsibility for his interpreting the new testament the way
he does.”25
Kierkegaard concluded that the loss of the “impression” (or impact) of the bible
in Christendom was due to the collective failure to read the bible primitively, as
single individuals. there is safety in numbers, Kierkegaard insisted, but no passion.26
the reader who would appropriate scripture subjectively—for appropriation—
must, Kierkegaard asserted, be alone with god’s word. Kierkegaard, in several
places, alluded to the bible as a “love letter.”27 a person does not read a letter from
his or her beloved with a commentary or with “scholarly apparatus.”28 similarly, a
person should read the bible “as the single individual who has received this letter
by god or from god!”29 it is possible, Kierkegaard suggests, for a scholar to spend a
lifetime reading god’s word in an objective way. a scholar who only reads the bible
objectively will discover that, “after a lifetime of reading god’s word many hours
every day,” he has “never read—god’s word.”30 For Kierkegaard, the appropriate
way to read the Holy scriptures is passionately, primitively, and subjectively.
adopting a “love letter” model also invites, for Kierkegaard, an approach to the
scriptures as a confrontation between god and the single individual in which the
reader is transformed by engagement with the text. being alone with god’s word,
Kierkegaard asserted, can be a risky proposition. “to be alone with Holy scripture!
i dare not! if i open it—any passage—it traps me at once; it asks me (indeed, it is
as if it were god himself who asked me): Have you done what you read there? and
then, then—yes, i am trapped. then either straightway into action—or immediately
a humbling admission.”31
nonetheless, if the reader turns immediately to action—or admits humbly that
he or she cannot do what is required—it shows that the text has been understood.
23
SKS 25, 366, nb29:105 / JP 3, 2907.
24
ibid.
25
ibid.
26
Kierkegaard’s insistence on reading the bible as a love letter has led one commentator
to designate his interpretive method an “existential hermeneutic.” see endel Kallas,
“Kierkegaard’s understanding of the bible with respect to His ‘age,’ ” Dialog, vol. 36, 1987,
pp. 30–4.
27
SKS 23, 151, nb16:84 / JP 1, 210.
28
ibid.
29
SKS 23, 442, nb20:88 / JP 1, 213; SKS 23, 151, nb16:84 / JP 1, 210.
30
SKS 13, 60 / FSE, 33.
31
SKS 13, 58 / FSE, 31.
Scriptures 15
appropriation, or subjective understanding, suggests that there is no dichotomy
between one’s understanding of a command and the action that follows as a response
to that understanding. Kierkegaard, elucidating a Christian definition of “sobriety,”
says it is, “to come so close to oneself in one’s understanding, in one’s knowing, that
all one’s understanding becomes action.”32
the reader may struggle with the scriptural text as he or she bears the responsibility
to obey its commands and to follow the way of discipleship it commends. sometimes
its commands are clear. other times, for Kierkegaard, one may have to risk an
interpretation when appropriating its meaning to one’s life, or in discerning “god’s
will” from a scriptural text. For Kierkegaard, the passionate, “primitive,” reader of
scripture will discover a life-view from which one can learn to imitate Christ as
the “pattern” in the actuality of concrete existence. in this way god “speaks” to the
contemporary disciple even though he has already “spoken” the words, historically,
in the authoritative words of scripture. the bible is for each single individual before
god, but not every part of scripture is for every person in the same way.
the situation in denmark, to which we have already alluded, is why Kierkegaard
in one place provocatively suggests that a new reformation (post-luther) would
“set the bible aside,” and the next “religious hero” would, “in fear and trembling…
[have] the courage to forbid people to read the bible.”33 as highly as Kierkegaard
viewed the bible, he would rather see denmark give all its bibles back to god34
than perpetuate a situation in which the bible is misused as an “objective,” historical
oddity or an aesthetic masterpiece rather than the “highway signs” pointing to Jesus
Christ, the apex of divine revelation.35
see also apostle; authority; Christ; Church; dogma/doctrine; god; Holy spirit;
objectivity/subjectivity; orthodoxy/orthodox; passion/pathos; primitivity; protest-
antism/reformation; religious/religiousness; revelation; Writing.
32
SKS 16, 170 / JFY, 115.
33
SKS 21, 173, nb8:67 / JP 1, 209.
34
SKS 26, 16, nb31:19 / JP 1, 216.
35
SKS 20, 105, nb:161 / JP 1, 208.
seduction
Camilla sløk
Seduction (Forførelse—noun; forføre—verb)
in english, the word seduction is related to “leading someone astray.” in the danish
dictionary of Christian molbech, the noun Forførelse (seduction) also connotes
possible destruction—at least socially, since being seduced means that one is
led astray with the attendant social repercussions. However, molbech notes that
Forførelse can also be used about something pleasant. though molbech says that
the word is used playfully about that which is pleasant, the jest only emphasizes the
pleasure of what is going to happen; the humor is not a negation of the pleasure.1
molbech’s description of seduction indicates the ambiguity in the danish use of
the word Forførelse. precisely this ambiguity is what Kierkegaard picks up on in
his two texts on seduction, namely, “the immediate stages of the erotic” and “the
seducer’s diary” in Either/Or, part one. Kierkegaard is well aware that seduction
is often used in its negative sense.2 For example, he says of Johannes the seducer:
“there is something shocking about a person’s directing a hiker, uncertain of his way,
to the wrong path and then abandoning him in his error; but what is that compared
with causing a person to go astray within himself.”3
However, he describes how the human being encounters what we label “seduction”
either as (1) destructive or (2) edifying. When the encounters are edifying, we
label them “love.” When they are destructive, we label them “seduction.” in “the
immediate stages of the erotic” Kierkegaard challenges the ordinary understanding
of love, stating that sensuality is more than the body and eroticism—even more than
long-term relationships. in “the seducer’s diary” Kierkegaard deals primarily with
the destructive side of seduction.
in challenging the ordinary understanding of love, Kierkegaard is primarily
occupied with Mozart’s famous opera about Don Juan, which Kierkegaard defines in
a completely new way—one that may conflict with the actual opera, though that is not
the point. the point is what Kierkegaard does in his interpretation of don Juan. the
essence of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of don Juan is that he is pure joy; he loves
everything and everybody, and the purity of his desire is attractive to those around
him. being seduced by don Juan is pleasant. He really and completely wants what
1
Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog. Indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord,
vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendalske boghandlings Forlag 1833, vol. 2, pp. 562–3.
2
SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 101.
3
SKS 2, 297 / EO1, 308.
18 Camilla Sløk
he wants. to will one thing, purely and deeply,4 is a topic with which Kierkegaard is
preoccupied in other texts, for example, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits,5
just as he was also preoccupied with immediacy (Umiddelbarhed), which is the key
to his understanding of why seduction works: immediacy is seductive because it is
authentic. don Juan is authentic and does not pretend to be something he is not. this
makes him persuasive to others. not only women, but also men are enthusiastic to
meet him.6
according to Kierkegaard, don Juan could be described as young, old, handsome
or not, but to describe him would be a reduction of don Juan.7 the point is that don
Juan is not a matter of certain bodily appearances or attributes, but a matter of the
spirit of the body. therefore don Juan is to be understood as a principle that cannot
be represented adequately in words.
in his description of don Juan, Kierkegaard notes two parallels to Christ:
(1) Kierkegaard suggests that don Juan’s age could be 33,8 which is the same age as
Christ at his death; and (2) both Christ and don Juan had the ability to love all without
regard to differences. they both loved everybody, however, in quite different ways:
Christ loves everybody in spirit; don Juan loves everybody in the spirit of the body.9
the danish word in Kierkegaard’s text is Attraa, which the Hongs translate
as “desire”; however, “attraction” might be a better translation. Attraa has an
element of mutuality. desire can be seen as an individual project, but to see desire
as individual misses the point in seduction, at least as understood by Kierkegaard.
to him, seduction is an act of attraction where both the (perceived) seducer and
the (perceived) seduced are seduced by their mutual attraction towards each other.
this means that desire becomes reciprocal. the seductive act is a reciprocal giving
between don Juan and the woman who meets him. Her spirit awakens, and she
becomes aware of who she is through him.10 therefore, don Juan does not leave the
women he meets with nothing, but with something. He leaves them transformed.11
moreover, the transformation is spiritual, since they are lifted into another sphere.12
and this is the reason why the one who is seduced does not regret having met don
Juan. rather, “he makes the girls happy—and unhappy—yet strangely enough in
such a way that that is what they want.”13 that the spirit serves as the medium for
seduction, and not the body, becomes evident in the case of Johannes the seducer,
where a physical consummation never takes place between Johannes and Cordelia.
don Juan is best understood by using music as a metaphor, just as mozart did,
according to Kierkegaard.14 throughout the text, music is the core metaphor for
4
SKS 2, 90 / EO1, 85.
5
SKS 8, 123ff. / UD, 7ff.
6
SKS 2, 98 / EO1, 94. Cf. SKS 2, 116 / EO1, 113.
7
SKS 2, 106 / EO1, 102.
8
ibid.
9
SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 64.
10
SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 98.
11
ibid.
12
ibid.
13
SKS 2, 104 / EO1, 101.
14
SKS 2, 105 / EO1, 101.
Seduction 19
seduction; like notes on the sheet of music, the notes already played are utterly
uninteresting when the next note is shown on the sheet. However, as a whole they
are important. the notes taken together form the music. music as a metaphor for
seduction shows that being seductive is something immediate, not something
reflective.
When Kierkegaard explains how don Juan represents the essence of music, he
also makes use of metaphors from nature: “he no more wearies of seducing or is
through with seducing than the wind with blowing a gale, the sea with rocking, or a
waterfall with plunging down from the heights.”15 don Juan is also said to sparkle
“like the wine with which he fortifies himself,”16 which again makes the reader
understand that don Juan is authentic in his immediacy. the purity of his being
leads the other towards him, as he stands before the other. it is alluring. Kierkegaard
states it this way:
To be a seducer always takes a certain reflection and consciousness, and as soon as this
is present, it can be appropriate to speak of craftiness and machinations and subtle wiles.
Don Juan lacks this consciousness. therefore he does not seduce. He desires, and this
desire acts seductively.17
don Juan stands in contrast to Faust and Johannes the seducer, neither of whom
is pure in his seduction. they seduce women in order to watch themselves in the
process,18 not because they are actually interested in the women they meet. they
are interested in observing themselves doing it. Kierkegaard’s text on Johannes the
seducer is an example of self-centered seduction: it is all in his head.19 it does not
deal with what happened, but what could have happened. Johannes, as distinct from
don Juan’s relational giving in spirit, understands women in general as being fearful
of men’s spirit.20 the woman fears a man’s spirit because she fears it is stronger than
her and that she eventually cannot control him.
Why is it shameful to be seduced? the easy answer is that it is shameful because
the one who is seduced is cheated and thereby allows the seducer to do something.
the seduced has consented or is at least in doubt as to whether he or she has given
consent in order to let the activity happen. seduction, contrary to coercion and force,
therefore involves some kind of acceptance: an exercise of free will by the one who
is seduced. this is the shame of being seduced. but this is not the shame of the
victim of coercion. Though some victims of coercion sometimes find themselves
asking whether they somehow accepted the coercion, this is in fact not a case of
abuse, rape and the like. in these cases, the physical force of the aggressor or the
threat of physical force means that the victim becomes a thing to the aggressor. that
is not the case in Kierkegaard’s description of seduction. seduction has nothing to
do with physical force or the threat of physical force. in the moment of seduction,
15
SKS 2, 97–8 / EO1, 92–3.
16
SKS 2, 104 / EO1, 101.
17
SKS 2, 102–3 / EO1, 98–9.
18
SKS 2, 295 / EO1, 305.
19
ibid.
20
SKS 2, 351 / EO1, 362.
20 Camilla Sløk
neither the seducer nor the seduced is reduced to a thing. both bear spirit, and both
want each other.21 in Kierkegaard’s text about don Juan, the shame of the seduced is
therefore not that seduction happened, but that she wants it to happen again.22
seduction takes the free will of both participants, and this will is connected to
Kierkegaard’s understanding of spirit. it is spirit that makes physical encounters
(sensuality) become dangerous, and it was Christianity that introduced spirit. it is
therefore Christianity that makes sensuality dangerous and seductive. Kierkegaard
puts it like this: “Sensuality was first posited as a principle, as a power, as an
independent system by Christianity. I could add one more qualification that perhaps
most emphatically shows what I mean: sensuality was placed under the qualification
of spirit first by Christianity.”23
Christianity introduces spirit to the world through Christ, that is, god’s incarnation
in a human body.24 it is the Christian introduction of spirit to humankind that
separates the human being from the sensuous body by means of spirit.25 Christianity
contrasts with greek mythology, in which sensuality was not condemned, since the
body in ancient greek was not viewed as a temple of the spirit. neither eros nor
Hercules seduced their lovers since their sexual acts were psychically, not spiritually,
conditioned.26 both Hercules and eros have agency, but they relate to the objects of
their desire only as objects. they are just “doing their thing” with no regard to the
subjectivity of the object. in this way, they are neither constructive nor destructive.
because they do not relate themselves to others as subjects, they lack spirit.
greek love is not really seductive, for reasons having to do with the greek
understanding of (1) spirit and (2) individuality. according to Kierkegaard, the greeks
had no concept of spirit. Furthermore, the greek focus on individuality means that
the erotic is not perceived as dangerous: the greek individual is always preoccupied
with himself or herself, not with the other. therefore, physical encounters do not
engage the other. physical encounters are rather the individual’s business with
himself. in greek love, there can be no connection to the other through spirit, and
therefore the other poses no danger to the seduced, and the seducer no danger to the
other. seduction cannot take place without spirit and its implicit reciprocal relation
to another.
Kierkegaard notes that the greek god of love, eros, gives what he is not able
to receive himself. The movement flows from Eros to everyone else. He enables
others to fall in love, but is unable to do so himself.27 His giving radiates from him,
and he does not put himself at risk. no relationship is established between eros
and his surroundings. eros does not fall in love, but everyone else is indebted to
him for falling in love. the movement streams from the individual to everybody.
21
SKS 2, 90 / EO1, 85.
22
SKS 2, 104 / EO1, 101.
23
SKS 2, 68 / EO1, 61.
24
SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 63.
25
SKS 2, 68 / EO1, 61.
26
SKS 2, 98 / EO1, 94.
27
SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 63.
Seduction 21
Kierkegaard calls this greek understanding of love the “opposite of a representative
relation.”28
What is spirit? Kierkegaard defines it in various ways in his authorship; however,
in this text on don Juan, spirit is understood as something that creates mutuality.
Kierkegaard gets to this point by noting that Christ and don Juan relate to other
people in similar ways. they both establish relationships by creating mutual bonds
between them and other people. they see another person as someone worth loving
and appreciating without restrictions. or as Kierkegaard says, they both love all,
which means loving any difference and in spite of difference.29 both Christ and don
Juan are also incarnations of body and spirit, however, in reverse ways. according
to Kierkegaard, Don Juan is “the incarnation of the flesh or the inspiration of the
flesh by the spirit of the flesh itself.”30 as for Christ (the incarnation of spirit in the
flesh), Kierkegaard describes this mutuality as follows: “The incarnated individual
imbibes, as it were, power from all the others, and thus the fullness is in that one, and
in the others only insofar as they behold it in this individuality.”31
both Christ and don Juan offer themselves as a gift to the other. giving this gift
is more than a simple relation between two people, it is a ménage a trois: (1) there is
the seducer (the one leading astray), (2) the seduced (the one being led), and (3) the
common desire that makes the whole thing run.
The second type of seduction is exemplified through Faust, whom Kierkegaard
juxtaposes with don Juan. this is also the type of seducer in the “the seducer’s
diary.” Johannes the seducer is similar to Kierkegaard’s description of Faust in
“the immediate stages of the erotic.” the parallel between Johannes and Faust
is that they are incapable of immediacy. They are only capable of “reflection” and
strategizing, yet grow tired of always thinking and planning and never just being
present.32 Johannes and Faust lack the capacity to be just what they are and accept
others as they are. they love in order to change the beloved.
Kierkegaard turns the figure of Faust into a vampire,33 saying that Faust loves the
object so much that he wants to be her, while completely ignoring who she actually
is.34 However, his idea of being her is only inside himself.35 she is not herself in the
way Faust sees her, but somebody else, someone he does not want to see. Faust fails
to love, because he does not love in spite of differences, as don Juan does.
Furthermore, in Kierkegaard’s description of Faust’s fascination with reflection,
Kierkegaard notes that Faust does not actually seek pleasure, but rather distraction.
distraction from what? the answer seems to be distraction from himself and his
thoughts.36 in order to get away from himself, Kierkegaard says, Faust sucks the
blood of a young woman in the (naïve) hope of gaining an immediate relation to
28
ibid.
29
SKS 2, 98, 104 / EO1, 94, 100.
30
SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88.
31
SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 64.
32
SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 56.
33
SKS 2, 202 / EO1, 206.
34
SKS 2, 105 / EO1, 101.
35
SKS 2, 107 / EO1, 105.
36
SKS 2, 202 / EO1, 206.
22 Camilla Sløk
life.37 However, he will never succeed because the whole approach to the matter,
mediated through reflection, is different from Don Juan’s immediacy.
Kierkegaard relates reflection to ethics,38 stating that since don Juan is not using
reflection, that is, consciously planning how to be seductive, he just is desire. He
cannot help it, and therefore he falls outside ethical categories and judgment. While
this is an interpretation that does not agree with mozart’s ending of Don Giovanni,
one has to bear in mind that Kierkegaard is not discussing mozart but rather trying
to explain the sense in which the figure or the essence of don Juan is seductive. in
mozart’s opera, don Juan is eventually condemned. Kierkegaard does not condemn
don Juan.
In several contexts, Kierkegaard construes reflection as being connected to lies
and deceit.39 In this sense, reflection is connected to creating strategies for how
to cheat others, and this is the medium for Faust’s style of seduction.40 However,
Johannes the seducer differs from Faust in this aspect: according to Kierkegaard,
he never made any promises.41 His seduction is much more subtle than that. instead,
Johannes’ seduction works in the following way: (1) he makes Cordelia break her
engagement with edward; (2) he makes her fall in love with him (Johannes); and
(3) he makes her eventually understand, without explicitly expressing it, that she has
to break with him (Johannes). Scheming, reflection and strategy are the tools in this
seduction: a seduction that works destructively on her, because she ends up believing
that she was the one fooled, not him. the destructive element of Johannes’ seduction
is that he makes her lead herself astray within herself.42 this tells of the primarily
spiritual element of seduction: that spirit seduces, but when things go wrong, we
tend to blame others and/or ourselves. However, spirit can also perform an edifying
role. this is Kierkegaard’s point in his discussion of don Juan.
See also Demonic; Desire; Despair; Ethics; Immediacy/Reflection; Love; Moment;

music; spirit; Women.
37
ibid.
38
SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 98.
39
SKS 2, 106 / EO1, 102.
40
Cf. SKS 2, 206 / EO1, 211.
41
SKS 2, 296 / EO1, 307.
42
SKS 2, 297 / EO1, 308.
self
pieter Vos
Self (Selv—noun; selv—pronoun)
substantivized from the pronoun selv, the danish Selv is comparable to the english
“self.” the pronoun selv is often used in conjunction with the reflexive pronoun sig
meaning “oneself.”1 the lexical meaning of the noun is one’s own personality, the
ego, formerly also in the general meaning of (special) personality, character, nature,
individuality.2
Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with the self is rooted in his own personal struggle
to find direction in his life.3 in his early journals, he expresses how he ponders his own
situation as an observer of the human psyche, requiring a split between being himself
and yet becoming another in identifying himself with the one he observes.4 as an
author, Kierkegaard has a contradictory task, for “ ‘self’ signifies…the contradiction
of positing the universal as the particular”5—only when the particular is given can
one speak of a self. at the same time, as soon as one writes conceptually about “the
self” this cannot be accomplished “without again stating it quite generally.”6 in this
sense, the problem of the self touches on the core of Kierkegaard’s authorship as
directed to existential meaning and requiring personal involvement.
the most import explorations of the concept are found in Either/Or, part two,
The Concept of Anxiety, The Sickness unto Death, and several edifying discourses,
which each explore different features of the self. in Either/Or, part two, the self is
characterized by an absolute choice, enabling the transition from aesthetic diversity
to ethical continuity of the self, while the edifying discourses develop a religious
notion of the self “before god.” in The Concept of Anxiety Vigilius Haufniensis
explores the self in terms of a transition related to the phenomenon of anxiety. the
most elaborated conceptual exploration of the self is provided by anti-Climacus in
1
niels Åge nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, 3rd ed., Copenhagen: gyldendal 1976
[1966], p. 327.
2
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–1956, vol. 18, columns 1004–
18; Hermann Vinterberg and C.a. bodelsen, Dansk-Engelsk Ordbog, vols. 1–2, 7th ed.,
Copenhagen: gyldendal 1973 [1954–56], vol. 2, p. 296.
3
SKS 17, 27, aa:12 / KJN 1, 21–2.
4
SKS 17, 205, CC:15 / KJN 1, 196.
5
SKS 4, 381 / CA, 78.
6
ibid.
24 Pieter Vos
The Sickness unto Death, where the concept of the self is developed into a fully-
fledged framework forming the background of his analyses of despair and sin.
in all these works the self is viewed as being structurally dynamic and relational,
basically characterized by the following features: (i) a distinction between an initial
state of the self and a potentiality for development into a deeper self, (ii) an ideal or
goal to be attained, (iii) a conception of the self as structured by bipolar relations
or dichotomies of (a) the physical and the psychical, (b) finitude and infinity,
(c) necessity and possibility, (d) temporality and eternity, including various stages
of actualization and derailments, and (iV) a comprehensive idea of the human
capacities of thought, emotion, will, and imagination as media of development, and
(V) finally a determination of the self as rooted in a transcendent ground. All these
aspects are closely related to each other.
I.
Kierkegaard distinguishes between the initial state of the self and its potentiality
for development into a deeper self. in Either/Or this distinction is made in terms
of the self choosing himself, not in his initial state of immediacy but in his “eternal
validity.”7 by choosing himself, a person makes two dialectical movements
simultaneously. on the one hand, the idea of the absolute makes him qualitatively
different from how he existed before. on the other hand, choosing himself in his
eternal validity does not mean that he becomes someone other than he was before,
but that he becomes himself, that is, that he chooses or, more correctly, receives
himself as someone who existed before as this specific being who he is and no other.8
Similar is the distinction between a “first self” characterized by external conditions
and a “deeper self” which aims to turn the first self away from immediacy and
externality to true self-knowledge.9 in order to acquire a true conception of oneself,
one must be like a teacher in relation to oneself as a learner.10
in the famous opening lines of part one of The Sickness unto Death the distinction
between an initial state of the self and a deeper self is taken up in terms of (a) the
self as “a relation” or synthesis between two elements, such as the psychical and
the physical etc. (self i), and (b) the self as “a relation that relates itself to itself”
(self ii). the former is a relation in the sense of a synthesis, in the literal meaning of
“syn-thesis,” that is, a putting together of two elements without real integration, and
as such it is a “negative unity,” “still not a self” in the ultimate sense. the latter is a
relation “relating itself to itself in this relation,” that is, by this self-relation a third
element is introduced in the initial relations or syntheses which serves as the unity
between the two terms of the synthesis: “this relation is the positive third, and this is
the self.”11 thus, the relation by which the self relates itself to itself (as a relation of
two elements, self i) is a new relation (self ii). put in a slightly different way, “to be
7
SKS 3, 203 / EO2, 211.
8
SKS 3, 172–3, 206–7 / EO2, 177, 215.
9
SKS 5, 306 / EUD, 314.
10
SKS 5, 434 / TD, 60.
11
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
Self 25
a self…is to be a redoubling”12 to make a fundamental choice. this choice does not
consist in choosing either one side of a polarity or the other, but in choosing a unity
of both sides.13 the real self is posited only by a qualitative leap.14
this multi-relational setting makes the self structurally dynamic and open to a
process of development, including all kinds of potential derailments in anxiety and
despair, as well as in selfishness,15 self-deception,16 self-torment,17 and self-love.18
II.
the structurally dynamic nature of the self consists also in the way it develops toward
an ideal or objective. the individual has an “ideal self” as an objective to strive
toward. “every human being is intended to be a self, destined to become himself.”19
This ideal self can be identified as the “deeper self” or “real self” (self II). This
ideal self has to become concrete, that is, an actualization of the ideal in one’s own
existence. Two remarks are in order here, the first concerning the locus of this ideal
self, and the second concerning the (in)ability of its realization.
First, the ideal or objective to be adopted is located both outside the self and
within it. it is outside the self as an external image in whose likeness the self is
to form himself. nevertheless, a person has this ideal also inside himself, for it is
he himself and not someone else he is actualizing. as such, the self has himself as
his task, that is, he has to order, shape and temper himself to create an evenness or
harmony in his soul.20
second, the ideal self is something to strive for as a “far-off goal.”21 this goal
seems to be a vanishing point, for the self is continually in a process of becoming.
the self in potentiality (self ii) does not actually exist, but is that which ought to be
actualized. insofar as the self does not become itself, it is not itself, and in not being
itself it is in despair.22 despair is not rare, but universal in humanity, whether one is
conscious of it or not. However, as anti-Climacus explains, the increasing intensity
of despair corresponds to an increasing consciousness of oneself and a moving away
from being acted upon (passivity) to conscious action (activity) in relation to one’s
self.23
12
SKS 12, 163 / PC, 159.
13
SKS 12, 164–5 / PC, 161.
14
SKS 4, 382 / CA, 79.
15
SKS 4, 380–1 / CA, 78–9; SKS 9, 60 / WL, 53.
16
SKS 4, 458 / CA, 160; SKS 9, 240–1 / WL, 239–40.
17
SKS 10, 79–88 / CD, 70–80.
18
SKS 9, 29, 60 / WL, 23, 53–6.
19
SKS 11, 149 / SUD, 33.
20
SKS 3, 246–50 / EO2, 259–62.
21
SKS 5, 347 / EUD, 361.
22
SKS 11, 146 / SUD, 30.
23
SKS 11, 143–5, 157, 169–73, 181–2, 212 / SUD, 26–9, 42, 55–8, 67–8, 100.
26 Pieter Vos
Kierkegaard rejects all notions of a substantial self, for such theories turn the
self into a possession, a given, rather than a task. the self is always in a process of
becoming. it is the notion of an ideal self that sets this process into motion.
III.
the understanding of the human being as a synthesis of the physical and the psychical,
the finite and the infinite, necessity and possibility, the temporal and the eternal
underlies all of Kierkegaard’s investigations of the self. these polarities belong to
the initial structured state of the self (self i) being bound together in a negative
unity, where the two elements exist in a non-integrated way. the self as a “relation
relating itself to itself” (self ii) consists in the way the initial relation between the
two elements or factors of each polarity relate to each other and to this relation itself.
this can only be accomplished by a third factor making the self “trichotomous,”24
“for a synthesis that is a contradiction cannot be completed as a synthesis without a
third factor.”25 the third factor keeps the two elements together by simultaneously
keeping them apart and not reducing them to each other. However, the normal state
of the self is despair and despair consists in the “misrelation” in the relation of a
synthesis.26
The self is, first of all, a synthesis or relation between the psychical and the
physical with “spirit” as the positive third.27 on the one hand, the spirit disturbs
the initial relation between soul and body, a relation that is not durable, and on the
other hand it is the power that precisely constitutes the relation. many people live in
“spiritlessness,” which anti-Climacus calls the despair that is ignorance of being in
despair and of having a self: “every human being is a psychical-physical synthesis
intended to be spirit; this is the building, but he prefers to live in the basement, that
is, in sensate categories.”28 anxiety marks the transition to a state of consciousness.29
Second, the self is a synthesis of infinitude and finitude whose task it is to
become itself, that is, to become concrete. to become concrete (the third element
in the synthesis) is neither to become finite in the despair of becoming a number, a
mass man, nor to become infinite in the despair of becoming a fantastical, unlimited
“self.” For that which is to become concrete is a synthesis of both infinitude and
finitude.30 “Consequently, the progress of the becoming must be an infinite moving
away from itself in the infinitizing of the self, and an infinite coming back to itself
in the finitizing process.”31
24
Cf. SKS 15, 56 / JC, 169.
25
SKS 4, 388 / CA, 85.
26
SKS 11, 131 / SUD, 15.
27
SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43; SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
28
SKS 11, 158 / SUD, 43.
29
SKS 4, 347, 349, 396–9 / CA, 41, 43–4, 93–6.
30
SKS 11, 146–51 / SUD, 29–35.
31
SKS 11, 146 / SUD, 30.
Self 27
third, possibility and necessity are essential to becoming oneself in freedom,
which is the positive third element.32 the self’s necessity means that there are certain
given features such as race, sex, and nationality, while its possibility indicates that
the self always has the potential for development, choice, and opportunities. the self
is just as possible as it is necessary, for it is initially itself (its necessity as a specific
self), but has the task of becoming itself (its possibility). existence is like breathing,
which is an inhaling (necessity) and an exhaling (possibility).33
the synthesis of the temporal and the eternal is not qualitatively different from
the former syntheses, but a new (religious) expression of the bipolar structure of
the self.34 the third factor bringing the contradictory factors to a synthesis is “the
moment,” the point where time and eternity touch each other.35 the eternal element
of the human self is not a substantial, immortal soul. the changelessness of the
eternal takes the form of continuity in the self, that is, self-identity through change in
temporality. the despair of the eternal consists in the ecstatic upheaval in a heavenly
beatitude without relation to the temporal reality,36 or to will to be oneself by creating
one’s own self instead of taking up one’s given self as a task.37 becoming oneself
eventually means that “through the aid of the eternal the self has the courage to lose
itself in order to win itself.”38
IV.
the capacities of knowledge, emotion, will, and imagination are essential to

the process of becoming oneself. Knowledge is essentially conceived of as self-
knowledge. the truth of the ancient saying γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know yourself) is
acknowledged as the goal of a person’s striving, in the sense of getting to know who
he is.39 the increase of self-knowledge corresponds to the increase of becoming
oneself. Feeling consists in an ability to infinitize, but has to be of such a nature
that one becomes more and more oneself. the most important element is the will,
as a medium of consciousness consisting in the decision to live according to the
conception of the ideal self. the more consciousness, the more will; the more will,
the more self. in becoming oneself the will continually has to become proportionally
as concrete as it is abstract: personally present in a specific task in this very moment
and in infinite purpose and determination. Imagination is a medium for the process
of infinitizing, related to the three reflective capacities of knowing, feeling, and
32
anti-Climacus does not use these terms in a consistent way. sometimes he speaks of
necessity as actuality (SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 36) and of possibility as freedom (SKS 11, 129 /
SUD, 13), and of freedom as actuality (SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 36). What is important is that he
stresses freedom in which becoming oneself is not a necessary but a free process.
33
SKS 11, 151–7 / SUD, 35–42.
34
SKS 4, 392, 394 / CA, 88, 90.
35
SKS 4, 388–92 / CA, 85–8.
36
SKS 5, 326–7 / EUD, 338.
37
SKS 11, 182 / SUD, 68.
38
SKS 11, 181 / SUD, 67
39
SKS 3, 246 / EO2, 258; SKS 4, 382 / CA, 79.
28 Pieter Vos
willing. It represents the possibility of reflection, and the intensity of this medium is
the possibility of the intensity of the self.40
the process of becoming oneself also includes self-examination,41 self-concern,42
and self-denial,43 as specific manifestations of these capacities.
V.
Finally, the self is rooted in a transcendent ground. the self must either have
established itself or have been established by another. anti-Climacus concludes that
the self can only be an established relation, for it has not created itself. as such, the
self not only has to relate itself to itself, but also to that which established the entire
relational self.44 In respect to this final aspect of the relational concept of the self it
is possible to define the ideal self as “the state of the self when despair is completely
rooted out,” that is, “in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests
transparently in the power that established it,” which is identified as God.45
eventually, the concept of the self is related to god and Christ, for there is no true
conception of the self without a corresponding conception of god.46 the reason is
that one cannot create one’s own self.47 The ethicist qualifies the process of becoming
oneself as repentance “until he finds himself in God.”48 repentance is needed, for
only when one acknowledges oneself as guilty does one choose oneself absolutely.
religiously speaking, the self has to be turned away from the external in order to
understand in profound self-knowledge that he is “not capable of anything at all.”49 it
is impossible to overcome oneself by oneself. the self must “become nothing before
god”50 in order to rest in god “who is capable of all things.”51 to need god in this
way is the self’s highest perfection.52
See also Anthropology; Anxiety; Choice; Despair; Finitude/Infinity; Freedom;

individual; moment; personality; spirit; time/temporality/eternity; Will.
40
SKS 11, 145–8 / SUD, 29–32.
41
SKS 10, 308 / CD, 287–8.
42
SKS 10, 199–200 / CD, 189–90.
43
SKS 12, 209 / PC, 213.
44
SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14.
45
SKS 11, 130, 164, 242 / SUD, 14, 49, 131.
46
SKS 5, 437 / TD, 63; SKS 11, 155, 193, 225–6 / SUD, 40, 79, 113–14; SKS 12, 163–4
/ PC, 160.
47
SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 215.
48
SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 216.
49
SKS 5, 310 / EUD, 319.
50
SKS 5, 354 / EUD, 369.
51
SKS 5, 309–10 / EUD, 318. Cf. SKS 11, 185 / SUD, 71.
52
SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 326.
self-deception
Claudia Welz
Self-deception (Selvbedrag—noun; bedrage sig selv—verb; selvbedragen, selv-

bedragersk—adjective; den Selvbedragne—adjective-derived noun)
according to its lexical meaning, the danish word Selvbedrag denotes one’s being-
embroiled in an illusion brought about by oneself.1 the phenomenon of self-deception
is described both in pseudonymous works and in texts published under the name
“søren Kierkegaard,” as well as in private notes. the most frequent references can
be found in Works of Love, followed by Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits,
Stages on Life’s Way, and in the writings contained in the posthumously published
volume titled The Book on Adler.
Kierkegaard’s idiosyncratic use of the concept of self-deception is fairly
consistent throughout his writings and can be characterized with the help of five
questions: (1) How is self-deception defined, and how is it distinguishable from
similar phenomena? (2) Which concrete figures or examples of self-deception
are mentioned? (3) What are the social contexts in which self-deception arises?
(4) Which personal attitudes and activities support self-deception? (5) How can self-
deception be prevented or cured, if this is possible?
I. Definition
As to the definition of “self-deception,” Kierkegaard equates it with insincerity

or dishonesty (Uredelighed) and distinguishes it from hypocrisy: “the hypocrite
can give himself good account of his dishonesty, but the self-deceived person is
bewildered”—without being blamelessly in bewilderment about himself.2 Further,
Kierkegaard connects self-deception with a certain “ignorance of oneself” (Uvidenhed
om sig selv), which is due to one’s being ensnared and fortified by the multifarious
and to one’s “double-mindedness” (Tvesindethed).3 by contrast, the opposite of “self-
deception” is the purity of heart to will one thing: the good.4
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 18, column 1022.
2
SKS 27, 415, papir 369 / JP 1, 654.
3
SKS 8, 138 / UD, 23.
4
SKS 8, 138 / UD, 25.
30 Claudia Welz
For Kierkegaard, despair is double-mindedness, having two wills,5 and in
The Sickness unto Death, despair is understood as a universal sickness. How is
it possible, then, that many persons do not become aware of their state of mind?
Kierkegaard’s answer is that they lack self-knowledge because they do not want to
know themselves. thus, despair can hide itself within a human being. one can in a
sense produce the ignorance about oneself by darkening one’s consciousness. the
self-deceiver indulges in evasive activities in order to sink the soul into darkness
(for at sænke Sjælen i Dunkelhed).6 Kierkegaard emphasizes that the agent “is not,
in a deeper sense, clearly conscious of what he is doing” because there is “indeed
in all darkness and ignorance a dialectical interplay between knowing and willing.”7
self-deception is not a deliberate action, but nonetheless it is not innocent. rather, it
is due to people’s efforts “to obscure” their knowing.8 if the will does not agree with
what one knows, it simply allows some time to elapse, until eventually, knowing and
willing “agree completely, for now knowing has come over to the side of willing
and admits that what it wants is absolutely right.”9 then one has convinced oneself
that one does the right thing and forgets that the “corruption of willing” affects one’s
consciousness.10 therefore, self-deception can only be discovered by oneself in
retrospect—or be diagnosed by another from the observer’s point of view.
II. Figures
As to figures exemplifying self-deception, Kierkegaard refers, for instance, to the

apostle paul. according to the upbuilding discourse “the thorn in the Flesh,”
Paul was wounded by a recollection festering in the flesh like a thorn, namely, the
memory of the screams of the persecuted and the misery of the prisoners at the time
paul spoke against the Christians. “surely paul thought that his zeal was an ardor
pleasing to god—oh, but precisely this, this having to catch himself or be caught in
a self-deception such as that, and consequently having to repent of what he regarded
as pleasing to god…!”11 the end of his self-deception, which was initiated by the
vision of Christ asking paul why he persecuted him, implied a revaluation of his
deeds.
Another figure that, in Kierkegaard’s view, remained self-deceived was Magister
adler. adler burned his Hegelian manuscripts in order to show that he had broken
with Hegelian philosophy, but “deceived by this striking outer decision, he has
achieved the result that in self-deception it is concealed from him that he continues to
be a Hegelian.”12 adler deceived himself unconsciously, solemnly maintaining that
he had a revelation and then, à la Hegel, explaining that a revelation is unthinkable,
5
SKS 8, 144 / UD, 30.
6
SKS 11, 162 / SUD, 47.
7
SKS 11, 163 / SUD, 47.
8
SKS 11, 201 / SUD, 88.
9
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 94.
10
SKS 11, 208 / SUD, 95.
11
SKS 5, 330 / EUD, 341.
12
SKS 15, 258 / BA, 102.
Self-Deception 31
without even noticing the discrepancy.13 Kierkegaard criticizes adler’s exaggerated
expression of his inner decision, which he compares with a drunkard who, after
having resolved to drink no more, throws the bottle and the glass out of the window,
rather than just quietly ceasing to drink.14
III. Social Contexts
Kierkegaard claims that self-deception is a common but overlooked phenomenon

that manifests itself “within the daily situations of life…where the illusions are at
home.”15 Kierkegaard observes that people do not have “a socratic fear of being
deceived by themselves,”16 while socrates thought that self-deception was the worst
of all since the deceiver follows one everywhere.17 as to the social contexts in which
self-deception arises, Kierkegaard mentions, for example, the way death is spoken
of:
almost universally you will hear it said nowadays that a quick and sudden death is to
be desired….in respect to what is over in a moment, it may very well be best at times
to close one’s eyes and leap—but with regard to the beginning of what is longer than
anything else—eternity—there the prudential leap is not only foolishness but the most
appalling self-deception.18
in Works of Love, Kierkegaard outlines untrue love relations in which one person
adores the other in an exclusive relation, both of them forgetting god commanding
to love every person as one’s neighbor.19 as Kierkegaard sees it, to love another
person as god is to deceive oneself, and to allow another person to love one as god
is to deceive this other person.20 The opposite extreme is a proud and self-satisfied
accusation (“people are accused of not being worth loving”21), which only displays
the accusers’ self-deceptive lack of love, through which they lose love’s intrinsic
blessedness. “no, no, in connection with true love, there is only one deception
possible in time and in eternity—self-deception, or giving up love.”22
Further, Kierkegaard points to the danger of self-deception surfacing in
promising, for the promise can prevent one from immediately beginning the task,
and it can make one rest “satisfied in the delusion of being finished” before one
actually has indulged in the task.23 regarding the parable in matthew 21:28–31,
Kierkegaard criticizes the brother who says yes, but does not do what he says: “a no
13
Cf. SKS 15, 259 / BA, 103.
14
SKS 15, 257–8. / BA, 101.
15
Cf. SKS 9, 127 / WL, 124.
16
SKS 8, 14 / TA, 10.
17
Cf. plato, Cratylus 428d.
18
SKS 27, 362–3, papir 340:16 / JP 1, 717.
19
Cf. SKS 9, 128 / WL, 112.
20
Cf. SKS 9, 112 / WL, 108.
21
SKS 9, 158 / WL, 157.
22
SKS 9, 245 / WL, 244.
23
SKS 9, 103 / WL, 98–9.
32 Claudia Welz
does not hide anything, but a yes very easily becomes an illusion, a self-deception,
which of all difficulties is perhaps the most difficult to overcome.”24
IV. Personal Attitudes and Activities
as to personal attitudes and activities supporting self-deception, Kierkegaard

mentions defiance, pride, forgetfulness, mendacity, and falsehood when discussing
the question of how to cope with the loss of something precious or someone close
to one’s heart.25 in the discourse “on the occasion of a Confession,” he warns, for
example, of seductive security, impatience, illusionary hope, wild resolution, self-
admiration, the comparison with others, thoughtlessness, and wanting to shove the
guilt upon someone else instead of taking it upon oneself. “to have found consolation
with another and then to discover that it was a self-deception, a fraudulent stillness,
and therefore to have to begin with more unrest!”26
in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, where Kierkegaard disapproves of the
monastic movement insofar as it shows contempt for the world, “interiority without
outwardness” is designated as “the most difficult interiority, in which self-deception
is easiest.”27 this is so because the withdrawal or isolation from others might
conceal one’s need for self-correction, which might be provoked by others’ critical
judgment. in The Moment, no. 7, Kierkegaard holds that “spiritually understood,
the human being in his natural state is sick, he is in error, in a self-deception”; the
poet is characterized as a deceiver who “relates himself only to the imagination” in
depicting the good, the beautiful, the noble, etc., thereby remaining “at the distance
of imagination from actuality.”28 Yet, if people reject poetry without having a higher
passion, they “go astray in half-baked ideas and are made happy in fancies and self-
delusions,” thereby becoming “the promising [lovende] and prevaricating [lyvende]
generation without parallel.”29 Self-deception flourishes in escapism. In addition, it
flourishes also in “foolish conceit” where the self-deceived is proud of being in a
delusion: “What is more difficult—to awaken someone who is sleeping or to awaken
someone who, awake, is dreaming that he is awake?”30
However, humility can be just as misleading as pride. Kierkegaard finds fault
with people who, face to face with a power and with contemporaries, do not want to
be an “i” but pull in their antennae and become the third person, the public, the they.
“They fill their lives with all sorts of things, imagine that they are really involved
with God, flatter themselves that they have not ventured farther out because they are
so humble….no, my friend, it is self-deception.”31 moreover, people read the bible,
24
SKS 9, 99 / WL, 94.
25
Cf. the upbuilding discourse “the lord gave, and the lord took away; blessed be
the name of the lord,” in Four Upbuilding Discourses (1843): SKS 5, 123 / EUD, 117–18.
26
SKS 5, 417 / TD, 39.
27
SKS 7, 369 / CUP1, 406.
28
SKS 13, 281 / M, 225.
29
SKS 6, 378–9 / SLW, 408.
30
SKS 9, 14 / WL, 6–7. as to the danger of pride, see also SKS 6, 295 / SLW, 317.
31
SKS 26, 139, nb32:31 / JP 2, 2075.
Self-Deception 33
but deceive themselves when not acting according to god’s word, but nonetheless
think that there is no problem as far as they are concerned;32 or when admiring instead
of imitating Christ, not letting their lives express what they admire.33 although
they might think they have gained knowledge about themselves, this is still self-
deception.34 it would also be self-deception to think that one could contribute even
the slightest to gaining the forgiveness of sins. this would be “a deplorable self-
deception of the deceitful heart.”35
V. Prevention or Cure
if the human heart itself is the cause and condition of self-deception, is it, then,
possible to prevent or cure self-deception? “if i were a pagan i would say that an
ironical deity had bestowed the gift of speech upon man in order to amuse himself
by watching this self-deception. by language man distinguishes himself from the
animal, the dumb beast—but perhaps the dumb beast still has the advantage, at least
it is not—cheated [narret] or does not cheat itself out of the highest.”36 given that
self-deception in the sense of making a fool of oneself (at narre sig selv) is tied to
language, which can be used for telling lies, it is improbable that humans can free
themselves from it. Yet, Kierkegaard assumes that “life at god’s direction” can cast a
person out to be strengthened in a form of self-annihilation “that knows no delusion,
permits no evasion, occasions no self-deception, as if he would be capable of more
under other circumstances,” thereby precluding even pretense.37
divine intervention is also described by Frater taciturnus in Stages on Life’s Way.
He did not want to have “association with what is cosmeticized or self-deluding [det
Selvbedragerske],” but, admitting that he has become “a prisoner in the appearance
[Skin]” he wanted to conjure up, he concludes: “governance has made me captive.
the idea of my existence was proud; now i am crushed.”38 Kierkegaard wants us
to consider our own lives, for “the presence of the omniscient one makes self-
deception impossible.”39 Whether self-deception is excluded by god’s presence
alone, or by the individual’s consciousness of god’s presence, remains an open
question.
Kierkegaard’s deliberations point to the latter. the “self-deluding game,” in
which the demand of discipleship is replaced by admiration “in the safe coziness of
the living room,” can be stopped only when Christ’s life is taken as the example.40
Further, prayer might help to achieve (or at least express the longing to achieve) the
purity of heart that is lost in self-deception. Kierkegaard invites the Holy spirit—
32
Cf. SKS 13, 60 / FSE, 32.
33
SKS 12, 236 / PC, 243.
34
Cf. SKS 5, 172 / EUD, 173.
35
SKS 12, 271 / WA, 157.
36
SKS 26, 310, nb33:61 / JP 1, 89.
37
SKS 5, 302 / EUD, 309.
38
SKS 6, 326 / SLW, 350–1.
39
SKS 8, 223 / UD, 122.
40
SKS 12, 236–7 / PC, 243–4.
34 Claudia Welz
the “Spirit of Truth” who lives “in our self-deception”—to stay in his “filthy and
foolish and cheating heart.”41
to summarize, it is noteworthy that, throughout his writings, Kierkegaard not
only uses the term “self-deception” in the sense of an “illusion”42 or an intellectual
confusion, but also to indicate a form of “dishonesty”43 that reflects the corruption of
the will—a dishonesty for which one is accountable and which might have terrible
consequences for one’s fellow human beings. as he writes:
there is nothing more dangerous than the thief passing himself off as a policeman,
nothing more dangerous than a radical cure miscarrying and contributing to the disease,
nothing more dangerous than being stuck in something and saying: now i will make a
desperate extreme effort to get loose—and then by this attempt proceeding to get all the
more stuck.44
in Kierkegaard’s view, the reason why unconscious and conscious self-deception is so

common is that the modern age lacks what he calls “naïveté”45 or “primitivity.”46 the
category of the individual has been abolished and replaced with the generation. this,
in turn, has given rise to unrest, bewilderment, and dishonesty, since the individual
can no longer get an impression of himself or herself, but lives by adaptation and
comparison.47 What is needed is not just the consciousness of being a singular
individual before god, who sees through one’s deceptive heart and can transform
it, but faithful love48 and “an honest earnestness [redelig Alvor] that fearlessly and
incorruptively points to the tasks” and lovingly maintains them.49
see also despair; earnestness; Hypocrisy; primitivity; truth; Will.
41
SKS 23, 17–18, nb15:16 / JP 3, 3445.
42
see also SKS 4, 187 / FT, 97.
43
see also SKS 4, 438 / CA, 138.
44
SKS 27, 416–17, papir 369 / JP 1, 654.
45
ibid.
46
ibid.
47
ibid.
48
SKS 6, 356 / SLW, 384.
49
SKS 4, 208 / FT, 121.
sickness
Jakub marek
Sickness (Sygdom—noun; syg—adjective)
From the old danish syk-, syuk-, siukdom, old norse sjúkdómr. the lexical meaning
of the danish word is the state of being sick or the suffering induced by this state.
it is ordinarily used in the sense of a poor state of health or also in the sense of
being in an abnormal state, especially for emotional reasons. sickness also has the
meaning of a weakness or oddity in a person’s character.1
I.
Kierkegaard makes the most abundant use of the word “sickness” in the
pseudonymously published The Sickness unto Death. Yet the concept of sickness,
especially of the biblical (John 11:4) “sickness unto death” (Sygdommen til Døden),
is also used frequently elsewhere in Kierkegaard’s corpus, notably in the edifying
discourses published under his own name such as Three Discourses on Imagined
Occasions and Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Kierkegaard disregards
sickness in the sense of a bodily illness. the sickness he deals with is solely the
sickness of spirit (or of the self and also of the soul).2
there is, according to Kierkegaard, no immediate health of the spirit.3 everyday
distinctions between health and sickness are meaningless because only eternal
happiness is true health.4 life itself is not the true life, but merely the entry into
life5—this life is neither life, nor death, but a sickness,6 the sickness unto death.7
it is in this sense that Kierkegaard uses the metaphor of sickness to characterize
the human condition. “this means and has its basis in the fact that the condition
of man, regarded as spirit…is always critical.”8 Kierkegaard’s frequent picture
1
2
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13; SKS 5, 406 / TD, 26; SKS 10, 114 / CD, 102.
3
SKS 11, 141 / SUD, 25.
4
SKS 10, 166 / CD, 159.
5
SKS 12, 119 / PC, 111; SKS 5, 393 / TD, 12.
6
SKS 8, 298 / UD, 202.
7
SKS 5, 263 / EUD, 267; SKS 5, 393 / TD, 12; SKS 7, 442 / CUP1, 448; SKS 8, 430 /
UD, 340.
8
SKS 11, 140 / SUD, 25.
36 Jakub Marek
capturing his view of the human being’s critical situation is the “sickbed” (Sygeleje),9
or even the “deathbed” (Dødsleje),10 which is life. this fundamental sickness, this
universal sickness of humankind is, as will be discussed below, synonymous with sin
(Synd).11 Kierkegaard offers no disinterested account of the sickness, but stresses the
role of Christianity as “upbuilding”12 and healing, of eternity, which is the only cure
for this sickness,13 and of the human being’s need for god as the only physician.14
II.
in his textual corpus, Kierkegaard identifies sickness with different particular states
and situations. First, in his doctoral thesis, The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard
discusses various forms of irony and, among them, irony as a purely negative stance
that is incapable of any truly self-sustained existence. Kierkegaard likens the ironist
to a vampire who sucks the blood of the living.15 irony is a sickness when it sees
the absolute only as nothing, when it fails to grasp other forms of the absolute. but
irony is also, on the other hand, health, as it breaks the individual free from relative
relations.16
Judge William, the principal pseudonymous author of Either/Or, part two,
elaborates on the one-sidedness and over-zealousness of the mystic as sickness.17
this aspect is further developed and more generally interpreted by William as the
sickness of ingenuity and falseness.18 the state of sickness is always understood as
this fundamental discrepancy between appearance and inwardness, as a fundamental
misrelation (Misforhold).19
melancholy or depression (Melancholi, Tungsind) is Kierkegaard’s primary
expression of the sickness in his so-called “aesthetic” production. in the most
mundane sense there is the sickness of melancholic unhappy love. the characters of
Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works often experience unhappy love (for example,
Quidam in Stages on Life’s Way20) or unhappiness as such.21 Yet melancholy is the
fundamental sickness of the aesthetic characters portrayed by Kierkegaard, who
are unable to embrace their deeper nature successfully.22 their sickness seems to
9
SKS 11, 118 / SUD, 5; SKS 5, 185 / EUD, 181; SKS 10, 176 / CD, 164.
10
SKS 5, 305–6 / EUD, 316.
11
Cf. SKS 5, 337 / EUD, 349.
12
SKS 11, 117 / SUD, 5.
13
SKS 10, 145 / CD, 135.
14
SKS 12, 22 / PC, 11–12.
15
SKS 1, 110, 112 / CI, 49, 51–2. Cf. SKS 15, 264 / BA, 108.
16
SKS 1, 136 / CI, 77–8.
17
SKS 3, 236 / EO2, 246–7.
18
Cf. SKS 3, 44 / EO2, 37.
19
SKS 11, 131 / SUD, 15.
20
SKS 6, 197 / SLW, 211.
21
Cf. the essay “unhappiest one” read before the Συμπαρανεκρωμένοι in Either/Or,
part one (SKS 2, 211–23 / EO1, 217–30).
22
Cf. SKS 4, 348 / CA, 43; SKS 6, 363 / SLW, 391.
Sickness 37
alienate them from the world;23 they suffer from the incompatibility of ideality
and actuality.24 melancholy, as a sickness, feeds on possibility and has its seat in
fantasy.25 Kierkegaard eventually reveals this “fashionable sickness” (depression—
Tungsind)26 to be a loathing for existence.27 melancholy is, in truth, the inability to
be oneself, a sickness, a sin, even the sin instar omnium and the mother of all sins.28
anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of The Sickness unto Death, famously
elaborates the conception of despair (Fortvivlelse): “if there is to be any question
of a sickness unto death in the strictest sense, it must be a sickness of which the
end is death and death is the end. this is precisely what despair is.”29 despair is the
sickness of neither life nor death. it is, yet again, a situation when one cannot get rid
of oneself30 or one cannot be oneself; it is the sickness of the self, of spirit.31
the anthropology of Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death understands spirit
(or the human self), as the positive third in the human being’s synthesis of dualities
(soul–body, eternity–temporality, finitude–infinitude, possibility–necessity). This
positive third is then the actual self-relation of the synthesis’ relation between its
binary constituents. according to anti-Climacus, the sickness is a misrelation of this
self-relation and hence the sickness of the self, of the spirit.32
There are three distinct forms of this sickness. The first one is called “the despair
that is ignorant of being despair, or the despairing ignorance of having a self and
an eternal self”33 and is the first and most common form of despair.34 even though
one is ignorant of one’s despair, one nonetheless suffers from despair, and this
ignorance stands in the way of the possibility of healing the sickness. it is precisely
this ignorance that constitutes such an individual’s sickness.35
the next two forms are “in despair not to will to be oneself” and “in despair to
will to be oneself.”36 they both essentially express the same underlying will to get
rid of oneself and, even more importantly, to tear oneself from god.37 despair, as the
sickness unto death, is the fundamental inability to submit or obey. anti-Climacus
discerns the various forms of this sickness: when the human being wants to create
himself, to posit himself, to reshape himself in his own image, in disregard and
defiance of God.
23
SKS 2, 155, 295–6 / EO1, 156–7, 306.
24
SKS 15, 55 / JC, 168.
25
SKS 6, 363 / SLW, 391.
26
SKS 5, 456 / TD, 87.
27
SKS 5, 418, 422 / TD, 40, 46–7.
28
SKS 3, 183 / EO2, 189.
29
SKS 11, 133 / SUD, 17.
30
SKS 11, 134 / SUD, 18.
31
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
32
Cf. SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14.
33
SKS 11, 157 / SUD, 42.
34
SKS 11, 160 / SUD, 45.
35
Cf. SKS 4, 396–9 / CA, 93–6; SKS 11, 157–62 / SUD, 42–7.
36
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13. Cf. SKS 8, 157 / UD, 44–5.
37
SKS 11, 136 / SUD, 20.
38 Jakub Marek
III.
the sickness then is sin. We have already seen that melancholy was regarded as sin
and now anti-Climacus, in similar formulations, expresses his view of despair as
being sin. through anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard elaborates his position that sin is the
intensification of despair; it is the unwillingness to be oneself before God.38
being “before god” it is a position as opposed to a negation. sin is no mere
“sickness” in the sense of a superficial modality; it is no “abnormality” or “poison.”39
it is the fundamental state of the human being.40 in sin, every connection to the
human being’s original good creation has been annulled.41
this sickness is the result of the human being’s own free choice, it is not his
nature.42 Vigilius Haufniensis, the pseudonymous author of the The Concept of
Anxiety, argued that not only adam, but every single individual, sins from his or
her free will.43 the continuation of one’s sinful state is also a free action—and to be
in this state means exactly to sin; it is, as such, a new sin.44 this sickness is, as the
result of original sin, the universal state of human beings. only true Christians are
exceptions to this universality.45
even though we have distinguished between individual forms or phenomena
of the sickness, there is only one sickness of the spirit.46 this is this fundamental
sickness of not being able to recognize one’s position before god, of not willing to
be oneself, to be the one god created.
IV.
Kierkegaard not only identifies this sickness of spirit with sin and with despair
or melancholy, but more importantly he also aims at drawing the attention of his
readers to the problem of sickness (sin) and to the possibility of a cure (faith). His
work centers on the problem of becoming a Christian.47 this is the edifying aspect
of his writings, which results in the peculiar relation of indirect communication with
his reader: communication that is designed to help the reader to become a Christian.
As the first task, Kierkegaard must help his reader understand or uncover his or
her sickness. Kierkegaard probes the reader’s inwardness and searches for where
exactly he or she suffers.48 it is the terrifying (Forfærdelse) which is edifying.49
38
SKS 11, 191 / SUD, 77.
39
SKS 4, 323 / CA, 15.
40
Cf. SKS 11, 209–12 / SUD, 96–100.
41
Cf. SKS 4, 131–2, 148–9 / R, 9–10, 25–6; SKS 7, 188, 500 / CUP1, 205–6, 550.
42
SKS 11, 131–2 / SUD, 16.
43
Cf. Chapter i of The Concept of Anxiety.
44
SKS 11, 132, 217 / SUD, 17, 105.
45
SKS 11, 138 / SUD, 22.
46
SKS 12, 73 / PC, 61.
47
Cf. SKS 7, 336–50 / CUP1, 369–81; SKS 12, 77–8 / PC, 65–6.
48
SKS 6, 247 / SLW, 265.
49
SKS 10, 108 / CD, 96; SKS 5, 321 / EUD, 331.
Sickness 39
unfortunately, this sickness is usually hidden,50 and one must first learn about one’s
sickness (that one is sick with it) and learn about its danger, about what to fear and
what not to fear.51 Kierkegaard makes an attempt at communicating the appropriate
mood corresponding to the problem at hand.52 one must become aware of one’s
sickness, and thus one’s despair must “declare itself.”53 “and yet anxiety comes over
me, as if i still did not understand what someday i would come to understand, as if
the horror i was reading about was waiting for me, as if by reading about it i brought
it upon myself, just as one becomes ill with the sickness one reads about.”54
this sickness is only understood correctly from the viewpoint of dogmatics and
there is no immediate human understanding of sin, the understanding of which is
only facilitated through revelation and faith.55 only eternity, in the sense of restoring
man’s original state by god’s grace, is the cure. only in god lies the cure.56 in this
sense, it is faith which cures the sickness: “Faith is: that the self in being itself
and in willing to be itself rests transparently in god.”57 anti-Climacus’ special
formulation of faith puts it in direct opposition to despair (or sin), so that in faith, one
re-establishes the appropriate relation to oneself and then also one’s relation to god.
Yet ultimately it must be god who cures the individual. in his other work, Practice in
Christianity, anti-Climacus pictures this whole movement of curing the sickness as
being divided into two sections: one must become truly oneself and then one might
be cured by god.58 it is a twofold movement, coming from the human being himself
and at the same time coming from god as the savior. Yet this cure might sometimes
seem to the sick person to be even worse than the sickness.59 What is more, often one
thinks that one is doing well when the sickness is the worst.60
V.
“the possibility of this sickness,” anti-Climacus explains, “is man’s superiority over
the animal; to be aware of this sickness is the Christian’s superiority over the natural
man; to be cured of this sickness is the Christian’s blessedness.”61 even so, it is
always regarded as a sickness, never the cure.62 this means that the sickness should
not be viewed in the sense of a felix culpa. it is the worst misfortune of a person
50
SKS 11, 143 / SUD, 27.
51
SKS 8, 157 / UD, 44–5. Cf. SKS 5, 200 / EUD, 198; SKS 8, 181 / UD, 73.
52
Cf. SKS 4, 321–4 / CA, 14–17.
53
SKS 11, 135 / SUD, 19–20.
54
SKS 4, 74 / R, 206.
55
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 95. Cf. SKS 4, 317–31 / CA, 9–24.
56
Cf. SKS 5, 457 / TD, 88.
57
SKS 11, 196 / SUD, 82. see also SKS 11, 164, 242 / SUD, 49, 131.
58
SKS 12, 163 / PC, 159–60.
59
Cf. SKS 12, 118 / PC, 110, SKS 8, 156 / UD, 44–5.
60
SKS 8, 128 / UD, 13.
61
SKS 11, 131 / SUD, 15.
62
SKS 11, 118 / SUD, 6.
40 Jakub Marek
never to have the sickness,63 but this only suggests that without truly despairing
(that is, acknowledging one’s sickness) there is no hope—this full awareness of the
sickness is the first step towards faith.64 the sickness is, and remains, sin, the loss of
innocence,65 and there is no passage leading through sin—one can only back away
from it.66
to summarize, throughout Kierkegaard’s work “sickness” is the catchword
used to capture the universal human condition, earthly life as a critical situation,
as sin. Kierkegaard portrays this sickness in its particular appearances: in the form
of melancholy, or the depressed loathing for existence, and in the form of despair,
or the unwillingness to be oneself or to accept one’s individual existence. Yet this
sickness is, above all, sin; it is the position taken up by the human being before god,
it is the human being’s fall from him. Kierkegaard aims to help his readers to cure the
sickness and, in this respect, first helps them to understand and uncover the sickness
they suffer from. Yet only god is the physician who cures the sickness. the sickness
is unto death and is never to be regarded as cure, as a felix culpa.
see also despair; irony; melancholy; salvation/eternal Happiness; self; sin; spirit.
63
SKS 11, 142 / SUD, 26.
64
SKS 11, 228 / SUD, 116.
65
Cf. SKS 4, 343 / CA, 37.
66
SKS 10, 113–14 / CD, 102–3.
silence
Alejandro González Contreras
Silence (Stilhed—noun; Taushed—noun; lydløs—adjective)
From middle High german Stillheit, the danish Stilhed was defined in the nineteenth
century by the latin terms conticinium, silentium, tranquillitas, taciturnitas.1 From
the german word Stillheit, danish derives the adjective stille and the noun Stille,
both meaning tranquility, quietness, repose. the danish lexical meaning in the
nineteenth century presents “silence” in several senses. one meaning relates to the
cessation of movement and a return to calmness. a second is the absence of sound
or a pause in language when no other noise is heard. a third meaning stands for
secrecy, the interior life reflecting introversion. Finally, there is a sense of inactivity
or idleness.2 the adjective “silent” (lydløs) comes from the german lautlos. the
concept of “silence” is presented in at least two danish terms used synonymously by
Kierkegaard: Stilhed and Taushed.
the use of the word “silence” is more frequent in the edifying discourses, the
journals and papers and other texts written under Kierkegaard’s name than in his
pseudonymous works. in the pseudonymous works the most frequent use of the
word “silence” is in Stages on Life’s Way, followed by Either/Or and then Fear
and Trembling. under søren Kierkegaard’s signature, the word “silence” appears
most often in the discourse The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air, where
silence plays a fundamental role. the next most frequent occurrences of “silence”
are in the newspaper articles published between 1854 and 1855 and in the upbuilding
discourses from 1843 and 1844.
The first thing to point out is that silence is aligned with inwardness and is
therefore spiritual.3 For Kierkegaard, fundamental silence is a necessity for the
existing individual, especially in relation to god: “silence in the relationship to god
is invigorating; absolute silence would be like a lever or the point outside the world
of which archimedes speaks. talking about one’s god-relationship is an emptying
that weakens.”4 Silence is reflexive and its reflection seals the infinite movement that
1
matthias lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vols. 1–3, leipzig: Verlag
von Hirzel 1869–78, vol. 2, pp. 1195–7.
2
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 21, columns 1345–7
(Stilhed). see also vol. 23, columns 878–9 (Taushed), and vol. 13, columns 165–6 (lydløs).
3
see SKS 7, 273 / CUP1, 299–300.
4
SKS 26, 315, nb34:2a / JP 4, 3988 (translation modified).
42 Alejandro González Contreras
produces the existence of the ideal: from immediacy, from external circumstances
back to silence, in an elliptical trajectory where conscience returns to itself.
silence is not only inwardness, but it also has a strong tie with secrecy and its need
for remaining out of sight. the secret might be revealed by dint of subjective passion,
bursting out unstoppably; but waiting in silence is required to preserve the subjective
experience, for just as the secret dies precisely in the instant it is revealed, so too
does subjective experience become ridiculous when set into the fixed categories of
objectivity. in silence there are no categories either to learn or to display intellectual
argument. “the poet says: speech is the human being’s advantage over the animal—
yes, quite true, if he is able to be silent.” 5 if silence maintains its concealed character
it becomes a source of never-ending power:
When amor left psyche he said to her: You will give birth to a divine child if you keep
silent, a mere human if you betray the secret. every human being who knows how to
keep silent becomes a divine child, for in silence there is concentration upon his divine
origin; he who speaks remains a human being. How many know how to keep silent, how
many understand what it means simply to be silent.6
there are certain human attitudes of withdrawal or isolation that serve human
beings to continue their own personal quest: “Only by being silent does one find
the moment. When one speaks, if one says merely a single word, one misses the
moment—the moment is only in silence.”7 man can only discover himself in silence,
just as he can only be understood in silence: “silence is the way of interiorization for
us ordinary human beings.”8
one important opposite of Kierkegaard’s concept of silence is chatter—the
social garrulousness, gossip and empty talk that forms the object of his sharp social
critique of the press and public opinion. in chatter, individual integrity is lost as
the anonymous machinery of the mob takes over. as such, chatter is an enemy of
ethical-religious life and silence is its prime antidote.
Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms offer a lucid manifestation of the importance of
silence to him. the names Johannes de silentio, Frater taciturnus, and Victor eremita
all contain terms for silence or solitude (implying silence), while the names of
Johannes Climacus and Vigilius Haufniensis allude to monastic life with its implicit
rules of silence and spiritual exercises conducted in silence. “in this very silence it is
clear how close god is to you. the two lovers are so close to each other that as long
as the other is alive the one cannot be devoted to someone else without despising the
other; therein lies what there is of an either/or in this relationship.”9
For Kierkegaard, the pseudonyms are characters distinct from the actual author
and his reputation, who share with the reader the text’s mysteries. Kierkegaard
stands aside as an authoritative figure to the reader and, in silence, leaves the reader
to develop his or her own subjectivity. His method of indirect communication is
5
SKS 11, 18 / WA, 13.
6
SKS 18, 154, JJ:39 / JP 4, 3978.
7
SKS 11, 20 / WA, 14.
8
Pap. Vii–2 b 261 / JP 4, 3981.
9
SKS 11, 28 / WA, 23.
Silence 43
designed to communicate ethical-religious capacity, by drawing out the potential
that lies within the reader.10
the spiritual person does not discover god in the immediacy of the outer
world, because god is only reached by plunging into one’s unique psychological
subjectivity, in a journey of self-discovery. When finally the individual reaches the
peak of this understanding, he or she then becomes aware of existence for himself or
herself; this is recognition of existential responsibility.
there is another mechanism by which silence operates that Vigilius Haufniensis
analyzes in The Concept of Anxiety:
there is a rarely used method that can be applied against such a person, namely, silence
and the power of the eye. if an inquisitor has the required physical strength and the
spiritual elasticity to endure without moving a muscle, to endure even for sixteen
hours, he will succeed, and the confession will burst forth involuntarily. a man with
a bad conscience cannot endure silence. If placed in solitary confinement, he becomes
apathetic. but this silence while the judge is present, while the clerks are ready to inscribe
everything in the protocol, this silence is the most penetrating and acute questioning.
it is the most frightful torture and yet permissible.11
broadly speaking, silence is presented as something positive, that is, as the route to
interior life, the first step towards one’s inner self, the mode of communication with
god, because “god loves silence.”12 but, for Kierkegaard, silence also has an inverse
signification with respect to the appearance of doing good: “In situations where
my silence will make me seem worse than i am, i should be silent—for instance,
giving alms in secret. Where my silence will make me seem better than i am, then i
should speak—confession of sin. the good a man does he should, if possible, keep
to himself; the evil he has done he should speak about.”13
silence conserves the dialectical duplicity always imposed on the spirit,
insofar as it is constitutive of reflexive intimacy: “All inclosing reserve is due to a
dialectical reduplication that for immediacy is altogether impossible. the language
of immediacy, like languages with vowels, is easily pronounced; the language
of inclosing reserve is a language only in silence.”14 silence can choose among
contraries, to feel inclined to one of the opposites; it can be demonic—reduced to
absolute isolation in sin—or it can be divine. it can be the silence of death or the
silence of life: “silence (the teleological suspension of the duty to speak the truth),
is a strictly formal qualification and therefore can just as well be the form for good
as for evil.”15
to summarize, for Kierkegaard, silence represents the midpoint between the
human and the divine; as with many other categories, it possesses a substantial
unity at the existential level, even though simultaneously it touches and affects
10
Pap. Viii–2 b 89 / JP 2, 649.
11
SKS 4, 426 / CA, 125.
12
SKS 26, 315, nb34:2 / JP 6, 6874.
13
SKS 22, 246, nb12:173 / JP 4, 3985.
14
SKS 6, 395–6 / SLW, 427.
15
SKS 6, 215 / SLW, 230.
44 Alejandro González Contreras
every nerve of existence. that is the reason why silence affects different aspects
of personal existence according to each existential stage at which the individual
is located. For example, at the aesthetic stage silence is the vehicle by means of
which art is manifested; the artist is in need of silence and solitude for creating. For
the one situated in the ethical stage, silence is the space for introspection and self-
reflection. Ultimately, the religious person has to embrace silence as the symbol of
his or her relationship and mode of communication with god. Yet, on the whole, for
the human being silence offers shelter within the temporal world, a consecrated zone
for spiritual communion.
there are negative spaces in which silence can reside, as in the case of one who
keeps his or her sin hidden. the humorist, by contrast, needs to accept silence after
he or she has recognized the incapacity to express the infinite in finite terms, then,
when faced with the personal existential question he or she hushes and displays a
melancholic smile.
see also archimedean point; Chatter; Communication/indirect Communication;

Communion; demonic; existence/existential; Humor; individual; inner/outer;
language; melancholy; objectivity/subjectivity; pseudonymity; spirit.
sin
leo stan
Sin (Synd—noun)
derived from the german Sünde, the danish notion of sin (Synd) is most probably
related to the latin word sons (guilty). Within a moral-religious perspective, it
designates that thought, utterance, or deed which directly violates a divine command
and taboo. in a more generic, albeit secondary, sense it can refer to a human lack or
deficiency, as well as an injustice or unrighteous act that calls for punishment and
gives rise to empathetic feelings toward the injured party.1
Kierkegaard’s understanding of sin is typically Christian with distinctive
lutheran-pietistic overtones. generally speaking, by sin Kierkegaard designates
the ontological event that, not only estranged humankind from god, but also
corrupted and continues to plague our relations to the divine, the world, and each
other. although he fully embraces the pauline assumption of the universality of sin,
Kierkegaard will insist on the latter’s personal and existential component, while
offering a complex phenomenology of the birth and endless perpetuation of evil
in human nature. in the overall corpus, the two works where sinfulness figures
prominently are Haufniensis’ The Concept of Anxiety and anti-Climacus’ The
Sickness unto Death. important developments are also to be found in Either/Or,
Climacus’ Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript,
Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Works of Love, Christian Discourses, and
the edifying texts anthologized in Without Authority.
the present topic will be unfolded in the following order. the article begins by
documenting Kierkegaard’s reasons for postulating the omnipresence of sin. next,
it elaborates the intrinsic link between sin, anxiety, and despair. this is followed by
an analysis of the ample extent to which sinfulness has vitiated all human faculties
(that is, consciousness, memory, reason, emotions, and especially volition). some
attention will then be paid to the spiritual malady of demonism, arguably the most
salient expression of sinfulness. the conclusion will point to the hidden implications
of Kierkegaard’s perspective on fallenness for his broader soteriological mindset.
as a Christian author, Kierkegaard unfalteringly endorses the view that the
“fundamental relation between god and a human being is that a human being is
a sinner and god is the Holy one.”2 at the same time, sinfulness appears to him
1
2
SKS 8, 380 / UD, 285.
46 Leo Stan
ubiquitous. this point is expressed repeatedly and in manifold ways throughout
his corpus. For instance, Judge William approvingly reminds us that the church
“proclaims sin as…man’s universal lot.”3 in The Sickness unto Death we are warned
that the spiritual malady called despair—which is explicitly equated with sin4—
pertains to “the majority of people.”5 anti-Climacus sounds even more radical when
he alludes to the “wholly encompassing nature [totale Bestemmelse]”6 of sin. Further
on, the same pseudonym declares that sin displays an unmistakable continuity7
because “every unrepented sin is a new sin and every moment that [sin] remains
unrepented is also new sin.”8 in addition, the universality of sin can be inferred from
the unavoidability of despair,9 which makes anti-Climacus severely doubtful as to
the possibility of full spiritual health in this life.10 the same point is defended by
Kierkegaard himself, as when he admits that from a religious standpoint, humans
are blameworthy “on all counts.”11 in fact, this judgment can be extended even to
martyrs, apostles, or any other exceptional believer; ultimately, the god-man is the
only sinless human being.12 that said, for Kierkegaard, sin is so deeply entrenched in
the human condition that only an infinitely merciful deity could reveal and eradicate
it, and that solely through a tragic self-sacrifice.
the most subtle discussion of sin can be found in The Concept of Anxiety. Here,
in attempting to solve the enigma of the relationship between the archetypal sinners,
adam and eve, and every other human being, Vigilius Haufniensis puts forward a
detailed and unfortunately, abstruse genealogy of the very possibility of sinning.
Briefly stated, he does not derive the original sin directly from our autonomy,
but rather from the anxiety that accompanies human freedom.13 more exactly,
Haufniensis argues that god’s primordial prohibition against enjoying the fruits of
the tree of knowledge has induced anxiety in our mythical parents.14 When trying
to define anxiety, Haufniensis calls it “the dizziness of freedom, which emerges
when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis15 and freedom looks down into its own
3
SKS 3, 94 / EO2, 91.
4
SKS 11, 191 / SUD, 77. see also SKS 20, 294–5, nb4:16 / JP 4, 4013; SKS 21, 119,
nb7:82 / JP 4, 4016.
5
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 94. see also SKS 11, 213 / SUD, 101.
6
SKS 11, 217 / SUD, 105. see also SKS 11, 213 / SUD, 101; SKS 3, 321–32 / EO2,
339–54.
7
SKS 11, 217–19 / SUD, 105–7.
8
SKS 11, 217 / SUD, 105. see also SKS 21, 103, nb7:56 / JP 4, 4015.
9
SKS 11, 138–44 / SUD, 22–8.
10
SKS 11, 141 / SUD, 25.
11
SKS 8, 369 / UD, 272.
12
SKS 8, 368 / UD, 271–2.
13
see also SKS 19, 214, not7:32 / JP 4, 4004 and SKS 4, 223–4, 224–6 / PF, 15, 17,
where sinfulness is depicted in terms of freedom or unfreedom. early in his career, Kierkegaard
believed that sin can be caused by fear, too. SKS 17, 135, bb:42.e / JP 4, 3992.
14
SKS 4, 350 / CA 44.
15
that is, the synthesis between the psychical and the corporeal (SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43).
see also SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13, where the constitutive synthesis conjoins the infinite and the
finite, freedom and necessity, the temporal and the eternal.
Sin 47
possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself.”16 in a subsequent step freedom
falls prey to this anxious vertigo, and from then on “everything is changed, and
freedom, when it again rises, sees that it is guilty.”17 simply put, in hearing the godly
taboo, our forefathers became anxiously aware of the possibility of either siding
with or rebelling against their Creator. in other words, they realized their freedom
can be put to a negative use. And so, they egotistically wanted to affirm their self-
sufficiency over against their Lord. By succumbing to this nefarious temptation, they
inaugurated a fundamental change in human nature, otherwise known as the Fall or
the original sin.
now, regarding the consequences of this momentous event, Haufniensis states
that “the presence of the hereditary sin in the [subsequent] single individual is
anxiety.”18 this means that anxiety actually increases throughout history because,
we are told, the anxiety of a person “differs…quantitatively from that of adam.”19
moreover, Vigilius insists that, qualitatively speaking, there is absolutely no
difference between adam or eve and any other person from the dawn of humanity
until its end.20 However, if we agree with him that sin augments anxiety21 and that the
higher the anxiety, the more inclined to sin the individual becomes,22 then it is quite
difficult to defend the basic ontological—that is, existential or qualitative—identity
between our forefathers and, for instance, contemporary humans. Haufniensis never
clarifies this conundrum. What he adamantly stresses instead is that we inherit only
the anxiety-ridden propensity to sin; the actual act of sinning happens only through
the single individual’s decision and act. For Haufniensis, this is the only acceptable
sense in which sinfulness can be conceived as an integral part of humanity.
at this juncture, it is worth remembering that, although an occasion for sin, anxiety
can also initiate the overcoming of sin via faith.23 Haufniensis writes that “when the
individual through anxiety is educated unto faith, anxiety will eradicate precisely
what it brings forth itself.”24 in this context, faith requires the acknowledgement of
sin as personal and the continual refusal to actualize anxiety’s negative potential.25
The Sickness unto Death complements the Kierkegaardian phenomenology of
sin by bringing to the fore the individualistic component, while leaving behind
the problem of originary sin. in this book, sin is analyzed in terms of the spiritual
pathology which anti-Climacus calls despair. First and foremost, anti-Climacus
warns that sin is a qualification in the direction of spirit26 and that it is predicated on
16
SKS 4, 365 / CA, 61.
17
SKS 4, 365–6 / CA, 61.
18
SKS 4, 357 / CA, 52.
19
ibid.
20
SKS 4, 368–9 / CA, 64.
21
SKS 4, 358 / CA, 53.
22
SKS 4, 377 / CA 73. see also SKS 18, 266, JJ:377 / JP 4, 4009; SKS 22, 193, nb12:94
/ JP 4, 4023.
23
SKS 4, 454–61 / CA, 155–62; SKS 22, 51, nb11:86 / JP 4, 4020.
24
SKS 4, 458 / CA, 159.
25
SKS 4, 419 / CA, 117.
26
SKS 11, 195 / SUD, 81.
48 Leo Stan
paradox and existence.27 However, his core contention is that despair is ultimately
sinful, and the only means to overcome it is, on the one hand, to relate oneself
deferentially to one’s creator god and, on the other, to repent ceaselessly before the
atoner of all sins, Jesus Christ.
obversely, to prolong despair sinfully amounts to misrelating oneself to the
divine. this defective stance ranges from mere callousness towards religious issues
in general, to the open, dismissive, and thus apostatic opposition to the transcendent.
When trying to approximate sin, anti-Climacus explains it thus: while existing
“before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in
despair to will to be oneself.”28 otherwise stated, we sin either by condescendingly
disregarding god’s existence; or by closing ourselves off from all things divine
(Indesluttethed) and scornfully rejecting any transcendent support whatsoever. at
bottom, any variation on sinfulness connotes insubordination, that is to say, the
cavalier or vehement refusal to become spirit before the originator and savior of all
selves.29
so far nothing has been said about the psychological corruption produced by
sin. in this regard, Kierkegaard offers a disheartening, although very articulate,
picture, particularly in his reflections on the deleterious effects of sin on the faculties
of human nature. Here nothing seems untainted by fallenness. perhaps with the
negligible exception of corporeality and sexuality,30 Kierkegaard refers to emotions,
consciousness, memory, reason, and volition as equally possible gateways to fall
from grace. We will take each one in turn, starting from the least developed.
as regards emotions, Kierkegaard cautions the reader against the numberless
enticements of pleasure and the ongoing pursuit of desires,31 while his concerns
about the dangers of apostatic fury are equally authentic.32
the next victim of the Fall is consciousness. in The Sickness unto Death anti-
Climacus states that after infecting the will, this corruption spreads to consciousness.33
thus, one form of despair—which is actually the most common one—will consist in
lacking the awareness of having been established by god as a singular eternal self.34
Within a Christological perspective, Kierkegaard adds that “the conception of Christ
develops through the consciousness of sin.”35
turning to memory, Kierkegaard connects it with the nefariousness of sin through
our forgetfulness of god and the related duties or tasks. the degrading potential
of memory can be realized when one ignores the divine goodness or generosity,
27
SKS 11, 210–12, 217–18 / SUD, 98–100, 105–6.
28
SKS 11, 191 / SUD, 77.
29
SKS 11, 195 / SUD, 81.
30
SKS 3, 93–4 / EO2, 91; SKS 4, 372 / CA, 68. Contrast with SKS 26, 128, nb32:16 /
JP 4, 4911 and SKS 20, 110, nb:175 / JP 4, 4010, where sensuousness is deemed intrinsically
sinful.
31
SKS 11, 158, 195–6 / SUD, 43, 82; SKS 26, 128, nb32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 13, 88–9
/ FSE, 66; SKS 20, 110, nb:175 / JP 4, 4010.
32
SKS 13, 329 / M, 270.
33
SKS 11, 208 / SUD, 95; SKS 22, 189, nb12:84 / JP 4, 4022.
34
SKS 11, 157–62 / SUD, 42–7.
35
SKS 18, 201, JJ:191 / JP 4, 4006.
Sin 49
deafens oneself to religious interpellations, and fails to pay heed to god’s generous
sustenance.36 Kierkegaard deems nihilistic this spiritual oblivion, thereby qualifying
it as the most perilous form of religious alienation.37
the calamitous impact of fallenness on reason is indirect, albeit no less
compromising. it can be inferred from the unmistakable contribution that error can
bring to the occurrence of sin. When anti-Climacus mentions that the despairing self
prefers to exist in error rather than bear the burden of truth,38 that kind of existential
falsehood would be impossible without the implication of the mind. but the more
substantial repercussions can be inferred from the pugnacious imperviousness the
human logos displays when faced with anything related to sinfulness. For instance,
anti-Climacus stipulates that by its very nature sinfulness prevents the individual
from grasping its true nature; hence the need for god’s revelation.39 in his turn,
Haufniensis adds that dogmatics is the sole discipline which can posit sinfulness,
but the latter remains a matter of faith rather than rational clarification.40 His
reasoning is that, since the transgression of adam and eve presupposes an enigmatic
qualitative leap, the advent and perpetuity of the Fall cannot be explained by science
or psychology.41 moreover, it is particularly offensive to reason that “there must be a
revelation from god to teach fallen man what sin is”42 and how deeply it is rooted in
us. reason’s share in the birth of offense is therefore indisputable, especially since
preferring to remain offended rather than embracing faith is just another instantiation
of sin.43 in addition, insofar as reason is impotent in comprehending the reality of
sin, the battle against evil will be waged by deploying a weapon impenetrable to
reason, namely, faith.44 on this paradigm, religious belief is understood as an endless
effort to recognize and earnestly repent for one’s sins.45 With all that in mind, one
can say that within a strictly soteriological horizon the reasoning faculty is hardly a
reliable aid to redemption.
36
SKS 5, 51–2 / EUD, 43–4; SKS 8, 275–6 / UD, 177; SKS 13, 329 / M, 270.
37
SKS 10, 75 / CD, 67.
38
SKS 11, 157–8 / SUD, 42–3; SKS 24, 516, nb25:103 / JP 4, 4048.
39
SKS 11, 207–8 / SUD, 95. see also SKS 4, 222–3 / PF, 14–15; SKS 23, 70–1, nb15:101
/ JP 4, 4030; SKS 23, 71, nb15:101.d / JP 4, 4031; SKS 23, 48, nb15:70 / JP 4, 4026; SKS 23,
100, nb16:6 / JP 4, 4035. oddly enough, in a note connected with The Sickness unto Death,
Kierkegaard states that sin’s dependence on divine revelation is not necessarily consistent
with the doctrine of inherited sin. Pap. Viii–2 b 166 / JP 6, 6139.
40
SKS 4, 363n / CA 58n; Pap. V b 49:11–12 / CA, supplement, 182; SKS 23, 104,
nb16:15 / JP 4, 4038.
41
SKS 4, 337, 353, 363n / CA 30, 48, 58n.
42
SKS 11, 209 / SUD, 96. see also SKS 11, 202 / SUD, 89.
43
For the link between offensiveness and sin see SKS 11, 207–8 / SUD, 95; SKS 12, 102,
126, 127 / PC, 94, 119, 121.
44
SKS 11, 218, 240n / SUD, 105–6, 129n; SKS 4, 147, 159 / FT, 53, 67; SKS 11, 268 /
WA, 132.
45
SKS 17, 272, dd:183.a / JP 4, 4002; SKS 18, 238, JJ:316 / JP 4, 4008; SKS 20, 277–8,
nb3:69 / JP 4, 4012; SKS 21, 317, nb10:116 / JP 4, 4019; SKS 23, 453, nb20:115 / JP 4,
4043.
50 Leo Stan
Finally, the volitional dimension of selfhood is, on Kierkegaard’s general
evaluation, the most active in the creation and conservation of the fallen state of
humanity. an apposite testimony in this sense belongs to anti-Climacus who holds
that sinfulness primarily corrupts the will.46 together with Johannes Climacus,47 the
pseudonymous author of The Sickness unto Death sets in opposition the socratic and
the Christian models. Specifically, whereas ancient Greeks conceived evil only in
terms of moral knowledge, Christianity projects sin as a profound perversion of the
will. differently put, unlike the greek perspective which hypothesizes that humans
commit various abuses simply because they do not know or are unaware of the good,
Christianity maintains that evil may be done even when the one inflicting it fully
knows what is right in the eyes of god.48 as anti-Climacus puts it, the self could
have “a conception of god and yet…not will as he [god] wills.”49
the amplitude of the will’s depravity is quite vast on Kierkegaard’s reckoning.
it contains, for instance, the pusillanimous reticence of committing oneself to
god,50 the passive consent to existing in error51 or to carnal turbulence,52 not to
forget the “consistency [Conseqvents] in evil,”53 that is, the continual and obstinate
actualization of fallenness.54 sinfulness could also surface through egotism—
which is a will-imbued narcissism—because it represents a colossal impediment
in selflessly loving God.55 there is an emphatically Christological perspective, as
well. Kierkegaard enumerates in this sense the hypocritical conspiracy56 against or
the deliberate condemnation of57 the savior. the will is as indispensible in all the
faithless, and therefore sinful, attitudes towards Christ,58 particularly the disdaining
rejection of what he stood for and his annihilation.59
the most cogent instance of such apostatic rebuttal lies in the demonic personality.
While in the grips of existential demonism, the self defiantly declines any cure,
religious or otherwise, for its despair,60 and programmatically obstructs god’s
46
SKS 11, 208 / SUD, 95; SKS 23, 71, nb15:101.d / JP 4, 4031.
47
SKS 4, 222–6 / PF, 14–18.
48
SKS 11, 202–3 / SUD, 89–90.
49
SKS 11, 194 / SUD, 80.
50
SKS 20, 109, nb:174 / JP 2, 1353.
51
SKS 11, 157–8 / SUD, 42–3.
52
SKS 11, 196 / SUD, 82.
53
SKS 11, 219 / SUD, 107. see also SKS 23, 50, nb15:73 / JP 4, 4028; SKS 23, 71,
nb15:101.d / JP 4, 4031.
54
SKS 11, 218–19 / SUD, 106–7.
55
SKS 10, 140 / CD, 129; SKS 4, 382 / CA, 79; SKS 11, 268 / WA, 132; SKS 22, 80,
nb11:134 / JP 4, 4021. see also SKS 11, 195 / SUD, 81 where despair is seen as “self-
willfulness against god.”
56
SKS 13, 179 / M, 135. For the cunningness of sin see SKS 10, 273–4 / CD, 260.
57
SKS 16, 223–5 / JFY, 175–7.
58
SKS 10, 308 / CD, 287–8.
59
SKS 10, 272–3 / CD, 259–60; SKS 11, 68–9 / WA, 63; SKS 13, 85–6 / FSE, 63–4;
SKS 8, 332 / UD, 231; SKS 12, 65 / PC, 53; SKS 23, 48, nb15:70 / JP 4, 4026; SKS 23, 344,
nb19:22.a / JP 4, 4040.
60
SKS 11, 184–5, 225 / SUD, 70–2, 113.
Sin 51
expectations.61 as such, it practices an embittered and hermetic self-withdrawal by
dint of which it flees from any openness to the sacred.62 this deliberate and perverse
self-enclosure manifests itself in various ways. it can take the form of muteness63
or melancholy monologue.64 the demonic intermittently falls prey to uncontrolled
outbursts of frustration,65 when not crippled by boredom.66 even more gravely, the
demonic personality has an explicit “relation to the evil”67 which is rooted in its scorn
for goodness. in sum, demonism sins inasmuch as it disengages from all interaction
with the transcendent, thereby thwarting every opportunity to come into contact with
the truth and thus to become spirit.68
in conclusion, there are two fundamental implications of Kierkegaard’s portrayal
of sin. The first is that the human agency is perpetually unable to cure itself of its
potential corruption or actual sins. the second corollary states that in order to
surmount sinfulness humanity needs the help and assistance of a wholly other being
(that is, a transcendent god). Furthermore, individualization is predicated on a
relation to this divine Other, which is defined along the lines of endless repentance,
absurdist faith, and hope against all odds. by contrast, to resist becoming a religious
individual is inexcusably to prolong the fallen condition with dramatic consequences
for one’s redemption.
overall, Kierkegaard privileges the actuality and individuality of sins vis-à-vis the
universality of latent sinfulness.69 indeed, one could safely interpret Kierkegaard’s
attack on collectivities as issuing directly from the sacrilegious postures of particular
individuals. thus, the corruption of spirit should be pinned only on the singular
person, while its main source resides in the will.
Finally, given the centrality of sin in Kierkegaard’s soteriology, a few provisos are
in order. First, it cannot be stressed enough that Kierkegaard’s religious philosophy
as a whole is marked by an insurmountable duality. the mere existence of sin elicits
what anti-Climacus terms “the most chasmic qualitative abyss”70 or an “infinite
qualitative difference”71—between immanence (or worldliness) and transcendence.
The immediate upshot is that God is infinitely different from his highest creatures.
However, Kierkegaard manages to avoid the danger of dualism. more exactly, he
preserves the relationality to the divine, despite the deep corruption that cripples
61
SKS 11, 194 / SUD, 80.
62
SKS 4, 435–6 / CA, 135; SKS 11, 221–2, 236 / SUD, 110, 125.
63
SKS 4, 425–6, 429 / CA, 124, 128.
64
SKS 4, 429 / CA, 128.
65
SKS 4, 430–3 / CA, 129–32.
66
SKS 4, 433–5 / CA, 132–4.
67
SKS 4, 421 / CA, 119.
68
SKS 4, 429n / CA, 128n.
69
SKS 23, 107–8, nb16:21 / JP 2, 2024; SKS 18, 33, ee:86 / JP 4, 4003; SKS 23, 71,
nb15:101 / JP 4, 4030; SKS 23, 104, nb16:14 / JP 4, 4037; SKS 23, 104, nb16:15 / JP 4,
4038; SKS 26, 186, nb32:97 / JP 4, 4050. For an interesting exception, see SKS 18, 82, FF:35
/ JP 4, 3999.
70
SKS 11, 233 / SUD, 122.
71
SKS 11, 237 / SUD, 126.
52 Leo Stan
humankind.72 but, although the mundane and the transcendent are uninterruptedly
related, they are coevally separated—and perennially so—by a fundamental distance
which is due to the qualitative gap between them. that is how, given the massive
presence of sin, Kierkegaard’s theology does justice to the transcendent other and
grants hope to the soteriologically concerned individual. equally noteworthy is the
fact that Kierkegaard’s religiosity is not solely processual and personalistic in nature,
but also profoundly conflictual. That is to say, throughout this life there persists a
definite antagonism between the spiritually tainted humankind and the redemptive
deity. one can thus speak of the apparently unending hostility of sin,73 counterweighed
only by god’s gratuitous and superabundant grace. even more, the contentious side
of fallenness perfectly corresponds to the necessary combativeness of faith.74 in this
manner, the Kierkegaardian corpus gains an unexpected soteriological as well as
philosophical coherence, which renders problematic the thesis that its author was
just a brilliant religious psychologist.
See also Anxiety; Atonement/Reconciliation; Christ; Defiance; Demonic; Despair;

dogma/doctrine; duty; ethics; evil; Faith; Forgiveness; Freedom; good, guilt; Holy
spirit; Hope; immanence/transcendence; offense; Qualitative difference; race;
reason; revelation; sickness; Will; Worldliness/secularism.
72
SKS 20, 207, nb2:167 / JP 4, 4011: “sin does indeed seek to draw us away [from
god]—but in the atonement it is precisely the consciousness of sin that leads us closer to
god.” see also SKS 23, 93, nb15:129 / JP 4, 4033; SKS 23, 439, nb20:81 / JP 4, 4042.
73
SKS 11, 236 / SUD, 125.
74
SKS 17, 52–3, aa:51 / JP 4, 3994; SKS 21, 285, nb10:55 / JP 4, 4018.
skepticism/doubt
matthew brake
Skepticism (Skepsis—noun); Doubt (Tvivl—noun; tvivle—verb).
Skepsis is a greek loan word, σκῆψις, meaning view, reflection, or consideration.

it is derived from the greek verb σκέπτεσθαι, which means to “behold” or
“reconnoiter”; σκέπτεσθαι is a variant of σκοπεῖν, meaning “to regard.” in danish,
Skepsis is the act or disposition of holding one’s judgment in reserve or doubt.1 the
term is especially related to philosophy and the greek school of skepticism founded
by Pyrrho of Elis and recorded by Sextus Empiricus. The defining feature of Greek
skepticism is the idea that nothing can be known for certain or that conceptions
of absolute truth and falsity are untenable. This connotation inflects the common
danish use of Skepsis as the questioning of common assumptions and unproven
assertions.2
Tvivl is derived from the old danish twiuæl, norse tvil, and swedish tvivel,
which are borrowed from middle low german twivel, corresponding to old High
german zwival, modern german Zweifel, and gothic tweifls. Tvivl is related to tve-,
meaning “double.” the opposite of this sense of double is “simple” (enfold).3 the
lexical meaning of Tvivl is to have a sense of uncertainty about the truth or reliability
of something, such as knowledge or beliefs. such doubt may connote the suffering
involved in being in two minds or the doubt over one’s religion.4 With respect to
these connotations, it is related to Fortvivlelse, which means “despair.”
in the published works, Skepsis is used most frequently in the Concluding
Unscientific Postscript followed closely by Either/Or, part two, and The Concept
of Irony. Tvivl and its grammatical variants are used most frequently in Either/Or,
then the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the early edifying discourses, Stages
on Life’s Way, Christian Discourses, and The Concept of Irony. in the unpublished
works, Tvivl is most often used in Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum
est, followed by The Book on Adler. both Skepsis and Tvivl occur throughout the
journals, papers, and notebooks. the modern philosophical fashion of skepticism, its
bearing on the relationship between theory and practice and its relation to religious
faith are central themes in Kierkegaard’s works. in what follows, i will focus on
1
2
ibid.
3
niels Åge nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1966, p. 431.
4
Ordbog over det dankse Sprog, vol. 24, columns 1178–85.
54 Matthew Brake
skepticism in relation to the philosophical climate of the era, the origin of doubt, the
overcoming of doubt, and the relationship between faith and doubt.
I. Modern Skepticism and Doubt
to understand many of Kierkegaard’s references to doubt one must understand the

philosophical climate of Kierkegaard’s era. the author of Johannes Climacus, or
De omnibus dubitandum est wrestles with the nature of modern philosophy as he
considers three popular propositions: “(1) philosophy begins with doubt; (2) in order
to philosophize, one must have doubted; (3) modern philosophy begins with doubt.”5
the point about modern philosophy and doubt refers to “the Hegelian doubt about
everything,”6 specifically the Danish Hegelian doubt of Hans Lassen Martensen,7
though it has its ultimate origin in descartes’ method of hyperbolic doubt.
Jon stewart notes that the title of the work, De omnibus dubitandum est, or
“everything must be doubted,”8 is itself an indication of the focus on martensen, who
used the expression “in a slogan-like fashion.”9 stewart writes, Kierkegaard “could
rely on the fact that the contemporary danish reading public would associate this
expression with the person of martensen and thus see the satire in the allusion.”10
martensen argued that descartes had caused a substantial break in philosophy between
the scholastic period of the middle ages and modern philosophy, for “[w]hile the
philosophy of the middle ages was based on faith, the philosophy introduced by
descartes tried to establish its foundation on reason alone.”11 stewart notes, “martensen
claims that descartes began the history of modern philosophy with [the] principle of
doubt, but it was not applied rigorously or completely until Hegel.”12 martensen saw in
Hegel’s philosophy a complete lack of presuppositions and “prejudices of thought.”13
Kierkegaard criticizes the danish Hegelian doubt of martensen seemingly
throughout his corpus. He writes in his journals, “the method of beginning with
doubt in order to philosophize seems as appropriate as having a soldier slouch in
order to get him to stand erect.”14 Judge William seems to criticize this kind of doubt
when he writes, “i must emphasize this in opposition to the abstraction in which
doubt has been affirmed, the idolatry with which people have engaged in it, the
rashness with which people have plunged into it, the blind trust with which people
have hoped for a glorious result from it.”15
5
SKS 15, 27 / JC, 132.
6
SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82.
7
Jon stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, new York: Cambridge
university press 2003, pp. 240–1.
8
ibid., p. 238.
9
ibid., p. 242.
10
ibid.
11
ibid., p. 244.
12
ibid.
13
ibid.
14
SKS 18, 189, JJ:153 / JP 1, 775.
15
SKS 3, 98 / EO2, 95.
Skepticism/Doubt 55
the pseudonym a seems to provide a caricature of this doubt when he states,
“i have, i believe, the courage to doubt everything; i have, i believe, the courage
to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything,
the courage to possess, to own, anything.”16 this attitude is born out of a desire “to
want to conquer doubt systematically”17 through “so-called objective knowledge.”18
Climacus notes that “it is of course impossible to reach an objective decision of
such a nature that no doubt would be able to insinuate itself.”19 the origins of doubt
provide the explanation for why this is so.
II. Interest and Doubt
the author of Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est writes, “the

possibility of doubt…lies in consciousness, whose nature is a contradiction that is
produced by a duplexity.”20 Consciousness arises out of the duplexity of reality and
ideality: “immediacy is reality; language is ideality; consciousness is contradiction….
the moment i make a statement about reality, contradiction is present, for what i say
is ideality.”21 the writer explains further:
[C]onsciousness is the relation [between reality and ideality]. i can either bring reality
into relation with ideality or bring ideality into relation with reality. in reality by itself
there is no possibility of doubt; when i express it in language, contradiction is present,
since i do not express it by producing something else. insofar as what was said is
supposed to be an expression of reality, i have brought this into relation with ideality,
insofar as what was said is something produced by me, i have brought ideality into
relation with reality.22
With the advent of consciousness through the collision of reality and ideality both
possibility23 and interest appear.24
As opposed to reflection, which is disinterested, consciousness “is the relation
and thereby is interest.”25 objective knowledge cannot overcome doubt because
doubt “is a higher form than any objective thinking, for it presupposes the latter but
has something more, a third, which is interest or consciousness.”26 it is therefore
mistaken to try to overcome doubt with systematic knowledge—“all systematic
16
SKS 2, 32 / EO1, 23.
17
SKS 15, 57 / JC, 170.
18
ibid.
19
SKS 7, 48 / CUP1, 42.
20
SKS 15, 55 / JC, 168.
21
ibid.
22
ibid.
23
SKS 15, 56 / JC, 168.
24
SKS 15, 57–8 / JC, 170–1.
25
SKS 15, 57 / JC, 170.
26
ibid.
56 Matthew Brake
knowledge is disinterested”27 and only serves as “the presupposition of doubt.”28 the
author of Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est writes, “[d]oubt is the
beginning of the highest form of existence…because it can have everything else as
its presupposition.”29 Kierkegaard writes, “this possibility of doubt is essential to
existence, is the secret of human existence.”30 unlike the animals, who only have
the immediate, human beings have language, which is ideality;31 however, in the
human being, the immediate, which is reality,32 collides with ideality, which creates
consciousness. in consciousness, interest is present, and doubt lives on.33 so how
does one overcome doubt?
III. Overcoming Doubt
the author of Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est offers a contrast

between greek skepticism and the modern skepticism of Kierkegaard’s day. He
notes that unlike the modern skeptics, the greeks recognized “that doubt is based on
interest.”34 modern philosophy’s ignorance about the true nature of doubt caused it
“to want to conquer doubt systematically.”35 greek skepticism, by contrast, “doubted
not by virtue of knowledge but by virtue of will.”36 Johannes Climacus writes, “this
implies that doubt can be terminated only in freedom, by an act of will, something
every greek skeptic would understand, inasmuch as he understood himself, but he
would not terminate his skepticism precisely because he willed to doubt.”37
according to Climacus, claiming that “one doubts by way of necessity” is a
“stupid opinion.”38 Kierkegaard writes in his journals, “genuine skeptics do not
doubt for the sake of doubting…but in order to doubt one must will it…consequently
one must will to stop it, but then doubt is not at all conquered by knowledge.”39
IV. Faith and Doubt
Faith, like doubt, “does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation”;40
rather, it results from “infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness.”41 Johannes
27
ibid.
28
ibid.
29
ibid.
30
Pap. iV b 10:11 / PF, supplement, 256.
31
Pap. iV b 14:6 / JP 3, 2320.
32
ibid.
33
SKS 15, 57–8 / JC, 170–1.
34
SKS 15, 57 / JC, 170.
35
ibid.
36
SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82.
37
ibid.
38
ibid.
39
Pap. iV b 5:13 / JP 1, 776.
40
SKS 7, 36 / CUP1, 29.
41
ibid.
Skepticism/Doubt 57
Climacus describes the relationship between faith and doubt as follows: “belief is
the opposite of doubt. belief and doubt are not two kinds of knowledge that can
be defined in continuity with each other, for neither of them is a cognitive act, and
they are opposite passions.”42 Faith and doubt both involve interestedness; thus,
Kierkegaard writes regarding a person’s refusal to come to faith:
it is claimed that arguments against Christianity arise out of doubt. this is a total
misunderstanding. the arguments against Christianity arise out of insubordination,
reluctance to obey, mutiny against all authority. therefore, until now the battle against
objections has been shadow-boxing, because it has been intellectual combat with doubt
instead of being ethical combat against mutiny.43
Whether one has faith or doubt, one cannot deny there is impassioned interest
involved in either decision.
Kierkegaard shows us that doubt is not just a disinterested mental exercise.
as he demonstrates, greek skepticism acknowledged that doubt involves interest.
overcoming doubt thus involves an act of the will. the same can be said of faith,
which in the ethical-religious context is the opposite of doubt. Kierkegaard holds
that doubt is a rebellious act of the will, which keeps one from coming to faith.
doubt, like despair, is a form of double-mindedness, whose antidote is the purity of
heart involved in willing one thing.
see also absurd; approximation; Certainty; Choice; Consciousness; despair;

Faith; Freedom; Immediacy/Reflection; Irony; Negation; Objectivity/Subjectivity;
passion/pathos; philosophy/philosophers; Will.
42
SKS 4, 283 / PF, 84.
43
SKS 20, 87, nb:121 / JP 1, 778.
society
Jamie aroosi
Society (Samfund—noun)
Samfund is derived from the old danish samfund, old norse samfundr. in its
broadest sense, its lexical meaning in danish is an association of individuals who
share a unifying geography, interest, culture, or religion. it is also commonly used to
refer to a spiritual communion, such as faith, which signifies a religious community
with god.1
the word Samfund appears frequently across Kierkegaard’s writings, translated
differently as the english warrants (“communion,” “community,” “association,”
“fellowship,” “society”). many of these references use the word in its most basic
sense, as a grouping of people, and these entries require little explanation since they
are descriptive rather than conceptual. However, Kierkegaard also uses this term
conceptually, with these more complex discussions occurring most frequently in
Either/Or, part two, The Moment, The Point of View, Upbuilding Discourses in
Various Spirits, A Literary Review of Two Ages, Works of Love, and the journals.
Within this conceptual use of the term, Kierkegaard distinguishes between two types
of society.
(1) First, he uses the term to refer to societies of non-Christians,2 or worldly
societies.3 according to this usage, Kierkegaard often refers to Christendom as such
a society, indicating that Christendom is worldly rather than religious.4 occasionally,
Kierkegaard will also call Christendom a society of Christians,5 seemingly
contradicting this usage, but when he does so it is clear that he means people who
call themselves Christians, but who are not.6 therefore, Kierkegaard is indicating
that their so-called Christianity is worldly and not religious.
(2) Kierkegaard’s second usage of this term is antithetical to the first, referring
to an individual’s communion with god, such as when he speaks of a “fellowship of
sufferings [Lidelsernes Samfund] with god.”7 as opposed to other worldly societies,
this society is spiritual, based in faith. However, Kierkegaard not only uses this
1
2
SKS 13, 294–7 / M, 236–42.
3
SKS 4, 487 / P, 24.
4
SKS 13, 294–7 / M, 236–42.
5
SKS 26, 149, nb32:46 / JP 2, 1935.
6
ibid.
7
SKS 5, 260 / EUD, 264.
60 Jamie Aroosi
word to refer to an individual’s communion with god, but he also uses it to refer
to a society comprised of such faithful individuals, such as when he refers to “the
communion of saints [de Helliges Samfund].”8 While Kierkegaard regularly stresses
that the concern of his work is with “the single individual,”9 an individual defined
by his or her god-relationship, and while he further argues that the single individual
is diametrically opposed to the crowd,10 to politics,11 and to Christendom,12 in the
same breath he also states that both socrates and Christ—those most concerned with
the single individual—had followers, by which he means that such followers form a
type of community that does not invalidate the single individual and its criticism of
worldly societies.13
While Kierkegaard’s major conceptual distinction is between his first usage
of the term, which refers to worldly societies, and his second usage, which refers
to spiritual societies, it is possible to further sharpen this distinction according to
several features: (1) the relationship between their locus of unity and subjectivity,
(2) the nature of their formation, (3) the internal bonds by which they are constituted,
and lastly, (4) by the consequences that follow from them.
I. Locus
Kierkegaard’s distinction between worldly societies and religious ones helps

demonstrate a conceptual distinction between the two: worldly communities are
arbitrary whereas religious ones are essential. For instance, worldly societies are
based on such loci of unity as culture, religion (in the worldly sense), language,
or geography, with Kierkegaard sometimes speaking of worldly societies in the
same way he speaks of generations.14 What becomes clear is that all such societies
are organized around arbitrary unities, unities that pertain to one’s location (both
geographically and/or historically), and not to an essential truth they express. in
contradistinction to these communities, Kierkegaard is clear that communion
with god is the highest pursuit of life.15 as such, it relates to our essential nature,
expressing our human telos, rather than being constituted by arbitrary qualities that
pertain to our location. this likewise extends to the “communion of saints”16 that
occurs as a result of a multiplicity of individuals who maintain a communion with
god. their unity is a consequence of the truth of their relationship with god and not
an arbitrary quality.
8
SKS 8, 320 / UD, 218 (emphasis in the original).
9
SKS 16, 93–106 / PV, 118–26.
10
SKS 16, 106 / PV, 126.
11
SKS 16, 98 / PV, 121.
12
SKS 16, 105–6 / PV, 125–6.
13
SKS 16, 106 / PV, 126.
14
SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92.
15
SKS 4, 152–3 / FT, 59–60.
16
SKS 8, 320 / UD, 218.
Society 61
II. Origins
not only are worldly societies arbitrary whereas religious ones are essential, but
their respective natures point to a difference in how these societies are constituted.
that is, they are created in different ways. insofar as worldly societies are united
around such objective loci as common institutions, norms, geographies, cultures, or
religions, these points of unity exist prior to the individual—not temporally speaking,
although that may be the case too, but in terms of the process of an individual’s
formation of self. as such, an individual comes to be a part of a society by way of a
process of socialization, whereby a society’s objective locus of unity is internalized
by its members. individuals become a part of a culture, for instance, when they
adopt their cultures’ norms and/or practices. Conceptually, the important point to
note is that such individuals actively become a part of their society, a process of
becoming that hints at a process of social formation dependent on individual will.
Kierkegaard sometimes describes this as a process of “self-relating,”17 whereby each
individual relates to the same “idea,”18 so that if the individual does not actively
“relate” himself or herself to that idea, such a society does not come to be. Following
from this, such societies depend on their continual re-creation by way of the ongoing
activity of their members.
Juxtaposed with such societies, an individual’s communion with god comes
into being in a very different way. in fact, insofar as this communion can also be
called faith, much of Kierkegaard’s work refers to this process. Without providing an
exhaustive account of faith, it is important to note that faith is not achieved by an act
of will, the attempt at which can rather be seen as a form of despair.19 instead, such
a society depends on an abdication of the attempt to will it, for such a society occurs
through grace.20 as such, we do not make this type of society, we receive it; we do not
will it, but accept it. this point is not only true for the individual’s communion with
god, but also for his or her relationship with other faithful individuals. For example,
it is through faith that Constantin Constantius says he might join the society of Job.21
in summary, we create worldly communities, but god creates religious ones.
However, this is complicated further. at times, Kierkegaard indicates that worldly
associations may be religious too. the best example of this is marriage; in Either/
Or, part two, Judge William indicates that “marriage is truly a state well-pleasing to
god,”22 frequently indicating that “true marriage” is a union of the “erotic” and the
“religious.”23 Furthermore, for a marriage to be such a “true” union, Judge William
indicates that its origins cannot lie in worldly causes.24 and so, while marriage is a
worldly community, ideally, it is a worldly community that reflects an underlying
religious one. In fact, we find this same theme articulated again in Works of Love,
17
SKS 8, 61 / TA, 62–3.
18
ibid.
19
SKS 11, 157–62 / SUD, 42–7.
20
SKS 18, 67, ee:192 / KJN 2, 61.
21
SKS 4, 67 / R, 198.
22
SKS 3, 55 / EO2, 49.
23
SKS 3, 51 / EO2, 44.
24
SKS 3, 91 / EO2, 88.
62 Jamie Aroosi
where Kierkegaard speaks of the love of god as complementing and coexisting
with the love of individual human beings.25 as he explains, “Christian love…comes
down from heaven to earth,”26 as this type of love only consummates itself in the
love between individuals; or, framed in terms of duty, it finds its consummation in
the “duty to love the people we see.”27 What this helps reveal is that, for all their
conceptual opposition, within the historical world, these two types of society can
and do exist simultaneously. that is, what appears to be a worldly society might also
be a religious one.
III. Internal Relations
What follows from this analysis is that the intersubjective relationship between
individuals in these respective societies is different. to begin with, both types of
relationship are mediated; however, in the case of worldly societies, the internalized,
arbitrary locus of unity proves to be the medium through which subjects relate. that
is, individuals relate by way of the social objects they internalize, the “idea” at the
heart of their “self-relating.”28 in this way, these intersubjective relations can be said
to be “closed” insofar as they act as filters between human beings, allowing certain
“socially acceptable” aspects of subjectivity to be revealed while others remain
hidden. However, in the case of religious societies comprised of faithful individuals,
the medium through which they relate is god. insofar as god allows an individual
to be fully present, rather than hidden and mediated through social identities, the
intersubjective relationship of faithful individuals can be said to be “open.” in other
words, rather than relating through an “idea,”29 such individuals relate through
“love.”30 We can also understand this in terms of the distinction between willfulness
and grace: in worldly societies, individuals relate by way of the objects that they
will, whereas in a religious society individuals receive one another in grace.31
IV. Consequences
lastly, Kierkegaard distinguishes between the consequences that follow from these
two types of society. speaking of an individual who desires to join the true Christian
society, he states that such an individual is “permeated by a new life,”32 as “Christian
joy, not that of the world,”33 takes hold in this person. this joy “is not to be enjoyed
in a hasty moment accompanied by the anxiety that it will suddenly vanish; it is not
25
SKS 9, 155–74 / WL, 155–74.
26
SKS 9, 173 / WL, 173.
27
SKS 9, 155–74 / WL, 155–74.
28
SKS 8, 61 / TA, 62–3.
29
ibid.
30
SKS 9, 155–74 / WL, 155–74.
31
SKS 4, 143 / FT, 49.
32
SKS 18, 67, ee:193 / KJN 2, 63.
33
SKS 18, 68, ee:193 / KJN 2, 63.
Society 63
behind us, as earthly joy always is…it is in us.”34 moreover, it is a joy that is “high
above every grief,”35 so that “even if the earth opened to swallow me up, i would
still see Heaven open to receive me.”36 all of which leads us to “rejoice in Christ!”37
However, without this joy, without that which places all of life’s worldly grief in
perspective, we are left with worldly joys that we know will “suddenly vanish,”38
and with worldly grief that threatens to overtake us.39 that is, we are left in despair.
see also Christendom; Crowd/public; Culture/education; Faith; individual; leveling;

love; marriage; politics; Worldliness/secularism.
34
ibid.
35
ibid.
36
ibid.
37
ibid.
38
ibid.
39
ibid.
speculation/science/scholarship
Curtis l. thompson
Speculation (Spekulation—noun); Science/Scholarship (Videnskab—noun)
the word Spekulation from the latin speculatio concerns the intellectual occupation
with epistemological or scientific problems in order, by the help of thinking alone, to
seek to solve them.1 Videnskab, from the german Wissenschaft and the low german
wetenschap, is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths
systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws; but it is also a
person’s fund of information, knowledge, insight, and wisdom that enables proficiency
of a practical, technical, or artistic sort. the word Videnskab and its derivatives can also
refer to the disciplinary subject of science and the disciplined and methodical activity
required of those engaged within it, and they are sometimes translated in Kierkegaard’s
writings as “scholarship,” “scholarly science,” and “scholarliness” and “scienticity.”2
this threefold concept occupied a key place among the intellectual furniture
of Kierkegaard’s everyday world. He spent much time laboring to understand the
new speculative development of the day centered in german philosophical thinking;
he possessed more than a passing awareness of and appreciation for the unfolding
achievements of the sciences; and as a graduate student of many years and a writer
who wrote in dialogue with the thinking of ancient and contemporary authors he was
surely a gifted scholar. thus, the three notions clustered under this concept deserve
attention so that their importance in Kierkegaard’s world-view can be grasped. We
will see that despite his immersion in these three, he found plenty to criticize about
each of the three notions. Few of Kierkegaard’s books are completely absent one
or more of these notions. The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, The Concept of Anxiety,
The Book on Adler, The Sickness unto Death, Practice in Christianity, For Self-
Examination, and Judge for Yourself! include significant references to these notions.
However, since the Concluding Unscientific Postscript by Johannes Climacus far
and away outstrips other books in dealing with these interrelated notions, that book
will receive the closest consideration in this overview.3
1
2
ibid., vol. 26, columns 1371–5.
3
i direct the reader’s attention to a discussion of “søren Kierkegaard on speculation”
included in the essay Curtis l. thompson, “embracing philosophical speculation: H.l.
martensen’s speculative theology and its impact,” in Hans Lassen Martensen: Theological,
Philosopher and Social Critic, ed. by Jon stewart, Copenhagen: museum tusculanum press
2012 (Danish Golden Age Studies, vol. 6), pp. 124–35.
66 Curtis L. Thompson
I. Speculation
speculation is to be found in both the ancient and the modern world.4 Kierkegaard’s
focus is on the modern thinkers whose theocentric speculation has not managed
to limit “itself to being theocentric behind the lectern three times a week
from 4:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.”5 it is as though from the “mount of ascension”6
speculation has come to hold magical powers, for it putatively allows philosophy
to penetrate to the depths of reality, provides the means to comprehend the truth
of Christianity,7 supplies in its “genuinely speculative” form precisely what the
Christian congregation “needs so very much,”8 makes possible an advance on
shakespeare through speculative drama that meets the demands of the times,9 and
enables world history to be reconstructed.10 so go the claims of the modern age
infatuated by this notion. a major theme in Kierkegaard’s thinking and writing
is speculation’s failure to give appropriate consideration to the human being’s
individual existence.11
the pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety, Vigilius Haufniensis,
writes in the preface to that work: “nothing could please me more than to be regarded
as a layman who indeed speculates but is still far removed from speculation.”12 the
quotation can be fittingly applied to Kierkegaard himself. He does not take a stand
against speculating itself, but he does feel compelled to criticize thinking that does
not recognize its limits. the Postscript praises speculative thought, and the same
passage identifies the central problem of speculation: it moves away from the self,
becoming ever more objective, thus allowing the self to disappear as “the gazing
power of speculative thought” takes over.13 the view is that Christian speculation
4
SKS 4, 219n / PF, 10n. thinkers and schools of thought Kierkegaard likely would
have identified with speculation include Plato, the Orphic mysteries, the Pythagoreans,
Origen, the medieval figure John Scotus Eriugena, and the modern figures Franz von Baader,
schelling, Hegel, and his teacher Hans l. martensen. the translators include some of these
figures in identifying those Kierkegaard likely considered participants in ancient and modern
speculation. see PF, supplement, 277–8, note 10.
5
SKS 6, 159 / SLW, 170.
6
SKS 17, 290, dd:208 / KJN 1, 281. this is also translated in EPW, 116.
7
SKS 7, 203 / CUP1, 223.
8
SKS 4, 92 / R, 226.
9
Pap. V b 150.5 / SLW, supplement, 625.
10
SKS 6, 215 / SLW, 230.
11
EPW, 250 note 26. the translator’s comment is made in reference to a statement of
Kierkegaard in his review of andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler.
12
SKS 4, 314 / CA, 8.
13
see SKS 7, 59–60 / CUP1, 55–6: “Honor be to speculative thought, praised by
everyone who is truly occupied with it. to deny the value of speculative thought…would, in
my eyes, be to prostitute oneself and would be especially foolish for one whose life in large
part and at its humble best is devoted to its service, and especially foolish for one who admires
the greeks. after all, he must know that aristotle, when discussing what happiness is, lodges
the highest happiness in thinking, mindful of the eternal gods’ blissful pastime of thinking.
Furthermore, he must have both a conception of and a respect for the dauntless enthusiasm
of the scholar, his perseverance in the service of the idea. but for the speculating thinker the
Speculation/Science/Scholarship 67
is fine as long as the presupposed Christian is in place.14 in that same work one
encounters an endorsing of what might be called an anti-speculative speculation.15
speculating can be legitimately utilized in the service of undercutting speculation
that oversteps its bounds in striving to comprehend Christianity. in this sort of move
one comes to operate with a little socratic ignorance, remembering that socrates’
ignorance grew out of his veneration for god, which meant—even though he was a
pagan—that he was continually striving to maintain “the deep gulf of the qualitative
difference between” god and the human, with this god-fearing ignorance guarding
faith against speculation.16
the Concluding Unscientific Postscript first presents “The Objective Issue of
the truth of Christianity,” with “the speculative point of View” providing the
culminating discussion of this relatively brief part one of the book. this objective
treatment of Christianity strives to arrive at truth by means of permeating Christianity
with thought.17 However, the person of Christian faith, passionately concerned about
gaining an eternal happiness, is intensely engaged in the inwardness of his or her
subjective existence. Johannes Climacus points out that in attempting to be objective,
the speculative thinker ends up moving away from the subjective inwardness that
Christian faith demands. the book’s part two treats at much greater length the
subjective side of the issue of becoming a Christian and in the process presents
multiple critiques of speculation.
Johannes contends that speculation in the theocentric nineteenth century assumes
the form of “a glorious invention”—mediation.18 mediation takes the place of
“synthesis” in the “old, respectable philosophical terminology: thesis, antithesis,
synthesis.”19 mediation looks fairly good on paper,20 but it hinders the human’s
ethical development.21 mediation wants to make it easier for the existing person by
omitting the absolute relation to the absolute.22 Climacus maintains that “the easiness
question of his personal eternal happiness cannot come up at all, precisely because his task
consists in going away from himself more and more and becoming objective and in that way
disappearing from himself and becoming the gazing power of speculative thought.”
14
SKS 7, 343–4 / CUP1, 377–8.
15
SKS 7, 344 / CUP1, 378. Johannes writes: “in so-called Christian speculative thought,
what other presupposition can there be at all than that Christianity is the very opposite
of speculative thought, that it is the miraculous, the absurd, with the requirement that the
individual is to exist in it and is not to waste time on speculatively understanding. if there is
speculative thinking within this presupposition, then the speculative thought will instead have
as its task a concentration on the impossibility of speculatively understanding Christianity.”
16
SKS 11, 212 / SUD, 99.
17
SKS 7, 54 / CUP1, 50.
18
SKS 7, 360 / CUP1, 395.
19
SKS 4, 319 / CA, 11.
20
SKS 7, 381 / CUP1, 419.
21
SKS 7, 364 / CUP1, 400. Johannes asserts: “spiritually understood, a human being’s
upright walk is his absolute respect for the absolute τέλος; otherwise he walks on all fours.
When it is a matter of relative elements, mediation can have its significance (that they are all
equal before mediation), but when it is a matter of the absolute τέλος, mediating means that
the absolute τέλος is reduced to a relative τέλος.”
22
SKS 7, 384 / CUP1, 421–2.
of Christianity is distinguished by one thing only: by the difficulty.”23 mediation
serves the principle of identity by bringing life’s contradictions to a higher level
where they can be united; Kierkegaard’s pseudonym on the other hand sees the
principle of contradiction as providing the higher view since it is more concrete.24
When Christianity comes under scrutiny, the shortcomings of mediation become
especially apparent.
Mediating speculation confiscates Christian terminology as it claims to be
Christianity. particularly troubling to Kierkegaard’s Climacus is that “the speculative
thinker knows how to cancel the paradox.”25 the fact is that Christianity is the very
opposite of speculation.26 in its stress on the eternal, speculation loses the temporal:
“speculatively to transform Christianity into an eternal history, the god-in-time
into an eternal becoming-of-the-deity, etc., is nothing but evasion and playing with
words.”27 in Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard’s anti-Climacus levels the charge
that mediation reduces the Christ to a speculative unity.28
of course, the Christian religion is not defenseless in relation to speculation.
“Christianity’s mortal weapon against ‘speculative comprehending’ ” is the “possibility
of offense.”29 In relation to the Christ the offense is twofold: first, in that one is
supposed to believe that an individual human being is god, and second, in that one is
supposed to believe that this one suffered in a lowly manner.30 the offense also lies in
the concern for the single individual, which Christianity insists upon in treating sin as
a posited misrelation that has entered into the relationship the individual human has
with the god before whom the individual exists: speculative thought’s universalizing
moves the focus—away from the particular human being and its qualification of the
individual as existing before God—toward the concept of the human that centers on
the human race.31
Kierkegaard insists that there is a difference between Christianity and being a
Christian,32 especially when speculative thinking reduces Christianity to a teaching
that is to be believed and then comprehended; at the heart of being a Christian is
relating to the god-man, and this one, as “the sign of contradiction,” “calls for faith”
and cannot be accommodated through “direct communication.”33 “the god-man is
23
SKS 7, 391 / CUP1, 430.
24
SKS 7, 383 / CUP1, 421.
25
SKS 7, 204 / CUP1, 223.
26
SKS 7, 247 / CUP1, 272.
27
SKS 7, 525n / CUP1, 578n.
28
SKS 12, 128 / PC, 123. Kierkegaard writes: “by way of didacticism, the god-man has
been made into that speculative unity of god and man sub specie aeterni [under the aspect of
eternity] or made visible in that nowhere-to-be-found medium of pure being, rather than that
the god-man is the unity of being god and an individual human being in a historically actual
situation.”
29
SKS 12, 110 / PC, 102.
30
SKS 12, 92 / PC, 82.
31
SKS 11, 197 / SUD, 83.
32
SKS 7, 338–9 / CUP1, 372.
33
SKS 12, 144 / PC, 141.
an individual human being” who “discloses the thoughts of hearts.”34 this is why
Kierkegaard writes in Prefaces that he has “a fear of mediation”: “When the word
‘mediation’ is merely mentioned, everything becomes so magnificent and grandiose
that i do not feel well but am oppressed and chafed.”35
II. Science
in an early journal entry from June of 1835, Kierkegaard wrote what is generally
interpreted as either an actual letter, presumably to his relative peter Wilhelm lund,
a paleontologist, natural scientist, or a fictitious letter to be included as a part of the
projected writing project “Faustian letters.”36 in the section on “the natural sciences,”
he includes a definition of them that is a thoughtful description of the scope of the
scientific enterprise.37 in a later journal entry he writes that natural scientists agree
that animals do not suffer from anxiety,38 and his pseudonym Johannes de silentio
plays with the rhyme of Lidenskab (passion) and Videnskab (science) in typifying
the age as one “that has crossed out passion in order to serve science.”39 a comment
he places in the mouth of a character in his early play The Battle between the Old and
the New Soap-Cellars about macadamizing science and scholarship, meaning putting
them to use for practical purposes—indicates an awareness of the tremendous power
of knowledge when it is harnessed for transforming reality.40
søren Kierkegaard was a careful thinker who knew the danger of blurring
important distinctions. the endeavor of science is established on the premise of
making distinctions, so Kierkegaard clearly appreciated the world of science. one of
34
SKS 12, 131 / PC, 126.
35
SKS 4, 506 / P, 44–5.
36
EO1, explanatory notes, 662 note 1 and note 2.
37
SKS 17, 20 aa:12 / KJN 1, 15–16. He states: “The natural sciences. If I look first at
this whole tendency (including in this classification all those who aim to make intelligible
and interpret nature’s runic inscriptions: from the one who calculates the motion of the stars
and stops them as it were in order to inspect them more closely, to the one who describes the
physiology of a particular animal; from one who from the heights of the mountains surveys
the surface of the earth, to the one who descends to the depths of the abyss; from the one
who pursues the development of the human body through its countless nuances, to those who
study intestinal worms), along this road, as on any other (though mainly this one), i have
of course seen examples of people who have made a name for themselves in the literature
by their enormous industriousness as collectors. they know a great number of details and
have discovered many new ones, but nothing more. they have merely provided a substratum
for others to apply their thought to and work up. These people are thus satisfied with their
details, and yet to me they are like the rich farmer in the gospel: there’s a great deal they have
collected in the barn, but science can say to them, ‘tomorrow i will require your life,’ insofar
as science decides what meaning each particular finding is to have within the whole.”
38
Pap. V b 53:9 / CA, supplement, 185.
39
SKS 4, 103 / FT, 7.
40
SKS 17, 293, dd:208 / KJN 1, 285. see also EPW, 120 and explanatory notes, 265
note 62, which informs the reader that macadamizing refers to “the scottish engineer John
loudon macadam (1756–1836)” who “had invented his road-making process in 1819.”
his pseudonyms states how “every scientific issue within the larger compass of science
has its definite place” and “its harmonious blending in the whole”; but “when the
deliberation forgets where it properly belongs…it forgets itself and becomes something
else.”41 in works such as The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death, he
was careful to delineate the particular terrain of psychology, dogmatics, and ethics. to
each its own: “every concept must be dealt with by the science to which it belongs,
whether the concept belongs to the science in such a way that it is developed there or
is developed by being presupposed.”42 “above all, every science must vigorously lay
hold of its own beginning and not live in complicated relations with other sciences.”43
the danish thinker, who develops stages on life’s way and has various categories
within each stage, acknowledges the particular subject matter and place allotted to
each of the sciences. For him, or at least for Vigilius Haufniensis, not all the sciences
operate at the same level: “every science lies either in a logical immanence or in an
immanence within a transcendence that it is unable to explain.”44 And finally, even
the deliverances of science have import to be grasped at the personal level. one can
understand, therefore, why Kierkegaard in draft material would have written that “in
order to grasp and to express this meaning of life it is also appropriate that the single
individual who is capable of it should apply himself to studies of a scientific nature, but
in such a way that such study would have its validation in an education whose ultimate
expression is to impress the idea upon his own life.”45
besides pointing out the need for each science to respect its parameters and
subject matter, it also needs to recognize that it cannot accomplish everything.
For instance, the self cannot be grasped by science.46 Furthermore, the scientific is
impersonal, while existence is personal. That is why Kierkegaard identifies doubt
as being important for science, while irony is so for personal human life.47 science,
along with speculation and scholarship, tends to award primacy of place to thinking;
Johannes Climacus cautions, though, that confusion happens when the expectation is
that a direct transfer of the speculative-scientific-scholarly can be made to existence.48
41
SKS 4, 317 / CA, 9.
42
SKS 4, 341 / CA, 35.
43
SKS 4, 363n / CA, 58n.
44
SKS 4, 355 / CA, 50.
45
Pap. V b 53:29 / CA supplement, 192.
46
SKS 4, 382–3 / CA, 78–9. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym writes: “no science can say what
the self is without again stating it quite generally. and this is the wonder of life, that each man
who is mindful of himself knows what no science knows, since he knows who he himself is….
it is about time to seek to understand it in the greek way, and then again as the greeks would
have understood it if they had possessed Christian presuppositions. However, the real ‘self’ is
posited only by the qualitative leap.”
47
SKS 1, 354–5 / CI, 326: “in our age there has been much talk about the importance of
doubt for science and scholarship, but what doubt is to science, irony is to personal life. Just
as the scientists maintain that there is no true science without doubt, so it may be maintained
with the same right that no genuinely human life is possible without irony.”
48
SKS 7, 314–15 / CUP1, 344: “In the scientific-scholarly, the movement is from the
lower to the higher, and to think becomes the highest. in the interpretation of world history,
the movement is from the lower to the highest; the stages of imagination and feeling are left
this is not the case with existence: “in existence, the important thing is that all
elements are present simultaneously.”49 thinking and imagination and feeling are all
coordinate.50 since existing is an art, the subjective thinker is not a scientist-scholar
but an artist; he or she thus must think as an existing person, and that necessitates
including the thought that he or she is an existing person and remembering that the
subjective thinker has the “task of understanding the abstract concretely.”51
III. Scholarship
in the context of needing to study for his theological exams, Kierkegaard states in
a journal entry from June 1835 his preference for a free and indefinite course of
study rather than a regimented and prescribed one.52 in an extended entry a decade
later,53 he discusses the struggling that is going on in scholarship and in particular
within theological scholarship. a “scholarly danger” has been created because of
the conflict between the values of the university and those of the church; that the
assistant professor is capable of fulfilling the expectations of the university does
not mean that the scholar will necessarily fulfill the expectations of the church.54
a test case might be for the assistant professor to be asked to deliver an upbuilding
discourse; and when he declares that he can do it, but the congregation will be unable
to follow him, then he is actually admitting that he cannot do it.55
in his dissertation The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard had stated that “if our
generation has any task at all, it must be to translate the achievement of scientific
scholarship into personal life, to appropriate it personally.”56 in preface Viii in
the satirical Prefaces by nicolaus notabene we read rather beautiful words about
scholarship: “scholarship is not jealous of its knowledge; it desires to communicate
itself to all; it desires that all people should come to knowledge of the truth. it does
not make great demands; it appears in a humble form; it expresses itself with the
condescension of love.”57 the age’s priests of philosophy, however, demand that
behind, and the stage of thinking as the highest is last. everywhere it is acknowledged as
settled that thinking is the highest; scholarship more and more turns away from a primitive
impression of existence; there is nothing to live through, nothing to experience, everything is
finished, and the task of speculative thought is to rubricate, classify, and methodically order
the various categories of thought.”
49
SKS 7, 317 / CUP1, 346.
50
SKS 7, 318 / CUP1, 348. Climacus writes: “the task is equality, contemporaneity,
and the medium in which they are united is existing….to unite the elements of life in
contemporaneity, that is precisely the task….the true is not superior to the good and the
beautiful, but the true and the good and the beautiful belong essentially to every human
existence and are united for an existing person not in thinking them but in existing.”
51
SKS 7, 321–2 / CUP1, 351–2.
52
SKS 17, 22, aa:12 / KJN 1, 17.
53
Pap. Vi b 133 and 137 / TD, supplement, 122–6.
54
Pap. Vi b 133 / TD, supplement, 122–4.
55
Pap. Vi b 133 / TD, supplement, 124.
56
SKS 1, 356 / CI, 328.
57
SKS 4, 510 / P, 49–50.
theology as well as all the other disciplines must become philosophical and state their
claims from the perspective of philosophy, because “philosophy is the demand of the
times.”58 scholarship distances itself from life and in that sense is not upbuilding; it
thereby differs much from the Christian, which is all about relating to life rather than
distancing from it.59
Judge for Yourself! offers reflections on the Christ as Prototype: when he says
something, earnestness is at hand, because what he says is intimately tied to what the
speaker’s life expresses; introducing the lily and the bird could be seen as a jest, but
the sparrow does not become a professor and the most serious science or art has not
entered the scene, because it is no laughing matter since the teacher is present during
the lesson.60 Judge for Yourself! considers the high place of the scholar in relation
to the Christian religion. if the Christianity of the middle ages is called “monastic-
ascetic Christianity,” then the Christianity of modernity is called “professional-
scholarly Christianity”; then all stood in relation to the monastery, now all stand in
relation to the professor, with the professor being the model of true Christianity.61
this book also treats the matter of offering an exposition on Christianity and the
danger of intoxication that can set in on the part of the person who has acquired
great knowledge of this subject matter.62 the danger lies in mistakenly identifying
knowing with doing, and it is overcome by a sobriety that remembers that action
cannot be bypassed.63 The Book on Adler declares that on the topic of the apostles
and their revelations, it is difficult to place them in relation to scholarship, because
the distancing of scholarship renders the revelation less trustworthy and thus makes
more confusing and problematic the comprehending of it.64 later in the work, and the
only portion of it to be published, Kierkegaard differentiates between a genius and
58
SKS 4, 510–11 / P, 50–1.
59
SKS 11, 117 / SUD, 5.
60
SKS 16, 227 / JFY, 179.
61
SKS 16, 241 / JFY, 194–5. to counteract this view that presents the professor as
corresponding to Christianity as objective teaching or doctrine, Kierkegaard argues (SKS 16,
241 / JFY, 195) that the concept of the imitation of Christ must be emphasized.
62
SKS 16, 173 / JFY, 118: “ ‘but,’ says the sensible person, ‘one must be careful
about the direction one’s knowing takes. if my knowing turns inward, against me, if i do
not take care to prevent this, then knowing is the most intoxicating thing there is, the way to
becoming completely intoxicated, since there then occurs an intoxicating confusion between
the knowledge and the knower, so that the knower will himself resemble, will be that which is
known. and this is intoxication.’ ”
63
SKS 16, 174 / JFY, 119: “…only the person whose understanding, whose knowing,
is action is completely sober….no, there is nothing more deceitful than the human heart, and
this perhaps never appears more clearly than in this misrelation between our understanding
and our acting.”
64
Pap. Viii b 7,7 26 / BA, 84. Kierkegaard asserts: “scholarship, encouraged by the
distance, has taken on a double role; it psychologically weakens the impression of the apostles’
statement and then comprehends the revelation, and then when scholarship has finished, it is
not so easy to comprehend what it actually has done: has it cunningly tricked the apostles’
statement about its being a revelation out of its trustworthiness, and then comprehended the
revelation, or has it first believingly accepted the apostles’ statement—and then comprehended
the revelation?”
an apostle, with the former occupying the qualitative sphere of immanence and the
latter occupying that of transcendence: “the genius has only immanent teleology;
the apostle is absolutely teleologically positioned paradoxically.”65
A final treatment of scholarship worthy of inclusion here is that which sometimes
comes into play in the reading of God’s Word. Kierkegaard clarifies that scholarly
interpreting of the bible can interfere with reading god’s Word as a mirror in which
the reader encounters himself or herself.66 on Kierkegaard’s view, to read the bible
with a dictionary and other scholarly tools is not to be reading god’s Word; this is
the deception that scholarship can bring.67 earnestness comes in reading god’s Word
whenever one remembers that it is to oneself that it is speaking.68
speculation, science, and scholarship constitute a conceptual cluster that
functions in a distinctive manner within Kierkegaard’s thinking and writing. He
thinks they each are able to make a positive contribution, just as they each are also
able to cause confusion and bring mischief if they are allowed to transcend their
allocated purposes and limits. in understanding these notions within the context of
Kierkegaard’s corpus, one has entered into themes at the heart of his authorship.
see also apologetics; Communication/indirect Communication; Contemporaneity;

Contradiction; dialectic; dogma/doctrine; double movement; earnestness;
existence/existential; identity/difference; immanence/transcendence; immediacy/
Reflection; Objectivity/Subjectivity; Offense; Paradox; Philosophy/Philosophers;
reason; skepticism/doubt.
65
SKS 11, 98 / BA, 174–5.
66
SKS 13, 53 / FSE, 25.
67
SKS 13, 56–60 / FSE, 28–32.
68
SKS 13, 63 / FSE, 36.
spirit
marcia morgan
Spirit (Aand—noun)
Aand is derived from the old danish and, old norse ǫnd, which is of the same root
as aande (breathe), and also from the old norse andi. Andi corresponds nearest
to aand (spirit), ǫnd nearest to aande (breath); in swedish ande corresponds to
both aand and aande. the latter two are both related to the latin animus (spiritual
power) and anima (air, soul), as well as to the greek ἄνεμος (wind).1 the lexical
meaning of aande, in danish related to livsaande, is breathing as a condition of life.
Aand may be conjoined with liv and kraft to mean spiritual life and spiritual power,
respectively; and it is related to sjæl, the incorporeal part of human nature, condition
of its consciousness, synonymous with soul. it may refer to a higher consciousness
in contrast to soul; a person distinguished as a personality; a rational being made
without a body; an all-powerful force intended to act in the human being (holy
spirit); a mood; and a volatile substance or essence.2
in Kierkegaard’s corpus spirit is the concept of a being that exists primarily as an
activity. in this context the term carries the meaning of an action word or verb rather
than that of a noun. For Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms, spirit is contrasted to
psyche and soul, as well as to the body, the realm of sensuousness, and “the world.”3
the concept of spirit appears throughout Kierkegaard’s entire body of writings,
but the most concentrated analyses of the notion appear in The Concept of Irony,
Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The Concept of Anxiety, The Sickness
unto Death, For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourself! there are additional,
minor discussions of spirit in the early upbuilding discourses, Stages on Life’s Way,
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, The
Moment, as well as references to spirit in Kierkegaard’s papers and journals. However,
the concept is made manifest in almost every one of Kierkegaard’s published works.
the main categories in which spirit is discussed include an understanding of
the notion as the basic concept of human being;4 the single individual;5 actualizing
1
2
3
Cf. SKS 1, 68–9, 74–5, 79–80 / EO1, 61, 66–7, 89.
4
Cf. SKS 1, 75 / EO1, 65.
5
Cf. SKS 16, 101 / PV, 121.
76 Marcia Morgan
individuality;6 the self or subjectivity;7 a representative, derived, and established
relation;8 internality or inwardness;9 a form of certainty or resoluteness;10 truth;11
self-affirmation or self-duplication;12 contrast or exclusion;13 the positive principle
Christianity has brought into the world;14 Christianity itself;15 that which gives life
and brings faith;16 something armed with weapons;17 the facilitator of language;18 an
independent system, realm, world, or domain;19 a paradox;20 absurdity, impossibility,
an offense;21 sobriety;22 a synthesis of freedom and necessity, the temporal and the
eternal, infinity and finitude, and body and soul.23 there are various modalities of
spirit, including but not limited to immediate spirit, ethical spirit, real spirit, finite
spirit, infinite spirit, abstract spirit, and exaggerated spirit, spirit qualified only as
spirit, spirit of the age, worldly spirit, spirit of the world, spirit qualified as man,
absolute spirit, objective spirit, subjective spirit, holy spirit, human spirit, evil spirit,
and eternal spirit. each of the categories and modalities bears out detailed knowledge
of Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence, dependent upon and contextualized within
the specific text in which the discussion of spirit takes place. For this reason, it
is best to consider examples of the different manifestations of spirit from the
most characteristic texts in which they appear, since many of the rubrics become
interconnected in the writings in which spirit is analyzed.
The first and most formative appearance of spirit—and therefore one of the most
significant—is found in the dissertation, The Concept of Irony, in a discussion of
Hegel’s view of socrates. two sides of thinking are delineated, comprised on one
hand of the universal, which “begins with thought,” and on the other hand the notion
that “it is part and parcel of virtue as character that a person is [the universal].”24 to
this extent spirit is akin to irony because it entails both the universal and actualizing
individuality, which Kierkegaard calls “the real spirit” (reale Aand).25 in the analysis
of Hegel’s recapitulation of socratic irony Kierkegaard indicates that socratic
6
Cf. SKS 1, 272 / CI, 230.
7
Cf. SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
8
Cf. ibid.
9
Cf. SKS 14, 113 / COR, 54.
10
Cf. SKS 8, 98–9 / TA, 103.
11
Cf. SKS 7, 44 / CUP1, 37.
12
Cf. SKS 13, 233–4 / KAC, 162.
13
Cf. SKS 1, 68 / EO1, 61.
14
Cf. ibid.
15
Cf. ibid.
16
Cf. SKS 13, 103 / FSE, 81.
17
Cf. SKS 14, 113 / COR, 54.
18
Cf. SKS 1, 74 / EO1, 66.
19
Cf. SKS 1, 244 / CI, 198.
20
Cf. SKS 13, 233–4 / KAC, 162.
21
Cf. SKS 16, 193–4 / JFY, 140.
22
Cf. SKS 16, 195 / JFY, 142.
23
Cf. SKS 11, 127–8 / SUD, 13–14.
24
SKS 1, 272 / CI, 230.
25
ibid.
Spirit 77
teaching allows the universal to manifest itself in contrast to the particular. Here
the nascent idea of spirit in Kierkegaard’s oeuvre becomes apparent, for spirit exists
in this text ironically and as a contrast. the irony of the contrast is that it allows
one thing to exist by means of the exclusion of another; this exclusion, however,
can result in an inclusion of the self as actualizing individuality. this result creates
a paradox, which is the redeeming qualification of consciousness. According to
Kierkegaard’s reading of Hegel’s version of socratic irony, “consciousness draws
from itself what constitutes truth.”26 this is the principle of subjective freedom:
that one carries consciousness within oneself. the universal (spirit) thereby comes
to be visible (spirit).27 However, the universal has both a positive and negative
side: it does not yet qualify itself concretely; it is only abstract in the sense that
the character has been just a habit, an ethos, a way of behavior. this is positive
in the sense that subjective freedom has been established; it is negative in that it
lacks concretion. The universal “is not yet manifested in its concrete qualification….
it can not be formulated positively, because it has no further development.”28 “the
goal is the universal. it is a principle concrete within itself, which, however, is not
yet manifested in its concrete qualification.”29 the abstractness of the universal, as
a form of ethical character brought to awareness by socrates, concludes with an
ethics on unstable or “shaky” ground.30 it is based only on abstract insight without
enough concrete determination of individual character. this yields an understanding
of spirit as abstract, existing as a contrastive relation only at the level of the universal
through which freedom is ascertained, but concrete ethical character has not yet
been determined as self-affirmed by the individual living within the boundaries of
the universal.
a different notion of spirit arises in Kierkegaard’s analysis of schlegel’s irony in
the dissertation. Kierkegaard claims that Friedrich von schlegel, through the irony
he employs in Lucinde, “attempts…to annul all ethics [Sædelighed]—not only in the
sense of custom and usage, but all the ethics that is the validity of spirit, the mastery of
the spirit over the flesh.”31 this Kierkegaard describes as “irony’s special endeavor:
to cancel all actuality and substitute for it an actuality that is no actuality.”32 if through
socratic irony freedom was given birth but had shown only the uncertain ground on
which ethics stands as an abstract idea, thus yielding an abstract or exaggerated
spirit, through schlegel irony cancels ethics and seeks “the naked sensuousness in
which spirit is a negated element.”33 “What [schlegel’s notion of irony] resists is the
spirituality in which sensuousness is an assimilated element.”34 sensuousness ruled
26
SKS 1, 273 / CI, 231.
27
ibid.
28
SKS 1, 274 / CI, 232 (note that this is a translation of Kierkegaard’s quotation of
Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy).
29
SKS 1, 274 / CI, 232.
30
ibid.
31
SKS 1, 325 / CI, 290.
32
ibid.
33
SKS 1, 325 / CI, 291.
34
ibid.
78 Marcia Morgan
by spirit “is not naked”;35 it is clothed by consciousness or actualizing individuality.
schlegel’s irony does not embody spirit because it does not allow for the contrastive
relation of including what has been excluded; through schlegel sensuousness annuls
spirit instead of working in a contrastive relation with it through paradox.
What was explicated of spirit in the dissertation is recast through different
variations on the same or similar themes by various pseudonyms in Either/Or,
parts one and two. What schlegel’s irony fails to accomplish—a preservation of
sensuousness through its exclusion by spirit—is captured in the aesthetic realm of
existence depicted in Either/Or, Part One. According to “A,” the fictional author
of “the immediate erotic stages, or the musical erotic,” spirit exists to the extent
that it excludes sensuousness. this is not a negation of sensuousness, but rather
preservation of it through contrast. a furthermore claims that sensuality is put forth
as “a principle, as a power, as an independent system by Christianity.”36 a writes,
“sensuality was placed under the qualification of spirit first by Christianity. This
is quite natural, for Christianity is spirit, and spirit is the positive principle it has
brought into the world.”37 in this sense, in the aesthetic realm, spirit is dissociated
from the psychical, indicated by a as linked to greek paganism grounded in the
principles of consonance and harmony. because spirit requires a relation, one
could say in this context a dissonance between the particular and the universal, a
does not believe that the sensual was present before Christianity. on the contrary,
according to a, only the beautiful existed in greek aesthetics prior to Christianity.
the beautiful existed in individuality, which made pretense to participation in the
universal, but in a’s estimation, this universal did not exist. For a beauty cannot
be equated with the sensual; the sensual is the first principle of spirit. Erotic love,
which dominated greek aesthetics, for example, in plato’s Symposium, is based on
the psychical. by comparison, the spiritual love internal to Kierkegaard’s aesthetics
is rooted in the sensuous to the extent that it excludes it; through exclusion spiritual
love preserves the sensuous. A’s definition of spirit substantiates the notion of spirit
as relation, albeit through a more sensuously relevant discussion of aesthetics. as in
The Concept of Irony, the relation is a paradoxical one between the universal and
the particular.
a develops his concept of spirit by citing it as the basic concept of human
being. this becomes clear when drawn parallel to the previous distinction
between greek pagan aesthetics grounded in the psychical, and Christian spiritual
aesthetics founded upon the sensual. in the greek conception of the beautiful there
exist multiple heterogeneous individual forms of beauty that are only seemingly
unified in a central source, since they are tied to an empty, invisible form of the
universal. through contemplative practice the abstract universal is attributed to
the multifarious particulars. For a there is no genuine grounding of an individual
in relation to the universal through such a psychical connection. in the Christian
notion of the sensuous, according to A, the individual is first made manifest in
sensuous, erotic form. a representative relation arises between the individual spirit
35
SKS 1, 326 / CI, 291.
36
SKS 1, 44 / EO1, 61.
37
ibid.
Spirit 79
as the first principle of Christianity, and the other individuals surrounding this spirit
who participate in this spirit’s existence. The first principle of Christianity therefore
exists in a concretely immediate and sensuous form. in contrast to the abstract and
exaggerated form of pagan beauty, through the Christian doctrine of love spirit exists
as a sensuous particular, which is the basic concept of the human being.
From the perspective of Either/Or, part one, spirit is immediacy, the immediate
in its most particular form. However, from the viewpoint of Either/Or, part two,
written by the pseudonym Judge William and placed under the rubric of the papers
of “b,” which represent the ethical sphere of existence, the writings of Either/Or,
part one depict the psychical, and the essays in Either/Or, part two now represent
the spiritual. again, contrast is constitutive of spirit. by virtue of excluding the
perspective of spirit from Either/Or, part one, the ethicist of Either/Or, part two
develops a higher position. Judge William as the ethical individual is able to achieve
distance from the sensuous, which for him makes its aesthetic nature, now meant in a
negative light, all the clearer. While the aesthetic notion of spirit captures immediacy,
the ethical stance embraces mediation. because of the more powerful role of
relationality in the ethical domain, the notion of spirit is all the more autonomous and
yet dependent; again, the paradox of the contrast between autonomy and dependence
is constitutive of the being of spirit as relational. according to Judge William, the
aesthete annihilates both sensuousness and beauty because as a particular form
of life the aesthete is not able to ascertain the sensuous for all eternity. From the
vantage point of the ethicist, the aesthete is akin to the greek pagan who erotically
pursues individual beautiful forms without actualizing any substantive universal
in any concrete form. the ethicist is now in the proper relation to love, while the
aesthete merely experienced vapid and fleeting sensual forms relegated only to a
moment, a moment trapped within the finitude of worldly spirit. For Judge William,
spirit exists in a more developmental manner in that it combines eternally with the
sensuous. This facilitates the eternal spirit comingling with the human or finite one.
Such is cast through the metaphor of marriage in which first love is eternalized. For
the ethicist love equals the unity of contrasts: sensuousness plus spirituality, freedom
together with necessity, whereby the sensual equals freedom and the spiritual equals
necessity. Furthermore, in the ethical understanding of spirit the present moment is
bound to exist forever, therefore combining the temporal and the eternal. this is the
point at which god enters the discussion for the ethicist’s analysis of love.
The theme of the temporal, human, and hence finite spirit intersecting with the
eternal, divine spirit of god is recapitulated in a somewhat different form in later,
more religious texts in Kierkegaard’s corpus. the contemporaneity of the interaction
between the temporal and the eternal is what Vigilius Haufniensis, the pseudonymous
author of The Concept of Anxiety, defines as “the moment.”38 in the instantaneous
interaction between time and eternity, the synthesis of psyche and body (the psychical
and the sensuous), which comprises the human being, comes into being. this is a
repetition, albeit in a higher form, of the notion of spirit as the principle of human
being in both the aesthetic and ethical domains of Either/Or. Haufniensis writes,
“the synthesis of the temporal and the eternal is not another synthesis but is the
38
SKS 4, 358 / CA, 88.
80 Marcia Morgan
expression for the first synthesis, according to which man is a synthesis of psyche
and body that is sustained by spirit. as soon as the spirit is posited, the moment is
present.”39 the repetitive development of spirit into ever higher forms of freedom,
which increasingly understand their respective dependency on concrete sensuousness
by way of excluding it, link to the prominent spiritual themes of repetition and
self-movement in Fear and Trembling and Repetition. each actualizing individual
exists to the degree that it countenances, indeed proactively pursues, the repetitive
movement internal to its own spiritual edification. This movement connects to the
spiritual awakening within time, different from and in stark contrast to the greek
socratic/platonic conception of ἀνάμνησις (recollection).40
each additional level of development of spirit as an interaction of the eternal
with the temporal countenances a more fulfilled, lived notion of freedom on the
part of actualizing individuality. For example, because the ethicist in Either/Or, part
two is further from the aesthetic position of immediate sensuousness represented in
Either/Or, part one, he achieves a higher degree of freedom paradoxically. this is
elaborated in “the balance between the aesthetic and the ethical” in Either/Or, part
two, in which Judge William claims that a happy marriage is made up of a healthy
combination of the sensuous and the spiritual.41 For him immediate spirit is bound
to earthly life. He claims that this spirit “wants to gather itself together out of its
dispersion…and to transfigure itself in itself; the personality of the individual wants
to become conscious of itself in its eternal validity.”42 if this does not take place,
then there is no movement of the self through the collision of the temporal and the
eternal, and depression ensues.43 Depression is defined by the ethicist in Either/Or,
part two as a lack of the development of personality. For Judge William depression
is sin, and sin is “hysteria of the spirit.”44 For the ethicist, the aesthete is a prime
example of a depressed personality, which remains underdeveloped. the recognition
of depression provides the possibility to eliminate it; this must take place through
spirit. He writes, “only the spirit can eliminate [depression], for it inheres in the
spirit.”45 the ethicist claims moreover, “[b]ut the spirit does not allow itself to be
mocked; it avenges itself on you and binds you in the chains of depression.”46 Hence
the shading of more religiously intonated meanings of spirit as offense, sobriety,
or as a power or weapon, modalities of spirit that are repeated in later texts such as
A Literary Review of Two Ages and For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourself!
Perhaps it is best to conclude with the most famous (or infamous) definition of
the notion of spirit in Kierkegaard’s collected writings, that which is provided by
the pseudonym, anti-Climacus, in The Sickness unto Death. although it appears
to be one of the most convoluted passages in Kierkegaard’s writings, ironically, it
39
ibid.
40
Cf. SKS 4, 9–12 / R, 131–2.
41
SKS 2, 155–314 / EO2, 156–333.
42
SKS 2, 170–1 / EO2, 189.
43
ibid.
44
SKS 2, 170 / EO2, 188.
45
SKS 2, 172 / EO2, 190.
46
SKS 2, 184 / EO2, 184.
Spirit 81
provides one of the clearest statements on what is meant by the concept of spirit.
Because of the complicated nature of the definition provided there, it is important to
quote the passage at length:
a human being is spirit. but what is spirit? spirit is the self. but what then is the self?
the self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation’s relating itself to itself
in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself.
A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal,
of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. a synthesis is a relation between two.
Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self. in the relation between two,
the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the
relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between
the psychical and the physical is a relation. if, however, the relation relates itself to itself,
this relation is the positive third, and this is the self. such a relation that relates itself
to itself, a self, must either have established itself or have been established by another.
if the relation that relates itself to itself has been established by another, then the relation
is indeed the third, but this relation, the third, is yet again a relation and relates itself to
that which established the entire relation. the human self is such a derived, established
relation, a relation that relates itself to itself and in relating itself to itself relates itself
to another.47
in this passage the most predominant of the categories of spirit named at the beginning
of this article come together, including the basic concept of human being, the self,
a representative, derived, and established relation; a synthesis of the infinite and
the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. This definition
of spirit from The Sickness unto Death likewise emphasizes the understanding of a
being that exists primarily as an activity of a relation: it is the relation’s relating that
is the key point for anti-Climacus, and it is this point that should be underscored for
a genuine grasping of spirit as an action word or verb, instead of an object word or
noun. How the relation carries out the act of relating indicates whether the being is
a healthy spirit that grasps its despairing situation as one standing in relation to sin,
which is the constitution of its being, or whether it is a depressive spirit that does
not acknowledge the external power that has granted it life. in order for a self to
overcome despair, that self must acknowledge the grounding force of another; this
other is god. to the extent that spirit recognizes this external power, spirit itself
acquires power.
see also actuality; being/becoming; Concrete/abstract; Consciousness; Contingency/

Possibility; Dialectic; Existence/Existential; Finitude/Infinity; Freedom; Objectivity/
subjectivity; otherness/alterity/the other; paradox; redoubling/reduplication;
repetition; self.
47
SKS 11, 127–8 / SUD, 13–14.
spiritlessness
gabriel guedes rossatti
Spiritlessness (Aandløshed—noun; aandløs—adjective)
the root aand, meaning “spirit,” comes from old norse ǫnd and is related to the
latin animus (soul) and to the greek ἄνεμος, which means “wind.”1 the noun
is composed by the juxtaposition of the root plus two suffixes (-løs + -hed), as in
its english translation. Curiously though, while the modern danish dictionary, Den
Danske Ordbog, gives no definition for “spiritlessness,” the Ordbog over det danske
Sprog, apart from indicating usages of the word by n.F.s. grundtvig and p.m. møller,
quotes a passage from Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety as its sole definition,
according to which “spiritlessness” is “the stagnation of spirit and the caricature of
ideality.”2 Molbech, in 1833, gave the definition of the adjective “spiritless” as “as
if without spirit, lacking spirit” and of the noun “spiritlessness” as “lack of spirit.”3
the most frequent occurrence of the word “spiritlessness” in Kierkegaard’s
published works is in The Concept of Anxiety, followed by The Sickness unto Death,
then the essay entitled “does a Human being Have the right to let Himself be put
to Death for the Truth?”—which originally appeared as the first of the Two Ethical-
Religious Essays. this, in its turn, means both that the concept of “spiritlessness” is
present throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship and that it has, as such, notwithstanding
its relative invisibility, a prominent role in terms of the structuring of this same
production. However, since it operates precisely as a concept of a more structural
nature throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship, the fact that it appears more in some
works than in others should not divert one’s attention from the fact that the concept
of “spiritlessness” may be as much implied by Kierkegaard as it is effectively
demanded by him; thus, he may address the issue of spiritlessness either through
the use of the adjective “spiritless” or through its implication, as when he indirectly
deals with it through a related constellation of concepts such as “busyness,”
“double-mindedness,” “despair,” “worldliness,” and the like. in sum, the concept
of “spiritlessness” is one of the most representative concepts in the entire work of
Kierkegaard, on account of its semantic concision or concentration.
1
2
ibid., vol. 1, column 51. the quotation itself is found in SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
3
Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols.
1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendalske boghandlings Forlag 1833, vol. 1, p. 3.
84 Gabriel Guedes Rossatti
The very first appearance of the concept of spiritlessness in the published works
of Kierkegaard occurs in Either/Or, part two, and more particularly in a discussion
concerning the different nuances within the aesthetic stage of existence; in fact,
according to Judge William, “[t]he differences can be extreme, all the way from
total absence of spirit to the highest level of brilliance.”4 From the very start of
Kierkegaard’s authorship proper—at least as he himself understood it—the problem
of spiritlessness is established. it makes its second appearance under an even
more interesting light, for there the matter is put in terms which refer not only to
spiritlessness as sickness, but more particularly to its being the product of a process;
thus, “the danger is whether the sick one is to be allowed to emancipate himself
from the eternal, to wither away in commonsensicality, to expire in callousness, to
be desouled in spiritlessness.”5
in its turn, such a loss of sensibility, or rather the pitiable situation in which one
finds oneself deprived of one’s very soul is further theorized by Kierkegaard, under
the pseudonym of Vigilius Haufniensis, in an extremely important passage from The
Concept of Anxiety, one which in a large measure functions not only as an anticipation
particularly of the central thesis of The Sickness unto Death, but also, in more
general terms, of some of the major problems or concerns of Kierkegaard’s entire
authorship. the passage is entitled “the anxiety of spiritlessness.”6 according to
Vigilius Haufniensis, there is a sort of spiritual life that should rather be called “still
life,” and such a form of life he calls “spiritlessness.” more particularly, Haufniensis
implies that in terms of the hierarchy of spiritual life, there are three main forms
of either religious or spiritual experience: paganism, Christianity and, curiously
enough, spiritlessness, the latter being defined as “paganism in Christianity,”7 which
in turn means that it is a form of spiritual life that has its point of departure in
an intrinsic confusion regarding spiritual categories, and even more specifically
regarding the very concept of “spirit.” For Haufniensis, therefore, “spiritlessness
[still] has a relation to spirit,”8 an assertion which seems paradoxical when compared
to another in which he states that “paganism differs from spiritlessness in that the
former is qualified toward spirit and the latter away from spirit. paganism is, if i
may say so, the absence of spirit, and thus quite different from spiritlessness. to that
extent, paganism is much to be preferred. spiritlessness is the stagnation of spirit and
the caricature of ideality.”9
being a caricature of spirit, spiritlessness is thus the most debased form of
spirituality, and as such its victims are likened by Haufniensis to insensitive
contented people who, “[i]f on a particular occasion” are “touched by spirit,” they
“for a moment begi[n] to twitch like…galvanized frog[s], a phenomenon…that
4
SKS 3, 176 / EO2, 180.
5
SKS 5, 200 / EUD, 198.
6
Cf. SKS 4, 396–9 / CA, 93–6.
7
SKS 4, 397 / CA, 94.
8
ibid.
9
SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95. indeed, the paradox is enhanced once one compares such
assertions with another one, in which Kierkegaard states, under the pseudonym of H.H., that
“spiritlessness” “is far more pagan than paganism was” (SKS 11, 91 / WA, 87).
Spiritlessness 85
corresponds perfectly to pagan fetishism.”10 in other words, they are quite literally
“ghosts”11 who “can say exactly the same thing that the richest spirit has said, but…
not…by virtue of spirit.”12 In sum, such ghosts are human beings who find themselves
in a state of “spiritual death”13 and which, on account of their being utterly confused
about spirit, are nevertheless conceived by Haufniensis as maintaining a relation
to anxiety, one in which the latter lies in wait. He explains the issue with the aid of
a metaphor: “it is conceivable that a debtor may be fortunate enough to slip away
from a creditor and hold him off with talk, but there is a creditor who never came off
badly, namely, spirit. Viewed from the standpoint of spirit, anxiety is also present in
spiritlessness, but it is hidden and disguised.”14
Haufiniensis also draws some theoretical conclusions about such spiritless
creatures from a socio-political point of view, in which such a process of “subjective
emptying out,” in that it occurs to “a sum of rational creatures,” is supposed to
transform them “into a perpetual muttering without meaning.”15 in fact, these empty
persons are further defined by Haufniensis in strictly socio-political terms when
he writes, “[w]hether philosophy can use this plebs as a category by making it a
substratum for the greater…i do not know. Viewed from the standpoint of spirit,
such an existence is sin, and the least one can do is to state this and demand spirit
from it.”16 the crowd, which in ancient rome was called plebs, makes its entrance
here in the work of Kierkegaard, already in 1844, more or less a year and a half
before the so-called “Corsair affair.” in sum, this means that Kierkegaard, at this
point of his authorship, already intimated that such a model of subjective formation
had as its meaning the fact that “[m]an qualified as spiritless has become a talking
machine, and there is nothing to prevent him from repeating by rote a philosophical
rigmarole, a confession of faith, or a political recitative.” 17 other than this insight
into the inner emptiness of such spiritless persons, Haufniensis expands his socio-
political considerations by envisaging, on their part, a certain propensity towards
servility, in the sense that “[f]or spiritlessness there is no authority, because it knows
indeed that for spirit there is no authority; however, since it unfortunately is not
spirit, despite its knowledge, it is a perfect idol worshipper. it worships a dunce and
a hero with equal veneration, but above anything else its real fetish is a charlatan.”18
as seen, spiritlessness in The Concept of Anxiety is presented as an experience
of spiritual “lostness” that “consists in its understanding nothing spiritually and
comprehending nothing as a task.”19 in this sense, it clearly anticipates many
categories, such as “leveling,”20 or ideas such as politics as a means of evading human
10
SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
11
SKS 4, 397 / CA, 94.
12
SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
13
Cf. SKS 5, 417 / TD, 39.
14
SKS 4, 399 / CA, 96.
15
SKS 4, 397 / CA, 94.
16
ibid.
17
SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
18
SKS 4, 398–9 / CA, 95.
19
SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
20
Cf. SKS 8, 80ff. / TA, 84ff.
responsibility (or personality),21 which would be employed by Kierkegaard after the
“Corsair affair” in terms of his critique of worldly mentality. indeed, as the quotation
above also implies, it is already apparent at this stage of Kierkegaard’s authorship
that he understood the cause of spiritlessness not as a fault of consciousness on one’s
part regarding one’s spiritual constitution, but rather that it had to do with a lack of
will or, better said, with a lack of either decision or passion in one’s position towards
the world. in fact, as he would later expound the matter to his contemporaries, “spirit
must not be considered identical with talent and genius, by no means, but identical
with resolution in passion”;22 or even more incisively, as he formulated the same idea
in a passage from the Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, which most clearly
anticipated The Sickness unto Death, “is not despair actually double-mindedness; or
what else is it to despair but to have two wills!”23
thus, “worldliness” would be precisely the target or rather the sin which
Kierkegaard was to aim at in a large portion of his writings after the “Corsair
affair”—for if “sin essentially is: temporally to lose the eternal,”24 then it is
exactly that. Against, therefore, the “deification of the world,”25 Kierkegaard would
condemn spiritlessness as the temptation among temptations, as he makes clear in
the following passage:
What is the temptation that in itself is many temptations? …the temptation is this, to
lose oneself, to lose one’s soul, to cease to be a human being and live as a human being
instead of being freer than the bird, and godforsaken to slave more wretchedly than
the animals. Yes, to slave! …instead of being willing to be what one is, poor, but also
loved by god, which one certainly is, never happy in oneself, never happy in god, to
damn oneself and one’s life to this slaving in despondent grief day and night, in dark
and broody dejection, in spiritless busyness, with the heart burdened by worry about
making a living.26
in any case, such criticisms of “making a living,” which is one of Kierkegaard’s

favorite expressions in terms of designating the worldly mentality,27 would reach
their peak in The Sickness unto Death, published in 1849 under the pseudonym
of anti-Climacus. in fact, its polemical nature is stated from the very beginning
of the book, for it claims itself to be “a Christian psychological exposition for
upbuilding and awakening.”28 now this means that it is a work polemically aimed
at the “passionless ghosts” referred to above, and, in this sense, it deals primarily
with a “sickness of the self,” one in which one dies and yet does not die, for, as anti-
Climacus puts it, “the dying of despair continually converts itself into a living.”29
21
Cf. SKS 24, 229 nb23:45 / JP 4, 4200.
22
SKS 18, 25 / TA, 22.
23
SKS 8, 144 / UD, 30.
24
SKS 10, 146 / CD, 136.
25
SKS 8, 166 / UD, 56.
26
SKS 10, 33 / CD, 21–2.
27
Cf. SKS 11, 156–7 / SUD, 41–2.
28
SKS 11, 115 / SUD, 1.
29
SKS 11, 134 / SUD, 18.
Spiritlessness 87
therefore, what anti-Climacus, as a “physician of souls,”30 seeks to propose in this
work is a cure for such a curious disease, and in this sense all of his proposals have
as their point of departure the fact, obvious to him, that a “human being is spirit.”31
Consequently, any ontological conception of the self, which understands the latter as
being either different from or opposed to spirit, is regarded by him as false, or in his
stern vocabulary, as despair, for “to be unaware of being defined as spirit is precisely
what despair is.”32 it follows from this, then, that “not to be conscious of oneself
as spirit—is despair, which is spiritlessness, whether the state is a thoroughgoing
moribundity, a merely vegetative life, or an intense, energetic life, the secret of
which is still despair.”33 in sum, it can be safely assumed, at least for the present
purposes, that what anti-Climacus understands as the sickness of “despair” is the
very phenomenon of “spiritlessness” and, in this sense, what Kierkegaard really
aimed at through such an accusation was the state of spiritual lethargy incisively
described in The Book of Adler under its various forms:
Whether it is now breathless busyness or worldly desire or abstract thinking or whatever

the distraction may be, it is certain that most people, in the religious sense, go through
life in a kind of absentmindedness and preoccupation; they never in self-concern sense
each his own I and the pulse beat and heart beat of his own self. they live too objectively
to be aware of something like that, and if they hear mention of it they tranquilize
themselves with the explanation that such things are hysteria, hypochondria, etc. With
regard to each his own self, most people live as if they were continually out, never at
home. The events and enterprises of their lives flutter vaguely about this self.34
“so, to be sure, they do have religiousness, but inwardly they have not made up
their minds about when it is to be used, what it is, how it is to be used. they have
religiousness, but they are not had by it.”35 “despair,” therefore, on account of its
being one of the conceptual synonyms of “spiritlessness,” is the most glaring and
offensive concept Kierkegaard employed in order to describe the psychic-spiritual
condition of individuals in modernity. indeed, commenting upon the distinction
drawn formerly by his colleague Vigilius Haufniensis between paganism and
Christendom (quoted above), anti-Climacus agrees with him that “paganism
does indeed lack spirit but…it still is qualified in the direction of spirit, whereas
paganism in Christendom lacks spirit in a departure from spirit or in a falling away
and therefore is spiritlessness in the strictest sense.”36
therefore, against the ever ready and visible proponents of progress, Kierkegaard
believed that in the realm of the spirit no such thing exists. He refused to arrange a
seat for himself on the modern omnibus that proclaims the pretentiously scientific
notion that the human being can only be defined in terms of matter, and such a notion
30
Cf. SKS 11, 139–40 / SUD, 23–4.
31
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
32
SKS 11, 141 / SUD, 25.
33
SKS 11, 159–60 / SUD, 44–5.
34
SKS 15, 259–60 / BA, 103–4.
35
SKS 15, 263 / BA, 107.
36
SKS 11, 162 / SUD, 47.
or, better said, such a culture, in its broadest sense, he addresses throughout his
authorship as “spiritlessness.” in other words, spiritlessness serves as a conceptual
umbrella under which one finds many other concepts such as despair or double-
mindedness, which Kierkegaard used to address the spiritual state of confusion he
saw lurking in the culture of his time. precisely in this sense, therefore, it is a key
concept of his entire authorship, for it captures, like very few others, the eclipsing of
a conception of the human constitution,37 which, from the greeks onwards, shaped
the entire Western mentality. but as Kierkegaard gradually discovered and more
particularly came to fear, from the moment such an eclipsing of the spiritual settled
itself on the Western horizon, nihilism threatened to prevail and as such it was, in
Kierkegaard’s mind, a matter of trying to deter such a pernicious tendency.
to summarize, Kierkegaard developed throughout his authorship an acute
reflection on the momentous turn that human consciousness has been taking for
the last two centuries and that fervently believes that there is nothing but “matter.”
and this enormous issue, named by other thinkers “nihilism,” he chose to address
through the use of the concept of “spiritlessness.”
See also Christendom; Crowd/Public; Decision/Resolve; Despair; Double-Reflection;

immanence/transcendence; leveling; paganism; self; spirit; thoughtlessness;
time/temporality/eternity; Worldliness/secularism.
37
Cf. SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 94.
stages
lydia amir
Stage (Stadium—noun; plural, Stadier)
the danish noun Stadium or Stadie derives from the greek word στάδιον, which
refers to an ancient greek racetrack that covered a distance of 600 greek feet.1
a stage thus has come to mean the covering of this length of track one time. in
danish it means a part of a larger course of development.2 it is often used in the sense
of a surpassed or already completed stage.
Kierkegaard divides historical evolution and individual human development into
levels or “stages” (Stadier) of progress. He considers his characterizations of the
stages of existence his “abiding merit to literature,”3 although the notion of stages
does not originate with Kierkegaard.4 adopting as early as 1835 the view that life is
divided into a series of stages,5 his first serious attempt to formulate his own theory
appears in a journal entry from 1837 and is elaborated in an entry that bears the title:
“something on life’s four stages, also with regard to mythology.”6 The first stage
corresponds to the oriental world: it is a primitive phase of childhood in which the
child is not yet able to separate himself from his surroundings; the greek world
represents the second stage, the state of equilibrium and contentment of childhood;
the third is romanticism and the fourth Christianity.
1
ludvig meyer, Fremmedordbog eller kortfattet Lexikon over fremmede, i det danske
Skrift- og Omgangs-Sprog forekommende Ord, Kunstudtryk og Talemaader, 3rd ed. by F.p.J.
dahl, Copenhagen: J.H. schobothes boghandling 1853, p. 771.
2
3
SKS 20, 37, nb:34.a / KJN 4, 35.
4
Already evident in Plato and further refined and elaborated by the Neoplatonists,
the need to distinguish between higher and lower spheres in life and history becomes more
acute with the inception of Christianity, which on the one hand emphasizes the importance
of a definite historical event and on the other views the human being as a spiritual being
endowed with a developmental potential. Fichte, schelling, Hegel, and Kierkegaard’s danish
contemporaries, notably Hans lassen martensen, Frederik Christian sibbern, and poul martin
møller, all used this notion.
5
SKS 17, 19, aa:12 / KJN 1, 14.
6
SKS 17, 117–19 bb:25 / KJN 1, 111–13. see SKS 27, 155–6, papir 206:1 / KJN 4,
4394.
90 Lydia Amir
at the same time, Kierkegaard already begins to subdivide the immediate stage.7
Later, the three first stages combine to constitute “the aesthetic stage,” a sphere that
comes to comprise not simply immediacy but any activity not subjected to ethical-
religious requirements. Kierkegaard finally reduces the number of stages to three:
the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. between these stages he positions two
intermediate spheres or boundaries (confinia): irony is placed between aesthetics
and ethics, and humor between the ethical and religious stages. the religious stage
is further divided, thus enabling the mention of seven stages in the Concluding
Unscientific Postscript: immediacy, finite common sense, irony, ethics with irony
as incognito, humor, religiousness with humor as incognito, and finally Christian
religiousness.8
the stages are applied at the historical, anthropological, and Christological
levels. Kierkegaard uses them for the first time in The Concept of Irony, chiefly at the
historical level. He discusses only the intermediate boundary of irony by portraying
the historical socrates bringing about the end of one stage and making the beginning
of the succeeding stage possible. He mentions in passing the ethical stage at the
historical level—the Judaic attachment to law—the boundary of humor, and the
religious stage. a pictorial description of the stages on the individual level is given
in The Sickness unto Death.
Kierkegaard uses the stages principally as a framework enabling him to
display the problems involved in human development. development consists of
phases of consciousness and self-consciousness in which the individual attains a
growing awareness of himself as distinct from his environment, and therefore of the
contradictions that emerge when ideality and reality are juxtaposed.9 the changes
involved in ascending in terms of consciousness and views of life do not occur
through a quantitative growth, but through leaps that bring with them qualitative
changes of psychological states. individuation does not depend merely on an
intellectual process, but also on passion and the will. thus, spiritual development
depends on volitionally established relationships whereby thought and being come
to an agreement: one lives the attitude one adopts, recognizing but maintaining
contradictions. This is Kierkegaard’s definition of the self, a relationship in which
the relationship itself constitutes selfhood, giving the eternal aspect of the self its
due. the entire self must in turn relate itself to god, the power that posits the original
relationship.
While Kierkegaard favors the term “stages” earlier in his writings, he also refers
to the stages as spheres of existence.10 thus, they should be considered not necessarily
as periods of life that one proceeds through in sequence, but rather as paradigms of
existence. Kierkegaard’s works begin at the bottom and gradually ascend in terms of
consciousness and views of life. the principal stages of this evolution are described
in the following sections.
7
SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / KJN 1, 107.
8
SKS 7, 483n / CUP1, 531n.
9
see especially SKS 15, 57–9 / JC, 169–72.
10
notwithstanding the work’s title, Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard refers to spheres,
for example, in SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476.
Stages 91
I. The Aesthetic
the aesthetic has to do with the life of the senses. it encompasses not only ordinary
human instincts and desires but also their expression through the arts, and through
artistic and intellectual creativity that finds its expression in works of genius. It is
characterized by immersion in sensuous experience, valorization of possibility over
actuality, egotism, fragmentation of the subject of experience, nihilistic wielding of
irony and skepticism, and flight from boredom. In the aesthetic stage one’s character
fails to develop because the conditions for individuation are missing. there is
no conscious acceptance of an ideal, no commitment, no decision made to take
responsibility for one’s own god-given self. this stage, through which everyone
must pass, is outlined chiefly in Either/Or and is further subdivided as follows.
(a) Immediacy: immediacy begins with infancy and childhood, in which the
subject has yet to differentiate himself from his surroundings. rather than merely
depicting the lives of infants and children, the immediate phases of the aesthetic stage
describe persons who waste their cognitive talents on the pursuit of pleasure and the
sensuous instead of employing them on their individual development. Failing thus to
discover their ideal selves, they obstruct the path to consciousness of an eternal self.
Kierkegaard chooses to personify the various phases of an aesthetic life with the
use of ideal personalities and desire, particularly sexual desire. He considers music,
which is non-reflective, as the only medium capable of expressing these phases and
uses several characters from mozart’s operas to exemplify them. For the page in
The Marriage of Figaro, desire is undifferentiated from the object of desire and
exists only in the form of a presentiment that engenders melancholy.11 papageno in
The Magic Flute remains in a state of continuous seeking since the object of desire
is still unidentifiable.12 don giovanni in the opera of the same name represents
the final phase of immediacy.13 the object of desire and desire itself have become
concrete, even though there is no reflection on the distinction itself. Don Giovanni
is not yet a single individual but merely an expression of demonic sensuality that
has no connection with time; his experiences have no context at all, and his life no
continuity.
(b) Finite Common Sense: there are several traits common to anyone whose life
is in this stage. Reflection is turned outward toward purely practical or intellectual
pursuits, making little effort to comprehend the true constitution of the self.
the aesthetic individual shuns all limitation, avoiding thus at all costs the
commitment that characterizes a decision. Without an infinite ideal reflection
or a limiting resolve, however, the self is unable to develop. it lacks the self-
consciousness that only the will in conjunction with infinite reflection can bring
about. Time loses significance for such an individual, since he lives in the immediate
present, or entertains an infinite array of future possibilities, or again loses himself
in the hindsight of abstract thought.
11
SKS 2, 81–4 / EO1, 75–8.
12
SKS 2, 84–9 / EO1, 78–84.
13
SKS 2, 89–92 / EO1, 84–7.
92 Lydia Amir
in his efforts to evade limiting factors, the aesthetician ends up by denying his
own freedom and by plunging himself into the very necessity he wishes to avoid.
His dependence on fortune, misfortune, and fate, results in despair, anxiety, and
frustration. boredom may also be an important component of the aesthetic life.
The reflective aspects of the aesthetic stage are represented by Faust, Johannes the
seducer, and “a,” the author of Either/Or, part one, whom we meet only indirectly
as the addressee of Judge William’s letters in part two. Faust and Johannes the
Seducer are highly reflective individuals who misuse their intellectual powers in the
service of mendacity or manipulation. the latter fears any limitation to the multitude
of possibilities conjured up by his ever-active imaginative reflection, and so he
carefully avoids anything that might involve commitment. The most reflective of all
in this stage, “a,” is a thinker, an observant psychologist, a professional aesthetician,
and the prototype of the speculative philosopher whom Johannes Climacus attacks
in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. He views everything as an abstraction
accessible to thought, and his ratiocinations have no essential significance for his
life.
there are other important representatives of the aesthetic stage: Constantin
Constantius, the author of Repetition, the organizer of the banquet in Stages on Life’s
Way, and a speaker at the banquet, is an astute psychologist incapable of decisive
action; Victor eremita, the publisher of Either/Or, gives a speech at Constantin’s
banquet in which he evidences a profound knowledge of ethics, but stops there; and
two other despairing aestheticians, a young man and a dressmaker, also speak out at
the banquet and present additional aspects of aesthetic non-commitment.
II. Irony
The individual begins to make a move in the right direction once reflection turns
inward with a view to arriving at an ideal and following it. He discovers the paradoxes
inherent in existence and seeks to relegate externals to their proper domain by
negating them. the ironist is a person who has become aware of an actual and an
ideal self. the former comprises the given historical and societal context into which
one is born along with one’s natural endowments and limits; it is also, when given a
teleology, the ideal self.
the demonic ironist stops at this point, reducing everything to relative importance
and observing rather than establishing a relationship. such is “a” in Either/Or, part
One. If, on the other hand, the ironist leans toward making a decision that will firmly
attach him to the ideal he has discovered, he arrives at a real turning point in his
life. this is the case with socrates, who represents the boundary of irony at both the
historical and the individual level.
III. The Ethical
the ideal self includes not only the historically factual self, but also guilt as both a
problem of humankind and a part of the individual’s self. this stage is characterized
Stages 93
by an active acceptance of the factual historical self,14 the eternal aspect of selfhood,15
and the concomitant guilt that is shared with the rest of humanity.16 this in turn
entails repentance and acceptance of despair.
the ethical stage brings with it a further degree of individuation through the
attainment of continuity in time and with humankind. the ethical individual realizes
that which is universally human––marriage––as well as the fulfillment of duties and
other obligations.
the aesthetic stage is rejected as a dominant outlook, but is now incorporated
into and subjected to ethical decision and resolve. in proceeding from one stage to
another, previous stages and boundaries are not simply left behind like steps on a
ladder, but absorbed and relativized. they belong to personal history, as does irony,
which at the ethical level now serves as an incognito in which the ego is emphasized
absolutely at the cost of externals.
Judge William is the exponent of the ethical life, which he develops in the Either/
Or, part two and in an essay in Stages on Life’s Way. throughout the Concluding
Unscientific Postscript, Johannes Climacus repeatedly emphasizes that ethics does
not depend on knowledge, but in actively becoming good or bad.17 the ethical
emphasis is on the single individual, as ethics is subjectivity with thought turned
inward, rather than on the universal laws.18
both in the Postscript and through the medium of Judge William, Kierkegaard
stresses the easy comprehensibility of ethical requirements. Judge William finds no
problem in fulfilling these requirements. He can discover no discrepancy between
his ethical duties and religious pursuits inasmuch as his relation to god is primarily
indicated by the ethical duties themselves. He feels that there may be an exception to
this rule, but it lies beyond his field of experience.
the exception is represented primarily by abraham in Fear and Trembling.
Conflicted between ethical duty and obedience to God, Abraham suspends the
ethical to follow god’s command. other exceptions are those few individuals who
experience a higher call to a spiritually religious life as well as the apostles, whose
position is paradoxical.
Ethics is not in itself sufficient for full actualization of the self, however. It is
a “transitional sphere” in which “the individual always goes bankrupt.”19 as the
self is examined more deeply, it turns out that the ideals proposed by ethics prove
impossible to fulfill adequately. Ethics thus comes up short and breaks down. The
main reason is the ethicist’s failure to realize that the self he proposes to actualize
through self-assertion is derived from and grounded in god, and that god and the
world are qualitatively different entities. He is therefore unable to actualize his self
fully within the ethical alone. this is underscored by the sermon appended to Either/
14
Cf. SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 216.
15
Cf. SKS 3, 221 / EO2, 231.
16
Cf. SKS 3, 309–10 / EO2, 328–9.
17
Cf. SKS 7, 149 / CUP1, 160–1.
18
Cf. SKS 7, 125–6 / CUP1, 133–4.
19
SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476.
94 Lydia Amir
Or, part two, entitled “the upbuilding that lies in the thought that in relation to
god We are always in the Wrong.”20
IV. Humor
the boundary of humor commences when the ethicist encounters god, becomes
aware of the profundity and totality of guilt, and begins to realize that guilt before god
is sin and thus absolute. interest in one’s eternal blessedness as well as tremendous
suffering and isolation follow. Consciousness of these facts and the contradictions
they entail results in resignation, a dying to the world, which culminates in complete
renunciation of actuality.
Stages on Life’s Way is devoted to this problem. the humorist, Quidam, has
penetrated his own being with thought; his inwardness is profound and his reflection
infinite. He realizes that he has an eternal self that is grounded in God, but gets no
further. unable to make the religious resolve that would enable him to hold these
contradictions together in passion, the demonic humorist hesitates and loses himself
in repentance and a contemplation of the religious.
the humorist perceives both the tragic and comic aspects of the human condition.
Concealing his melancholy with humor, he recognizes the importance of suffering
but prefers to disregard it. He retains the possibility of reflective withdrawal
from existence, for he has yet to make the decision that will bring him into direct
relationship with the eternal truth that has come into existence in time.21 Johannes
Climacus views humor as the last stage of inwardness before faith, and as the last
terminus a quo or starting point in defining Christianity. Humor as a boundary is so
comprehensive that it blurs the distinction between the humorous and the religious.22
the difference is merely the humorist’s failure to make a decisive resolve.
V. The Religious
The final stage is the religious, which in turn is subdivided into Religiousness A and
religiousness b. religiousness a is described in detail in the Postscript,23 whose
author Johannes Climacus is both a humorist and a man living his life in this sphere.
religiousness b, which Kierkegaard regards as the authentic Christianly religious
stage, is outlined by Climacus in the Postscript24 and delineated more specifically in
Practice in Christianity by anti-Climacus, who is a Christian in the strictest sense
of the word.
(a) Religiousness A: this form of religiosity represents religion within “universal
human nature.”25 it has the same content as the sphere of humor, but the content has
20
SKS 3, 320–32 / EO2, 339–54.
21
SKS 7, 247 / CUP1, 272; SKS 7, 457 / CUP1, 504–5.
22
SKS 7, 410 / CUP1, 450–1.
23
SKS 7, 505–10 / CUP1, 555–61.
24
SKS 7, 505–6, 522–5 / CUP1, 556, 570–4.
25
SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572–3.
Stages 95
been made concrete through a passionate decision to relate oneself absolutely to
one’s eternal blessedness as the absolute telos, while reducing all else to a relativity
to which one maintains a relative relationship. self-annihilation also belongs to this
stage as an attempt to establish a god-relationship in inwardness, along with the
recognition that the encounter with god is paradoxical in nature.
religiousness a is a religiosity of immanence. it presupposes consciousness of
the eternal aspect of the self,26 and is primarily inwardness in its various dialectical
forms. It finds the source of religion in the individual himself and thereby intensifies
passion. as such it is preparatory to the succeeding stage.
(b) Religiousness B: the second kind of religiosity is transcendent in nature.
it is based on the historical fact that god came into existence in time in the person
of Christ, thereby placing the point of contact with god outside the individual.
religiousness b is paradoxical: it expresses the inherent paradox of the individual
who strives for his eternal blessedness through a relationship to something else
in time that is historical and hence external. moreover, the eternal god becomes
historical by virtue of the absurd because he paradoxically comes into existence at a
definite point of time.27
unlike guilt, sin is a transgression against god and must be made known to
the individual from outside.28 this results in total isolation and a suspension of the
ethical because it is no longer immediately realizable. the psychological aspects of
this stage in relation to sin and despair are developed in part two of The Sickness
unto Death.
religiousness b requires faith in that which runs completely counter to reason.
it is only through faith as an act of the will that it is possible for the individual to
maintain his relation to Christ the god-man while at the same time living a normal
life in the world of relativities. the act of faith bridges the intervening years and
brings about contemporaneity with Christ. Humor now serves as an incognito that
helps the individual remain in the inwardness of faith.29
Notwithstanding “neutral men” who do not fit neatly in any sphere,30 it seems
to be Kierkegaard’s intent that none of the stages can be omitted on the path to
religiousness b. the aesthetic stage constitutes the beginning because we are
born into it. Kierkegaard mentions exceptions to the duty of marriage,31 the highest
expression of the ethical for Judge William; however, marriage hardly exhausts the
content of Kierkegaard’s ethics, which are given religious expression if the final
stage is reached. and religiousness a, which serves as a propaedeutic, must precede
religiousness b.32
The question of the boundaries is less clear. The definitions of irony and humor
are to some degree linked to culture. moreover, Kierkegaard frequently differentiates
26
SKS 7, 531 / CUP1, 584.
27
SKS 7, 520–1n / CUP1, 573n.
28
SKS 11, 194 / SUD, 80.
29
SKS 7, 457–63 / CUP1, 504–9.
30
SKS 2, 168 / EO2, 172.
31
SKS 6, 163 / SLW, 175; SKS 24, 148–9, nb24:86 / JP 4, 4474.
32
SKS 7, 506–7 / CUP1, 555–7.
96 Lydia Amir
between simple and wise individuals: the former are able to achieve directly what
the latter must accomplish indirectly because of his greater intellectual capacity.
this would seem to indicate that the boundaries of irony and humor can be skipped
over on the way to religiousness b.
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; decision/resolve; demonic; ethics; Faith; Humor;

immanence/transcendence; incognito; irony; leap; religious/religiousness; self;
spirit.
state
leo stan
State (Staten—noun)
in the sense most relevant to the present discussion, the danish term Stat refers to
an organized, independent society and, more specifically, to the civil government
of such a society.1 Kierkegaard’s references to the state are closely intertwined
with those concerning the establishment (det Bestaaende). therefore, they must be
analyzed side by side. broadly speaking, Kierkegaard’s attitude vis-à-vis the state
as well as the established order, is essentially ambiguous. as a realist thinker who
lived in an increasingly liberal and democratic society, Kierkegaard had a profound
disdain for any anarchistic proclivities of society and the groups or individuals
within it. However, as a consistently Christian author, Kierkegaard could not and did
not defend the ultimacy or absoluteness of any mundane authority. in this sense, his
overall evaluation, although not lacking in finesse, remains predominantly critical.
also, Kierkegaard seems to have been most interested in this particular topic in the
beginning and towards the end of his intellectual career. at the same time, his core
judgments are found mainly in the manuscripts for The Book on Adler and in his
journalistic output from 1854 to 1855.
the initial discussion is historical in nature and occurs in The Concept of Irony,
where the Magister candidate Kierkegaard limits his analysis to the ancient greek
state. as expected, his views are purely academic and thus mostly neutral, relying to
a great extent on Hegel’s political philosophy. noteworthy enough is Kierkegaard’s
diagnosis of the greek polis as dominated by a relative arbitrariness,2 and more
importantly, as discomforted by the ironic subject’s claim for independence or
exceptionalism.3 in modernity, it is precisely this second feature that will gain the
highest momentum, rendering the ruling powers as the candidate for existential
oppression.
it should be noted at the outset that those attempting to picture Kierkegaard as
an intrepid revolutionary miss the sincerely conformist tone of some of his views
regarding the status quo. before anything else, unlike Karl marx, Kierkegaard admits
1
2
SKS 1, 227n, 246 / CI, 180n, 201.
3
SKS 1, 215, 226, 232–3, 242–3 / CI, 167, 178–9, 184–5, 196. For the clash between
the state and the anomic autonomy of the erotic adventurer, see SKS 2, 142, 421 / EO1, 142,
434.
98 Leo Stan
the continual necessity but also unique usefulness of the state per se. For instance,
he reminds us that “in a cultured mode of life”4 no other institution than the state
is expected to provide “as cheaply and comfortably as possible…public security,
water, lighting, roads, pavement, etc. etc.”5 moreover, Kierkegaard is comfortable
enough to declare that the state represents the highest immanent authority, while
its primary function is to mediate efficiently between the individual, the monarch,
and the nation as a whole. He also adds that these three entities should live in
mutual respect, confidence, and harmony—a goal that is “desirable”6 insofar as it
is contingent upon “a quiet and calm subject who reposes trustingly in the state.”7
Conversely, an efficient state is obligated to offer unconditional protection to its
loyal citizens.8 next, and arguably in a Hegelian fashion, Kierkegaard explicitly
embraces an organicist-rationalist perspective when warning that a well-functioning
state cannot thrive on a politics of lifeless abstractions and irrational playfulness.9
Equally noteworthy, if not astonishing, is the fact that Kierkegaard does not find
outrageous the injunction that the state should help the less fortunate in very concrete
ways.10 (However, university graduates seem excluded from the statist mercy.)11
one may be surprised by the lengths to which Kierkegaard is willing to go in
order to reaffirm his support for the status quo. His appreciative provisos in this
respect are, indeed, hard to miss and constitute a serious impediment for all those too
quick to praise Kierkegaard’s rebellious side. again, as a realist thinker, Kierkegaard
is well aware that a functional society cannot dispense with the very existence of
an established order, to which, as already mentioned, he seems willing to grant
the highest authority within the limits of earthly affairs.12 Kierkegaard gracefully
reminds his reader that he “never clashed with the established order”13 and that he
has “always been basically conservative [grundconservativ].”14 in the same vein, in
his famous rejoinder to rudelbach, dated 1851, Kierkegaard sardonically remarked:
“i have not fought for the emancipation of ‘the Church’ any more than i have
fought for the emancipation of greenland commerce, of women, of the Jews, or
of anyone else.”15 two years earlier he wrote that his “task has never been to bring
down the established order but continually to infuse inwardness into it.”16 in 1850
he added that all he wished was “to apply a corrective to the established order, not
4
SKS 13, 151 / M, 109.
5
ibid.
6
SKS 13, 192 / M, 149.
7
ibid. see also SKS 4, 151–2, 183 / FT, 58, 93.
8
SKS 8, 189 / UD, 83.
9
Pap. iX b 24 / BA, supplement, 319–20. see also SKS 3, 149 / EO2, 151–2; SKS 6,
111 / SLW, 117.
10
see SKS 8, 190 / UD, 85.
11
SKS 15, 118 / BA, 30.
12
SKS 15, 125 / BA, 149; Pap. Xi–3 b 53 / JP 6, 6943.
13
SKS 21, 273, nb10:34 / JP 6, 6343.
14
ibid. see also SKS 7, 563 / CUP1, 620–1.
15
SKS 14, 113 / COR, 54.
16
SKS 22, 360, nb14:28 / JP 6, 6531. see also SKS 5, 252 / EUD, 254–5.
State 99
to introduce something new that might nullify or supplant it.”17 in 1854 he felt the
need to proclaim the same stance: “god knows it; my wish is to be on good terms
with the established order.”18 this conviction did not leave him until his death, given
his unequivocal endorsement of an “honest—defense for the established order.”19
as already mentioned, these balanced views give way to their opposite in
the overall picture. this is so because, within an existential-spiritual horizon, the
negative effects of both the state and det Bestaaende surmount in tenor and scope the
positive side. to begin with, Kierkegaard notes that, since it is ceaselessly tempted
by authoritarian incentives, the state wishes to engulf the entire existence of the
individual.20 the state is equally disposed to create confusion, to propagate false
opinions, and to disseminate corruption.21 even more polemically, Kierkegaard
deems the state an “expedient evil”22 because it encourages a shrewd egotism on
the part of its subjects and relies solely on numbers and quantities.23 also, we are
advised not to expect the state to initiate or develop any moral quality since it has no
say in the soul’s appropriation of a virtuous life.24
still, these observations are generic and phrased in a rather secular frame of
mind. the deadliest perils by far arise in the context of religion and the spiritual
self-becoming of subjectivity. the Kierkegaardian indictments are not necessarily
systematic but they can be traced back ultimately to Christianity’s postulation of
the confrontation between the city of God and Caesar’s empire. To be specific,
Kierkegaard blames the state for its hostility to the very idea of divine revelation.
He also claims that the state devilishly cheats countless people out of the holiest and
the highest.25 Furthermore, the state is perfectly willing to compromise the religious
ethos by absolutizing the citizens’ comfort and mundane achievements,26 and by
encouraging one to think only in objective terms.27 in addition, the state feels it has
every “right to dismiss a man who calmly and coolly appealed to a revelation, since
the extraordinary must step out of [its] ranks.”28
predictably enough, in the case of Christianity, the clash between religiosity and
the body politic becomes ferocious and irreconcilable.29 “imagine,” Kierkegaard
17
SKS 24, 74, nb21:122 / JP 6, 6693.
18
Pap. Xi–3 b 67 / M, supplement, 488.
19
Pap. Xi–3 b 111 / M, supplement, 516.
20
SKS 13, 159 / M, 117; SKS 14, 190 / M, 53.
21
SKS 13, 187–8, 198–9, 210–11 / M, 143–4, 153, 162–3; Pap. Xi–3 b 115 / JP 3, 2774.
22
SKS 26, 273, nb33:34 / JP 4, 4238.
23
SKS 13, 187 / M, 143.
24
SKS 26, 273–5, nb33:34 / JP 4, 4238. the opposite possibility is implied, albeit only
playfully, in SKS 6, 62 / SLW, 61–2.
25
SKS 13, 150, 151, 188, 212 / M, 108, 109, 145–6, 165. see also SKS 3, 229 / EO2, 240
where the state is opposed to the monastic exception. a comparable idea can be found in SKS
4, 168 / FT, 77.
26
SKS 14, 141–2 / M, 20–1; SKS 14, 189 / M, 51–2; SKS 13, 162 / M, 121.
27
SKS 7, 55, 456n / CUP1, 50–1, 503n.
28
Pap. Vii–2 b 257 / BA, supplement, 269.
29
see SKS 7, 493–4 / CUP1, 543; SKS 14, 113 / COR, 54; SKS 9, 290–1 / WL, 293–4;
SKS 12, 58, 220 / PC, 45, 225; SKS 16, 23–4 / PV, 41; SKS 13, 133, 134–5, 149, 153, 187–8,
100 Leo Stan
writes, “that Christ returned to earth—no, imagine that one of the apostles returned;
he would shudder to see Christianity protected by the state.”30 by perversely
turning religion into a mere livelihood, “the state manages to fill the whole land
with corrupted Christianity,”31 and therefore, the greatest difficulty—“much greater
than downright paganism”32—will be the revival of true Christianity. For all of these
reasons Kierkegaard controversially calls for a definite break between the church and
the state.33 “What Christianity needs,” he explains, “is not the suffocating protection
of the state; no, it needs fresh air, persecution, and—god’s protection.”34 and he
continues: “the state only does harm; it averts persecution, and it is not the medium
through which god’s protection can be conducted.”35
turning to det Bestaaende, Kierkegaard notes first its strong affinities with
the collective36 and its exclusive reliance on universal categories,37 both of which
constitute a direct threat to the full realization of a genuine Christian.38 at the same
time, Kierkegaard holds that, even though they decide on and coercively impose what
is common or not,39 the powers that be remain constitutively weak40 and dishonest.41
it is for no other reason that they are quick to penalize every individual (particularly
Kierkegaard) who publicly reveals their essential incompatibility with religion.42
and, of course, they would do anything in their power to deny their irrevocable
inferiority and subordination to divine providence.43
see also Crowd/public; governance/providence; inwardness/inward deepening;

leveling; politics; press/Journalism; religious/religiousness; self; spirit; society;
trial/test/tribulation; Witness; Worldliness/secularism.
192, 198–9, 213–14 / M, 95, 96–7, 107, 111, 143–4, 148, 153, 166–7; SKS 14, 189, 197–8
/ M, 52, 57; SKS 15, 118–19 / BA, 30; Pap. Vii–2 b 235 / BA, 150; Pap. Vii–2 b 257 / BA,
supplement, 269; Pap. Xi–3 b 115 / JP, 2774; Pap. Xi–3 b 126 / JP, 4242.
30
SKS 13, 155 / M, 113
31
SKS 13, 198 / M, 153.
32
ibid. see also SKS 13, 133 / M, 95.
33
SKS 13, 121, 192 / M, 75, 148; SKS 7, 432–3 / CUP1, 477; SKS 24, 348, nb24:51 /
JP 6, 6761.
34
SKS 13, 206 / M, 158.
35
ibid.
36
Pap. iX b 24 / BA, supplement, 317–18.
37
SKS 15, 125–6 / BA, 150.
38
SKS 14, 189–90 / M, 51–3. see also SKS 13, 162 / M, 121.
39
SKS 15, 124–5 / BA, 149.
40
SKS 14, 147 / M, 25; Pap. Xi–3 b 89 / M, supplement, 498; Pap. Xi–3 b 111 / M,
supplement, 516.
41
SKS 14, 180 / M, 48; Pap. Xi–3 b 111 / M, supplement, 516.
42
Pap. Xi–3 b 4 / BA, supplement, 336–7; Pap. Xi–3 b 67 / M, supplement, 487; Pap.
Xi–3 b 111 / M, supplement, 516; Pap. Xi–3 b 136 / M, supplement, 553–5; Pap. Xi–3 b
168 / M, supplement, 595. see also Pap. Xi–3 b 105 / M, supplement, 520
43
SKS 14, 147 / M, 25; Pap. iX b 24 / BA, supplement, 317; Pap. Vii–2 b 235 /
BA, 154. see also SKS 11, 103 / WA, 99, where ultimate authority is relegated solely to the
transcendent.
story-telling
Will Williams
Story-telling (Fortælling—noun; fortælle—verb)
the verb fortælle (older new danish fortellie, middle low german vortellen)
is used to indicate the telling of a story, although the object of the verb differs.1
Commonly, the object is the noun Historie (corresponding to the english “history,”
from the greek ἱστορία, latin historia). While Historie may include the stories
typically associated with “story-telling,” such as fairytales and adventures, it also has
a broader meaning that ranges from the scholarly discipline of history, to folklore,
to narratives both real and fictional, to anecdotes and rumors.2 the object Eventyr
is more specific and therefore more pertinent to this project. Eventyr (old danish
æwenthyr, later old norse æfintýr, from which english derived “adventure”) refers
to an adventure or incident as well as a tale of strange or wonderful events, which
includes the categories of mythology and fairytale. by extension, the term may also
be used to describe an untruthful story.3
Kierkegaard’s use of fortælle is too broad to be useful here, and examples of
Kierkegaard’s telling of various stories, historical tales, mythological examples,
fairytales, adventures, and other illustrations are ubiquitous in his corpus. However, the
specific term Eventyr is most concentrated in the works The Concept of Irony, Either/
Or, parts one and two, and The Concept of Anxiety. there is a certain concentration of
the term in Kierkegaard’s earlier writings, as opposed to his later ones. While there are
various references to Eventyr scattered throughout Kierkegaard’s journals and papers,
the most important entry—which is also the most sustained reflection on the nature and
purpose of story-telling in Kierkegaard’s corpus—is journal entry bb:37 from 1837.
This entry deserves a closer reading for an explication of Kierkegaard’s reflections
about story-telling, which will be given below.
I. Kierkegaard as Writer and Story-Teller
in 1848, Kierkegaard compared himself to scheherazade of One Thousand and One

Nights, saying that just as she saved her life by telling stories, so did he save his own
1
2
3
102 Will Williams
by writing.4 He was fascinated by this image of a woman who could, in some sense,
keep her life through the power of story-telling.5 Kierkegaard’s fascination with the
evocative and formative power of story-telling likely came to him very early on. in
a story told by Johannes Climacus, which may be inspired by Kierkegaard’s own
biography, when as a boy he wished to go out but was refused, his father would
instead take his hand and walk him around the house, imaginatively narrating the
details of the scenery and passers-by they might encounter in the city.6 aside from
cultural influences on the art of story-telling—the most notable example being that of
Hans Christian Andersen—Kierkegaard also read various reflections on the subject,
including that by his beloved professor, poul martin møller.7
While Kierkegaard does not consider writing and story-telling to be identical
arts, there is a perceived relation for him, which is why he can compare his own
activity to that of Scheherazade. Kierkegaard delights in filling his writings with
evocative stories and illustrations of various types, but his intention is always greater
than amusement alone. similarly, for Kierkegaard story-telling, properly speaking,
is never solely for purposes of entertainment or diversion, even though they may
well delight the auditor. Kierkegaard’s attitude towards story-telling is that it is an
activity that, done well, is an essentially edifying one, although not in the sense
that direct moralism might understand. rather, there is an important connection for
Kierkegaard between the spinning of a fantastic tale and the subjective composition
of the self.
II. Story-Telling and the Aesthetic
When one considers the subject of story-telling, one likely initially conceives of
the activity as an aesthetic one. For Kierkegaard, though, this is only somewhat
true. Certainly, the aesthetic writings of Either/Or, part one, for example, tell
many arresting and provocative stories that span the emotional range, many of
which include magical or mysterious encounters such as one might expect from a
fairytale. one will notice, though, the fragmentary and mercurial nature of many
of the aesthetic narratives, whether they be the erratic and colorful stories of the
“diapsalmata”8 or the emotional and reflective entries of “The Seducer’s Diary.”9
For all of the obsession that the aesthete may have with stories, whether telling
them or hearing them told, say, in theatrical drama, Kierkegaard believes that
4
SKS 21, 160, nb8:36 / JP 6, 6274.
5
SKS 2, 410 / EO1, 422; SKS 6, 269 / SLW, 289–90; SKS 19, 213, not7:27 / KJN 3,
208; SKS 20, 288, nb4:4 / KJN 4, 288; SKS 22, 83, nb11:142 / KJN 6, 79–80; SKS 26, 348,
nb34:37.a / JP 2, 1454.
6
SKS 15, 18–19 / JC, 120–1.
7
SKS 17, 122–33, bb:37 / KJN 1, 116–25; cf. SKS K17, 241–52 / KJN 1, 413–17. Cf.
poul martin møller, “om at fortælle børn eventyr,” in Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller,
vols. 1–3, ed. by Christian Winther, F.C. olsen, and Christen thaarup, Copenhagen: C.a.
reitzel 1839–43, vol. 3, pp. 322–5 (ASKB 1574–1576).
8
SKS 2, 25–52 / EO1, 17–43.
9
SKS 2, 291–432 / EO1, 301–445.
Story-Telling 103
narratives are fundamentally at odds with the haphazard aesthetic lifestyle of moods
and immediacy. strikingly, he has Johannes the seducer express his weariness with
engaged couples telling stories of the past and of their families since these stories
seem to him to enervate the erotic power of immediacy: “i for my part am not
looking for stories—i certainly have enough of them; i am seeking immediacy.”10
stories cancel the immediacy he desires by extending identity across time, granting
a coherence that is greater than any given mood or situation. therefore, for one
living for the immediate thrill and lack of accountability in erotic love, stories come
to be seen as “boring.”11 stories might teach one to be repentant over past mistakes,
to perceive the consequences of one’s actions, or to become accountable to another
human being, which are all threatening to the immediacy of the aesthete.
additionally, Johannes the seducer says he is not looking for stories because,
“i certainly have enough of them.” Johannes cannot imagine that he has use for any
more stories because he already has so many! the very multiplicity of the stories,
though, indicates that his life does not have a stable or coherent narrative. that he has
so many stories is evidence that he lacks the one thing desired. His mercurial play
with moods and story fragments is precisely what he perceives to be at odds with the
kind of life-interweaving stories that an engaged couple tells to themselves. While
the aesthete may revel in the novelty and interest of stories, he resists incorporation
into any particular story. the aesthete’s fear of a coherent story is therefore like the
seducer’s fear that marriage will kill the spontaneity of erotic love. the aesthete
enjoys the story only to the degree that it successfully distracts him from boredom;
should a story call him back to the question of his own ethical formation, he rejects
it as oppressive or dull.
III. Story-Telling and Subjective and Ethical Upbuilding
although the aesthete may believe that stories are merely for diversion, stories and
story-telling may also be used for subjective edification. Kierkegaard is unafraid
to use fantastic and imaginative tales in an edifying and even religious manner.
Consider, for example, Johannes de silentio’s imaginative retellings of genesis 22
in Fear and Trembling, which instruct about scripture’s lack of accommodation
to Christendom.12 or, consider Kierkegaard’s edifying use of his charming stories
about the lily of the field and the bird of the air.13 these are stories told for training
in human subjectivity, despite their imaginative subjects.14 Kierkegaard is explicit
that it is not an accident that he used such stories15 in this first of three discourses
since, to the perspective of those habituated to the perspective of worldly living, the
10
SKS 2, 369 / EO1, 381.
11
SKS 2, 369 / EO1, 380.
12
SKS 4, 104–11 / FT, 9–14.
13
SKS 8, 259–80 / UD, 159–82.
14
For example, SKS 8, 269–70 / UD, 170: “so what does the worried person learn from
the lilies? He learns to be contented with being a human being and not to be worried about
diversity among human beings….”
15
that is, the “fairytale” or Eventyret (SKS 20, 91, nb:130 / KJN 4, 91).
104 Will Williams
ideal must appear as something like a fairytale.16 indeed, he employs such stories
to inform his readers, who are presumably obsessed with busyness and worldly
obligations, about what the character of true earnestness is.17 so far are stories, even
amusing and charming ones, from being essentially aesthetic forms that Kierkegaard
believes they can train one in the earnest task of ethical and religious formation.
properly speaking, story-telling is not a task intended primarily to distract or
amuse. Kierkegaard is aware that one’s attention may be diverted away from the task
of subjective development by becoming lost in the imaginative possibility of stories,
like a knight who becomes separated from his companions by chasing after a rare
bird.18 indeed, this explains the aesthete’s interest in fairytales,19 but this use is not
an inevitable one for fairytales, and using them for mere entertainment may well be
worthy of chastisement.20
at their best, what fairytales and adventure stories ought to do, Kierkegaard
believes, is to inspire in the auditor a passion for challenge and adventure. this
is why the story of the audacious aladdin, for example, can positively inspire a
timid and worrying public.21 Kierkegaard says that the middle ages used fairytale
creatures such as elves and trolls to externalize the idea that life is a struggle.22 He
considers the amusing idea of a youth brought up on fairytales seeking adventure
and monsters to slay, showing up in civilized Christendom with his broadsword.
A kindly elderly gentleman comes up to him and informs the young man that he finds
himself in a well-educated and polished world, where there are no traces of monsters,
such that the current task is not to seek adventure but simply to be an agreeable
person like the rest of them.23 this story amusingly illustrates Kierkegaard’s belief
that his contemporary culture had lost a vital passion and sense of struggle that
was essential for ethical development as well as, ultimately, the passion of Christian
faith. in other words, Kierkegaard does not believe that such a proper adventurous
passion is limited to the kind of externalized physical adventure symbolized by a
youth with a broadsword looking for monsters. He believes that even philosophers
and theologians, living a life that does not typically depend upon physical conflict,
could and should work with a spirit of adventure as stirring as that of the knight.24
Christianity demands that kind of adventurous spirit,25 and it can be incited through
story-telling.
16
ibid.
17
SKS 20, 91–2, nb:130 / KJN 4, 91–2.
18
SKS 11, 153 / SUD, 37. Cf. SKS 20, 97, nb:141 / KJN 4, 96–7.
19
SKS 2, 400 / EO1, 412.
20
SKS 3, 192 / EO2, 198–9.
21
SKS 18, 34, ee:91 / KJN 2, 29.
22
SKS 17, 106, bb:14 / KJN 1, 98–9.
23
SKS 12, 213–14 / PC, 218.
24
SKS 18, 29, ee:71.a / KJN 2, 25: “and no matter how different chivalry and
scholasticism were, they had this in common, that they were engaged in a quest: for thought
too has a certain adventurousness, which is as refreshing, as noble, as heaven-born as any
knight’s.” Cf. SKS 15, 22 / JC, 124; SKS 15, 52 / JC, 164.
25
SKS 26, 270, nb33:30 / JP 4, 4945.
Story-Telling 105
IV. A Reading of BB:37
With these points in mind, let us turn to Kierkegaard’s single most important entry
on story-telling, bb:37. the focus of this journal entry is primarily the art of telling
stories to children. Because of the role of story-telling in subjective edification,
Kierkegaard often—though not exclusively—associates it with the formative age
of childhood. Certainly, Kierkegaard himself acknowledged that, when his soul
was weary, he found fairytales to be invigorating and refreshing.26 nevertheless, he
believes that children have a particular craving to hear stories told and that such a
craving is alone sufficient proof of the value of those stories for them.27
Kierkegaard recommends two ways of telling stories to children. First, there is
the way nannies tell stories, which is as if they themselves are children in their
telling, expressing their deep convictions that the stories they read are true. second,
there is the way of the adult, who does not himself pretend to be a child but who
nevertheless knows how to be one and “reproduces the life of childhood…from his
higher standpoint.”28 Kierkegaard seems to prefer the second way for himself yet
without denigrating the first, which has its own value for children.
both of these ways may become bad methods of story-telling, however, if
they are not carried through with integrity but are blended or undertaken in an
inconsistent or improper fashion. being like a child oneself in telling stories has
its perverse manifestation, most often among youths, who want in some way to
continue living in childhood. Kierkegaard says they mimic children’s speech in
an unintentional caricature and would prefer never to need to shave. Kierkegaard
mocks these “childlike souls” whom he says are parodied by the children who are
all-too-eager to behave like adults. the second way to go wrong, found more often
among adults, is to condescend to children, by assuming that childhood is a valueless
void that needs to have substance breathed into it.29 Kierkegaard says that while it
is a mistake to assume that childhood is “basically the peak of human attainment
beyond which man degenerates,” it is also an error to empty childhood of integrity
and value, reducing it to the pure instrumentality of becoming an adult.30
For Kierkegaard, one of the most important requirements of telling stories to
children is that it “must awaken an appetite in them to ask questions instead of waving
a sensible question aside.”31 in other words, story-telling should be “Socratic.”32
this is connected to his interest that story-telling should elicit the right kind of
passion in its hearers, which means that interest and questions will come naturally. if
children’s questions are dismissed as interruptions or waved off as foolish, then one
is likely to train children to receive the stories in the wrong manner, such as simple
diversionary entertainment. Kierkegaard admires the story-teller who can use his art
26
SKS 17, 251, dd:94 / KJN 1, 241–2.
27
SKS 17, 130, bb:37.10 / KJN 1, 123.
28
SKS 17, 123, bb:37 / KJN 1, 116–17.
29
SKS 17, 128–9, bb:37 / KJN 1, 121–2.
30
SKS 17, 127–8, bb:37 / KJN, 1, 121. the latter mistake, he says, is “inherent in the
haste of our age” (SKS 17, 127, bb:37.7 / KJN 1, 121).
31
SKS 17, 124, bb:37 / KJN 1, 118.
32
ibid.
106 Will Williams
ably to handle the sometimes surprising questions of children. He also believes that
it is possible for the teller to learn something from the children and so should not try
to present the false confidence of a know-it-all.33
another requirement for Kierkegaard regarding the telling of stories is that story-
telling be allowed to remain poetic: “What matters is to bring the poetic to bear on
their lives in every way, to exert a magical influence.”34 the poetic quality of story-
telling is to incite an enthusiasm in children35 such that their learning is not artificially
objective in character but is naturally wedded to their childhood interests and so is
appropriated in their “souls.”36 in other words, story-telling should develop children
subjectively, to cultivate and focus their attentiveness in a way that, otherwise, would
require artificial external means.37
Consequently, one should not tell stories to children in such a way that skepticism
about the fantastic events provokes suspicion and doubt in children.38 Kierkegaard
thinks that if the story-teller himself “believes” in the story he tells, then the objective
and factual question of “is it true?” will probably not arise in the mind of the child.39
in other words, it is not so much that children trust the story but that they trust the
story-teller. Kierkegaard thinks it is harmful to end the tale with, “but you realize
of course that it was only a fairy story,” since this bursts the shining soap-bubble of
the poetic and trains the child, instead, to think in rationalistic terms about objective
truth-claims.40
story-telling should be respected for the art it is, which includes preparing
before telling a story to a child. it should not degenerate into merely passing the
time or amusing the child, for otherwise the stories themselves will degenerate into
monotonous repetition, which simply trains the child to consume vast quantities
of trivial stories without receiving any subjective development.41 part of respecting
story-telling means not seeing it as essentially wasted time that would be better
filled with either moral or utilitarian education. Kierkegaard opposes the “scourge”
of readers for children that teach such knowledge as natural history, vocabulary
lessons for other languages, how to play a simple tune on the piano, and so on
since they teach “a purely atomistic knowledge” that does not enter deeply into the
child’s existence.42 the effect, he says, is to make children think that they are “great
naturalists and linguists”43 and to allow the sheer quantity of objective and factual
information to cause them to lose an important sense of connectivity and priority:
“Hence the coquetry, hence the busy marthas who forgot the one thing needful.”44
33
SKS 17, 125, bb:37.3 / KJN 1, 118; SKS 17, 129, bb:37.9 / KJN 1, 123.
34
SKS 17, 124, bb:37 / KJN 1, 118.
35
SKS 17, 126, bb:37.5 / KJN 1, 119.
36
SKS 17, 130, bb:37 / KJN 1, 124.
37
SKS 17, 125, bb:37 / KJN 1, 125.
38
SKS 17, 123, bb:37 / KJN 1, 117.
39
SKS 17, 130–1, bb:37.10 / KJN 1, 123–4.
40
SKS 17, 129, bb:37 / KJN 1, 123; SKS 17, 130–1, bb:37.10 / KJN 1, 123–4.
41
SKS 17, 129–30, bb:37 / KJN 1, 123; SKS 17, 127, bb:37 / KJN 1, 120.
42
SKS 17, 130, bb:37 / KJN 1, 124.
43
SKS 17, 131, bb:37 / KJN 1, 124.
44
ibid.
Story-Telling 107
Kierkegaard’s concern for atomistic knowledge that disperses one’s attention amidst
the multiplicity illustrates both his concern for subjective development and his
belief that narrative composition is an integral part of that development, lest one lose
oneself in the objectivity of facts.
Finally, it is important not to neglect the art of story-telling for children since
stories produce a calming effect on them. it gives a healthy outlet to their anxious
imaginations: “and this, not telling children tales and legends capable of occupying
their imaginations, leaves room precisely for an anxiety that, not moderated by such
narratives, returns with all the greater strength.”45 one will note that Kierkegaard’s
discussion of story-telling rapidly becomes dominated by his interest in human
subjective development, which, of course, remains the true cause of his interest in
the art.
V. Conclusion
While story-telling is an art that has its own aesthetic excellence, Kierkegaard does
not conceive of it in fundamentally aesthetic terms. Indeed, the aesthete must finally
resist the stabilizing narratives of stories to remain in erratic immediacy. instead,
stories are deeply tied to the process of human subjective development, which is
why they must be respected and told properly: “on no account should one forget
the point of the story.”46 stories aid subjective development by exercising the
imagination as the modality of possibility and they also excite the passions, thereby
preparing the spirit for Christian faith. a childhood lacking such inspiring stories
will likely produce anxious and passionless adults, who lack narrative continuity in
their lives. the fairytale, like childhood, has intrinsic value. nevertheless it is not
the highest value—that is, it is not Christian religious existence in faith—though,
in its time and in the proper way, it may be propaedeutic for such a faith, training
one in the passions required for it. While Kierkegaard is adamant that Christianity
is not a fairytale,47 he perceives a power in the stories that, much as scheherazade
discovered, is nurturing and protective of life.
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; allegory; art; authorship; Childhood; Communi-

cation/indirect Communication; Culture/education; ethics; Fairytale; imagination;
language; legends; novel; passion/pathos; poetry; rhetoric; theater/drama;
Vaudeville/Farce; Writing.
45
SKS 17, 131, bb:37.10 / KJN 1, 124.
46
SKS 17, 127, bb:37 / KJN 1, 120.
47
the incarnation of Christ was not derived from god’s boredom and desire to go on an
adventure (SKS 11, 241 / SUD, 130). Christianity is not a fairytale, although the salvation it
promises is more glorious than what the fairytale offers (SKS 9, 76 / WL, 70).
striving
Christian Fink tolstrup
Striving (Stræben—noun; stræbe—verb).
From the old danish strebe, streve, streffue and the german streben1—in english,
“strive,” “aim to,” “endeavor to,” “aspire to.” it is to make an effort in trying to
reach a specific goal. As a goal for individual existence it is an attempt to develop
in a certain direction. It is directed toward the future, as a qualification of one’s will.
it determines the ambitions of one’s will, rationality, emotions, and faith.
The first important occurrence of the concept of striving is in The Concept of
Irony. in the upbuilding discourses from 1843 and 1844 striving is developed in
connection with religious feelings. But the main discussion of the concept we find in
the Concluding Unscientific Postscript in the discussion of the “subjective existing
thinker.” later, in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the notion of striving
is implied when Kierkegaard argues that if someone really wants to will one thing,
then he or she must want to will the good in truth.2 in Works of Love striving finds
its limit in love, which has its origin in god, and the time spent on striving for
love is wasted.3 in the discourse on “the lilies and the birds” Kierkegaard touches
upon the issue of striving when in the first discourse Jesus is quoted: “But seek first
god’s kingdom and his righteousness.”4 and the author asks the question “what is
the effort [Stræben] that can be said to seek…?”5 the answer indicates that it is not
striving in a straightforward way. it is rather the opposite, since the individual who
seeks the kingdom of god first must do nothing, but instead become silent.
in some respects the ambiguity of striving in relation to faith is more pronounced
in the late authorship. in a journal entry from 1849 Kierkegaard compares his
understanding of striving to martin luther’s notion of “good deeds.” He argues that an
honest striving comes as a result of reconciliation in Christ, not as a presupposition.6
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 22, columns 480–5. note
that in Kierkegaard’s Writings, the word Stræben is often translated as “effort” or “endeavor.”
2
SKS 8, 139 / UD, 24.
3
SKS 9, 106 / WL, 102.
4
matthew 6:33.
5
SKS 11, 16 / WA, 10.
6
SKS 22, 367, nb14:42 / JP 1, 983.
110 Christian Fink Tolstrup
I. Ordinary Striving
Striving is first of all used in an ordinary sense describing one’s involvement in a

particular situation as being goal-oriented, especially toward a specific goal. The
word in this sense seems to have had a greater prevalence in Kierkegaard’s time
than later. For example, ludwig tieck and “the romantic school” are represented in
The Concept of Irony as “stepping into an age in which people seemed to be totally
fossilized in finite social relations. Everything was completed and consummated in a
divine Chinese optimism that let no reasonable longing go unsatisfied, no reasonable
desire go unfilled.”7 this ordinary life was one in which “habit and custom were
the objects of a pious idolatry….in accordance with his station, everyone felt with
nuanced dignity how much he was accomplishing, how great was the importance of
his indefatigable efforts [utrættelig Stræben].”8 this is striving in an ordinary sense,
as a matter of course, living one’s life with a certain direction, according to social
norms.
Kierkegaard uses the term in a similar sense about literary striving, as for example
in his “a glance at a Contemporary effort [Stræben] in danish literature.”9 in this
sense, though, the word is used as a tendency, or as a general direction of ideas or
thoughts.
in the same sense of the word, Kierkegaard talks about “modern philosophical
endeavor” (Stræben), whose “power of genius…seizes and holds on to the
phenomenon.”10 the phenomenon is prior to the concept, then, and the concept is
defined by the phenomenon. In the same sense Kierkegaard talks about the striving
of “critical theological scholarship” whose striving emphasizes a critical approach to
biblical texts and therefore has another direction than that of faith.11
even if the usage of the concept of striving is developed throughout Kierkegaard’s
authorship, as we shall see in the following, Kierkegaard uses the word in a
straightforward way as late as The Moment. One will find the concept throughout the
authorship, but mainly in its ordinary sense. the question is, however, whether we
find a development of the concept from the beginning.
II. Intellectual Striving
intellectual striving is determined in relation to truth and knowledge. in a journal

entry from 1849, Kierkegaard distinguishes purely intellectual striving for the truth
from what he calls “concerned truth” (bekymrede Sandhed), which is “sufficiently
certain of being the truth but is concerned about communicating it, because it knows
how the others need the truth.”12 intellectual striving for the truth is, on the other
7
SKS 1, 336 / CI, 303.
8
ibid.
9
SKS 7, 228–73 / CUP1, 251–300.
10
SKS 1, 71 / CI, 9.
11
SKS 7, 33 / CUP1, 25.
12
SKS 22, 62–3, nb11:111 / JP 4, 4862.
Striving 111
hand, not concerned with communicating it. “purely intellectual striving is occupied
solely with discovering the truth.”13
Just as idealism is well known to have its origin in plato, so too, on Kierkegaard’s
view, does idealistic striving begin with plato. idealistic striving continues with
romanticism and german idealism. in The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard points out
striving as a phenomenon close to irony. the relation between striving and idealism
concerns the aim of striving. idealistic striving is striving that has the ideal as its
goal. This striving therefore has an infinite goal, since it aims at an infinite ideal.
Kierkegaard finds the concept of striving useful when, in The Concept of Irony,
he discusses german idealism, especially that of Fichte. Fichte’s understanding
of the “i” is an attempt to resolve the problem of knowledge by making the “i”
infinite. Here Kierkegaard’s critique begins with the claim that this infinite striving
is a result of not taking any finite phenomenon into account. This “negative infinity”
is, for Kierkegaard, a striving for its own sake—lacking all content. Fichte’s
negative infinity requires, as Kierkegaard puts it, infinite molimina as well—latin
for endeavors or efforts. He adds that Fichte has an infinite desire for the negative,
which, as a nisus formativus (formative impulse), is a “creative desire.”14
this is important for the understanding of striving in Kierkegaard, since he
now makes a critique of this idealistic striving. The infinite striving is powerful but
empty, since it does not aim at anything: “it is a potentiation, an exaltation as strong
as a god who can lift the whole world and yet has nothing to lift.”15
III. Existential Striving
in the Postscript we find striving characterized as a continuous (bestandig) striving.16

Again it is stressed that striving in an existential way does not have a finite, achievable
goal. the natural (sanselige) human being then is lost in despair concerning its
longing to finish striving. This rests upon the uncertainty of all human and earthly
existence and that the human being is striving for something unachievable. by
contrast, we find the “art of living,” according to Climacus, that is, “to have his daily
life in the decisive dialectic of the infinite and yet to go on living—that is the art.”17
the continuous striving then, leads to either some kind of despair, or the art of living.
Kierkegaard arrives at a definition of this concept of striving in the Postscript
when he has Climacus define the subjective existing thinker. The definition of this
character rests upon the Kierkegaardian presupposition that existence is a synthesis
of finite and infinite. The subjective existing thinker, thus, has infinity in his or
her soul.18 this constitution of human existence as a synthesis is the well-known
ground for Kierkegaard’s anthropology; that is, that the human being is in a process
of becoming (Vorden). It is, as well, fundamental for the definition of striving.
13
ibid.
14
SKS K1, 341.
15
SKS 1, 310 / CI, 274.
16
SKS 7, 80–120 / CUP1, 80–125.
17
SKS 7, 85n / CUP1, 86n.
18
SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 84.
therefore, i consider this passage in the Postscript the key passage on the concept
of striving.19
The subjective existing thinker, who is continuously striving, never finishes
the attempt to gain certainty of truth or life. the truth will never manifest itself as
a positive form. Infinity, then, makes the form of the subjective existing thinker
negative. the negativity corresponds to the continuous striving and is as continuous
as the striving. but the subjective existing thinker is not only negative, but is as
positive as negative, where “positivity consists in the continued inward deepening
[Inderliggjørelse].”20 the inwardness of the subjective existing thinker is to be aware
of this negativity.
the dialectic between the positive and the negative is the presupposition for the
striving of the person, since the negative element indicates that the goal has not yet
been achieved, and the positive is an inner understanding of this dialectic. thus,
existence means striving.21 the dialectic that Climacus recommends is not a once-
and-for-all moment of decision, but rather a continuous awareness. it is the art of
keeping the wound of negativity open; a wound cut open by existence itself, or the
awareness that existence is in process of becoming and never in a state of perfection.
Climacus points, in the Postscript, to the greek idea of eros when thinking of
existence as becoming. according to the myth of diotima in plato’s Symposium, eros
was the child of penia and poros. penia was poor, longing, and needy, whereas, poros
was rich, wise, and beautiful. eros, therefore, does not rest in his own perfection, but
overcomes his need by a continuous striving.22 eros is a child of need and wealth, of
finite and infinite, and thus, continuously striving.
IV. The Crisis of Striving
there is a reservation about striving from the beginning of Kierkegaard’s works.

For instance, we find in Either/Or the difference between an aesthetic and an ethical
individual as the difference between seeing oneself transparently (gjennemsigtigt) or
ins Blaue hinein (in the wild blue yonder).23 the ethical individual, of course, has the
upper hand, as the individual who has seen through himself or herself, which means
knowing oneself.24
so far, Kierkegaard follows the idea of striving, and here as well, makes the
reader aware of a catch. there is a catch, as Kierkegaard puts it, that if to know
oneself is the goal for human striving, it must also be the point of departure. so,
striving to know oneself is not limited to contemplation but involves action in terms
of choosing oneself.
19
SKS 7, 80–120 / CUP1, 80–125.
20
SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 84.
21
SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 85.
22
see SKS K7, 151, 91. plato, Symposium 202d.
23
SKS 3, 246 / EO2, 258.
24
Cf. the greek γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know yourself) as the goal for human striving. Cf.
SKS 1, 225 / CI, 177.
Striving 113
The problem about striving for infinity is, as Kierkegaard points to in the
discourse “love Will Hide a multitude of sins,”25 that striving fails. individuals
striving to get beyond their own failure gain some sort of self-satisfaction, which
does not allow them to reach their infinite goal.
the same issue is present, when Climacus in the Postscript forms the image
of “existential pathos” and paradoxically confronts thinking as abstraction with
existence. 26 the more one engages in existence, that is, in concrete experience of
life, the further one slides away from what one was thinking of, the goal of one’s
thoughts.
in Works of Love striving is not just a positive characteristic of human life. striving
as a way to obtain one’s infinite goal is challenged. When Jesus Christ is said by
St. Paul to be the fulfillment of the law, the shortcoming of the Christian believer’s
attempt to fulfill the obligation of the law is taken into account.27 With reference to
matthew,28 Kierkegaard then points out the wasted time spent on striving for the
kingdom of God, when God loved him first. So, properly seeking the kingdom of
god is actually not striving at all.
this understanding of what we could call the crisis of striving, is an interpretation
of the Pauline idea of love as the fulfillment of the law.29 the law became a downfall
to all who tried to fulfill it, because they did not manage to be what it required.30 as
the attempt to fulfill the law is ruined, seeking for the kingdom of God comes up
short, and the striving for knowing god collapses.
right at the beginning of the edifying discourse, “on the occasion of a
Confession” with the additional title “purity of Heart is to Will one thing,”
Kierkegaard seems to take as a point of departure that no matter how much a person
strives, what he or she reaches for is something that is given. it is a prayer spoken
to “the Father in heaven.”31 and so, the text addresses god as “you”: “o you who
give both the beginning and the completing.”32 the prayer shows a disbelief in the
ability of the human being to reach the final goal, or even to begin; all such striving
is futile.
With reference to the confession of sins Kierkegaard dismantles the burning wish
and the decisive intention; “may you give victory on the day of distress so that the
one distressed in repentance may succeed in doing what the one burning in desire
and the one determined in resolution failed to do: to will only one thing.”33
Kierkegaard continues with reference to ecclesiastes: “What gain have the
workers from their toil? [Hvad Fordeel haver Den, der anstrænger sig, at al sin
Stræben?].”34 striving leads one away from the path of salvation. it is like someone
25
SKS 5, 81 / EUD, 69.
26
SKS 7, 478–9 / CUP1, 526.
27
SKS 9, 106 / WL, 101.
28
matthew 6:33. SKS 9, 106 / WL, 102.
29
romans 13:10.
30
SKS 9, 103 / WL, 99.
31
SKS 8, 123 / UD, 7.
32
ibid.
33
ibid.
34
ecclesiastes 3:9.
who is a light traveler, who does not get to know the road in detail, while the traveler
with heavy burdens is slowed down. the one who is only striving does not get to
know the road as well as the one who regrets. this differentiation within striving
itself is explicitly mentioned by Kierkegaard when opposing true godly endeavor to
secular striving in his biographical encounters.35
i emphasize this point in order to make clear the importance of what i have
called the crisis of striving. striving in itself does not satisfy Kierkegaard in his quest
for the eternal good. When some kind of crisis, collapse, or regret, comes into the
picture, then the wanderer is on track and actually getting closer to the goal he or she
had in the first place.
see also being/becoming; despair; dying to/renunciation; existence/existential;

Finitude/Infinity; Movement/Motion; Passion/Pathos.
35
SKS 13, 15n / PV, 9n.
suffering
sean anthony turchin
Suffering (Lidelse—noun; lide—verb)
Lidelse is derived from the old danish and older new danish verb lide, which is
the same word in modern swedish, norwegian and danish, corresponding to the
german leiden. the lexical meaning in danish is a condition that is associated with
pain, distress, trouble, loss, and the like. Ordbog over det danske Sprog takes 1
peter 4:13 to be paradigmatic: “but rejoice inasmuch as you participate in Christ’s
sufferings.”1 in descending order of frequency, the concept of suffering is discussed
in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Upbuilding
Discourses in Various Spirits, Stages on Life’s Way, and Christian Discourses.
in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Johannes Climacus’ discussion of
suffering takes place within the context of the difference between the existential
pathos and the aesthetic pathos of the individual. according to Climacus, the
difference between the two is that aesthetic pathos reveals the individual’s relation
to relative ends, devoid of internal change in the individual, whereas existential
pathos “is action or the transformation of existence.”2 thus, for the individual who
is concerned with existential pathos, the desire is for transformation of his or her
existence, this being the transformation of his or her “inner existence.”3
in sum, the individual immersed within the aesthetic betrays a mere concern with
external changes, which rarely result in any inner change to the individual and how
the individual exists. Moreover, for Climacus, the significance of existential pathos
is that it is accomplished by means of an indifference to relative ends, focusing
rather on being related “absolutely to the absolute telos and relatively to relative
ends.”4 What Johannes Climacus seeks to elucidate, in defining the concern of the
existential pathos to that of relating to the absolute, are the categories of the ethical
and ethical-religious.
Contrary to the aesthetic category, these two categories are concerned with the
transformation of the individual’s inner existence (inwardness) by way of relating
to the absolute or eternal. insofar as existential pathos relates to inwardness,
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 12, columns 767–8 (Lidelse)
and columns 753–66 (lide).
2
SKS 7, 392 / CUP1, 431.
3
SKS 7, 394 / CUP1, 433.
4
SKS 7, 392 / CUP1, 431.
116 Sean Anthony Turchin
a transformation of one’s inner existence can only be accomplished by suffering, and
“suffering” is thus “the essential expression of existential pathos.”5 in that existential
pathos has as its aim a change in one’s inner existence by means of relating to the
absolute, it is solely within the category of the religious. but why should the essential
hallmark of existential pathos, that is, the religious, be that of suffering?
For Climacus, individuals are creatures of immediacy and therefore relate quite
easily to what is relative, that is, external and without inward transformation.6 the fact
that suffering is essential to existential pathos is mainly a result of its own demands,
namely, the demand to relate absolutely to the absolute. For Climacus, “action of
inwardness is suffering because the individual is unable to transform himself.”7 He
states, “the basis of this suffering is that in his immediacy the individual actually
is absolutely within relative ends; its meaning is the turning around of the relation,
dying to immediacy or existentially expressing that the individual is capable
of nothing himself but is nothing before god.”8 but for the individual immersed
in aesthetic pathos, “in immediacy, the wish is to be capable of everything, and
immediacy’s faith, ideally, is in being capable of everything.”9
in other words, relating oneself to the absolute is unattainable by means of
the individual’s own efforts. moreover, the individual’s “relationship with god is
distinguishable by the negative, and self-annihilation is the essential form for the
relationship with god.”10 the individual, again, is “more or less immediate and to
that extent relates himself absolutely to relative ends”11 rather than relating relatively
to relative ends. therefore, those who take the path of the existential (inwardness)
“comprehend suffering as essential” to inner transformation.12
on the other hand, for Climacus, suffering is not essential to aesthetic pathos.
For the aesthetic individual, contra the religious, suffering is incidental insofar as
it merely accompanies the immediate or the external. thus, aesthetically speaking,
suffering merely happens contingently in terms of fortune or misfortune.13 However,
“the religious person continually has suffering with him, wants suffering in the same
sense as the immediate person wants good fortune, and wants and has suffering even
if the misfortune is not present externally.”14
and why should the religious person, who is consumed with the existential
pathos of inwardness, desire suffering? again, the religious individual cares not for
a relation to the relative, at least not absolutely. rather, for the religious individual,
“religiousness is inwardness, that inwardness is the individual’s relation to himself
5
SKS 7, 393 / CUP1, 432.
6
ibid.
7
SKS 7, 394 / CUP1, 433.
8
SKS 7, 418 / CUP1, 460–1.
9
SKS 7, 419 / CUP1, 461.
10
SKS 7, 418 / CUP1, 461.
11
SKS 7, 393 / CUP1, 432.
12
SKS 7, 395 / CUP1, 434.
13
ibid.
14
SKS 7, 395 / CUP1, 434–5.
Suffering 117
before God, its reflection within himself, and that it is precisely from this that the
suffering comes.”15
in sum, in that the category of the religious is concerned with a relation to god,
suffering is essential to this concern because it is a relation that is, from this side
of existence, barred with trouble and distraction. true, “there is no suffering in the
eternal happiness, but when an existing person relates himself to it, the relation is
quite properly expressed by suffering.”16 interestingly, as a side note, according
to Climacus, “from the religious point of view all human beings are suffering.”17
if suffering does not accompany the individual’s relation to god, then this indicates
“that one is not religious.”18 Furthermore, the suffering of the religious is not
momentary but is, in this life, continuous.19
but whereas Johannes Climacus ties the category of the religious to suffering in
very broad strokes, what this actually means is better explicated in Kierkegaard’s
Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Here, in Kierkegaard’s various discourses
on “the gospel of sufferings” (Lidelsernes Evangelium), the concept of suffering
is explicated fully in terms of the Christian narrative, specifically the suffering of
Christ and how his example extends to Christian living.
according to Kierkegaard, insofar as Christ was god but took the form of a
lowly servant who traveled the road of suffering which culminated in crucifixion, the
Christian life as imitation of Christ is also one of suffering, a call to walk through
this life in hardship and toil.20 like Christ, the life of the Christian is one that requires
taking up one’s own cross of suffering and self-denial.21 For Kierkegaard, this means
“to deny oneself and means to walk the same road Christ walked in the lowly form
of a servant, indigent, forsaken, mocked, not loving the world and not loved by
it.”22 but one must note that the Christian call to suffer is not one that the Christian
experiences merely at the hands of others who torment him or her or is the result of
outside forces at work. although this may be one factor that contributes to suffering,
it is the Christian who is to seek to alleviate the sufferings of others.
according to Kierkegaard, it is natural to human existence to place burdens on
others rather than carry them ourselves. However, Christianity demands the reverse.
that this is the case is seen in the prototype, Jesus Christ. “He came ‘not to be
served,’ not to lay burdens upon others; he carried the burdens, the heavy burden that
all, each one separately, would preferably shove away: the burden of sin.”23
Kierkegaard stresses that Christ always made it a point to encounter the suffering
individual in order to alleviate his or her suffering.24 and of course, suffering is
15
SKS 7, 397 / CUP1, 436–7.
16
SKS 7, 411 / CUP1, 452.
17
SKS 7, 397 / CUP1, 436.
18
SKS 7, 412 / CUP1, 453.
19
SKS 7, 404 / CUP1, 445.
20
SKS 8, 325–6 / UD, 224.
21
SKS 8, 323 / UD, 222.
22
SKS 8, 324 / UD, 223.
23
SKS 8, 332 / UD, 231.
24
SKS 8, 332 / UD, 232.
beneficial for the development of the individual’s relation to God.25 For the Christian,
suffering brings self-reflection, causing the individual to look inward, to shape the
god relation rather than merely focusing on the external. thus, “a person can learn a
great deal without actually coming into a relation to the eternal. if, namely, a person
in learning turns outward, he can come to know very much, but despite all this
knowledge he can be and continue to be a riddle to himself, and unknown.”26
in sum, within the Christian context, suffering brings the individual to look
inward, the result being a firm trust that God is in control and to let this be so,
regardless of the degree of suffering.27 but the Christian must not think that such
suffering as is required in this life for the Christian is in vain. that one suffers as a
Christian is evidence that one is on the right path to “eternal safety.”28
For Kierkegaard, the continuous moments of suffering in the life of the Christian
act as “road signs,” which continue to point us in the right direction toward true
Christian living.29 even in a temporal sense, suffering is understood as the means
to an end; it is not understood as wholly without purpose, no matter how great the
suffering. in fact, “just when the effort is greatest and most painful, he encourages
himself with the thought of the prize and that this specific suffering will help to
procure it for him.”30 and so, from an eternal perspective, quoting 2 Corinthians
4:17, Kierkegaard writes, “our hardship, which is brief and light, procures for us an
eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”31
We find this same contrast between the eternal and the temporal as a context for
enduring suffering in his Christian Discourses. Here, Kierkegaard encourages the
reader to see suffering, not from a temporal perspective but from an eternal one.
From an eternal perspective, temporal suffering is but a moment.32 Furthermore, one
who suffers temporally may be suffering the hurts and misfortunes of this life but
such suffering is making that person eternally rich in abundance of fortune. thus,
from an external point of view, the poor man, the man who suffers in his poverty may
continue to become poorer, continue to suffer. With the eyes of faith, however, this
poor man, “the poorer he becomes, makes others richer—yet in the external sense it
is the same person.”33 of course, to see earthly or temporal suffering in relation to
the eternal is something we cannot comprehend outside of faith.34
the section entitled “guilty?/not guilty?” from Stages on Life’s Way relates
the mental anguish of an individual, Quidam, caught between the aesthetic life
and the religious life or, stated differently, that of immediacy and reflection. The
individual suffers as a result of his inability to decide whether to stay committed
to his engagement or whether to renounce marriage for the religious life, which
25
SKS 8, 355 / UD, 257.
26
SKS 8, 354 / UD, 256.
27
SKS 8, 355 / UD, 257.
28
SKS 8, 328 / UD, 227.
29
ibid.
30
SKS 8, 406 / UD, 313.
31
SKS 8, 401 / UD, 308.
32
SKS 10, 110 / CD, 97.
33
SKS 10, 126 / CD, 115.
34
SKS 8, 406 / UD, 313.
Suffering 119
Quidam believes contributes to his melancholy. thus, in light of his indecision he
suffers. He writes; “my suffering is punishment. i accept it from god’s hands; i have
deserved it.”35 but he thinks that he suffers because of his lack of appreciation for the
aesthetic and erotic aspects of marriage. He cannot understand why so many people
are obsessed with love and with those relationships that follow.36 on the other hand,
Quidam can understand how one could be obsessed with a relationship with god,
but not with temporal relationships like that of human beings, specifically within the
context of marriage.37 because of what he thinks is his unwillingness or inability to
understand this, he writes, “now—well, now i am suffering, i am doing penance,
even if i am not suffering in a purely erotic way.”38
His suffering over the matter is so great as to produce many different thoughts
on the issue, depending from what angle he is looking, so that he questions whether
such thoughts are “a sign of sagacity or insanity.”39 For example, Quidam writes,
“Perhaps I have not loved her at all; perhaps on the whole I am too reflective to be
able to love….but, my god, why all these sufferings, then? is it not love that i think
of her night and day, that i am spending my life solely to save her?”40
in the end, Quidam believes himself to suffer more, by consequence of the
sufferings of others who suffer; this, he states, is to “suffer sympathetically.”41 He
writes that
when i suffer sympathetically, i have to use all my power, all my ingenuity, in the service
of the appalling to reproduce the other’s pain, and that exhausts me. When i myself suffer,
my understanding thinks of grounds for comfort, but when i suffer sympathetically,
i dare not believe a single one of them, for i cannot, of course, know the other one so
accurately that i can know whether the presuppositions are present that are the condition
for its effectiveness.42
in conclusion, the concept of suffering, although nuanced according to the context

in which it is used, stays largely consistent throughout Kierkegaard’s various
considerations of it. in sum, whether brought on as a result of one’s relationship to
the eternal or the temporal, suffering serves in shaping and sharpening the individual
in order that he or she may learn from it to inform temporal existence with an eternal
perspective.
see also absolute; anxiety; atonement/reconciliation; Christ; despair; dying to/

Renunciation; Faith; God; Guilt; Hope; Immediacy/Reflection; Inwardness/Inward
deepening; martyrdom/persecution; melancholy; passion/pathos; religious/
religiousness; salvation/eternal Happiness; tragic/tragedy; trial/test/tribulation.
35
SKS 6, 210–11 / SLW, 225.
36
ibid.
37
ibid.
38
ibid.
39
SKS 6, 212 / SLW, 227.
40
SKS 6, 216 / SLW, 231.
41
SKS 6, 247–8 / SLW, 265–6.
42
ibid.
suicide
robert b. puchniak
Suicide (Selvmord—noun)
the danish term is derived from the german Selbstmord and literally means “self-
murder,” or the act of deliberately taking one’s own life.1 it is an action against
oneself that is voluntary and elective. it involves a choice to bring one’s own life
to an end and by one’s own hand. a person who has chosen to commit suicide is a
Selvmorder.2
the subject is mentioned by Kierkegaard in a number of his published works
(including The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, part one, Stages on Life’s Way,
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Two Ages, Works of Love, Christian Discourses,
and The Sickness unto Death) and appears occasionally in his private papers and
journals. more often than not, the topic of suicide is part of a thought experiment or
theological investigation for Kierkegaard, rather than being a significant existential
option for him personally. the thought of suicide, however, did cross his mind
during the turmoil over regine olsen. a glimpse of this is offered in his journals.
I. Suicide as a Topic in Kierkegaard’s Published Works
in Kierkegaard’s dissertation, The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to

Socrates, the matter of socrates’ thoughts on suicide in the Phaedo is raised in a
footnote.3 in the midst of considering socratic views of the soul, Kierkegaard
notes that socrates warned against suicide, arguing that “we human beings are on
a kind of guard duty and must not absolve ourselves or slip away.”4 there is a sort
of responsibility, therefore, that each human being has to him- or herself. socrates
does not expand this idea, Kierkegaard notes, to the point where human beings are
“the deity’s co-workers” (as paul does in scripture; see 1 Corinthians 3:9), because
socrates has an “ambiguous relation” to the gods, at best.5 Kierkegaard states that
socrates “still does not know really what the shape of the next life will be or whether
1
2
1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendalske boghandlings Forlag 1833, vol. 2, p. 298.
3
SKS 1, 126 / CI, 67–8.
4
SKS 1, 126 / CI, 67.
5
ibid.
122 Robert B. Puchniak
there will be a next life…[and therefore] one sees that the persuasive power of this
argument is considerably limited.”6
in Either/Or, part one, the nameless aesthete, a, raises the topic of suicide in two
places: the first within “Either/Or, An Ecstatic Discourse” (in “Diapsalmata”), and
the second while meditating upon the character of marie beaumarchais in Johann
Wolfgang von goethe’s 1774 tragedy, Clavigo (“Her story is brief: Clavigo became
engaged to her; Clavigo left her”7). in a’s “ecstatic discourse” the author ponders the
“quintessence of all the wisdom of life,” concluding: “Hang yourself, and you will
regret it. do not hang yourself, and you will also regret it. Hang yourself or do not
hang yourself, you will regret it either way.”8 He claims to be speaking “continually
aeterno modo” as a philosopher (like spinoza) whose perspective is always thus
and cannot be otherwise.9 the second mention of suicide, in Either/Or, part one, is
in the context of considering maria beaumarchais’s love, an “unhappy love that is
due to a deception.”10 Her broken engagement is the destruction of a possibility (as
opposed to an actuality), but this “entices much more reflection.”11 When Clavigo
pushes her away, she falls into the arms of others, broken but still having “sufficient
strength to transform her sorrow into reflective sorrow.”12 unhappy love, the author
concedes, “may be of such a nature that suicide may be regarded as esthetically
proper.”13 but, he continues, “life does not always follow precise esthetic categories,
does not always obey an esthetic norm, and she does not die.”14 instead of suicide,
marie discovers the “pathos of wrath” and seeks satisfaction in vengeance.15 she
finds an aesthetically pleasing answer to her unhappy love that does not amount to
suicide.
in Stages on Life’s Way Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Frater taciturnus, twice
mentions suicide in “guilty?/not guilty? a story of suffering, an imaginary
psychological Construction.” the contents of this essay, so it is presumed, have
been discovered by taciturnus inside a wooden box brought up from the depths of
søborg lake. the unnamed author (“Quidam”) ruminates upon his relationship with
his fiancée. He claims that although “a young girl, to be sure, is not the sacred,” she
was “something like that to me.”16 He agonizes over her commitment to him, his
reluctance to enter into marriage, and his intention to end the affair. He comments
at one point that he had read about a “girl of distinguished parentage” who ended
her life by suicide: “if the girl had just considered the mortal agony she can cause
another person, i believe she would have refrained.”17 He follows this with the self-
6
SKS 1, 126n / CI, 68n.
7
SKS 2, 174 / EO1, 177.
8
SKS 2, 47 / EO1, 38.
9
SKS 2, 48 / EO1, 39.
10
SKS 2, 177 / EO1, 180.
11
ibid.
12
SKS 2, 177–8 / EO1, 180.
13
SKS 2, 178 / EO1, 181.
14
ibid.
15
ibid.
16
SKS 6, 276 / SLW, 297.
17
SKS 6, 277 / SLW, 298.
Suicide 123
referential remark: “but who could ever think of using precautionary care toward
me!”18 Just as this young girl did not, or could not, reveal her inner agony to others,
so too Quidam was keeping secrets to himself. “and then,” he continues, “not to
dare to question anyone but have to fish for information in the casual language of
conversation….if my path is generally strewn with thorns, these random contacts
are like a hawthorn hedge in which i am stuck.”19 such is the aesthetic stage on life’s
way, where suicide is a viable option.
the second mention of suicide in Stages comes also in “ ‘guilty?’/ ‘not guilty?’ ”
after an admission by Quidam that although he loved his fiancée, he harbored “a
secret anger” against her.20 He declares that his “mistake” was to “have ventured in
where i do not belong,” that is, with her.21 Whereas he lives in “the consciousness of
the eternal, in infinity,” alas, “this higher existence is of no concern to her at all.”22
He laments that such a relationship is no basis for marriage, but he also reveals
some relief, that he will be “liberated…by becoming a scoundrel.”23 His concern,
at this moment, is the “dying of erotic love,” which he claims he prefers not to talk
about.24 Quidam further wonders about “true faithfulness” and considers “a Charlotte
stieglitz,” who killed herself in the hope that her husband’s grief would provoke his
further poetic endeavor.25 He recognized that he was causing his beloved pain and
grief, but at the same time he could not escape the self-pitying thought of how much
he suffers “at the thought of her pain.”26
in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, there are two discussions of suicide
by the pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. The first comes in Section II, Chapter I,
“becoming subjective.” Climacus insists that “to become subjective is a very
praiseworthy task, a quantum satis [sufficient amount] for a human life.”27 but he
insists vigorously that this is a lifelong task, not something that can be casually
ignored on a whim. One must continue “becoming a self”: “to finish too quickly is
the greatest danger of all.”28 Further, “to be finished with life before life is finished
with one is not to finish the task at all.”29 Climacus does not pretend to understand
“death,” yet he believes that death is not something to be regarded abstractly—“for
me, my dying is by no means something in general.”30 it is possible to think about the
stoic doctrines on suicide (that, for example, suicide was regarded “as a courageous
act”31), but it is another matter altogether to propose one’s own dying. in a second
18
ibid.
19
ibid.
20
SKS 6, 298 / SLW, 321.
21
SKS 6, 297 / SLW, 320.
22
ibid.
23
SKS 6, 299 / SLW, 321.
24
SKS 6, 298 / SLW, 321.
25
ibid.
26
SKS 6, 300 / SLW, 323.
27
SKS 7, 151 / CUP1, 163.
28
SKS 7, 152 / CUP1, 164.
29
ibid.
30
SKS 7, 154 / CUP1, 166.
31
SKS 7, 153 / CUP1, 165.
thought, Climacus admires the “truly difficult” problem of “becoming” and witnesses
to the “ardent existing person impassioned by his thinking” (which, he believes,
was more common in ancient greece than modern denmark).32 there was a time
in Christendom, he writes, when “a thinker was a believer who ardently sought to
understand himself in the existence of faith. if it were the same with thinkers in our
day, pure thinking would have led to one suicide after another, because suicide is
the only existence-consequence of pure thinking….We do not praise suicide, but
certainly the passion.”33
a conscious decision to commit suicide would require existential engagement
and would not simply be pondered abstractly. moreover, “existence without motion
is unthinkable,” he argues, so a person who voluntarily ends his or her own life has
essentially “annulled” that existence.34
in A Literary Review of Two Ages Kierkegaard laments his era, “a sensible,
reflecting age, devoid of passion,” a time of much “deliberation” but little decision
or action.35 So many people had become weighed down by reflection that few could
act with clarity, intention, or pathos: “not even a suicide these days does away
with himself in desperation but deliberates on this step so long and so sensibly that
he is strangled by calculation….”36 the age was so “expert on legal matters,” and
competent in its “technical skill,” that matters could “reach a verdict and decision
without ever acting.”37
II. Suicide as a Topic in Kierkegaard’s Papers and Journals
Key to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity was the concept of “martyrdom.”

there is no higher manifestation of Christianity than the martyr, one who “is to be
slain for the sake of truth” (at blive ihjelslagen for Sandhedens Skyld).38 by contrast,
suicide is “occasioned by not being able to endure the tedious preparatory work of
the martyr,” and is thus “a misinterpretation” (Misvisning) of the “only true and
consistent conception of Christianity.”39 the “true Christian,” he writes, is not bound
by any earthly power and knows that “if it should become necessary…he knows the
way out,” that is, “if a certain point is reached, the martyr’s way beckons to him.”40
there is a similarity in this to the way in which an ancient stoic might have carried
with him the thought of suicide as “the way out.”41 the readiness of the Christian to
accept martyrdom has its parallel in the readiness of the stoic to commit suicide. He
writes, as a “pagan…would at no time hesitate to commit suicide,” so the Christian
32
SKS 7, 280 / CUP1, 308.
33
ibid.
34
ibid.
35
SKS 8, 66 / TA, 68 (emphasis in original).
36
ibid.
37
SKS 8, 66 / TA, 69.
38
SKS 21, 325, nb10:136 / JP 1, 497.
39
ibid.
40
SKS 24, 211–12, nb23:13 / JP 2, 1266.
41
ibid.
Suicide 125
lives in a “state of agony” because to love god means “dying to the world” (at
afdøe).42 Kierkegaard, however, seems to secretly admire the psychological impact
of what the stoic carries: “Having suicide in reserve naturally has a certain power to
make life intensive. the thought of death condenses and concentrates life.”43 both
the stoic and the Christian martyr live with a premeditated readiness to embrace the
end of their life. Careful not to equate the two, Kierkegaard deems stoicism
a false edition of the essentially Christian. For it is quite true that Christianity also makes
life intensive with the thought of death, imminent death, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps
today. if this does not lead us to “let us eat and drink,” it leads to using the day today with
enormous intensity. but then the essentially Christian gets still another weight to bear—
that death may possibly remain far removed. this is what is so dreadfully strenuous, this
alternating.44
in yet another journal note, Kierkegaard continues the comparison between stoics
and Christians: he cites the Meditations of marcus aurelius as sanctioning suicide,
but disapproving of Christian martyrdom.45 “antoninus,” as Kierkegaard refers to
him, “insists that the willingness of the soul (to die, to do away with itself) ought
to be the consequence of one’s own conviction, not mere opposition, as with
the Christians….”46 Kierkegaard labels this thought as “sustained selfishness,”
something that “appeals most to the self,” rather than to “a cause.”47 the Christian
martyr, he insists, suffers in agony because he thinks he has “been abandoned by
God” and feels “infinite despair” (uendelig Fortvivlelse).48 this is just what makes
a martyr, a martyr: “in a certain sense it may be said that to feel abandoned by god
belongs to the proper emptying out of the human being standing face to face before
god, so that the martyr is not motivated by self-satisfaction.”49 this sort of suffering
(endured without electing to end one’s own life) is what defines the martyr; though
he or she might feel abandoned by god, suffering serves a supreme end: “precisely
because having suffered the uttermost gives one the conception of himself again,
on the highest level.”50 Kierkegaard identified life as “a suffering” (Lidelse) and the
reward for such suffering “eternal salvation” for “the one who patiently endures it.”51
42
SKS 27, 671, papir 573 / JP 3, 2454. Kierkegaard says further: “it is terrifying when
god takes out his instruments for the operation for which no human being has the strength: to
take away a man’s zest for life, to slay him—in order that he can live as one who has died to
life” (ibid). Kierkegaard states elsewhere that to die to the world is “the essentially Christian
act” (SKS 25, 176, nb27:62 / JP 4, 4518).
43
SKS 23, 231, nb17:83 / JP 4, 4513.
44
ibid.
45
marcus aurelius antoninus, Meditations, Xi, 3. see D. Imperatoris Marci Antonini
commentariorum quos sibi ipsi scripsit libri XII, ed. by Johann matthias schultz, leipzig:
Carl tauchnitz 1829, p. 160 (ASKB 1218). see SKS 21, 137, nb7:112 / JP 4, 3898.
46
SKS 21, 137, nb7:112 / JP 4, 3898.
47
ibid.
48
SKS 25, 468, nb30:101 / JP 4, 3903.
49
ibid.
50
ibid.
51
SKS 25, 472, nb30:107 / JP 4, 4734.
He recognized that some people consider suicide reprehensible because it amounts
to “ingratitude” (e.g., that life is a gift that must be appreciated), but Kierkegaard
calls this logic “a lie and rubbish.”52 no, instead Kierkegaard preferred to see life as
suffering, and suffering intended by divine design to see who will endure and in the
process “die to the world.”
throughout most of his life, Kierkegaard considered suicide largely as an
academic matter, even at one point early in his writing career claiming, “i would
like to write a dissertation on suicide dealing with statistical information on suicide
and its relation to the ancient world-view and the modern.”53 although it might be
interesting to speculate on the different trajectory his authorial life might have taken
should this have happened, at one juncture Kierkegaard also meditated on suicide
in much more personal terms. in the aftermath of terminating his relationship with
regine olson, he wrote:
in fact, if i did not abominate suicide, if i did not feel that all such virtues were glittering
vices, i would go back to her—and then end my life, a plan i am sorry to say i have
entertained for a long time, and which would make separation from me doubly hard for
her, for who loves a dying man; and this is actually the way i have felt about it every
time i embraced her.54
His decision to walk away from their engagement caused him much misery, which,
he thought, “no doubt would have driven to suicide most of those lacking sufficient
spirit to comprehend the utter wretchedness of the agony.”55
See also Death; Despair; Dying to/Renunciation; Martyrdom/Persecution; Sacrifice;

suffering.
52
ibid.
53
SKS 18, 44, ee:116 / JP 5, 5393.
54
SKS 19, 227, not8:13 / JP 5, 5515.
55
SKS 20, 35, nb:34 / JP 5, 5913.
sympathy/empathy
Victoria davies
Sympathy/Empathy (Medlidenhed—noun; medlidende—adjective)
the danish Medlidenhed derives from the german Mitleid, both meaning “suffering
with” and both translations of the latin compassio or greek συμπάθεια. in addition
to “sympathy,” Medlidenhed can also be translated as “compassion,” “pity,” “fellow-
feeling,” or even just “concern.” its lexical meaning in danish is to suffer alongside
another person, or participate in the suffering of another; to feel sorrow for another
person who suffers and to understand that they suffer.1 as in english, it also holds the
implication of offering consolation to the bereaved. Kierkegaard occasionally also
used Medfølelse (“feeling with”), and he frequently used Deeltagelse, although the
latter often simply translates as “participation” or “interest” depending on context.
He also employed the term Sympathi, although this is largely confined—with only a
handful of exceptions—to the earlier pseudonymous writings Either/Or and Stages
on Life’s Way. thus, Medlidenhed is used most consistently to indicate “sympathy”
throughout the authorship, although several terms are often translated as “sympathy”
or “compassion.”
This article will briefly outline four areas of interest in the treatment of sympathy:
First, it will look into the problem of distinguishing between sympathy and empathy,
and into the relationship of “true sympathy”—by which, arguably, Kierkegaard
means “empathy”—to the divine act of redemption. second, it will explore the
nature of human sympathy and its inherent misunderstandings in relation to divine
or true sympathy. the third section will discuss the social and ecclesial criticism
offered in relation to “common sympathy.” Finally, the fourth section will look at the
nature of neighbor love, which provides a paradigm that incorporates a sympathetic
Christian attitude toward which one should strive.
I.
two problems arise in making distinctions between sympathy and empathy.

First, the authorship does not seem to use a word that specifically and only means
“empathy” as distinguished from “sympathy.” second, empathy and sympathy are
commonly conflated in meaning outside of the authorship, rendering a distinction
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, columns 1174–6
(medlidende), 1196–7 (Medlidenhed).
128 Victoria Davies
more difficult. Nonetheless, a distinction is needed: so where empathy means both
understanding and experiencing the feelings (particularly the sufferings) of another,
sympathy means understanding that the sufferer suffers and feeling pity or sorrow
for that suffering. so empathy requires a mutual experience of suffering. However,
since each individual suffers in a unique inward manner, no two individuals suffer
identically even when outwardly the conditions under which they suffer appear the
same. this is problematic since, if no two experiences are the same, empathy must be
humanly unachievable. Furthermore, it disallows that empathy can stem from prior
similar experience. another problem is that the word Medlidenhed, which carries
the hint of participation, may to some extent incorporate experience and render
the different definitions difficult to maintain—that is, if participation is conflated
with or incorporated into experience. However, since Kierkegaard differentiates
between sympathy and “true sympathy,” a distinction remains necessary and the
differentiation between empathy and sympathy vis-à-vis genuine mutual experience
seems apposite given the following discussion.
For Kierkegaard, only divine sympathy qualifies as empathy.2 In the first of three
discourses at the Communion on Fridays entitled “the High priest,” and in reference
to Hebrews 4:15, Kierkegaard speaks against those who, in their suffering, complain
that they do not have a high priest who is able to sympathize with them. in making
such complaints they overlook the comfort, consolation and “true sympathy” of the
divine. For Kierkegaard, only divine sympathy can fulfill the mutually experiential
requirement of empathy: only Christ has suffered to such a great extent; only Christ
is able to truly understand, not only sympathizing but empathizing with all types
and degrees of suffering. Without this experiential element, there is unavoidable
misunderstanding since even similar prior experiences—which may seem to provide
grounds for empathy—will always involve some incommensurable element, given
that each person suffers in a unique manner. He elaborates by explaining that true
sympathy necessitates putting oneself in the place of the sufferer in order to share
the experience: “it was indeed sympathy that was determinative for him in coming
into the world, and it was sympathy again, it was in order to be able to have true
sympathy, that he in free decision was tested in all things in the same way, he who
can put himself…completely in your place, in my place, in our place.”3
in redeeming humanity it is Christ who, in his abasement,4 takes on all suffering
and, in being willing to suffer, provides consolation: “oh what security for his
sympathy, oh, what sympathy to provide such a security!”5 However, no one is able
to empathize with Christ, since no one could ever suffer so much or in the same
way. as he says two years earlier, “pray to god humbly and trustingly about your
forgiveness, because he is indeed merciful in a way no human being is.”6 Kierkegaard
2
this draws on an implied distinction in the Hongs’ cumulative index, under “sympathy”
and “empathy.” see Cumulative Index to Kierkegaard’s Writings, ed. by nathaniel J. Hong,
Kathryn Hong, and regine prenzel-guthrie, princeton: princeton university press 2000.
3
SKS 11, 252 / WA, 116.
4
SKS 12, 38–40 / PC, 24–5.
5
SKS 11, 253 / WA, 117.
6
SKS 9, 373 / WL, 380.
Sympathy/Empathy 129
continues in “the High priest” by explaining that, for the one who suffers most, the
greatest comfort is to offer comfort. the experience of suffering which no one is able
to share makes the Comforter the paradigm for all other sufferers.7 it is arguable
that, for Kierkegaard, the only genuine comfort is the empathetic comfort of Christ.
moreover, in redemption, Christ epitomizes empathy as he takes up the place of the
sinful sufferer, experiences and participates in all suffering and provides satisfaction.
despite the discussion of divine and human sympathies which, perhaps,
Kierkegaard proffers as the difference between sympathy and empathy as defined
above, the problem remains opaque because various voices in the authorship use the
phrase “true sympathy” in relation to an ideal Christian attitude which may imply
that humans can achieve true sympathy or empathy. However, it may simply mean
that we ought, regardless of our incapacity to mutually co-experience all kinds and
degrees of suffering, to strive for an attitude that points toward its possibility in the
eternal. the distinction between sympathy and true sympathy is further muddled by
the kind of “common sympathy” which the authorship criticizes.
II.
sympathy in The Concept of Anxiety is only considered genuine “when one admits
rightly and profoundly to oneself that what has happened to one human being can
happen to all,”8 that is, recognizing that adam’s guilt is shared by every individual
and consequently thinking about it “in a deeper sense” that demands sympathy.9
sympathy must show that “the sympathetic person in his compassion relates himself
to the sufferer in such a way that he in the strictest sense understands that it is his
own case that is in question.”10 Sympathy requires identification with the sufferer:
“only then does sympathy acquire significance, and only then does it perhaps find
a meaning, because the sympathetic person is different from the sufferer in that he
suffers under a higher form.”11 the sympathetic person cannot be empathetic but
he or she can try to identify with the suffering nonetheless. sympathy need not be
a matter of sentimentality; rather, condemnation should include the sympathizer’s
own shared guilt. it is perhaps because of this shared guilt in sympathetic suffering
that de silentio identifies a “curious dialectic,” which “demands guilt in one moment
and refuses it the next.”12 since all suffering in this view is a result of sin and Christ
has empathetically and sympathetically redeemed humanity, the dialectic between
demanding and refusing guilt in relation to suffering is inherent to that redemptive
act, in the as yet unrealized aspect. perhaps this also relates to the difference between
possibility and actuality.
Whilst Christ’s true sympathy is empathetic through the experience of suffering
with and for the other, infinitely qualitatively different human sympathy is often
7
SKS 11, 255 / WA, 119.
8
SKS 4, 359 / CA, 54.
9
SKS 4, 376 / CA, 72.
10
SKS 4, 421 / CA, 120.
11
SKS 4, 422 / CA, 120.
12
SKS 4, 193 / FT, 104.
130 Victoria Davies
sought and given for the wrong reason and in the wrong way: it necessarily involves a
misunderstanding or misapplication, because of this inability to mutually experience
suffering. in its common understanding sympathy is “the most paltry of all social
virtuosities and aptitudes.”13 sympathy is commonly a means of self-protection,
because it pities the sufferer in such a way that it sees the suffering (and perhaps
the guilt) as belonging to the other, rather than the self. elsewhere in the authorship,
the reader is shown that sympathy is sometimes driven by curiosity, a “sympathetic
anxiety that searches the minds and hidden thoughts.”14 moreover, once curiosity
has discovered a person’s secret suffering: the so-called sympathizer comes to see
it as “a burden, almost…a punishment of your curiosity…!”15 Furthermore, “human
sympathy often relates itself inversely to suffering…and sympathy becomes weary
in the long run: the suffering increases while the sympathy diminishes.”16
Human compassion is usually directed toward those of a similar or equal social
class. that is, those for whom one already has a preference. indeed, anti-Climacus
complains that if a well-off person were to show compassion for the “wretched” in
solidarity with them, the media would create a ridiculous caricature of them.17 most
people, he explains, maintain a poetic distance from true compassion, preferring to
hear about it only on sundays. thus, they may maintain a façade of compassionateness
without sacrifice or charity. “Human compassion is always merely to a certain
degree.”18 Conversely, divine compassion is unlimited and reckless in its depth, and
this depth is rendered ridiculous and even unreasonable in the eyes of society and
the church. anti-Climacus explains that this reversal means that “art” is needed in
order to “help get Christendom to show at least some sympathy with Christianity.”19
III.
the authorship is increasingly polemical toward church and society. this is partly
due to the essential misunderstanding inherent in what it calls “common sympathy.”
as such, there is a fairly hostile attitude toward the blanketing warmth of this
common form of sympathy. this is thrown off since it is intrinsically bound up
with the tranquillizing deception under which Christendom suffers, obscuring “true
sympathy.” in The Point of View of My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard tells his
reader that he has attempted to remove a delusion regarding Christendom and has
lost the esteem of his contemporaries in doing so. the same goes for his rebuke of
common understandings of sympathy, which are dangerous despite being generally
well-meaning and good-natured.20 this kind of sympathy is a poor shadow of what it
should be. He is willing, then, to critique both church and society for their inadequate
13
SKS 4, 422 / CA, 120.
14
SKS 2, 173 / EO1, 176.
15
SKS 12, 33 / PC, 21.
16
SKS 8, 207 / UD, 104.
17
SKS 12, 70–1 / PC, 58–9.
18
SKS 12, 71 / PC, 59.
19
SKS 12, 248 / PC, 256.
20
SKS 13, 271–4 / M, 217–20.
grasp of sympathy, and their restraint in its application to their daily lives. this ties
in with the problem of an incommensurable element in suffering: since empathy
is not (quite yet) achieved by humanity, the common sympathy which patronizes
the sufferer(s) and holds them at a pitied distance (and entirely fails to grasp that
this suffering could befall the so-called sympathizer) maintains a vulgar illusion
of sympathy. Kierkegaard explains that “a congenial company of blatherers” who
dabble in a cause “naturally regard unwillingness to make common cause with them
(which is earnestness) as clear evidence that a person lacks earnestness.”21 the lack
of understanding displayed by these well-meaning groups “in the form of hearty
sympathy is to enfeeble the genuine earnestness of the cause.”22 For Kierkegaard,
in maintaining the above-mentioned poetic distance and conforming to social
expectations, this inadequate sympathy—masquerading as genuine—encumbers the
attempt to attain empathy, eclipsing the need to try whilst reassuring the “blatherers”
that they are already sympathetic enough.
despite this rather bleak view of human sympathy, we are told by “a married
man” in Stages on Life’s Way that sympathy, as it relates to the “idealizing
resolution,”23 must be expressed in the temporal. such expression may refresh and
renew sympathy; if it remains unexpressed it becomes a torment. it is part of human
nature to express and experience sympathy. “to have sympathy is an essential
quality of being human; any resolution that disregards this is in the larger sense
not idealizing, and neither is it idealizing if sympathy does not acquire its adequate
expression.”24 this is one of several points throughout both this volume and the
authorship where sympathy, love and suffering are discussed together. nonetheless,
this preferential form of love (as between “a married man” and his wife) remains
an inadequate model for true sympathy.
IV.
if human sympathy—already rendered inadequate by our inability to have true

sympathy—is inappropriately focused and applied in social and ecclesial contexts,
but is nonetheless constitutive of an important aspect of human nature, it may be
expected that Kierkegaard offer an alternative model to that which he critiques.
of course, he does not explicitly write an entire volume on the playing-out of
sympathetic or empathetic behavior, but he does offer a model that incorporates
and invokes a movement toward an appropriately Christian sympathetic attitude in
Works of Love. For, if the kind of sympathy which fails to be true sympathy is offered
primarily to those for whom one already has a preference or social connection—
even a preferential love—and still then only to a certain degree, a more earnest or
true sympathy would fit in with neighbor love, which is to be offered to all regardless
of preference.
21
SKS 13, 272 / M, 218.
22
SKS 13, 274 / M, 220.
23
SKS 6, 107 / SLW, 112.
24
SKS 6, 107 / SLW, 113.
132 Victoria Davies
in Works of Love, Kierkegaard presents his arguments regarding overcoming
social differences through neighbor love: “[i]t is conceivable that a distinguished
person could, even in circles of the distinguished, enthusiastically and eloquently
champion love for the neighbor, but when it came down to something in actuality he
would be unable to win his mind over to obedience to the view he perhaps triumphantly
championed.”25 in neighbor love, the emphasis is on the similarities between all
people, rather than those for whom one has a pre-existing normative preference.
the love of neighbor as non-preferential manifests the equality of all people before
god.26 this relates to the discussion in the second section, showing that suffering
and sympathy must be recognized as in each case one’s own responsibility, one’s
own (possible) suffering, one’s own (potential) need for sympathy from another.
neighbor love does not focus on other people’s faults or guilt.27
a genuine Christian love of neighbor does not seek, through self-interest, to
exhibit the part played by the lover. anyone who wishes to be seen to be helping
disinterestedly has misunderstood that it is the love itself that is important, rather
than the lover or the lover’s display. the true lover realizes that love is to help the
neighbor to “become himself, to become his own master.”28 likewise, as Kierkegaard
tells us earlier in the third of Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1843, “be yourself more
insignificant than your sympathy so that it may be from above, higher than yourself,
so that it may be sympathy and not a violation.”29 Just as the true lover does not
strive for the world to recognize how great their love is, so the true sympathizer does
not strive to show how sympathetic they are. rather, love and sympathy are given
without flourish or expectation.
Kierkegaard proceeds to tell his reader that those who suffer offer greater sympathy
than those who sympathize, which ties in with his comments about the comfort
offered by the one who suffers most: he asks, “Which of these two loves more: the
fortunate one who has sympathy for the suffering of others, or the unfortunate one
who has true sympathy for the joy and happiness of others?”30 Finally, there is also
a connection between consolation toward those bereaved and neighbor love, which
clearly implies an aspect of sympathy.31 it is possible, then, to see a parallel between
his explanations of neighbor love and that of human sympathy.
in summary, the authorship illustrates the remarkable difference between
what sympathy should be (that is, automatically giving sympathy to all neighbors
without preference), and how it currently manifests in both church and society
(that is, offering an ostentatious yet limited, poetically distant, impatient, and
wholly inadequate sympathy toward those who suffer). this is in keeping with the
larger critique of church and society, which the authorship considers inadequately
Christian. although unable to fully achieve the depth of divine sympathy (which
25
SKS 9, 83 / WL, 77.
26
SKS 9, 142 / WL, 140.
27
SKS 9, 282 / WL, 283–4.
28
SKS 9, 276 / WL, 278.
29
SKS 5, 151 / EUD, 150.
30
SKS 9, 322 / WL, 326.
31
see SKS 9, 339–52 / WL, 345–58.
perhaps correlates to empathy in being willing to take on the suffering of the other
in love), it is nonetheless a part of human nature to feel and express sympathy in the
temporal, and to strive toward the depth and recklessness of divine sympathy is a
laudable if humanly unachievable aim. it is an important aim of the authorship to
show that Christendom lacks true sympathy. Yet it is also acknowledged that whilst
writing may evoke an awareness of a need for change, this must be enacted in reality
in order to overcome the poetic distance.
see also atonement/reconciliation; Care/Concern; Christ; Forgiveness; love;

mood/emotion/Feeling; otherness/alterity/the other; passion/pathos; psychology;
salvation/eternal Happiness.
teacher
matthew brake
Teacher (Lærer—noun)
the modern danish noun Lærer comes directly from the old danish, and is
equivalent to the modern german Lehrer. the word refers primarily to a person
who proclaims something, especially in the religious sense of one who preaches, but
can refer more generally to one who spreads information. the word also refers to a
person who instructs or educates, typically in a school setting.1
the most extensive discussion of the concept of teacher in Kierkegaard’s
published works occurs in Philosophical Fragments, written under the pseudonym
Johannes Climacus, who further elaborated it in the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript. the concept is also discussed in Upbuilding Discourses in Various
Spirits (particularly “What We learn From the lilies in the Field and From the birds
of the air”), Practice in Christianity, and The Moment. in the unpublished works,
the concept of teacher figures most prominently in The Book on Adler. scattered
references can also be found in the journals and papers.
For the present purposes, we shall begin at the end by first discussing Kierkegaard’s
use of the concept of teacher in his attack on the danish clergy in The Moment. this
will be followed by a discussion of socrates’ maieutic style of teaching, put forth
largely in the Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.
next, we will discuss what it means for Christ to be teacher and then explain how
the lilies and the bird can be teachers. Finally, attention will be given to death as
the final teacher all human beings face, as set forth in “At a Graveside” in Three
Discourses on Imagined Occasions.
I. The Danish Clergy
to understand what Kierkegaard means when he uses the word “teacher,” we must
remember that Kierkegaard saw himself as a corrective to contemporary danish
culture in general and to Christendom in particular.2 it is impossible not to assume
that his understanding of a teacher was shaped by his criticism of those who had
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, columns 446–8. see also
niels Åge nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, 4th edition, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1989,
p. 273.
2
SKS, 13, 25 / PV, 18.
136 Matthew Brake
authority as religious teachers in danish society. Kierkegaard indicates that the most
admired teachers in denmark were overtly obsessed neither with earthly gain nor
with those who would give up all earthly gains out of a sense of piety.3 rather, the
teacher in the danish Church “knows subtly, subtly, how to cajole god and in such
a way that he always gets by with it and wins…all the earthly benefits…while he is
still always pious.”4 the religious teachers in denmark knew how to maintain the
appearance of a saint while retaining all of the enjoyments of earthly admiration, and
Kierkegaard saw this as the most dangerous hypocrisy of all.5
Kierkegaard believed that the clergy’s enjoyment of the earthly benefits of
their position compromised their capacity to be witnesses to the truth of the new
testament. they preached that the new testament holds up celibacy as the ideal
state, yet they themselves married. they preached about the merits of poverty for
the Christian message, while earning for themselves “a fat livelihood.”6 they may
have preached, “beware of those who go about in long robes,”7 yet they themselves
wore “vestments.”8 the problem with the teachers of denmark was that they did so
little of what they taught everyone else to do,9 but for the danish Church, orthodoxy
was something that could be preached as an idea without needing to see the full
substance of it in the life of the religious teacher.10
this gets to the crux of the problem with Kierkegaard’s view of the teachers
in denmark. He pointedly says, “to be a teacher is not to say: this is the way it
is, nor is it to assign lessons and the like.”11 For Kierkegaard, teachers should do
more than propagate purely abstract ideas, which can in no way be appropriated
existentially by a learner.12 a teacher is not a mere “transmitter of beliefs,” but he is
someone “who himself expresses existentially what he teaches.”13 one such teacher
Kierkegaard points to is socrates, who left no doctrinal system behind but focused
solely on existentially appropriating what he taught.14
II. Socrates
according to Kierkegaard, socrates’ greatest characteristic was that he did not

focus on purely speculative knowledge, but his focus was on the existing individual.
Kierkegaard says, “Socrates’ infinite merit is that he was an existing thinker, not
3
SKS 13, 360–2 / M, 301–3.
4
SKS 13, 361 / M, 302.
5
SKS 13, 360–2 / M, 301–3.
6
SKS 13, 246 / M, 195.
7
SKS 13, 249 / M, 198.
8
SKS 13, 250 / M, 199.
9
SKS 10, 22 / CD, 11.
10
SKS 7, 225 / CUP1, 248.
11
SKS 16, 28 / PV, 46.
12
SKS 7, 175–6 / CUP1, 190–1.
13
Frederick sontag, A Kierkegaard Handbook, atlanta: John Knox press 1979, pp. 94–6.
14
ibid.
Teacher 137
a speculative thinker who forgets what it means to exist.”15 this latter comment
seems to be directed towards plato whom Kierkegaard accuses of losing “himself
in speculative thought.”16 by contrast, Kierkegaard praises socrates’ maieutic style:
“socrates belonged together with what he taught, that his teaching ended in him,
that he himself was his teaching, in the setting of actuality was himself artistically
a product of that which he taught.”17 in other words, he embodied and lived out
what he taught. this stands in contrast to the teachers in Kierkegaard’s day, who
regarded truth as something to be understood objectively without any subjective
appropriation being necessary. Kierkegaard contends that the opposite is true, that
teachers should relate subjectively to truth, for creating a system of purely objective
truth is “an inhuman something to which no human being could correspond as author
and executor.”18
as opposed to a systematic teacher who dictates truth to a learner, a true teacher
like socrates serves only as an “occasion” for a learner to discover truth on his or her
own, for a true teacher cannot be anything more than a midwife to another human
being; only the god can give birth.19 anything more than this would take away from
the learner, and then “he is not even the other’s friend, much less his teacher.”20 the
teacher thus needs to avoid leading a learner to himself or herself, for a true teacher
drives the learner away, remembering that he or she is only an occasion for another
human being.21
the reason for this driving away is because the socratic teacher realizes that
“there is no direct relation between the teacher and the learner, because inwardness
is truth, and inwardness in the two is precisely the path away from each other.”22 to
go inward is to move away from each other. the path to truth is not walked “arm in
arm” as “two bosom friends,” but each person must deal with the truth in their own
individual existence.23 in this way, the teacher is himself the learner,24 and the pupil
is the occasion for the teacher to understand himself and vice versa.25
as great a teacher as socrates was, he was still only a man. there is a greater
teacher, “the god,” who “needs no pupil in order to understand himself.”26 only
the god can help the learner realize that he or she is untruth. the god is not only an
occasion, but he transforms the learner.27
15
SKS 7, 188 / CUP1, 205.
16
ibid.
17
SKS 29, 293, nb10:68 / PV, supplement, 185.
18
ibid.
19
SKS 4, 220 / PF, 11.
20
ibid.
21
ibid.
22
SKS 7, 225 / CUP1, 247.
23
SKS 7, 226 / CUP1, 249.
24
SKS 16, 28 / PV, 46.
25
SKS 4, 232 / PF, 24.
26
ibid.
27
SKS 4, 222–3 / PF, 14–15.
138 Matthew Brake
III. Christ
Kierkegaard holds up Christ as the ultimate teacher. He does this for two reasons:
(1) because Christ was god, and (2) because Christ was the prototype. Concerning
this first point, Kierkegaard says, “I can very well call Socrates my teacher—whereas
i have believed and believe in only one, the lord Jesus Christ.”28 For Kierkegaard,
what is extraordinary about Christ is not the results of his life, but “that god has
lived is the infinitely extraordinary, is the in-itself extraordinary.”29 indeed, this
means that Christ the teacher is himself “more important than the teaching.”30 the
gospel is the teacher himself.
this is not meant to downplay Christ’s teaching, for he is “inseparable from and
more essential than the teaching.”31 Christ’s teaching, however, does not consist of
abstract doctrines and teachings, and Kierkegaard bemoans that the “medium for
being a Christian has shifted from existence and the ethical to the intellectual, the
metaphysical, and the imaginational.”32 Kierkegaard therefore speaks about Christ
as the prototype.33
to speak about Christ as the prototype is to say that his life itself was “the pattern”
that the Christian believer should seek to imitate.34 His life was meant to express
“what it means to serve only one master.”35 Christ lived a life, not of withdrawn
speculation or pietistic religion, but a life of “serving god alone…in the middle of
actuality before the eyes of all.”36 Christ shows his followers what it means to serve
god. Christ not only says, “the way is narrow,” but he also demonstrates this by his
actions.37 in short, he is everything the danish clergy were not.
IV. The Lily and the Bird
Kierkegaard appeals to two other teachers, the lily and the bird. these, he says,
teach us how to enjoy being human, and they accomplish this by teaching us to
avoid comparison in the midst of diversity.38 The lily, specifically, teaches us to avoid
comparisons with the outward beauty and diversity of other human beings. a human
being should avoid comparing himself or herself to another human being’s place
in life and let such temporal worries and comparisons fall to the wayside, for all
28
SKS 16, 36 / PV, 55.
29
SKS 12, 46 / PC, 32.
30
SKS 12, 129 / PC, 124.
31
SKS 12, 128 / PC, 123.
32
SKS 16, 112 / PV, 130.
33
SKS 16, 113 / PV, 131.
34
C. stephen evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction, new York: Cambridge university
press 2009, p. 192. evans notes here that “prototype” may be a misleading english translation
of Forbilledet and that “pattern” may be a better fit.
35
SKS 16, 216 / JFY, 167.
36
SKS 16, 218 / JFY, 169.
37
SKS 13, 80 / FSE, 57.
38
SKS 8, 265 / UD, 165–6.
Teacher 139
human beings have equal glory and equal loveliness in the eyes of eternity.39 in fact,
eternity’s perspective causes us to treat all outward dissimilarity as an illusion.40
the bird teaches us a similar and equally important lesson. the bird works for
its food, yet even in its work, it still trusts the heavenly Father to provide for all its
needs. the human being lives with god, for “heaven and earth is god’s house and
property, and thus the human being is indeed living with him.”41 the bird teaches a
human being not to be his own providence; thus, a human being avoids comparing
himself with god, others, or today’s circumstances with tomorrow’s circumstances.
Kierkegaard states that both the rich and the poor can understand this lesson.42 the
lesson to be learned from the lily and the bird is one of dependence upon god, for
“this is the only independence.”43 the lily and bird model simple dependence on
god so well that they simply are what they teach,44 and instead of being driven by
indecisiveness, their wills align with their one master’s will.45
the lily and the bird are a metaphor, teaching an individual to serve only one
master.46 ultimately, they are merely “assistant teachers” to the teacher, “the Way
and the truth and the life.”47 the lilies and the birds ultimately point to Christ, for
“only he is the truth of what the lily and the bird symbolize.”48
V. Death
death is a teacher to whom every human being is assigned in order to learn

earnestness.49 earnestness is not simply about the diligence with which one performs
one’s job, but earnestness affects the inner life.50 one must not simply think of death
as a “human condition” in order to be taught by it, for Kierkegaard says, “earnestness
is that you think death, and that you are thinking it as your lot.”51
one of the lessons death teaches us is that we have no time to waste. Kierkegaard
states, “the person who is without god in the world soon becomes bored with
himself—and expresses this haughtily by being bored with all life, but the person
who is in fellowship with god indeed lives with the one whose presence gives
infinite significance to even the most insignificant.”52
39
SKS 8, 269–70 / UD, 169–71.
40
SKS 9, 92–4 / WL, 86–9.
41
SKS 8, 276 / UD, 177.
42
ibid.
43
SKS 8, 280 / UD, 182.
44
SKS 11, 42 / WA, 38.
45
SKS 10, 71–2 / CD, 62–3; SKS 10, 90–1 / CD, 82–3.
46
SKS 11, 36 / WA, 32.
47
SKS 10, 21 / CD, 9.
48
SKS 16, 227 / JFY, 179.
49
SKS 5, 469 / TD, 102.
50
SKS 5, 445 / TD, 74.
51
SKS 5, 446 / TD, 75.
52
SKS 5, 448 / TD, 78.
140 Matthew Brake
the earnest thought of death teaches the individual to act, as Kierkegaard says,
“this very day.”53 postponement is seen as an enemy of the earnestness of death as
is suicidal depression,54 for “the thought of death gives the earnest person the right
momentum in life and the right goal toward which he directs his momentum.”55
Thinking about death gives “the year and the day…infinite worth.”56 the earnestness
of death teaches us to live “each day as if it were the last and also the first in a long
life.”57
another lesson death teaches is that the dissimilarities of this life are mere
vanities. An individual cannot hide from death in the crowd; nor do earthly benefits
make one exempt from death, for death treats all equally.58 Kierkegaard states, “no,
all comparison is only a jest and a conceited comparison a dismal jest.”59 death
teaches us to do away with earthly comparisons and focus on our own specific
assignment in life and “to seek before god the equality in which all are able to be
equal,”60 for in death, all are alone.61
the uncertainty of death inspects every moment of our lives to see if we are
really living consistently with what we think about death and if we are holding that
belief “in truth.”62 an individual cannot learn death’s lessons if he or she thinks of
death as a distant and objective thought.63 For those who wish to be taught by death,
death teaches us earnestness, for when it comes to us, it is life’s “final examination”
and “is equally difficult for all.”64
to summarize, Kierkegaard’s greatest complaint against the danish clergy
was that they did not practice the teachings they proclaimed from the pulpit.
He admonished the clergy and pointed to socrates as a great teacher because he
practiced what he taught in his existence, but socrates pales in comparison to Christ.
As God in the flesh, he was more important than his teaching, but by his life, he
demonstrated how to live. Kierkegaard also demonstrated that the lily and the bird
act as metaphorical teachers because they embody the lessons of contentment that
they teach, but they merely symbolize Christ, who was the ultimate teacher. Finally,
death is the final teacher all individuals face, for death teaches us to live as earnest
individuals who treat every day as if it were both our first and our last.
see also Christ; Christendom; Corrective; death; earnestness; existence/existential;

god; Hypocrisy; pastor.
53
SKS 5, 453 / TD, 83.
54
SKS 5, 450–2 / TD, 79–82.
55
SKS 5, 453 / TD, 83.
56
SKS 5, 453 / TD, 84.
57
SKS 5, 464 / TD, 96.
58
SKS 5, 454 / TD, 85–6.
59
SKS 5, 448 / TD, 77.
60
SKS 5, 458 / TD, 89.
61
ibid.
62
SKS 5, 467 / TD, 100.
63
SKS 5, 467 / TD, 99.
64
SKS 5, 469 / TD, 102.
teleological suspension of the ethical
thomas p. miles
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical (teleologisk Suspension af det Ethiske)
the danish adjective teleologisk (from the noun Teleologi), like the english
“teleological,” derives from two greek words: τέλος, meaning a goal or purpose,
and λόγος, meaning a word, reason or account. so “teleological” means “on
account of a goal” or “explained by a goal.” the danish noun Suspension, like the
english equivalent “suspension,” derives from the latin verb suspendere, meaning
to “hang up,” “let hover,” “cease,” or “cancel.” in danish, as in english, this term is
often used in a legal or political context, as when we say that a leader suspends the
constitution, or a higher court suspends the ruling of a lower court. so a “teleological
suspension” would be a case in which something is cancelled, overruled, and set aside
for the sake of some goal or purpose, specifically a higher, more important goal or
purpose. What is suspended for a higher purpose here is “the ethical,” in danish det
Ethiske, an adjectival noun from the adjective ethisk, meaning “ethical” or “moral,”
deriving from the latin ethica and the greek words ἐθικός (“customary”) and
ἔθος (“custom”). the phrase “teleological suspension of the ethical” is presumably
Kierkegaard’s own coinage. put simply, it means that the goal of acting ethically is
set aside for a higher, more important goal.
this is a central concept of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, a book that explores
the biblical story in which God demands that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac.1
Kierkegaard’s pseudonym for this work, Johannes de silentio, discusses this concept
in the “problema i” section of the book, entitled “is there a teleological suspension
of the ethical?” Johannes argues that since what abraham did straightforwardly
violates his ethical duty toward his son, if we are to regard Abraham as justified
it must be because abraham served a purpose more important than that of ethics,
namely, religious faith.
the suggestion that there could be such a “suspension of the ethical” on religious
grounds is one of Kierkegaard’s best known, controversial, and misunderstood ideas.
Kierkegaard presciently predicted that after his death “Fear and Trembling alone
will be enough for an imperishable name as an author.”2 this could be said not only
of the book as a whole but also of the specific idea of a teleological suspension of
1
genesis 22:1–14.
2
SKS 22, 242–3, nb12:147 / FT, supplement, 257.
142 Thomas P. Miles
the ethical, which Kierkegaard indicated was “the heart of the matter” in relation to
the work as a whole.3
it is important to note from the beginning that Kierkegaard does not assert that
there is such a thing as a justifiable suspension of the ethical. This is so not just
because Kierkegaard writes this book under a pseudonym, since even his pseudonym
Johannes does not make this assertion. rather, he always leaves the matter as an
open question: either there was such a suspension in abraham’s case, and there is
a goal higher than ethics, or Abraham was unjustified in what he did, and we must
condemn rather than praise abraham. What is at stake here is not merely how we
regard the singular case of the biblical figure of Abraham, however. Since Abraham
is revered as the paragon of religious faith (the “father of faith”) for all three great
monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and islam), to condemn abraham
as an insane would-be murderer threatens to fatally undermine these abrahamic
religions. on the other hand, since it is a central tenet of modern, philosophical
ethics that there is no higher goal than acting ethically and no justifiable exception
to the demands of ethics overall, even a singular case of a teleological suspension of
the ethical threatens to fatally undermine modern ethics.
so the challenge that Fear and Trembling presents through abraham’s case
is quite far-reaching: either something is deeply wrong with these religions, or
something is deeply wrong with philosophical ethics. neither Kierkegaard nor his
pseudonym takes a stance here as to which is the case. but this either/or does contain
an assertion: it rules out the kind of rational theology to which Kierkegaard was
fiercely opposed, a theology in which the demands of religious faith and the demands
of rational philosophical ethics were thought always to be neatly, comfortably
aligned. It is also important to note that if there is a justified teleological suspension
of the ethical, this implies not only a dichotomy between faith and ethics, but also
hierarchical ranking between them in which faith outranks and supersedes ethics.
the linguistic complexity of the term “teleological suspension of the ethical”
makes this concept intimidating to many readers. When we specify that this
teleological suspension is a teleological suspension of the ethical it becomes, as
Johannes says, a “paradox, inaccessible to thought.”4 but the idea of a “teleological
suspension” per se is easy enough to understand and is a common, everyday
phenomenon. If I decline an invitation to socialize in order to finish my work, I have
teleologically suspended the goal of socializing for the sake of what i take to be
the more important goal of finishing my work. Such teleological suspensions occur
frequently within the domain of ethics, whenever one ethical duty is set aside for
the sake of a higher ethical duty. For example, if on my way to a social event i have
promised to attend I see someone dying and in need of my help, I can justifiably set
aside and “suspend” my duty to fulfill my promise for the sake of a higher duty of
helping to save someone’s life. Johannes gives the example of “tragic heroes” like
agamemnon who set aside an ethical duty to family for the sake of a supposedly
higher ethical duty to the state.5
3
Pap. X–6 b 68, p. 76 / FT, supplement, 263.
4
SKS 4, 150 / FTP, 85.
5
SKS 4, 151–2 / FTP, 86–7.
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical 143
While a teleological suspension within the ethical is a common phenomenon
and easily understood, what is rare and mysterious to the point of being paradoxical
is the idea of a teleological suspension of the ethical. What in Fear and Trembling
is called “the ethical” is the entire domain of moral ideals, duties, concerns, and
obligations.6 one thing that is paradoxical about the notion of suspending the ethical
for the sake of a higher goal is that from an ethical perspective there is not supposed
to be a higher goal than that of fulfilling these moral ideals, duties, concerns, and
obligations. From this perspective, being a good or excellent ethical person is the
most important goal in human life. in fact, all considerations of the relative worth of
different goals, all considerations of setting aside one thing for the sake of something
more important, are supposed to take place within ethics, as part of ethics. thus
Johannes talks about ethics as a self-enclosed, all-encompassing sphere that “rests
immanently in itself, has nothing outside itself that is its τέλος but is itself the
τέλος for everything outside.”7 if this is the case, then ethics as a whole could
never be suspended teleologically since this would be a contradiction in terms, a
“paradox.”
Another thing that is paradoxical about the notion of justifiably suspending
ethics is that ethics is supposed to be “universal,” applying to everyone, always,
and admitting of no exceptions whatsoever. that ethics applies universally in this
way is thought to define the very essence of ethics, as Johannes indicates by using
the terms “the universal” and “the ethical” interchangeably. this is not to say that
ethics is universally followed or fulfilled, or that no one ever sets aside the goal of
acting ethically for the sake of another goal. this happens all too often. elsewhere
Kierkegaard suggests that no one fulfils the ethical; that everyone is guilty of
forsaking what is right for something we desire more than being ethically good.8
6
Johannes seems to intend the broadest possible scope for this term, incorporating any
reasonable conception of ethics. in particular, though, what he calls “the ethical” seems to be
a rational, philosophical system of ethics, especially Kantian and Hegelian ethics. (Johannes
discusses Hegel by name throughout the text.) interestingly, what Johannes says about the
ethical requiring the individual “to abrogate his particularity so as to become the universal”
marks a difference between this conception and “the ethical life” presented by Kierkegaard’s
pseudonym Judge William in Either/Or.
7
SKS 4, 148 / FTP, 83.
8
in fact, Kierkegaard (somewhat confusingly) uses the term “teleological suspension
of the ethical” to describe this universal condition of guilt or sin in the only other place in
his corpus where he uses this term. this occurs when reviewing Fear and Trembling under
a different pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, in the section of his Concluding Unscientific
Postscript entitled “a glance at danish literature.” Climacus talks about giving the
teleological suspension an “even more definite religious expression” by addressing the issue of
sin, something that even Johannes de silentio admits is left out of his account. Climacus offers
instead a very different understanding of the term “teleological suspension of the ethical” in
which the individual inevitably finds that he has failed to fulfill the ethical, that is, has sinned.
the result is that “the individual is suspended from the ethical in the most terrifying way, is
in the suspension heterogeneous with the ethical.” Climacus points to the difference between
his use of the term and what is ascribed to abraham in Fear and Trembling, since “abraham
was not heterogeneous with the ethical. He was well able to fulfill it but was prevented from
it by something higher” (SKS 7, 242–3 / CUP1, 266–7). using Climacus’ own phrase, we
144 Thomas P. Miles
But when someone does this, they are understood to be by definition unjustified in
doing so. If by “justified” we simply mean ethically justified, it seems impossible
for someone to be justified in setting aside and ceasing to fulfill the demands of
ethics altogether. Once again, a justified suspension of the ethical turns out to be a
contradiction of terms, a paradox.
What makes the teleological suspension of the ethical even more paradoxical is
that this suspension is not merely a matter of forfeiting or abandoning the ethical for
the sake of something completely different and contrary. the relationship between
faith and ethics is not one of simple opposition. to begin with, it is important for
Johannes that anyone who wishes to go beyond ethics must first have come as far
as ethics, that is, must be in good ethical standing before suspending and surpassing
it. in abraham’s case, it must be that abraham has always previously lived up to his
ethical duty to love his son, otherwise his act would not be the great sacrifice that it
was. but now, by trusting entirely in god, rather than in what seems reasonable or
ethically sound, abraham comes to the point where he seems by all accounts to be
violating his ethical duty to love his son. and yet Johannes insists that abraham loves
his son all along; that what abraham does is, paradoxically enough, an expression
of his love for his son. as Johannes says, “love of god can cause the knight of faith
to give his love of his neighbor the opposite expression to that which is his duty
ethically speaking.”9 in fact, Johannes suggests that no one has been as loving a
father as abraham; unlike the false versions of abraham explored throughout the
book, the real abraham manages to get isaac back again with joy while maintaining
his faith in god and his son’s faith in god.
so the goal of ethical goodness that is set aside for the goal of religious faith
is not forfeited altogether but is, paradoxically enough, fulfilled by pursuing the
goal of religious faith. as Johannes puts it, “what is said to be suspended in this
sense is not forfeited but preserved in something higher, the latter being precisely
its τέλος.”10 the dialectical structure of this “suspension” is like the structure of
Hegelian sublimation or overcoming (Aufhebung) in which what is overcome and
cancelled is at the same time preserved, at least in some transfigured form. So the
individual acting on faith comes to fulfill the ethical after all, even if not in the way
expected and demanded by ethics. Johannes maps out this situation dialectically by
saying that through faith, the individual comes to stand in an absolute, unmediated
relationship to god, an “absolute relation to the absolute.”11 this lifts the individual
above the ethical and fulfills the ethical in a new, unexpected way: “the single
individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified before the latter,
might mark this distinction by differentiating between this teleological suspension from the
ethical (in sin), and a teleological suspension of the ethical (in faith) as described in Fear
and Trembling. Kierkegaard uses the phrase “teleological suspension” in yet another way in
The Point of View while describing the nature of his “indirect communication” in which a
deception, for example, the use of pseudonyms, serves to communicate the truth (SKS 16, 68
/ PV, 89).
9
SKS 4, 162 / FTP, 98.
10
SKS 4, 148 / FTP, 83.
11
SKS 4, 150 / FTP, 85.
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical 145
not as subordinate but superior.”12 How it could be that the ethical is fulfilled but not
on its own terms is once again a paradox: it is another contradiction of terms to say
that the ethical is fulfilled but not ethically fulfilled.
Consistent with these descriptions of the teleological suspension of the ethical as
a paradox, Johannes insists that while we can map out the dialectical possibility of
such a suspension, no reasonable argument can be made that such a suspension has
occurred or even could occur. there is nothing abraham can say to make himself
understood and no defense anyone else could make of his behavior. if abraham
believes that what he is doing is justified, or if we believe this, this belief must not only
be without rational understanding but against rational understanding. this is what
Johannes means in associating faith with “the absurd.” in his journals Kierkegaard
stipulates that although Abraham does not have the specifically Christian content of
faith, “Abraham is called the father of faith because he has the formal qualifications
of faith, believing against the understanding.”13 one source of abraham’s “fear and
trembling” is that he cannot make rational sense of what he is doing and cannot
communicate it to others; he is thereby left in “cosmic isolation.”14
Although the paradoxical nature of faith makes it a rare and difficult thing to
achieve, Johannes points out that this paradoxical nature also serves to differentiate
true faith from its cheap imitations. importantly, Johannes suggests several ways
that we can dialectically distinguish faith’s justified suspension of the ethical from
the all-too common unjustified violations of the ethical in the name of religion. In
other words, the suggestion in Fear and Trembling of a teleological suspension
of the ethical in abraham’s case does not open the door to justifying violence and
terrorism on religious grounds, as some readers might fear. For one thing, as a
paradox inaccessible to rational thought, the teleological suspension of the ethical
could never be offered as a defense that justifies anything. There is also a profound
inward difference, in that (despite appearances) abraham always acts out of love,
whereas these violators of the ethical tend to act out of hatred.
Johannes also suggests two more outwardly recognizable ways to distinguish
true from false knights of faith. Whereas abraham’s faith calls him to act in a way
that is heartbreakingly contrary to everything that he would otherwise have as a goal
for his life, the religious terrorist acts on his or her own goals, comfortably relying on
religion to provide a rationalization for doing so. It is this difficulty, this profoundly
humbling and self-challenging nature of faith that protects it from its easy, self-
serving imitations. as Johannes writes: “if you simply remove faith as a nix and
nought, there remains only the raw fact that abraham was willing to murder isaac,
which is easy enough for anyone without faith to imitate; without the faith, that is,
which makes it hard.”15 parallel to this point, Johannes notes that whereas the true
12
SKS 4, 149 / FTP, 84.
13
Pap. X–6 b 68, p. 73 / FT, supplement, 260. this is not to say that what abraham
does seems crazy or absurd to him, as Kierkegaard makes this point clear in these journal
entries and in the portrait of abraham in Fear and Trembling as acting with calm, unwavering
resolution.
14
SKS 4, 171 / FTP, 107.
15
SKS 4, 126 / FTP, 60.
146 Thomas P. Miles
knight of faith is left silenced and in “absolute isolation” by his inability to explain
himself, the false knight of faith tends to be a “sectarian,” desperately wanting to
promote his ideology and spread his message.16
this brings us, in conclusion, to the question of when in the life of faith the ethical
is suspended teleologically. We might think that such a suspension is ubiquitous in
the life of faith since faith always involves being in an “absolute relation to the
absolute,”17 in which the τέλος of faith is taken to supersede the τέλος of ethics.
but we might distinguish between a teleological supersession of the ethical, which
always occurs within the life of faith whether or not faith calls us to break with what
the ethical demands, and a teleological suspension of the ethical in which there is
this break. Johannes’ point is not that we should expect that the life of faith will
typically involve teleological suspensions of the ethical; in fact, it is consistent with
Johannes’ account that a justified suspension of the ethical has so far only happened
once, in abraham’s case. most of the time the demands of faith and ethics coincide,
even if fulfilling these demands with the inward orientation of faith differs from
doing so with the inward orientation of ethical self-responsibility. but as Johannes
presents it, if there is even a single justified instance of a teleological suspension
of the ethical, it must be because faith always teleologically supersedes the ethical,
meaning that the life of faith is always different from and greater than the ethical life.
see also absurd; duty; ethics; evil; exception/universal; Faith; good; individual;
Paradox; Sacrifice; Trial/Test/Tribulation.
16
SKS 4, 170 / FTP, 106.
17
SKS 4, 150 / FTP, 85.
temptation
sean anthony turchin
Temptation (Fristelse—noun; friste—verb)
From the old danish frestelse or fræstelse and from oldest danish fræstæ and old
norse freista. the modern danish lexical meaning refers to the act of tempting or
the state of being tempted, allured, or enticed.1 in descending order of frequency,
the concept of temptation, although scattered throughout Kierkegaard’s corpus,
is predominately found in early upbuilding discourses, Upbuilding Discourses
in Various Spirits, the journals, and notebooks, and to a lesser extent Fear and
Trembling.
to begin the discussion concerning “temptation,” Kierkegaard, using his
pseudonym, Vigilius Haufniensis, points us to Franz von baader’s discussion of
temptation, which warns against thinking of temptation as “one-sidedly as temptation
to evil or as something with the purpose of bringing man to fall, when temptation
should rather be viewed as freedom’s ‘necessary other.’ ”2 to this Kierkegaard adds,
“Vigilius Haufniensis has quite correctly drawn attention to the concept ‘anxiety’
(Angst) as the middle term in relation to temptation. actually, it is the dialectic of
temptation. if a person could be entirely free of anxiety, temptation would not have
access to him.”3 it is our ability to become anxious in the realization of possibility
wherefrom temptation arises. thus, temptation’s power is “in ‘the moment.’ ”4 the
individual finds himself captivated by the moment’s intensity, by the anxiousness
of the moment as possibility for what may come.5 With this moment of intensity
and anxiety, the individual is conquered by the moment, which lends itself to the
following moment of impotency.6 such an individual will then seek to avoid coming
into contact with anything or anyone that may give rise to temptation. thus, the
individual exists in a constant state of anxiety, which nothing, humanly speaking, is
able to relieve.7 The individual continually flees from every possible avenue from
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 6, columns 64–7 (friste) and
67–8 (Fristelse).
2
SKS 4, 345 / CA, 39.
3
SKS 22, 238, nb12:154 / JP 1, 102.
4
SKS 22, 335, nb13:90 / JP 4, 4748.
5
SKS 24, 290, nb23:176 / JP 4, 4749.
6
SKS 22, 335, nb13:90 / JP 4, 4748.
7
SKS 22, 105, nb11:175 / JP 4, 4374.
which temptation may arise, all the while, nourishing the anxiety.8 mistakenly, he
believes “that it is impossible for him to continue to survive the temptation; if his
understanding guarantees that it has found a place where temptation cannot reach
him—then he is secure.”9 but what the individual forgets is that temptation’s power
is one that is not external to the individual but is rather internal. as a power that
rests internally in all of us, temptation awakens freedom’s possibility to the call of
actuality.10
one concept very much connected with Kierkegaard’s discussion of temptation
is the often discussed theme of spiritual trial (Anfægtelse). Kierkegaard sometimes
speaks of temptation as being synonymous with both spiritual trial and ordeal
(Prøvelse), specifically within the context of God tempting the individual.11 an
example of the interchangeableness of these concepts, specifically Fristelse and
Prøvelse, can be seen in the “eulogy on abraham” in Fear and Trembling.12 Here,
Kierkegaard relates how “god tempted [fristede] abraham” in commanding him to
sacrifice his only son Isaac.13 “and yet abraham was god’s chosen one, and it was
the lord who imposed the ordeal [Prøvelse].”14 Kierkegaard writes, “the thought
that god tests [prøver], yes, tempts [frister] a man (‘lead us not into temptation’)
must not horrify us. the way one looks upon it makes the crucial difference.”15
However, Kierkegaard insists that we avoid the danger of confusing these concepts
as being synonymous.16 this danger often takes place within the context of human
suffering. in this context, temptation and spiritual trial tend to become fused together
in terms of struggles that confront us and that we participate in.
but in what follows, from Kierkegaard’s explication of their differences, it is
better to say that whereas temptation denotes struggles that pertain to our natural
inclinations, spiritual trial conveys an idea of the individual’s struggle in relation to
spirit, confined to the God-relation. Kierkegaard further explicates the differences
between these two concepts in terms of the ethical realm versus the religious realm.
He states, “in the sphere of the relationship with god, it [spiritual trial] is what
temptation is in the sphere of the ethical relation. When the individual’s maximum
is the ethical relation to actuality, temptation is his highest danger.”17 in the case of
Abraham’s command from God to sacrifice Isaac, it is the very temptation to obey the
ethical which would prevent abraham from even considering god’s command. to
this point, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes de silentio, writes, “a temptation—
but what does that mean? as a rule, what tempts a person is something that will hold
him back from doing his duty, but here the temptation is the ethical itself, which
8
ibid.
9
ibid.
10
SKS 4, 353 / CA, 48.
11
see SKS 5, 47 / EUD, 38.
12
see SKS 4, 115–18 / FT, 19–23; SKS 4, 153 / FT, 60.
13
SKS 4, 115 / FT, 19.
14
SKS 4, 116 / FT, 19. see also SKS 4, 145–6 / FT, 52.
15
SKS 23, 110, nb16:25 / JP 2, 1401.
16
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 458.
17
ibid.
Temptation 149
would hold him back from doing god’s will.”18 thus, at the center of Kierkegaard’s
dealings with the concept of temptation in contrast to spiritual trial is the individual
in relation to himself or herself (temptation) versus the individual in relation to god
(spiritual trial).
in sum, the individual’s orientation changes in relation to these experiences
depending on the nature of the relationship from which these experiences derive.19
With regard to temptation Kierkegaard maintains, “it is the lower that tempts; in
spiritual trial it is the higher.”20 thus, in relegating these concepts to the lower
and the higher, Kierkegaard places the reality of temptation within the realm of
our natural inclinations in contrast to the origin of spiritual trial coming from the
higher relation of the individual to god.21 this is why, with regard to temptation,
Kierkegaard introduces the category of human sinfulness in order to outline
temptation’s difference from spiritual trial. He writes, “the temptation to sin is in
accord with inclination.”22
Connecting the concept of temptation to that of inclination and sin serves to
underscore the nature of temptation as being composed of various levels of enticement
or things which lure us to extend or abuse our natural inclinations, regardless of
whether this abuse is consequential to the ethical or religious relation. thus, whereas
“the temptation to sin is in accord with inclination, [the temptation] of spiritual trial
[is] contrary to inclination.”23 so, for Kierkegaard, insofar as temptation can be a
factor isolated from the context of the god-relation, “spiritual trial lies a whole
quality higher than temptation.”24
moreover, Kierkegaard argues that whereas it is commendable to avoid sinful
temptation, temptations that accompany spiritual trial cannot be avoided but rather
are given to us to endure.25 He tells us, “temptation should be avoided; try not to see
or hear what tempts you. if it is spiritual trial, go straight toward it, trusting in god
and Christ.”26 but that we face temptation should not discourage us.
in his Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Kierkegaard encourages the
reader by saying that the suffering we encounter in this life, the temptations that we
face, are never more than we can handle and that there is always a way to escape
temptation.27 this is possible because god has not only set temptations before us
but has also provided a way to overcome them. but more importantly, those who
are inclined to despair over both the sufferings and the temptations they face on the
road of life do so differently from those who are believers. For the believer, the road
of life is not comprised of individual occurrences of hardship; the road of life, for
the Christian, is hardship. thus, Kierkegaard writes, “and how can it be more sure
18
SKS 4, 153 / FT, 60.
19
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 459.
20
ibid.
21
ibid.
22
SKS 20, 119, nb:203 / JP 4, 4367.
23
ibid.
24
SKS 24, 254, nb23:93 / JP 4, 4378.
25
SKS 20, 119, nb:203 / JP 4, 4367. see SKS 26, 199, nb32:111 / JP 4, 4382.
26
SKS 22, 193, nb12:94 / JP 4, 4023.
27
SKS 8, 397 / UD, 303.
that there is always a good way out of temptation than to have hardship itself as a
way out, because then hardship itself is continually a way out and a good way out
of hardship.”28
temptation constitutes a large component of suffering for the believer. the
thought that god is tied to both the temptations we face and how we evade them
may, Kierkegaard thinks, lead some to despair over the nature of the temptation;
as if such temptations were “suprahuman” in nature.29 but, writes Kierkegaard,
“god be praised, there is no suprahuman temptation.”30 therefore, insofar as god is
closely involved with our sufferings and temptations, the believer can travel the road
of hardship with confidence and hope in knowing that this is but a moment when
compared with eternity.31
in conclusion, trying to avoid temptation only defers its return with greater
intensity. rather, overcoming temptation is achieved only with the help of god.32
being victorious is thus something the individual accomplishes with god as a co-
worker. one cannot be idle when faced with temptation “[b]ecause the removal
of temptation without our cooperation gives no assurance against new struggle,
no battle-strengthened and renewed confidence in God’s help.”33 rest assured,
Kierkegaard warns, “the second attack of the temptation is always worse, whether
it finds us arrogant over having conquered the first temptation or troubled because of
having withdrawn from it.”34 However, that the temptation will always return with
greater force should not discourage those who look to god for help. Kierkegaard
reminds the reader that god will not allow the individual to be tempted beyond what
he or she can bear.35 even more, the believer understands, by faith, that god allows
both suffering and temptation as means of testing his or her faith; yet, god is still
love.36 of course, although the temptation will be bearable, this does not ensure that
the outcome will be victorious. many have fallen victim to that which tempted them,
regardless of the possibility of having done otherwise.37
see also absurd; anxiety; Crisis; demonic; despair; duty; ethics; exception/
universal; Faith; Freedom; god; individual; paradox; religious/religiousness;
seduction; sin; suffering.
28
SKS 8, 397 / UD, 304.
29
ibid.
30
ibid.
31
ibid. see SKS 8, 401 / UD, 308.
32
SKS 18, 137, HH:21 / JP 4, 4746.
33
ibid.
34
ibid.
35
ibid.
36
SKS 23, 110, nb16:25 / JP 2, 1401.
37
SKS 18, 137, HH:21 / JP 4, 4746.
theater/drama
mads sohl Jessen
Theater (Theater—noun), Drama (Drama—noun)
the concept of theater, from greek θέατρον, denotes a place for viewing plays,
that is, the place where drama is performed. one may distinguish between six main
meanings in danish.1 The first and most common usage is that of a place where
dramas are performed. the second is related to the idea of the theater as an institution.
thirdly, the concept may be used to refer to the temporal duration of a theater play.
Fourthly, the concept functions in an analogous way to drama in that it may also
refer metaphorically to theatrical aspects of events in society or in the life of an
individual. Fifthly, the concept may refer to a specific person’s artificial and affected
behavior. lastly the concept may also designate the humorous and even ludicrous
nature of a given event. all of these six meanings can be found in Kierkegaard’s
writings. the concept of drama derives from greek δρᾶμα (deed, action) and latin
drama (play). its lexical meaning in danish is twofold. First, it denotes a play meant
for the stage, and, second, the concept may suggest something happening in the
world of an intense and/or shocking character.2
I. Theater
Kierkegaard often uses the concept of theater in juxtaposition with other concepts.
For example he refers ironically in The Concept of Irony to “the moonlit theater
marriages of an exaggerated romanticism.”3 in “diapsalmata” in Either/Or, part
One, one aphorism is phrased: “In a theater, it happened that a fire started offstage.
the clown came out to tell the audience. they thought it was a joke and applauded.
He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. this is the way, i suppose,
that the world will be destroyed—amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who
think it is all a joke.”4 Kierkegaard in this case uses to the concept to refer to the idea
of a theater as a physical place or institution.
in “the seducer’s diary” Kierkegaard explores the potential of a character trying
to construe the world as his own theater stage. in a remarkable sentence Johannes
1
2
3
SKS 1, 323 / CI, 288.
4
SKS 2, 39 / EO1, 30.
152 Mads Sohl Jessen
the seducer discusses the ethereal quality of experience in this manner: “behind
the world in which we live, far in the background, lies another world, and the two
have about the same relation to each other as do the stage proper and the stage one
sometimes sees behind it in the theater.”5 Whereas Johannes is enjoying his own
sophisticated analogies between theater and life, the ethical writer of Either/Or, part
Two clearly wants to distance himself from the superficial world of theatergoers.
He writes scornfully to the aesthete: “i do not care very much for the theater, and
as far as i am concerned you and your kind can mock as much as you like. Just let
the histrionic heroes succumb or let them be victorious, sink through the floor or
vanish through the ceiling—i am not greatly moved.”6 the ethical writer refuses to
be seduced by the contemporary theatrical art forms.
in Repetition Constantin Constantius visits the Königstädter theater7 in berlin
and elaborates on the youthful need for theater viewing: “there is probably no young
person with any imagination who has not at some time been enthralled by the magic
of the theater and wished to be swept along into that artificial actuality.”8 the narrator
continues to reflect on the position of the theater viewer, in this case referring to his
own experience: “so you are sitting alone in your box, and the theater is empty. the
orchestra plays an overture, the music resounds in the hall a bit unheimlich [eerily]
simply because the place is so deserted. You have gone to the theater not as a tourist,
not as an esthete and critic but, if possible, as a nobody, and you are satisfied to sit
as comfortably and well, almost as well, as in your own living room.”9 Kierkegaard
is remarkably modern in his emphasis on the anonymity of the contemporary theater
spectator.
Kierkegaard was particularly interested in interpreting shakespearean characters,
and one can find, for example, reflections on Lady Macbeth, Richard the Third,
othello, and Hamlet in the journals and pseudonymous works. Kierkegaard was
influenced by Heinrich Theodor Rötscher’s work Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere
(1844), where all of these characters were interpreted.10 Kierkegaard possibly saw
a link between shakespeare’s introspective art of the monologue and his own
pseudonymous monologues.
in a journal entry from 1845 Kierkegaard is preoccupied with the religious
function of ancient theater: “the theater was a religious service, not only in greece,
but also in persia.”11 in his article on Johanne louise Heiberg’s skills as an actress,
“the Crisis and Crisis for an actress,” this thought is reformulated in a modern
context: “if it is so, as is said, that the theater is a sanctuary, profanation is at least
5
SKS 2, 296 / EO1, 306.
6
SKS 3, 122 / EO2, 122.
7
SKS 4, 30 / R, 154.
8
ibid.
9
SKS 4, 40 / R, 165.
10
Heinrich theodor rötscher, Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung. In ihrem
organischen Zusammenhange wissenschaftlich entwickelt, vol. 1, berlin: Wilhelm thome
1841 (ASKB 1391). note that vols. 2–3 were entitled as Cyclus dramatischer Charaktere.
Nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung über das Wesen dramatischer Charaktergestaltung; see
ASKB 1802–1803.
11
SKS 18, 242, JJ:322 / KJN, 2, 221.
Theater/Drama 153
not far off.”12 in the same article Kierkegaard is also thinking of the theater as an
institution or working place when he considers the prospects for elderly actresses:
“see, much is done in the theater to secure the future of the actresses.”13 Kierkegaard
also uses the concept of theater in the temporal sense in this humorous passage:
We take a deep breath in order to relax; we settle down comfortably as if we intend to

remain sitting in the same position for a long time; we almost lament not having brought
some food along, because the trustworthiness and the safeguard that induce tranquility
are so great that we forget that it is only a matter of one hour in the theater.14
in a journal entry from 1846 Kierkegaard refers to his country as a theater of minor
worth: “However much i suffer real injustice here [in denmark] because the whole of
my literary production cannot really look right in such a little theater.”15 though the
main use of the concept of theater from the late 1840s to the very end of Kierkegaard’s
life is in his polemical view that the clergy have turned the churches into theaters.
a journal entry from 1848 is representative of Kierkegaard’s opinion: “in paganism
the theater was a form of worship—in Christianity the churches have actually
become theater.”16 Kierkegaard makes this point publicly available in his final attack
on the danish Church in The Moment (no. 6, august 1855): “the difference between
the theater and the church is essentially this: the theater honorably and honestly
acknowledges being what it is; the church, however, is a theater that in every way
dishonestly seeks to conceal what it is.”17 Kierkegaard began his writing career by
trying to produce a comical drama, and he ended his life by criticizing the danish
Church for having become a theater.
since the royal danish theater was at the center of cultural life in Copenhagen
during his lifetime, Kierkegaard shared his interest in drama and theater with many
of his fellow citizens. the reading of dramas and visiting the theater was part of
Kierkegaard’s life throughout the 1830s and 1840s. in his journals and notebooks
numerous references to specific dramas can be found. Arguably Kierkegaard’s
conception of the personalities of many of his pseudonyms is impossible without his
deep reading in the dramatic traditions of european literary history. Kierkegaard’s
article from 1848, “the Crisis and Crisis in the life of an actress,” marks the end
point of Kierkegaard’s interest in drama/theater as an aesthetic art form. From then
on the two concepts are mostly used in connection to his religious polemics against
the danish people’s Church.
12
SKS 14, 94 / C, 305.
13
SKS 14, 95 / C, 306.
14
SKS 14, 98 / C, 311.
15
SKS 20, 31–2, nb:25 / KJN 4, 29–30.
16
SKS 20, 386, nb5:37 / KJN 4, 368.
17
SKS 13, 75 / M, 221.
II. Drama
For Kierkegaard the concept of drama is associated with the greek invention of
comedy and tragedy and the development of different genres and types of plays
throughout european literary history. Kierkegaard often uses the concept of drama in
juxtaposition with an adjective that specifies a given genre. One finds a whole range
of different genre specifications in Kierkegaard’s journals and published texts, among
others: “romantic dramas,”18 “satirical dramas,”19 “Christian drama,”20 “religious
drama,”21 “speculative drama,”22 and “indian drama.”23 in 1837 Kierkegaard draws
up a scheme of genres in which he refers to the spanish playwright Calderon’s dramas
as “lyric drama.”24 this interest in the complexity of dramatic genres is prevalent
in Kierkegaard’s writings from the 1830s up to around 1847–48. one should also
notice that Kierkegaard uses the concept in a more ridiculing fashion. For example,
in Either/Or, part two when the ethical narrator scornfully refers to “a weinerlich
[tearful] drama.”25
in 1837, before settling on prose as his preferred mode of writing, Kierkegaard
experiments with writing a drama in the comical vein. He eventually abandoned
the play with the subtitle “Heroic-patriotic-cosmopolitan-philanthropic-fatalistic
drama.”26 in this case Kierkegaard’s use of adjectives is clearly meant to produce a
comical effect rather than referring to a given genre.
in plato’s Philebus socrates refers to “the tragedy and comedy of life.”27
Kierkegaard’s analysis of the ironist in The Concept of Irony is part of this ancient
discourse on the drama-like qualities of life. Kierkegaard says of the ironist:
“For him, life is a drama and what absorbs him is the ingenious complication of
this drama. He himself is a spectator, even when he himself is the one acting.”28
Kierkegaard interprets the ironic human character by inscribing him in the dialectics
of dramatic representation between actors and viewers. Kierkegaard often thinks
about the human condition in terms of a viewer present at the staging of a drama.
in “the immediate erotic stages” in Either/Or, part one, Kierkegaard’s aesthete,
in the tradition of lessing, explores the differences between art forms—in this case
between opera and drama. Kierkegaard’s use of the concept of drama in this article is
as an art form among others: “if i were to characterize in a single word the effect of
the drama insofar as this differs from the effect of any other kind of literature, i would
say: drama works through the contemporaneous.”29 the aesthete also discusses the
18
SKS 17, 134, bb:41 / KJN 1, 128.
19
SKS 1, 334 / CI, 301.
20
SKS 4, 178n / FT, 88n; SKS 6, 418 / SLW, 453.
21
SKS 6, 418 / SLW, 453.
22
SKS 6, 382 / SLW, 412.
23
SKS 7, 479 / CUP1, 528.
24
SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / KJN 1, 107.
25
SKS 3, 122 / EO2, 121.
26
SKS 17, 281, dd:208 / KJN 1, 273.
27
plato, Philebus 50b.
28
SKS 1, 319 / CI, 283.
29
SKS 2, 120 / EO1, 117.
Theater/Drama 155
necessity for the dramatist to leave out his own subjectivity: “the dramatist will
succeed in this only to the degree that nothing incommensurable is left over, nothing
of the mood from which the drama emerges, that is, nothing of the mood qua mood,
but everything is converted into the dramatic sacred coin: action and situation.”30
the dramatist must transform his or her sentiments into actions and situations. as
such Kierkegaard was not only thinking from the point of view of the spectator but
also discussing matters pertaining to the art of the dramatist.
in a journal entry from 1842 Kierkegaard shows an interest in understanding
the differences between ancient and modern drama: “in ancient drama love was
not the driving force. Yet now, in contemporary drama, this is always the case.”31
in Either/Or, Part One, in the article “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in
the tragic in modern drama,” Kierkegaard explores the link between ancient and
modern tragedy: “that which, generally speaking, should be the content of this little
exploration will not be so much the relation between the tragic in ancient and in
modern drama as it will be an attempt to show how the characteristic feature of the
tragic in ancient drama is incorporated in the tragic in modern drama in such a way
that what is truly tragic will become apparent.”32 in Fear and Trembling the reader is
presented with a variation on this thought: “modern drama has abandoned destiny,
has dramatically emancipated itself, is sighted, gazes inward into itself, absorbs
destiny in its dramatic consciousness.”33 Kierkegaard, steeped in Hegelian thinking
on the different aesthetics of ancient and modern drama, focuses on the dramatic
character’s inner subjectivity when interpreting modern drama.
Kierkegaard also uses the concept of drama to discuss Hegelian concepts
ironically, especially the concept of world history. in the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript he writes: “the world-historical drama proceeds extremely slowly. Why
does god not make haste if that is all he wants? What undramatic forbearance
or, more correctly, what a prosaic and boring spinning-out process!”34 though
Kierkegaard was a master at ridiculing his contemporary danish Hegelians, he also
became the subject of harsh caricature himself in the satirical magazine The Corsair.
He refers to the public glee this satire has caused in a journal entry from 1847: “all
these councilors of justice, grocers, beer dealers, barbers’ apprentices, university
students, etc., all of whom have no real idea of what it is to think—and it is they
who are to judge me; it is they who perform the loathsome and disgusting drama of
insulting and mocking a thinker.”35 Here Kierkegaard is clearly using the concept
with reference to something happening in the world of a noticeable character. in a
journal entry from 1848 Kierkegaard also draws an analogy between his daily life
and a comedy: “the religious begins in and with the daily routine, and that is how i
understand my life: for me, this infinitely comic drama is a martyrdom.”36
30
SKS 2, 119–20 / EO1, 117.
31
SKS 19, 377, not12:13 / KJN 3, 375.
32
SKS 2, 140 / EO1, 140.
33
SKS 4, 174 / FT, 84.
34
SKS 7, 148 / CUP1, 158.
35
SKS 20, 189, nb2:121 / KJN 4, 188.
36
SKS 21, 184, nb8:96 / KJN 5, 191.
Kierkegaard’s writings are clearly marked by a highly nuanced reception of
european dramatic art forms. His profound reading of ancient as well as modern
dramatists informs his style as well as his representations of the-world-as-a-stage
view of some of his characters like Johannes the seducer. likewise he often saw his
own life in Copenhagen as a drama of a highly original kind.
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; Comic/Comedy; Humor; irony; parody/satire;

tragic/tragedy; Vaudeville/Farce.
thoughtlessness
Thoughtlessness (Tankeløshed—noun; tankeløs—adjective)
the word Tankeløshed is derived from the noun tanke (from icelandic þanki, old
english geþanc) meaning “thought,” plus two suffixes: løs (-less) and hed (-ness),
denoting a substantive form. according to the Ordbog over det danske Sprog,
“thoughtlessness” is “to be without thoughts; specifically absent-mindedness;
faulty reflection or attention.”1 Already in 1833 Molbech defined the adjective
“thoughtless” as “to be without thoughts,” and the substantive “thoughtlessness” as
“a state [or condition]; to be thoughtless.”2
the most frequent occurrence of the word “thoughtlessness” in Kierkegaard’s
published works is in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, followed by The
Concept of Anxiety, with the third place being shared by Stages on Life’s Way and
Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. but since it operates as a structural concept
throughout Kierkegaard’s production, Kierkegaard also implies the concept as often
as he uses the term explicitly. since there seems to be no great change regarding
Kierkegaard’s use of this concept, apart from a relative semantic concentration given
to the concept after the “Corsair affair” and a relative sharpening of other concepts
involved in discussions related to the concept, i shall simply treat its development
in a diachronic fashion. in sum, at most one could say that there seems to be a very
slight change in terms of Kierkegaard’s use of the concept of thoughtlessness after
the “Corsair affair” in that the latter led him to a greater consciousness concerning
both the depth and the seriousness of the process of dehumanization implicit in the
project of modernity as he saw it at work in his society.
the concept of thoughtlessness is present throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship,
making its first appearance in The Concept of Irony, where Kierkegaard regards the
positive interpretation of socrates’ daimon as due to a “lack of thought [Tankeløshed]
on the part of Xenophon.”3 later, in The Concept of Anxiety, thoughtlessness seems
to be used rather imprecisely as a synonym for “affectation”;4 however, one remark
by Vigilius Haufniensis is quite interesting, since he draws a concise genealogy of
1
2
1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 485.
3
SKS 1, 209 / CI, 159.
4
Cf. SKS 4, 371 / CA, 67.
the concept when he mentions “that way of thinking that through all centuries has…
been labeled λόγος ἀργός [lazy reasoning] (Chrisippus), ignava ratio (Cicero),
sophisma pigrum, la raison paresseuse (leibniz).”5 this, in turn, means that at this
point Kierkegaard understood thoughtlessness to be an essential phenomenon, for it
is treated as though it were linked to the human condition and not as a more specific
product of a determinate age, such as it would become after the “Corsair affair.”
in any case, the concept of thoughtlessness in The Concept of Anxiety seems to be
used by Kierkegaard to refer to the conceptual damage or inconsistencies produced
by systematic scholarship, such as “the recent principle that thought and being are
one.”6
later that same year (1844), it reappeared under a riper formulation in the
upbuilding discourse entitled “the thorn in the Flesh,” where the concept is used
to critique the sweeping dynamics of progress, a polemic, by the way, reminiscent
of the one Kierkegaard himself had waged against the danish liberals at the very
beginning of his career.7 Here, though, it is treated in a more subjective light under
which “progress” is understood as “forgetting,” which means that Kierkegaard here
seeks to establish a relation between the capacity of recollecting one’s past and
psychic-spiritual depth:
the reason distraction can help the light-minded forget and a kind of busy activity can
help the more thoughtless blot out the past is that distraction and worldly busyness
entirely fill their souls. But the more profound a person is, the less this succeeds….To
human understanding, if it is awake at all, to human thought, if it has become at all sober,
is it not the most improbable thing of all that anything can be forgotten—indeed, that
God can forget anything? In other words, it is not so very difficult to grasp that human
thoughtlessness is capable of forgetting even the most important matter.8
this critique is similar to that of pascal’s against society’s shortcomings regarding

the religious sphere. as such, it is no coincidence that in Three Discourses on
Imagined Occasions thoughtlessness is fundamentally understood as an existential
diversion9 or, as Kierkegaard defines it in another passage, as “the elevating
impersonal forgetfulness that forgets itself over the whole or, rather, forgets
itself in thoughtlessness, whereby one’s own death becomes a droll instance in
all these manifold unpredictable instances.”10 thoughtlessness is here conceived
fundamentally as a sort of evasion of personal responsibility.
the same conception of thoughtlessness is used in Stages on Life’s Way,
when Frater taciturnus criticizes Fichte’s notion of “a metaphysical I-I”11 which
thoughtlessly diverts attention from the “human you,”12 as well as in the Concluding
5
SKS 4, 415 / CA, 113.
6
Cf. SKS 4, 381n / CA, 78n.
7
Cf. SKS 14, 15 / EPW, 9.
8
SKS 5, 327 / EUD, 339.
9
Cf. SKS 5, 417 / TD, 39.
10
SKS 5, 461 / TD, 92.
11
SKS 6, 445n / SLW, 483n.
12
Cf. ibid.
Thoughtlessness 159
Unscientific Postscript, where “the system” is fundamentally presented as an
evasion. according to Johannes Climacus, when “the subjective individual wants to
evade some of the pain and crisis of decision,”13 this evasion is understood as being
either “paganism or thoughtlessness.”14
Kierkegaard’s analysis of the evasions available to human beings in relation to
their own existence was conceived in his “first authorship” as an epistemological
problem linked to “the system.” the notion later took a more practical and urgent,
even socio-political turn after the so-called “Corsair affair.” in truth, there are
occasional reflections of a more socio-political nature on personal evasions in
Kierkegaard’s work before the “Corsair affair,” but they do not alter the bigger
picture concerning his main targets prior to the “Corsair affair.”15
in any case, the clash Kierkegaard experienced between late 1845 and early 1846
with the Corsair transformed him into a somewhat more conscious social critic. the
newspaper’s public ridicule of Kierkegaard made him keenly aware of the populist
nature of modern society and its close relationship with mass media. one can sense
something of this sharpened attack from his very first work written after the affair,
in which, after mentioning in the preface that such a work was originally intended
for publication in a journal, he goes on to say that, apart from the fact that he was
“unqualified to write for journals,” he also intended his work not “for esthetic and
critical readers of newspapers but for rational creatures who take the time and have
the patience to read a little book.”16
there seems to be a deeper continuity between Kierkegaard’s concern with
the phenomenon of “thoughtlessness” before and after the “Corsair affair,” such
as the insight concerning the abolition of the principle of non-contradiction,
initially formulated in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript17 and later taken
up in A Literary Review of Two Ages.18 in this sense, then, it would be risky to
speak of a radical change concerning Kierkegaard’s treatment of the question of
thoughtlessness. However, the “Corsair affair” does seem to have been something
of a watershed in terms of Kierkegaard’s world-view, for it represents the moment
when Kierkegaard realized with greater clarity that beyond “the flipping over of
the concepts,”19 an even broader “confusion of the spheres”20 took hold of life: “in
everything human lurks the transformation of concepts by numbers.”21 it is in this
sense, then, that the “Corsair affair” is rightly considered by many scholars as a
turning point in Kierkegaard’s production because it led him to a greater and more
13
SKS 7, 121 / CUP1, 129.
14
SKS 7, 122 / CUP1, 130.
15
Cf. SKS 4, 396–9 / CA, 93–6.
16
SKS 8, 9 / TA, 5 (my emphasis).
17
Cf. SKS 7, 186 / CUP1, 203; SKS 7, 317 / CUP1, 347.
18
Cf. SKS 8, 64, 92 / TA, 66, 97.
19
Cf. SKS 15, 233 / BA, 286.
20
Pap. Viii–2 b 27, 75 / BA, 5.
21
SKS 26, 389, nb35:26 / JP 3, 3005; cf. SKS 11, 97 / WA, 93; SKS 11, 229–30 / SUD,
118.
concrete understanding of the processes of dehumanization at work in his time, and
consequently to an increasingly agonistic sharpening of his critical categories.22
if, according to Kierkegaard, former ages knew what to do with thought, namely,
make distinctions,23 then his contemporary age would be characterized by the loss
of such an ability, for, as Vigilius Haufniensis put it quite succinctly, “our age has
been untiring in its efforts to make everything signify all things.”24 this in turn
means that beyond a mere mode of unclear thinking, Kierkegaard began to take
thoughtlessness to be a much more serious phenomenon. as he expressed it, “alas,
the age of thinkers seems to be past!”25 However, even Kierkegaard felt the need to
update such a melancholy utterance with a much more radical claim in the following
formulation: “in Works of Love i said: the age of thinkers is passed. soon one will
have to say: the age of thought is passed.”26 in other words, Kierkegaard comes
to accept that the concept of thoughtlessness should be taken in all earnestness as
a much more radical phenomenon of modern life than he took it to be before the
“Corsair affair.”
notwithstanding its importance, it must also be said that the concept of
thoughtlessness is scarcely explicitly visible in Kierkegaard’s published works
after the “Corsair affair.” indeed, mostly Kierkegaard implies it, as when he claims
that “[t]he Jesuits in their degeneracy were the most disgraceful attempt to seize
control of consciences. the daily press is the most infamous attempt to constitute
the lack of consciousness as a principle of the state and of humanity.”27 elsewhere,
in an annotation from 1846, Kierkegaard dressed up the contents for an intended
publication, which, if he had completed it, would have been a thorough investigation
of the phenomenon of thoughtlessness.28
The Sickness unto Death most extensively implies the concept of thoughtlessness,
through its treatment of the breakdown of psychic-spiritual self-constitution in the
ethical-religious sphere.29 as Vigilius Haufniensis put it, “[t]he religious sphere
includes or ought to include the ethical,”30 yet modernity favors a more worldly notion
of the self that ultimately points to the constitution of nonhumans.31 Kierkegaard
elsewhere describes this shift as follows:
on the whole, it is certainly characteristic of our age that the concept of upbringing, at
least in the understanding of antiquity, is disappearing more and more from the speech
and lives of people. in antiquity the importance of a person’s upbringing was valued
very highly, and it was understood as a harmonious development of that which will
22
Cf. SKS 10, 172 / CD, 162.
23
Cf. SKS 4, 310 / CA, 3; SKS 11, 203–7 / SUD, 90–5.
24
SKS 4, 381 / CA, 78.
25
SKS 9, 361 / WL, 368.
26
SKS 20, 352, nb4:141 / JP 3, 3313 (my emphasis).
27
SKS 23, 407, nb20:26 / JP 2, 2169.
28
SKS 20, 13, nb:5 / JP 5, 5953.
29
Cf. particularly SKS 11, 206–7 / SUD, 94.
30
SKS 15, 106 / BA, 21.
31
Cf. SKS 4, 398–9 / CA, 95; SKS 8, 231 / UD, 131; SKS 11, 178 / SUD, 64; SKS 26, 346,
nb34:36 / JP 3, 3225.
Thoughtlessness 161
carry the various gifts and talents and the disposition of the personality ethically in the
direction of character. in our day there seems to be an impatient desire to do away with
this upbringing and on the other hand to emphasize instruction. there is a desire to have
the young learn quickly and as early as possible, a great deal and all sorts of things, learn
what can almost tangibly be guaranteed to be knowledge, and to amount to something.
Formative education, the ethical education of character, is not anything like that and
requires much time and diligence. in our day people seem to think that if one merely
sees to it in every way that the child learns something, learns a language, mathematics,
religion, etc., then in other respects the child can more or less bring up himself.32
thus, Kierkegaard’s concept of thoughtlessness after the “Corsair affair” is focused

on a lack of concern with character and the ethical-religious self. this shift is clearly
addressed in a passage from The Book of Adler, when Kierkegaard says that “[i]n
a tottering, irresolute and unsteady age…the individual has the habit of seeking
outside of himself (in the opinion of the surrounding world, in public opinion,
in town talk) what essentially only is to be found in the individual himself—the
decision.”33 the problem, according to Kierkegaard, has to do therefore with the shift
in the paradigm of human constitution: from a subjective model built upon ethical-
spiritual categories which had as its aim the individual and its singular character, to
modernity’s objective, worldly model, utterly devoid of transcendence and based on
“fantastic social categories”34 such as the crowd, the generation and the public.
indeed, in The Sickness unto Death the refusal of character is treated as the basic
form of despair.35 it is in this context, then, that the elusive concept of thoughtlessness
often appears as the notion of spiritlessness.36 although hardly visible explicitly,
the concept of thoughtlessness is implied in Kierkegaard’s later works through
the very emphasis Kierkegaard starts to put on the concept of “thought” as well
as on its related constellation of concepts such as “judgment,”37 “conscience,”38
“individual,”39 “self,”40 “silence,”41 and “solitude.”42 all these receive greater
attention as his production becomes increasingly polemical. now what connects
all of these concepts is Kierkegaard’s underlying socratic-platonic conception
of thought as a conversation with oneself,43 which constitutes the background for
one of the most famous and probably least understood theses of The Sickness unto
Death: that the self is a relation that relates to itself.44 this thesis means that sin
32
SKS 15, 286–7 / BA, 133–4.
33
SKS 15, 108 / BA, 23.
34
Cf. SKS 16, 97 / PV, 117.
35
SKS 11, 135 / SUD, 20: “to despair of oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself,
is the formula for all despair.”
36
Cf. SKS 10, 74–5 / CD, 66–7.
37
Cf. SKS 10, 214ff. / CD, 205ff.
38
Cf. SKS 8, 226ff. / UD, 126ff.
39
Cf. SKS 16, 49 / PV, 69; SKS 16, 99 / PV, 119.
40
Cf. SKS 11, 15–242 / SUD, 1–131.
41
Cf. SKS 13, 72–3 / FSE, 46–8.
42
Cf. SKS 11, 178–9 / SUD, 64.
43
Cf. Sophist, 263e.
44
Cf. SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13.
has a kinship with thoughtlessness, since “[s]in is: before God…in despair not to
will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself,”45 and the characteristic form
of thoughtlessness in modernity is to be in despair in these ways. despair turns
modern people away from earnest pursuit of the task of becoming spiritual-ethically
grounded, a task constrained by having not only to make distinctions but also to act
on those distinctions.46 these distinctions, grounded in deliberation that consists in
conversing with oneself, are marked by character: “The qualification Christian is
one of which it must be said absolutely: one is not born with the qualification; it is
exactly the opposite; it is precisely what one is to become, what one is to come to
be.”47
to summarize, there is a process of dehumanization which is carefully and
thoroughly presented throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship by means of the concept
of thoughtlessness and its related constellation of concepts. before the “Corsair
affair” thoughtlessness is conceived as intimately linked to acquiescence in “the
system,” which is a means of evasion of personality. after the “Corsair affair,”
Kierkegaard conceives the phenomenon of thoughtlessness more broadly, in a
more socio-political vein. If in the “first authorship” the concept seems more or
less synonymous with “faulty attention,” it subsequently refers to the disappearance
of the human capability of thinking that enables building oneself up spiritually.
Kierkegaard conceives this disappearance as the failure to become a self in an
ethical-religious sense and to represent the eradication of spirit from the sphere of
human experience.48
see also anonymity; Conscience; Consciousness; Crowd/public; despair; personality;

race; reason; self; sin; speculation/science/scholarship; spiritlessness; Worldliness/
secularism.
45
ibid.
46
Cf. SKS 6, 438 / SLW, 476.
47
SKS 15, 288n / BA, 135n.
48
Cf. SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
time/temporality/eternity
William mcdonald
Time (Tid—noun), Temporality (Timelighed—noun), Eternity (Evighed—noun)
the danish Tid is derived from the old danish tith and the old norse tið.1 From
the same root, english derives “tide” (cf. “yuletide”). Tid is used of a (delimiting)
point in a non-spatial sequence of (changing) states or events, or is represented as
a one-dimensional line, in contrast to three-dimensional space. Timelighed is used
of that which pertains to time, and is contrasted with eternity.2 it is derived from the
old norse timme, meaning “time, span of time, passage of time.”3 Evighed is a loan
word from middle low german ēwich, which corresponds to the old norse ævi,
meaning “life time.”4
Kierkegaard discusses the notions of time, temporality, and eternity across a
broad range of texts, both explicitly and implicitly. the most explicit discussion
occurs in The Concept of Anxiety,5 but there are many uses of these terms elsewhere,
particularly in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Works of Love, and
Christian Discourses. notions of temporality and eternity are also implicit in
many psychological and spiritual attitudes, such as repentance and regret (which
are oriented towards the past), anxiety, expectancy, patience, and hope (which
are oriented towards the future—which is the temporal incognito of eternity), and
atonement and contemporaneity (which are focused on the present).
the discussion of the relationship between time, temporality, and eternity in The
Concept of Anxiety is best understood in terms of plato’s and aristotle’s discussions
of time, in the Parmenides (especially 137c–157b) and the Physics (especially
books iV–Vi) respectively. both plato and aristotle explore the notion of time
through the problematic of movement (κίνησις), analyzed in terms of change or
transition (μεταβολή). this problematic is applied to movements of being from one
state to another, one place to another, one time to another, one identity to another,
one quality to another, or one modality to another. the problem arises because
movement is understood as change or transition from being, through non-being, to
another being. the shorthand for this movement is “becoming.” that is, movement
1
2
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 23, columns 1023 and 1481–
2 respectively.
3
nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, p. 416.
4
ibid., p. 86.
5
SKS 4, 385–96 / CA, 85–93.
164 William McDonald
seems to entail a change or transition from being one thing to becoming something
else by passing through the state of non-being. it thereby loses its original being
(or identity) in the transition to a new being. on plato’s analysis the parts of time
are the past (as a state which has been), the future (as a state which will be), and
the present (as a “vanishing moment” between past and future). plato’s “present”
is the temporal equivalent of the spatial point, which has no extension, and is a
purely abstract division between past and future. on his spatial analogy, the now
(τὸ νῦν) occupies no place (ἄτοπον). the being which occupied a place in the
past is annulled in order to occupy its place in the future, and in the process passes
through the non-place of the now. plato regards being, like zeno’s arrow, as in a state
of rest at each moment of time in the trajectory of becoming—time itself does not
move, but beings move through time in the process of becoming. Yet each moment
of rest in the now, since the being occupies no place, is not what it was, and is not
yet what it will become; its existence in the present is illusory and the movement of
becoming is from non-being to being.
aristotle, on the other hand, denies that becoming and perishing are motions—
since they involve changes from non-subject to subject and from subject to non-
subject respectively.6 every motion is a kind of change, but it must be a non-accidental
change from subject to subject, and hence must involve change of predicate into the
opposite predicate. these predicates cannot be of relation, but must be of quantity,
quality or place.7 nor does aristotle believe that time is reducible to movement,
though he thinks time cannot exist independently of movement. He defines time as
“number of motion in respect of ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Hence time is not movement,
but only movement insofar as it admits of enumeration.”8 thus, for aristotle, time is
the enumeration of change in a subject’s quantity, quality, or place.
For Kierkegaard, the philosophical analysis of time and motion has come no
further in modern philosophy than it had already come with plato and aristotle.9 in
particular, he thinks Hegel’s notion of “transition” (or “mediation”) would benefit
from a rigorous comparison with aristotle’s notion of κίνησις (movement).10
therefore, Kierkegaard takes as his starting point the greek analysis of movement as
change of state or quality, though he applies it primarily to the process of becoming
a self.
Vigilius Haufniensis characterizes the self as a “synthesis of the temporal and
the eternal.”11 Yet this entails a strange duplication of the notion of time, since the
self is both a synthesis of time (and the eternal) and a synthesis in time. this leads
to two different conceptions of time: (1) on the one hand, time is conceived from
within time, as “an infinite succession” divided into the parts of time, “defined as
6
aristotle, Physics, V 224b35–225b2. Cf. The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. by richard
mcKeon, new York: random House 1941, pp. 302–3.
7
aristotle, Physics, V 225a34–225b8. Cf. The Basic Works of Aristotle, p. 303.
8
aristotle, Physics, iV 219b1–8. Cf. The Basic Works of Aristotle, p. 292.
9
SKS 4, 384–8 / CA, 81–5.
10
SKS 19, 415, not13:50 / JP 1, 260.
11
SKS 4, 388 / CA, 85.
Time/Temporality/Eternity 165
the present, the past and the future.”12 Yet this conception is flawed, since there is
no non-arbitrary point in which to ground our perspective on the passing of time,
but only a floating relativity, which fails to make more than an abstract distinction
between the parts of time. (2) on the other hand, time is conceived from the point of
view of the intersection of time with eternity. on this conception, “the eternal is the
present in terms of an annulled succession.”13
this distinction in conceptions of time can be illuminated by comparison with
J.m.e. mctaggart’s argument for the unreality of time.14 mctaggart asks us to
consider two possible ways in which time can be ordered: an “a series” in which
time is ordered according to the temporal properties of its elements (such as being
present, being future, being past); and a “b series” in which time is ordered according
to two-place relations (such as being earlier than, simultaneous with, or later than).
according to mctaggart, the relations in the b series are permanent (an earlier event
will always remain earlier than a later event), while the properties of the a series
are not permanent (since “an event, which is now present, was future, and will be
past”). mctaggart argues that our ordinary understanding of time requires both a
series and b series conceptions. the a series corresponds to the way we perceive
time, but contradicts the way we can conceive of time since it involves ascriptions
of contradictory predicates to the same events. However, the b series is inadequate
to both our perception of time and to our intuition that time entails change. For
mctaggart, the only characteristic of an event which can change without changing
the identity of that event is “the determination of the event in question by the terms
of the a series.”15 because the a series is both necessary to our conception of time
and incoherent, mctaggart draws the conclusion that time (thus conceived) is unreal.
Haufniensis’ two conceptions of time cut across mctaggart’s two series
of temporal orders. on the one hand, Haufniensis’ critique of time conceived as
“infinite succession” parallels McTaggart’s critique of the B series, since it affords
no non-arbitrary division in our perception of the parts of time. on the other hand,
the division of time according to the decisive incursion of eternity into time at a
particular historical moment does give purchase for both the notion of change and
the perception of the parts of time. Yet this does not entail supplementing the b series
with the A series, since the parts of time need not be regarded as fixed properties of
events, but as emergent properties resulting from the constantly renewed effort by
the individual to imbue time with the significance of eternity in every moment.
However, as mctaggart points out, even if we have a series of permanent
relations between events (call it the C series), it has no temporal direction unless
it also intersects with the A series. So it is not sufficient merely to have a concept
of eternity alongside the a series—that delivers only the C series. in order to get
“change in a given direction, it is sufficient that one position in the C series should be
present to the exclusion of all others.”16 For Haufniensis, the present is established by
12
ibid.
13
SKS 4, 389 / CA, 86.
14
J.m.e. mctaggart, “the unreality of time,” Mind, vol. 17, 1908, pp. 456–73.
15
ibid., p. 460.
16
ibid., p. 463.
the intersection of time with eternity. but this intersection can occur in two different
ways, which determine temporal orders with opposite directions. on the one hand, in
plato’s epistemology (and in Hegelian dialectic), (eternal) truth is present implicitly
in time and is recoverable through recollection (or through making explicit what is
always already present). this gives temporality a direction backwards and results
not in a change of identity, but only in the recovery of a past identity.17 it is really
only a pseudo-intersection of time with eternity, since all of time is subsumed within
eternity. nor does it constitute an absolute present, since its presence is (implicitly)
co-extensive with time. in Christian faith, on the other hand, eternity is decisively
present as the “fullness of time”18 and is incarnated at a particular point in history
(marked in Christian calendar time by the difference between b.C. and a.d.). the
Christian eternity appears in time under the incognito of the future,19 and this gives its
temporality a forward direction, which enables qualitative change to a new identity.
For Haufniensis, contra plato, a self has not always been itself in a retrospective
eternity, but must become itself in its eternal validity by means of an act of freedom
undertaken in time. becoming a self is an event, which requires a change of state of
one’s self from potential (or “dreaming”) spirit to self-conscious spirit.20 it is a pathos-
filled transition, in which the individual appropriates his or her spiritual identity
through resolution, in earnest inwardness before god and with consciousness of
eternity. In this process of change, a new self is born and everything is transfigured
(for consciousness). the self is changed qualitatively from an earlier self to a new
self, not by reference to the terms of the a series, but through grounding in an absolute
present (the eternal) conceived in terms of choosing contemporaneity with Christ. on
Haufniensis’ view, then, the reality of time is preserved by conceiving of temporality
as the intersection of time and eternity. the problem with such a conception, however,
is that it is as contradictory as the a series in ascribing incompatible predicates (past,
present, future) to the one event, since it ascribes paradoxically to the one event (or
moment) the contradictory predicates of “temporal” and “eternal.”
Kierkegaard uses “temporality” in two distinct senses: (1) on the one hand,
he uses it to designate the transformation of time as infinite (and insignificant)
succession into future-oriented, life-altering significance by the intersection of time
with eternity; (2) on the other hand, he uses it derogatorily to refer to time as mere
succession of meaningless moments. With respect to the latter sense, Kierkegaard
identifies temporality with the expansive, the dilatory, and chatter, in contrast to
his association of eternity with the intensive, action, and character-transformation.21
Correspondingly, he also uses “moment” in two senses: (1) to designate the moment
of insight (Øieblikket), in which the whole significance of life is transfigured in the
twinkling of an eye through the apprehension of eternity in time, so that one is “born
again” as a new self; and (2) to designate a vacuous present, which abstractly divides
17
SKS 4, 393 / CA, 89–90.
18
SKS 4, 390 / CA, 86.
19
SKS 4, 392 / CA, 89.
20
SKS 4, 394 / CA, 91.
21
SKS 26, 247–8, nb33:3 / JP 4, 4813.
Time/Temporality/Eternity 167
a meaningless past from a meaningless future. in this latter sense, the aesthete is said
to live in the moment.
Historically there have been two influential concepts of eternity: (1) atemporality
or the tenseless present, which may pertain to existences or to truths; and
(2) sempiternity or everlastingness, which is usually attributed only to existences. the
former view can be found in plato, boethius, and augustine; the latter in aristotle.
Kierkegaard understands eternity to be an atemporal, tenseless present, which
transcends time, but paradoxically, can also enter time. it is the entry of eternity as
tenseless truth into time, in the moment of insight, which grounds the division of
temporal succession into past, present, and future, and which enables the becoming
of a new self (in intensive inwardness). in Kierkegaard’s concept of eternity, the
atemporal and the tenseless pertain to both existence and truth when they converge
in the existence of god. the initial mode for the (eternal) presence of god to be felt
in an individual human life is negative—by the individual, in a moment of insight,
becoming conscious of his or her distance from god in awareness of sin.
one condition of becoming a (Christian) self, then, is sin-consciousness:
greek philosophy and the modern alike maintain that everything turns on bringing
non-being into being….the Christian view takes the position that non-being is present
everywhere as the nothing from which things were created, as semblance and vanity,
as sin, as sensuousness removed from spirit, as the temporal forgotten by the eternal;
consequently the task is to do away with it in order to bring forth being.22
the immediate, or aesthetic, self occupies time merely as a succession of temporal

moments, subject to the vicissitudes of fate or luck. the ethical-religious self, by
contrast, is informed by consciousness of the eternal through sin, and resolves to
move forward in time to become a new self, by choosing the good. the decisive
importance of eternity for the existing individual is how he or she relates to it (in
time), for on this decision hang the ultimate possibilities of salvation or damnation.23
eternal consciousness enters time in the moment of insight, when worldly
concerns are abandoned in favor of other-worldly concerns. the choice between these
alternatives only becomes possible for the individual through sin-consciousness—
when, via psychological feelings of guilt, one develops an impassioned spiritual
awareness of one’s ethical-religious failings. once an individual acknowledges his
or her own sinfulness, he or she becomes aware of the possibility of either ignoring
the challenges of the religious life or striving to live the good life in imitation of
Christ.
the movement, then, from an immediate, aesthetic self to strive for a new, ethical-
religious self is a task.24 this task requires faith in the contemporaneity of Christ,
that is, in the possibility now to come into relationship with the eternal in Christ.
Whether one is literally contemporary with Christ or not, the eternal element in
Christ’s divinity can only be a matter of faith, not of proof or historical probability.25
22
SKS 4, 385 / CA, 83.
23
Cf. SKS 25, 476, nb30:112 / JP 3, 2551.
24
SKS 4, 335 / CA, 28.
25
Cf. SKS 4, 398 / CA, 95.
therefore the eternal in Christ is equally available to the faithful of every historical
time. this contemporaneity is made possible by faith’s self-scrutiny (Troens
Autopsi) in inwardness.26 in faith’s momentary twinkling of the eye (Øieblikket),
one sees oneself as a sinner in the light of Christ’s divinity, and simultaneously
relates to Christ as revealed truth and as savior. Christ offers the forgiveness of sins,
and therefore atonement with the eternal in time. His timely incarnation exemplifies
the “fullness of time,”27 in which the “moment” is transformed from an atom of
time into an atom of eternity,28 since Christ embodies the ever-present possibility
of unchanging truth within volatile (worldly) temporality. unless the moment is
transformed in this way, “temporality signifies sinfulness.”29 insofar as the moment
is transformed into an atom of eternity intensively, “inwardness is…eternity or the
constituent of the eternal in man.”30
However, the transformation of the self is dependent not just on the belief in
Christ as the incarnation of the eternal in time, but on the leap of faith, which aims at a
qualitative transition to a new self through inward passion. Even will is not sufficient,
since becoming a self is radically dependent on the “power that established it.”31 in
aristotelian terms, Kierkegaard’s analysis of becoming a self is: an essential change
of subject to a new subject in time, by a change of qualitative predicates from “non-
Christian” to “Christian,” effected by passionate faith in the contemporaneity of
Christ, and by the grace of the eternal god. therefore, Kierkegaard’s understanding
of time, temporality and eternity is primarily ethical-religious and normative rather
than physical.32
see also actuality/identity; being/becoming; Contemporaneity; god; History;

immortality; moment; movement/motion; transition; truth.
26
SKS 4, 270 / PF, 70.
27
Cf. SKS 2, 142 / EO1, 142–3.
28
SKS 4, 391–2 / CA, 88.
29
SKS 4, 396 / CA, 93.
30
SKS 4, 451 / CA, 151.
31
SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14.
32
Cf. patrick stokes, “Fearful asymmetry: Kierkegaard’s search for the direction of
time,” Continental Philosophy Review, vol. 43, 2010, pp. 485–507.
tragic/tragedy
leonardo F. lisi
Tragic/Tragedy (tragisk—adjective; Tragedie—noun)
From the greek τραγῳδία and latin tragoedia, the term “tragedy” designates a
serious drama with a sad outcome, but also, more generally, that which is reminiscent
of such drama, including a sad occurrence or sequence of events. the adjectival
form refers to that which pertains to, belongs in, or is tied to tragedy as a form of
art, as well as that which touches on or generates the same emotions as a tragedy,
including something sad, regrettable, or unfortunate.1
the terms “tragic” and “tragedy,” in their various spellings, number, and
declensions, appear over four hundred and fifty times in Kierkegaard’s writings. The
first instances occur as far back as 1835, among the earliest of Kierkegaard’s journal
entries,2 while the last can be found as late as 1854, shortly before Kierkegaard’s
death.3 between these two dates, the majority of occurrences are found in
Kierkegaard’s published works: approximately one hundred and fifty of them in
Either/Or, one hundred and ten in Stages on Life’s Way, some sixty-five in Fear
and Trembling, around twenty in both The Concept of Irony and the Concluding
Unscientific Postscript. The Concept of Anxiety and Repetition contain only six
and five occurrences respectively. It is worth noting that the terms do not seem to
appear in any of the religious works that Kierkegaard published under his own name,
nor, for that matter, in the works published under the pseudonym anti-Climacus,
or in the articles Kierkegaard wrote during his final attack on the church. Among
the instances that do exist, it is likewise striking that Kierkegaard only very rarely
uses the terms in the more general and colloquial sense referring to a sad event.
Far more frequent is his use of the noun to designate the specific dramatic genre,
which happens some one hundred and twenty times. However, Kierkegaard’s most
persistent use of the terms is with reference to a specific structure of experience that
exceeds the dramatic form of representation. it is this last meaning of “tragedy” that
Kierkegaard primarily refers to with the adjectival form tragisk, of which there are
around three hundred and thirty instances in his writings.
an overview of Kierkegaard’s understanding of tragedy and the tragic encounters
the immediate obstacle that his most detailed discussions of these concepts appear
1
2
SKS 19, 89, not2:1 / JP 5, 5084.
3
SKS 25, 357, nb29:95 / JP 4, 3877.
170 Leonardo F. Lisi
to diverge quite significantly, even to contradict each other in important respects.
these apparent contradictions, however, can largely be reconciled when it is
understood that Kierkegaard traces the concepts of tragedy and the tragic through
their dialectical transformations in different stages of existence: the aesthetic, the
ethical, and the religious. To illustrate this point briefly, I focus on the three works
which, as the above enumeration indicates, contain Kierkegaard’s most extensive
engagements with the topic: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s
Way. each of these works examines tragedy and the tragic from within a different
mode of existence, which makes it possible to elucidate both the differences between
them and the commonalities they share.
I. Either/Or
Of the approximately one hundred and fifty occurrences of the terms “tragic/tragedy”
that can be found in Either/Or, the vast majority, one hundred and twenty-eight, are
found in the essay “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic in Modern
drama,” which also constitutes Kierkegaard’s most detailed exploration of the topic.
as the essay’s title indicates, Kierkegaard’s explicit project in this text is to examine
the relation between ancient and modern tragedy, a topic of persistent preoccupation
in european thought at least since the querelle des anciens et des modernes in the
seventeenth century.
Kierkegaard approaches his topic by analyzing tragedy in terms of three basic
categories: action, guilt, and mood. With respect to the first of these, Kierkegaard
argues that the action in ancient tragedy is determined not only by the individual
character’s agency, but also by the “substantial determinants” in which he or she
rests: “in the state, the family, in fate.”4 What this means is that the plot of ancient
tragedy is not merely a product of an individual’s autonomous decisions, but also
of the conditions imposed upon that individual by external forces over which it has
no control. as Kierkegaard puts it, the action of ancient tragedy is not just “action”
but “event,” where the danish word for “event” (Begivenhed) makes clear that it is
something given to the character rather than produced by it.5 in modern tragedy, on the
other hand, substantial determinants have all but disappeared, since the conception of
individuality in modernity stipulates that each person is fully autonomous and free.
In modern tragedy, accordingly, “What concerns us is a certain specific element of
[the hero’s] life as his own deed,”6 which makes it possible to exhaust the motivation
for occurrences with reference to the hero’s specific character.7
this distinction between ancient and modern tragedy repeats itself in
Kierkegaard’s discussion of the guilt operative in each. in ancient tragedy,
Kierkegaard explains, guilt vacillates between the individual and the substantial
determinants: responsibility for the tragic events we witness can be ascribed both to
the hero and to the forces of state, family or fate over which he or she can exercise no
4
SKS 2, 143 / EO1, 143.
5
ibid.
6
ibid.
7
SKS 2, 143 / EO1, 144.
Tragic/Tragedy 171
control.8 in modern tragedy, on the contrary, the absence of substantial determinants
means that the individual is fully responsible for the misfortunes that occur.9
The final category of mood replicates this pattern. Corresponding to the two
principles of individual and substantial determinants, the central emotions of
tragedy identified by Kierkegaard are sorrow and pain. The former is the effect of
the individual’s guiltlessness, his or her subjection to substantial determinants, while
pain is the response to an individual’s guilt. in modern tragedy, the mood accordingly
tends almost exclusively towards pain, while ancient tragedy retains both, although
sorrow is predominant.10
it is important to note that, to Kierkegaard, this primacy of the principle of
individuality in modern tragedy is “misguided” and a “misunderstanding,”11 since
it constitutes a move away from tragedy proper: “We want to know nothing about
the hero’s past; we load his whole life upon his shoulders as his own deed, make
him accountable for everything, but in so doing we also transform his esthetic guilt
into ethical guilt. in this way, the tragic hero becomes bad, evil actually becomes the
tragic subject, but evil has no esthetic interest, and sin is not an esthetic element.”12
the problem, for Kierkegaard, is that in making the individual fully responsible for
his or her actions, modernity loses the “ambiguous guiltlessness”13 and “esthetic
ambiguity”14 that is proper to tragedy. instead, modern drama moves towards the
comic and the ethical, which ultimately leads to despair by placing all responsibility
upon the individual and demanding a self-sufficiency that we cannot actually
provide: “every individual, however original he is, is still a child of god, of his age,
of his nation, of his family, of his friends, and only in them does he have his truth.”15
the only alternatives to the despair generated by the ethical are the tragic and the
religious, which here reveal themselves as structural analogues. in both cases, the
individual’s responsibility is attenuated by placing it in the context of conditions
that he or she cannot control: the substantial determinants of ancient tragedy and the
religious notion of original sin.16 the difference between the tragic and the religious
is simply that the former is operative only prior to the emergence of the ethical,
that is, before we conceive of the individual as a fully autonomous and responsible
agent, whereas the consolation of the religious steps in after such a determination of
the subject has occurred. in the tragic we remain uncertain of the individual’s guilt
because the notion of individuality is not yet fully operative, whereas the notion of
original sin maintains our relative innocence even after the concept of the individual
has been asserted.
Kierkegaard’s descriptive analysis in “the tragic in ancient drama” in this way
clearly dismisses modern tragedy as mistakenly tending towards the comic and the
8
SKS 2, 143–4 / EO1, 144.
9
ibid.
10
SKS 2, 147–8 / EO1, 147–8; cf. SKS 2, 148, 150–1 / EO1, 148–9, 151.
11
SKS 2, 144 / EO1, 144.
12
ibid.
13
ibid.
14
SKS 2, 147 / EO1, 148.
15
SKS 2, 144 / EO1, 145.
16
SKS 2, 145 / EO1, 146.
ethical. Significantly, however, Kierkegaard also provides a prescriptive argument
in this text, in which he outlines what a tragedy would have to look like if it were to
replicate the structures of its ancient form under modern conditions. this discussion
occupies the second half of the essay, beginning after a’s brief exhortation to his
listeners,17 and comes in the form of a modern retelling of the story of antigone. as
in the initial analysis, Kierkegaard here focuses on the three categories of action,
guilt, and mood, but now inverts the order of his discussion. With respect to mood,
Kierkegaard’s version of sophocles’ play follows the requirements of ancient tragedy
by combining pain and sorrow. The specifically modern element, we are told, lies
in the fact that the relation between these two emotions takes the form of “anxiety”
(Angst), which is a mode of reflection and therefore proper to modernity and its
privileging of subjectivity.18 This function of reflection returns in Kierkegaard’s
discussion of guilt. both the ancient and the modern antigone partake of oedipus’
guilt, and the combination of individual agency and fate it constitutes. but where the
situation is merely “an external fact” to the ancient antigone, the modern antigone
is uncertain about whether oedipus himself knew the state of affairs, and therefore
must infinitely reflect about the precise relation between individual agency and
substantial determination involved.19 Action, finally, is conditioned by a similar
dilemma. the modern antigone is caught between duty to her father, as a substantial
determinant, and love for Haemon, as a subjective condition, and, unable to decide
between them, is left immobile.20
in Kierkegaard’s prescriptive argument, then, modern tragedy becomes possible
by making the modern element of indeterminate reflexivity into the way in which
the relation between tragedy’s two opposing principles is constituted: substantial
determinants and particular individuality. While his discussion of Antigone has
frequently been linked to Hegel’s famous interpretation of that play,21 Kierkegaard’s
argument in fact provides a strikingly original contribution to the debate about the
relation between tragedy’s ancient and modern forms.
II. Fear and Trembling
The most significant difference between the discussions of tragedy and the tragic
in Either/Or and Fear and Trembling lies in the different structure that each work
associates with these concepts. in Either/Or, as we saw, the essence of the tragic
resides in the simultaneity and equality of individuality and substantial determinants
as principles of action, guilt, and mood. in Fear and Trembling, however, the
relation between these principles in tragedy is described as one of contradiction and
negation. The source for this shift lies with the latter work’s new classification of
the tragic in the stages of existence. Where tragedy and the tragic in Either/Or were
17
SKS 2, 150–1 / EO1, 151–2.
18
SKS 2, 153 / EO1, 154.
19
SKS 2, 159–60 / EO1, 160–1.
20
SKS 2, 160–2 / EO1, 162–4.
21
g.W.F. Hegel, Werke, vols. 1–20, ed. by eva moldenhauer and Karl markus michel,
Frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1970, vol. 15, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik III, pp. 549–50.
Tragic/Tragedy 173
identified with the aesthetic and described as analogues to the religious, in Fear and
Trembling they are primarily opposed to both these spheres and instead associated
with the ethical. as Kierkegaard explains in Fear and Trembling, in the ethical it is
the universal that constitutes the highest purpose of existence, and it is the duty of
the individual to efface his or her particularity in order to achieve that goal.22 this
demand lies at the heart of tragic conflict in the ethical, and Kierkegaard draws on
three famous examples to illustrate his point: agamemnon, Jephthah, and brutus.23
in each of these cases, the tragic hero is forced to negate an ethical commitment
that is immediate and subjectively motivated, the love for his child, for the sake of a
more general and universal obligation towards his people as a whole. the important
point for Kierkegaard is that the suspension of a lower obligation in these cases
occurs for the sake of a higher purpose that is fully explicable and justifiable in
ethical terms, and therefore does not violate the rules of understanding.24 While the
negation of a dimension of our subjectivity constitutes a tragic loss, the individual
is thus nevertheless reconciled with the universal and gains satisfaction through this
unity.25 Indeed, the examples chosen by Kierkegaard suggest that the conflict at stake
is not merely that a lower commitment is replaced by a different, higher one, but that
a lower articulation of a given ethical commitment is replaced by a higher version
of that same ethical relation. in the patriarchal context of their respective legends,
agamemnon, Jephthah, and brutus are not merely fathers to their children, but also
to their people, and the substitution of the former role by the latter is merely a way of
re-inscribing that same relation in more general and encompassing terms.
Kierkegaard explicitly points to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right as the source
for this conception of tragedy and the tragic in Fear and Trembling,26 but it is
likely that schiller’s 1791 essay “Über den grund des Vergnügens an tragischen
gegenständen” constitutes his most immediate source.27 Kierkegaard adds a further
level of consideration to these previous discussions in his reflections on the different
ways in which one can relate to the kind of contradiction between universal and
particular that constitutes the tragic in Fear and Trembling. While the nature of this
contradiction is itself defined in ethical terms, it is in turn possible to relate to it in an
aesthetic, ethical, or demonic way. since the aesthetic in general favors hiddenness,
in the first of these cases the negation of a lower commitment by a universal ideal
must be revealed only accidentally.28 the ethical, on the contrary, demands complete
transparency, and its hero must accordingly proclaim the contradiction himself.29
In the demonic, finally, the subject relates to the ideal as something it is inherently
impossible to realize in the world, and hides this fact while sacrificing the particular
22
SKS 4, 148 / FT, 54.
23
SKS 4, 151–2 / FT, 57–8.
24
SKS 4, 152, 203 / FT, 59, 115.
25
SKS 4, 170 / FT, 79.
26
SKS 4, 149 / FT, 54.
27
Friedrich schiller, Werke, vols. 1–5, ed. gerhard Fricke and Herbert g. göpfert,
darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 1993, vol. 5, Erzählungen. Theoretische
Schriften, “Über den grund des Vergnügens an tragischen gegenständen,” pp. 358–72.
28
SKS 4, 176–7 / FT, 86–7.
29
SKS 4, 177 / FT, 87.
experience.30 this last position approximates that of the religious, where the gap
between ideal and real is cemented by the category of sin, and as such points toward
the further variation on tragedy and the tragic that Kierkegaard explores more fully
in Stages on Life’s Way.
III. Stages on Life’s Way
the most sustained discussion of tragedy and the tragic in Stages on Life’s Way
comes in the book’s final section, Frater Taciturnus’ “Letter to the Reader,” which
also constitutes Kierkegaard’s most ambitious and elliptical treatment of the topic.
taciturnus’ exposition takes as its point of reference the diary of Quidam that
immediately precedes it in Stages on Life’s Way, and which he seeks to distinguish
from merely aesthetic tragedy. the latter, taciturnus argues, consists in the negation
of a hero’s immediate embodiment of an idea through obstacles external to that
hero.31 romeo and Juliet, for example, instantiate the idea of love, but are prevented
from actualizing it by their families’ feud.32 in taciturnus’ own world, however, such
aesthetic tragedy has become impossible because immediacy is no longer capable
of directly embodying ideality.33 As a consequence, the tragic conflict must now
be based on an internal contradiction, rather than an external one, namely, on the
very fact that immediacy itself has become incommensurable with the idea that it
supposedly exhibits.34 as taciturnus repeatedly points out, the structure at stake
in this situation is thus simultaneously comic and tragic.35 it is comic because the
immediate fails to embody its idea, but tragic because the immediacy in question
nevertheless retains an indirect relation to it. such an indirect relation to the idea
is what Taciturnus also calls a relation of infinite reflexivity,36 or a qualitatively
dialectical relation,37 and consists in the perception of the immediate experience not
as a direct embodiment of the idea, but rather as a moment in its totality.38 With respect
to the characters in Quidam’s diary, taciturnus accordingly points out that they are
comic because they hold completely different conceptions of love which, at the level
of immediacy, prevent them from achieving the identity and mutual understanding
that the idea of love requires. at the same time, however, the different forms of
love that they embody—the ethical (Quidam) and the aesthetic (Quaedam)—are
themselves merely isolated moments in the idea of love, and to that extent they
30
SKS 4, 185–6 / FT, 96.
31
SKS 6, 375, 387 / SLW, 405, 417.
32
SKS 6, 378 / SLW, 407.
33
SKS 6, 378–80 / SLW, 407–9. subsequently taciturnus changes this historical
diagnosis to an ontological one, when he states that immediacy’s inability to directly embody
the idea is a consequence of sin (SKS 6, 443 / SLW, 481–2).
34
SKS 6, 382–3 / SLW, 412–13.
35
SKS 6, 385 / SLW, 415.
36
SKS 6, 383 / SLW, 413.
37
SKS 6, 423 / SLW, 458.
38
SKS 6, 384 / SLW, 414.
Tragic/Tragedy 175
share a common essence even if their immediate experiences remain at odds.39 the
failure to actualize this essence constitutes the tragic, which means that tragedy here
depends on a dialectical reflexivity able to see how an experience relates to its idea
even if its immediate manifestation remains comically distinct from it.
according to taciturnus, out of this simultaneity of the tragic and the comic
Quidam chooses the former, and thereby initiates the movement to the religious.40 to
Quidam, that is, the validity of experience is retained because the positive, reflexive
relation that it holds to the idea takes priority over their immediate difference.41
in sharp contrast to the opposition drawn between the tragic and the religious in
Fear and Trembling, taciturnus describes this vindication of immediacy in terms
closely related to the double movement that Johannes de silentio attributes to the
knight of faith.42 in the end, however, Quidam fails to break free of the tragic and
to move into the religious proper because he cannot overcome the distance between
idea and immediacy in actuality except internally. as such he remains stuck in
demonic interiority (Indesluttethed), although one determined in the direction of the
religious.43
IV. Conclusion
in spite of their differences, Kierkegaard’s various conceptions of tragedy and the

tragic all center on the same two structural features: first, a contradiction between
reality and ideality, and second, a reflexive relationship to that contradiction, which
determines it in different ways. depending on whether tragedy and the tragic are
approached in the context of the aesthetic, ethical, or religious sphere of existence,
these structural features are inflected differently. Only in the religious proper can the
contradiction that constitutes tragedy ultimately be assimilated and overcome.
See also Actuality; Comic/Comedy; Contradiction; Demonic; Immediacy/Reflection;

Paradox; Sacrifice.
39
SKS 6, 390 / SLW, 421–2.
40
SKS 6, 391 / SLW, 422.
41
SKS 6, 384 / SLW, 414.
42
SKS 6, 383–4 / SLW, 413–14; cf. SKS 4, 129–32 / FT, 34–7.
43
SKS 6, 395–6 / SLW, 398.
Transfiguration
daniel marrs
Transfiguration (Forklarelse—noun; forklare—verb)
the danish noun Forklarelse (meaning “transfiguration,” as in the transfiguration

of Christ) includes a range of meanings related to the nuances of the verb from
which it is derived, forklare.1 the lexical range of forklare (meaning “to explain,”
from the old danish forclaræ, “to cleanse”) includes to glorify, to allow to appear
in a more glorious form, to enlighten, and to clarify.2 While Forklarelse can simply
mean “explanation,” the distinct (though related) Forklaring is the usual choice for
that basic nuance. rather, Forklarelse usually expresses the specialized notions of
transfiguration or glorification.
Uses of the term “transfiguration” span Kierkegaard’s entire corpus, from an
early journal entry to the late polemics of The Moment.3 it appears in every phase
of his authorial activity, from his dissertation,4 to both early and late pseudonymous
works,5 to the non-pseudonymous writings (including the early upbuilding discourses
and the later Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits and Works of Love).6 the
sheer number of occurrences prohibits an exhaustive accounting of Kierkegaard’s
uses of forklare or Forklarelse. additionally, identifying when Kierkegaard intends
“transfiguration” rather than “explanation” poses something of a challenge: the non-
specialized sense of forklare and its derivatives accounts for the majority of the term’s
many hundreds of instances.7 incidentally, the word’s inherent ambiguity accounts
to some extent for Kierkegaard’s fascination with the term. in an 1839 journal entry,
Kierkegaard notes with apparent delight, “all poetry is life’s Forklarelse (i.e.,
transfiguration) in that it is its Forklarelse (through its being explained, illuminated,
1
Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols 1–28, published by the society for danish
2
3
SKS 27, 153, papir 195 / JP 2, 1629; SKS 13, 348 / M, 290.
4
SKS 1, 113, 136 / CI, 52, 77.
5
see SKS 2, 71, 104 / EO1, 65, 100; SKS 3, 39, 278 / EO2, 31, 293; SKS 12, 156 / PC,
152.
6
SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 399; SKS 8, 164 / UD, 54; SKS 9, 106 / WL, 101.
7
the degree to which various english translations have accounted for nuances in
forklare and Forklarelse varies. Lowrie prefers “glorification” over “transfiguration,” but is
not consistent. The Hongs consistently prefer “transfiguration,” and often indicate wordplay
in bracketed comments.
178 Daniel Marrs
developed, etc.). it is quite strange that language has this ambiguity.”8 and on
several occasions Kierkegaard makes much of the difference between explanation
(Forklaring) and transfiguration (Forklarelse). However, mischievous wordplay is
only part of the story.
in The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard describes the “double kind of dialectic”9
he finds in Plato’s Socrates: The first kind, which Kierkegaard identifies as the
genuinely Socratic, is in “perpetual movement,” tirelessly setting the “issue afloat
if it runs aground”; the second proceeds from “the most abstract ideas” and seeks
to “construct actuality with the idea.”10 Here we glimpse Kierkegaard’s lifelong
exploration of how best to imagine the relationship between actuality and ideality,
temporality and eternity—and it is at just this juncture that Kierkegaard and his
pseudonyms employ the notion of transfiguration.
I. Aesthetic Transfiguration
In an 1836 journal entry, echoing Schelling’s emphasis on art’s transfigurative role

in history, Kierkegaard muses, “What i call the mythological-poetic in history is the
nimbus which hovers over every genuine striving in history, not an abstraction but a
transfiguration.”11 It is unclear how Kierkegaard saw transfigurative poetic production
in relation to history at the time of this journal entry; but by the publication of Either/Or,
Kierkegaard had developed a critique of a popular version of aesthetic transfiguration.
Either/Or’s aesthete, A, argues that art’s role is to depict “celestially transfigured
(forklarede) beauty.”12 Transfiguration as an idealizing drive, a purification of beauty
by stripping away the contingent, is best exemplified by Don Giovanni’s seductive
powers:
[don giovanni] desires total femininity in every woman, and therein lies the sensuous,
idealizing force with which he simultaneously enhances and overcomes his prey….he
transfigures [forklarer] every girl, since his relation to her is an essential relation. this
is why all the finite differences vanish for him in comparison with the main point: to be
a woman. the old ones he rejuvenates into the beautiful middle age of womanhood; the
child he almost matures in an instant; everything that is woman is his prey.13
Significantly, A sees Don Giovanni’s transfigurations not as the work of reflection,

but simply as the immediate effect of his own transfigured existence. Eschewing sly
plans or subtle calculations, his desires are themselves powerfully effective—for he is
8
SKS 18, 10, ee:11 / JP 1, 136 (translation modified). The Danish text clarifies
Kierkegaard’s wordplay: “al poesie er livets Forklarelse (ɔ: Transfiguration) ved dets
Forklarelse (ved at det forklares, oplyses udvikles o:s:v:). det er ret mærkeligt at sproget har
den tvetydethed.”
9
SKS 1, 172 / CI, 121.
10
SKS 1, 172–3 / CI, 121.
11
SKS 27, 153, papir 195 / JP 2, 1629.
12
SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 65.
13
SKS 2, 104 / EO1, 100.
Transfiguration 179
“the sensuous in its elemental originality, of which he is, as it were, the incarnation.”14
against a Fichtean backdrop of the exuberant life of the spiritual realm, don giovanni
not only approximates but in fact embodies ideal sensuousness. echoing a goethean
sensibility regarding art and music, Don Giovanni’s transfigured incarnation of
sensuous desire is unexplainable, for words could only abstract—and thus detract—
from the reality of his existence: only music suitably expresses don giovanni.15
an unfettered romantic optimism informs a’s extraordinary standard for
transfiguration: to achieve a work of aesthetic transfiguration, one must first become
transfigured, must embody in actuality a total reconciliation between the ideal and
the real. Furthermore, the aesthete insists that transfiguration is immediate and
self-evident, neither requiring nor allowing explanation or mediation. but Either/
Or undermines this kind of transfiguration, not least through the disparity between
don giovanni and Johannes the seducer. in contrast to the former’s irrepressible
spontaneity and immediacy, Johannes brings a poeticizing urge. His efforts are
marred not only by the intricate machinations required to generate a suitably poetic
encounter but also by the need for subsequent reflection to raise these encounters
to a full “transfiguration”—a far cry from Don Giovanni’s thoroughly actualized
exuberance. Johannes’ connection with the ethereal world of ideality is too strong,
powerful to the point of sickness—his ironic distance from actuality has devolved
into vicious detachment.16 beyond the distance between don giovanni and the
seducer, Either/Or, part one devotes dozens of pages to explaining don giovanni,
the supremacy of mozart’s opera, and the ability of music to express ideality—all
things which, as transfigured realities, should not require explanation—thus leading
readers to suspect that aesthetic transfiguration is a chimera.
the devastating aphorism about the baronial castle bolsters such suspicions.17
From a stronghold suspended between heaven and earth, the aesthetic personality
swoops down into the world to snatch his prey. back in the castle, he baptizes his
prey in the waters of idealization, erasing the temporal and contingent features, and
weaves it into a tapestry—a dead image of actuality. the aesthete, an old man living
“as one already dead,” sits pensively whispering explanations of these pictures to
himself. Ultimately, the aesthete and his project remain artificially abstracted from
actuality, hovering ethereally between heaven and earth and incapable of returning
to actuality—implying that art remains mere explanation (Forklaring), susceptible
to the infinite regress of further explanations and never achieving transfiguration
(Forklarelse). indeed, not even music or the “absolutely musical”18 don giovanni
can escape the aesthete’s appetite for explanation. does art bear within itself an
ineradicable dissonance between form and meaning?19 the ceaseless whisperings of
14
SKS 2, 104 / EO1, 101.
15
SKS 2, 105–6 / EO1, 102.
16
SKS 2, 296 / EO1, 306.
17
SKS 2, 51 / EO1, 42.
18
SKS 2, 101 / EO1, 97.
19
Kierkegaard voices a similar concern in relation to language, for example, SKS 15,
55 / JC, 168: “immediacy is reality, language is ideality; consciousness is contradiction. the
moment i make a statement about reality, contradiction is present, for what i say is ideality.”
180 Daniel Marrs
the aesthete in his baronial castle bear witness to such dissonance. Yet, Either/Or,
part one points beyond problems with artistic production per se, and presses onward
to the person behind the art. are the failures performed by the text meant to indicate
a deeper problem—that of an insufficiently transfigured self?
II. Ethical Transfigurations of the Self
From the Papers of One Still Living, Kierkegaard’s book-length review of Hans
Christian andersen’s Only a Fiddler, supports the above diagnosis by linking artistic
shortcomings with the personal failure of the artist to adapt himself “to the conditions
of life,” a failure rooted in the fashionable tendency to “forget the actual.”20 an author
must attain a life-view through earnest engagement with actuality. otherwise his
novel “either seeks to insinuate some theory (dogmatic, doctrinaire short novels) at
the expense of poetry or it makes a finite and incidental contact with the author’s flesh
and blood.”21 as argued in Either/Or, part one, poetically valid artwork should not
require artificially inserted explanations; such additions reveal the artwork’s failure
to attain transfiguration. Further, an artwork should not function as an explanatory
extension of the artist—for then the artwork itself recedes into oblivion. rather,
“the poet himself must first and foremost win a competent personality, and it is only
this dead and transfigured personality that ought to and is able to produce art, not
the many-angled, worldly, palpable personality.”22 We will return to Kierkegaard’s
association of transfiguration with death; but for now it is sufficient to note his
assertion that transfiguration requires the hard work of wrestling with actuality.
Although transfiguration involves Don Giovanni-like immediacy, Kierkegaard
doubts this happens without preliminary striving, contra the aesthete’s rejection of
reflection and explanation.
The emphasis on attaining personal transfiguration leads naturally to the notion
of ethical striving. The pseudonymous Judge William uses transfiguration to
describe the change wrought in love when it is taken up into the ethical: romantic
love, rather than being negated in marriage, can be “united with and exist in
marriage…marriage is its true transfiguration.”23 rejecting the aesthete’s unlivable
elevation of non-reflectivity, Judge William argues that without some form of
reflection, falling in love is doomed never to become concrete in actuality. However,
he takes seriously the aesthete’s intuition that immediacy resists reflection: “For
the lover, the most certain of all things is that he is in love, and no meddlesome
thoughts, no stockbrokers run back and forth between falling in love and a so-called
ideal.”24 rather than encroaching upon immediacy by explaining “falling in love”
in relation to ideality, Judge William supposes that reflection can turn toward “the
relation between falling in love and actuality.”25 Such reflection results in a concrete
20
SKS 1, 19 / EPW, 63–4.
21
SKS 1, 36–7 / EPW, 81.
22
SKS 1, 37 / EPW, 82 (emphasis added, translation modified).
23
SKS 3, 39 / EO2, 31. Cf. SKS 3, 166–73 / EO2, 170–7.
24
SKS 6, 150 / SLW, 160.
25
SKS 6, 149 / SLW, 160.
Transfiguration 181
resolution in actuality (marriage), not merely an abstract explanation. resolution is
both ideal (in that the resolution precedes acting) and concrete (in that it translates
“perfectly ideal reflection” into concrete actions)26—not the summa summarum of
circumstances or the terminus of a causal chain of events, but the subject’s spiritual
freedom expressed concretely in the translation of ideality into actuality.27 Judge
William further praises marriage as
the beautiful focal point of life and existence…a disclosure that in its concealment
manifests the heavenly….it is divine, for falling in love is the wonder; it is earthly, for
falling in love is nature’s most profound myth. love is the unfathomable ground that is
hidden in darkness, but the resolution is the triumphant victor who, like orpheus, fetches
the infatuation of falling in love to the light of day, for the resolution is the true form of
love, the true explanation and transfiguration.28
at the border of the aesthetic and the ethical, one may experience a kind of despair—
a fear that all will be lost, that choosing the ethical will annihilate the aesthetic:
“but it is not so, and that is why in the very next moment the despair proves to be
not a break but a metamorphosis. Everything comes back again, but transfigured
[forklaret].”29
III. From Explanation to Transfiguration
aside from the self-undermining appeal to orpheus’ ill-fated quest to rescue

eurydice from the underworld, something else about the passage quoted above
raises suspicions. The English phrase “explanation and transfiguration” stands in
for the single danish word Forklaring30—an amplification that elides Kierkegaard’s
habit of using Forklaring to denote “explanation” in contrast to Forklarelse. perhaps
the translation suitably highlights Judge William’s dismissal of that distinction.
Indeed, he supposes that transfiguration is finally a species of explanation: resolution
“explains” the ideal in actuality.
However, in “one Who prays aright struggles in prayer and is Victorious—
in that god is Victorious”31 Kierkegaard reinforces a sharp distinction between
explanation and transfiguration, and describes a prayerful form of striving quite
unlike Judge William’s triumphant resolutions: “[o]ne who struggles aright in
prayer is victorious by losing.”32 the one who prays aright does not haggle in the
marketplace of life with probabilistic calculations—such activity is “the mirage
whereby the sensate person drags out time and keeps the eternal away, whereby
26
SKS 6, 150 / SLW, 160. Cf. SKS 6, 111 / SLW 117.
27
SKS 6, 150 / SLW, 160. Cf. SKS 3, 170 / EO2, 174.
28
SKS 6, 111 / SLW, 117.
29
SKS 3, 258 / EO2, 271.
30
SKS 6, 111 / SLW, 117.
31
SKS 5, 361–81 / EUD, 377–401.
32
SKS 5, 364 / EUD, 380.
182 Daniel Marrs
he cheats…himself of liberating annihilation.”33 rather, prayer is a struggle for
silence—a cessation from the explanatory drive in favor of yielding oneself to god.34
Kierkegaard describes two contrasting kinds of prayer to drive home his point.
The first two forms of prayer involve explanation—either offering self-explanation
to god or demanding explanations from god.35 returning to the theme of aesthetic
picture-making, Kierkegaard unflatteringly equates prayer that trades in explanations
with drawing pictures: “is he not one who draws, he who struggles in prayer with god
for an explanation? Will not the explanation draw a boundary line between him and
god so that face-to-face with god he begins to resemble himself?”36 Kierkegaard’s
concern resonates with Philosophical Fragments: because the mind can only select
from amongst the empirically available or the imaginatively fantastical, any attempt
to grasp a transcendent god “is basically an arbitrariness, and at the very bottom
of devoutness there madly lurks the capricious arbitrariness that knows it itself has
produced the god.”37 explanation always presumes a framework subordinate to the
knower, who bends objects of knowledge to her own image. devoutness from within
this mentality only generates idols in the image of the devotee.
When praying aright, one does not draw an idolatrous image but instead becomes
an image: “instead of receiving an explanation [Forklaring] from god he was
transfigured [forklaret] by God, and his transfiguration [Forklarelse] is this: to reflect
the image of god.”38 thus, Kierkegaard decisively reconceives aesthetic and ethical
transfigurations: aesthetic picture-making has been replaced by the requirement that
each person become a picture; and Judge William’s triumphant resolutions have
been replaced with a struggle that culminates in a paradoxical “victory by losing”—
becoming a silent image of god. despite Kierkegaard’s suspicion of aesthetic
and ethical transfigurations, an optimistic undercurrent remains. Using an aquatic
metaphor, he suggests that God can transfigure those who become still and silent:
when waves disturb a lake’s surface, it reflects nothing; but when it becomes calm,
it perfectly mirrors the heavens above.39
IV. Dead and Transfigured
It is tempting to suppose Kierkegaard describes three modes of transfiguration—

aesthetic, ethical, religious—with the religious transforming aesthetic and ethical
transfiguration through prayerful faith. However, Kierkegaard’s polemic against his
contemporaries’ existential optimism presses further still. Hans lassen martensen
(1808–84) especially represents a popular association of “transfiguration” with
extravagant optimism. For Martensen, artistic, ethical, and religious transfigurations
are organized in concentric circles around Christ, from whom all other transfigurations
33
SKS 5, 366 / EUD, 382.
34
SKS 5, 367 / EUD, 383.
35
SKS 5, 371 / EUD, 388; SKS 5, 376 / EUD, 394.
36
SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 399.
37
SKS 4, 250 / PF, 45.
38
SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 400.
39
SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 399f.
Transfiguration 183
flow.40 Christ (the original unity of the divine and human natures) founds ethical
obedience to God’s requirements, artistic expressions of ideal beauty, or scientific
knowledge of the world as concretized ideality—and the spiritual-actual church
spearheads these developments.41
Kierkegaard takes exception to such optimism. “the one Who prays aright”
does not describe prayerful dependence upon god as a stance from which one can
engage in transfigured ethical striving and artistic production. Rather, prayerful
dependence is the goal: proper striving with the world leads the person inward, to a
transfiguring encounter with God. Whereas Martensen sees Christ’s transfiguration
spreading outward into multifaceted cultural, social, and historical transfigurations,
Kierkegaard focuses on becoming a passive reflection of the unchanging God.
Transfiguration is intensely inward, with outward activity regarded as the preliminary
extrication of oneself from the “external world and every claim on life.”42
the communion discourse “the Woman Who Was a sinner” illustrates
Kierkegaard’s final vision of transfiguration.43 despite similarities between “the
Woman Who Was a sinner” and the earlier “one Who prays aright,” key differences
arise. both discourses require silence, cessation from worldly distractions, and
overcoming the drive toward explanation; both equate becoming explained by god
with becoming an image or picture. However, the later discourse sharpens the details:
the woman prays specifically to Christ—and Kierkegaard’s Christ fundamentally
reveals human sinfulness.44 thus, the woman’s prayer moves beyond contemplative
silence to tearful confession. the encounter culminates not in comfortably equating
imitatio Christi with taking up a vocation (as suggested by martensen), but rather—
precisely in recognizing one’s failure to become like Christ—with an awareness of
the chasm between the self-as-sinner and the Holy one.45
the developments in the later discourse change the way the supplicant becomes
an image of God. In “The One Who Prays Aright,” the transfigured person images
the unchanging god by way of resemblance. but in the later discourse, the supplicant
becomes an inverse reflection, a sinner who, through confession, mirrors Christ the
forgiver. Although the woman comes to be explained by Christ, no transfiguration
occurs. Yet, she is not merely a deficient approximation like the tapestry in the
baronial castle. precisely by overcoming all worldly cares and distractions and
focusing on the essential relation of sinner and Holy one, the woman becomes an
40
Hans lassen martensen, Grundrids til Moralphilosophiens System, Copenhagen:
C.a. reitzel 1841, pp. 51–8, §§ 47–54. For an english translation, see Outline to a System
of Moral Philosophy in Between Hegel and Kierkegaard: Hans L. Martensen’s Philosophy of
Religion, ed. and trans. by Curtis l. thompson and david J. Kangas, atlanta: scholars press
1997, pp. 281–5. see also Hans lassen martensen, Af mit Levnet. Meddelelser, vols. 1–3,
Copenhagen: gyldendal 1882, vol. 1, p. 67.
41
martensen, Grundrids til Moralphilosophiens System, pp. 55–7, §§ 51–2. Cf. Between
Hegel and Kierkegaard, pp. 283–5.
42
SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 399.
43
SKS 11, 273–80 / WA, 137–44.
44
SKS 11, 258 / WA, 123. Cf. SKS 10, 220 / CD, 212.
45
Cf. SKS 8, 380 / UD, 285: “the fundamental relation between god and a human being
is that a human being is a sinner and god is the Holy one.”
184 Daniel Marrs
“indispensable” part of an eternal picture of divine holiness and human sin—here
decisively re-inscribed in terms of love, and expressed through confession and
forgiveness.
Kierkegaard finally associates overcoming worldly cares and distractions—and
thus, transfiguration—with death. Echoing From the Papers of One Still Living,
Kierkegaard writes: “One who is dead is indeed a transfigured [forklarede] person….
The transfigured one exists only as transfigured; he cannot be changed into something
better—he is indeed the transfigured one.”46 Death is the only transfiguration, the only
victory over temporality’s pernicious double-mindedness. Practice in Christianity
confirms this reading, joining the impossibility of existential transfiguration with the
human’s permanent distance from Christ’s perfection: “if this higher something is to
be truly able to draw…it must not itself be subject to variation or change but must
have triumphantly gone through every change, transfigured like the transfigured life
of one who is dead…there is but one who is dead, he who yet lives, the lord Jesus
Christ.”47
V. Conclusion
Kierkegaard’s preference for the socratic dialectic that ceaselessly sets the issue
afloat48 prefigures his intuitions about human existence as a perpetual struggle.
Likewise, this Socratic impulse shapes Kierkegaard’s use of transfiguration—
culminating in a Christological rejection of existential transfiguration. Against the
aesthete a’s valorization of don giovanni and Judge William’s commendation of
resolution, Kierkegaard argues that transfiguration is only realizable after having
gone through “every change”—including death.49 imaging the eternal in time, far
from extending Christ’s divine-humanity into transfigurations of family, state, and
history, consists in the perpetual struggle toward silent confession before the Holy
One, whereby one comes to be explained by Christ—the only dead and transfigured
one who yet lives.
see also actuality; approximation; Concrete/abstract; decision/resolve; dying to/

renunciation; Freedom.
46
SKS 8, 165 / UD, 54–5.
47
SKS 12, 156 / PC, 152 (emphasis added). Cf. SKS 9, 106 / WL, 101.
48
SKS 1, 172–3 / CI, 121.
49
SKS 12, 156 / PC, 152.
transition
gerhard schreiber
Transition (Overgang―noun; gaae over―verb)
the concept of “transition” (danish Overgang, from old danish øwergong or

owergong, old norse yfirgangr or yfirganga)1 is primarily used to designate
processes of movement, roaming, change, becoming, or decay, that is, processes in
which a substance passes from one state into another. transitoriness is an essential
hallmark not only of logical reality, but of historical and existential actuality as well.
What unites logical, historical, and existential transitions is that the original state no
longer obtains; another has taken its place.
such a change of state can occur either continuously or abruptly. in the former
case, a thing elides incrementally from one state into another, and so becomes no
longer the same as it used to be—although this does not imply that it has severed all
ties of coherence to its former self. a continuous transition of this sort, from being
one way to being another—a step that is part of an ongoing trek, and at the same time
is a step beyond—presupposes a “bridge” as its medium.2 Without such a mediating
moment, we are left only with transition’s discontinuous form, namely, the leap. by
the leap as (or in) transition, the inner, natural coherence of a process is dissolved,
and something “ab-solutely” (ab-solved, literally, precipitated out of a solution;
detached) new is set in place. in principle, such a transition is transitionless: it is
a transgression—a crossing of a border—in the sense of a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο
γένος, which takes place not by means of mediation, but by a leap.
over the course of his authorship (that is, in his published and unpublished writings,
as well as in his journals and notebooks), Kierkegaard uses the concept of transition
around 350 times.3 As with “leap,” which refers to a specific form of transition,
we encounter the concept of transition primarily in the pseudonymous texts that
i would like to thank david d. possen for his assistance in proofreading and translating this
article.
1
see Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 6, 1924, columns 541–2
(gaa over, 32.7) and vol. 16, 1936, columns 6–10 (Overgang).
2
see SKS 1, 173 / CI, 121.
3
the earliest mention of the concept is in SKS 27, 193, papir 254 (november 28, 1835),
the latest at SKS 14, 175 / M, 44 (march 30, 1855). moreover, on sixteen occasions Kierkegaard
devised such composites as “category of transition” (Overgangens-Categorie), “transition-
situation” (Overgangs-Situation), and “transition period” (Overgangsperiode). in addition, we
find uses of the German equivalents Uebergang or Uebergehen (with associated composites) in
186 Gerhard Schreiber
Kierkegaard published between 1843 and 1846, particularly The Concept of Anxiety
(24 occurrences) and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (59 occurrences). We
find only scattered mentions of “transition” both before and after this period, if we
set aside Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (7 occurrences) and The Sickness
unto Death (9 occurrences). in Kierkegaard’s journals and notebooks, however, we
find numerous remarks about transition, some quite significant, in various entries
from the years 1843–44, as Kierkegaard gathered materials relevant to his “theory of
the leap.”4 meanwhile, it should be noted that Kierkegaard was also occupied with
the problem of transition and its various forms in his nb journals (31 occurrences),
including the later ones, where he in part revisited earlier deliberations on the subject.
Kierkegaard thematizes phenomena of transitoriness in a wide variety of
contexts.5 Without thereby determining the mode of the transition at issue in the
relevant (or in another) passage, for example, by specifying attributes, Kierkegaard
refers to, among other things, (1) “the transition from the lyric to the epic”;6 (2) the
“transition from sorrow to pain,”7 which can be found in greek tragedy; (3) “the
transition from sculpture to painting”;8 (4) the “transition from theory to practice”;9
(5) various transitions that denote distinct periods of life;10 (6) the transition from
“abstract wildness” to “concrete madness,” which is formed by means of the
“category of higher madness”;11 (7) boredom, whereby the demonic passes into the
comic;12 and (8) “the one time of suffering”13 as a transition that one must pass
through, even if it lasts as long as one lives.
of greater interest, in any case, are the particular transitions whose nature and/
or conditions of enactment became objects of Kierkegaard’s deliberations. Here we
can speak of, and distinguish fundamentally between, two groups of transitions:
those that occur by means of a series of immanent changes,14 and those that imply
“a break with immanence.”15 While the former mainly represent continuous or gradual
transitions in which a new thing emerges amid (and despite) an inner consistency
ten locations, the latin equivalents transitus, transitio, or transgressio in nine locations, and the
greek equivalents μετάβασις (εἰς ἄλλο γένος) and μεταβολή in 26 locations.
4
Pap. V C 12 / JP 3, 2352; see especially SKS 27, 275–7, papir 283 / JP 3, 2345–51.
5
apart from transitions in philosophical-theological and/or existential contexts,
which will primarily be discussed in what follows, Kierkegaard was also concerned with,
for example, transitions in argumentation, transitions in presentation, and transitions in the
development of thought (for example, in a text); see SKS 1, 47 / EPW, 92; SKS 1, 130 / CI, 71;
SKS 1, 231 / CI, 183; SKS 2, 129 / EO1, 128; SKS 13, 65 / FSE, 38.
6
SKS 1, 27 / EPW, 71.
7
SKS 2, 150 / EO1, 151.
8
SKS 3, 135 / EO2, 136.
9
SKS 18, 84, FF:41 / KJN 2, 77.
10
SKS 15, 21 / JC, 123.
11
SKS 18, 70, ee:195 / KJN 2, 64.
12
Cf. SKS 18, 173, JJ:104 / KJN 2, 160.
13
SKS 10, 110 / CD, 97; SKS 10, 113 / CD, 101.
14
Cf. SKS 7, 269 / CUP1, 295.
15
SKS 7, 269 / CUPH, 247 (cf. CUP1, 295); see also SKS 7, 309 / CUP1, 338; SKS 7,
313 / CUP1, 342; Pap. V b 49:14 / JP 3, 2343.
Transition 187
with another, older thing, the latter transitions are essentially discontinuous or
radical, since they have the character of leaps. in numerous passages, Kierkegaard
reduces this fundamental distinction to “the difference between a pathos-laden
and a dialectical transition.”16 if we include all of the other types of transition that
Kierkegaard thematizes, the following contrast emerges. The first group of transitions
encompasses “direct,” “immediate,” “simple,” or “quantitative transitions,” on the
one side, and “dialectical transitions” on the other. the second group consists of
“qualitative” or “pathos-laden transitions,” such as “leaps.”
one feature common to all “direct” and/or “immediate,”17 “simple,”18 and
“quantitative transitions”19 is the simple continuity of a process that unfolds
necessarily, or is purely cumulative. this continuous, gradual change involves
merely a quantitative modification of an existing determination; the emerging result
of this approximation along a continuum is no new quality suddenly set forth, but
can either be derived from its own constituting elements or explained by its previous
development. by contrast, “dialectical transitions”20 take place in the course of
continual processes of positing and sublating all oppositions and contradictions.21
Here Kierkegaard has, most of all, an eye for the Hegelian type of transition, in
which “the one standpoint on its own necessarily determines its transition over to
another”22 or in which something (a concept) passively “flips over” into another
“with immanent necessity.”23 such progress, as the self-unfolding of the idea, takes
place only in the sphere of thought, which is why the Hegelian notion that we could
move by means of a “dialectical transition” is nothing but “a chimera.”24 although
this dialectical transition is not necessarily a mere advance in thinking with the aid of
mediation, but can also proceed abruptly (that is, by means of a leap), it nonetheless
remains predictable, inasmuch as it takes part in the relevant dialectic. Yet these last
leaps—which are influenced so that an as-yet-missing final, external circumstance
16
SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221 (translation slightly modified); cf. SKS 19, 375,
not12:4 / KJN 3, 373; SKS 19, 386, not13:8.a / KJN 3, 384; SKS 19, 386, not13:8.c / KJN
3, 384; SKS 19, 420, not13:55 / KJN 3, 418; SKS 27, 399, papir 365:24 / JP 1, 649; SKS 27,
408, papir 368:2.b / JP 1, 653 (no. 5); SKS 7, 234 / CUP1, 258; SKS 21, 326, nb10:138 /
KJN 5, 337–8. see also SKS 22, 107–8, nb11:179 / KJN 6, 104–6, where the meaning of this
distinction is explored in terms of the relationship between a conviction and its reasons.
17
Cf. SKS 7, 54 / CUP1, 49; SKS 4, 291 / PF, 94; see also SKS 14, 50 / COR, 14 (“the
pure transition”; translation slightly modified).
18
only in SKS 4, 365 / CA, 60 and SKS 4, 376 / CA, 72.
19
Cf. SKS 4, 336–40 / CA, 30–4; SKS 4, 344 / CA, 37; SKS 4, 362 / CA, 57; SKS 4, 273–5
/ PF, 73–5; Pap. V b 49:5, pp. 107–8 / CA, supplement, 180–1; Pap. Vi b 13 / JP 5, 5787;
SKS 27, 269, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 261; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345 (with Pap. V b
49:5, p. 108 / CA, supplement, 181); SKS 27, 277, papir 283:2 / JP 3, 2351; SKS 27, 285,
papir 302 / JP 5, 5712; SKS 19, 395, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393; SKS 18, 303, JJ:492 / KJN 2, 279.
20
see note 16 above.
21
Cf. SKS 1, 128 / CI, 69; SKS 3, 169 / EO2, 173; see also SKS 14, 50 / COR, 14 (“the
philosophical transition”).
22
SKS 7, 269 / CUP1, 295 (translation slightly modified).
23
SKS 15, 233 / BA, 286; cf. Pap. iii b 21; Pap. Vii–2 b 261:22.
24
SKS 7, 269 / CUP1, 295; see also SKS 27, 275–7, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348; SKS 11,
210 / SUD, 97–8; SKS 19, 415, not13:50 / KJN 3, 413.
can arise as well—must be distinguished from leaps in the strict sense, which are
executed by virtue of a passionate interest.
This brings us to the second group of transitions, which Kierkegaard defines
as “qualitative” or “pathos-laden transitions,”25 such as “leaps.”26 since quantity is
an irrelevant determinant with respect to quality, a given quality remains the same
even when the relevant quantity is altered.27 on its own, a quantitative alteration
cannot generate anything qualitatively new. the transition from a quantitative to
a qualitative determination thus implies a discontinuous, qualitative change: a
leap.28 the leap as “the dialectically decisive”29 pertains to qualitative differences
between states, as well as to the inconceivability of the emergence of other states.
Kierkegaard provides an example of this state of affairs by pointing to the transition
from innocence to sin, the Fall, in The Concept of Anxiety.30 the Fall stands for a
qualitative transition, and therefore cannot be the result of a quantitative “more”31
(of anxiety). unlike a transition simply from being one way to being another (as in
the phase change from water to ice32), which presupposes the existence of something
“in which change is taking place,”33 the transition from innocence to sin involves a
“qualitative leap”34 stricto sensu, a leap from non-existence to existence.35
25
see note 16 above. this group also includes other types of transitions that
Kierkegaard may not have labeled “qualitative” or “pathos-laden,” but which he nonetheless
characterized as such, as for example (1) the transition between the spiritual person and the
sensate-psychical person, which encompasses “an infinite difference” (SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209);
(2) “the incomprehensible transition that comes when erotic love [Elskov] awakens” (SKS
15, 17 / JC, 118) in a person; (3) the transition from contemptibleness to respectability, which
does not simply occur such that the contemptible one suddenly becomes respectable “one fine
morning,” but rather must be undertaken ethically (and so requires pathos; cf. SKS 27, 461,
papir 388); (4) “the transition from scholarship to the upbuilding” (Pap. Vi b 137, p. 228 /
TD, supplement, 126); (5) the transition from good to evil (and vice versa) (cf. SKS 27, 275,
papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; see also SKS 17, 91, bb:8 / KJN 1, 84; SKS 19, 92, not2:2.b / KJN
3, 88; SKS 3, 125 / EO2, 125).
26
see my article on “leap” in tome iV of this volume.
27
Cf. SKS 19, 406, not13:41.b / KJN 3, 404.
28
Cf. SKS 27, 267, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 261; SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 11; SKS 4, 273–5 / PF,
73–5; SKS 19, 395, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348.
29
Pap. Vi b 98:26.
30
For more on this, see my article on “leap”; see also SKS 4, 380 / CA, 77; SKS 4, 388
/ CA, 85; SKS 4, 394 / CA, 91; SKS 4, 415 / CA, 113; Pap. V b 55:15; Pap. V b 55:26 as well
as SKS 20, 65, nb:73 / KJN 4, 64.
31
SKS 4, 365 / CA, 60.
32
Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345.
33
SKS 4, 273 / PF, 73; cf. SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74.
34
Pap. V b 55:26 / CA, supplement, 200; cf. SKS 4, 352–3 / CA, 47–8; SKS 4, 413 / CA,
111; Pap. V b 72:11.
35
as Climacus adds, this transition from not existing to existing not only corresponds
to “the transition of birth,” but also to that of being born again, i.e. “rebirth” (in Christianity),
cf. SKS 4, 227–8 / PF, 19–20; SKS 4, 230 / PF, 22; SKS 4, 237 / PF, 30; see also SKS 5, 393
/ TD, 12. Correspondingly, such a leap is also to be found in the transition from existing to
not existing, namely, in “death” as the (final) transition from temporality to eternity, cf. SKS
Transition 189
in Philosophical Fragments, Climacus characterizes such a “transition from
possibility to actuality”36 as “the change of coming into existence.”37 the differentia
specifica of this change (κίνησις), as opposed to other types of alteration (ἀλλοίωσις),
consists in the fact that it is not the subject of the change that is changed—that is, its
essence—but its mode of being.38 in so distancing himself from the usual interpretation
of the transition from possibility to actuality as the actualization of a possibility,
Climacus exposes the very moment of discontinuity in the transition from not existing
to existing, given that this transition “takes place in freedom.”39 the new does not arise
simply by turning possibility into actuality, but because “possibility is annihilated by
actuality.”40
the backdrop for these considerations is Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with the
aristotelian doctrine of κίνησις, as it was transmitted to him via W.g. tennemann’s
history of philosophy.41 While taking reading notes on tennemann’s History of
Philosophy during the months between January and april 1843,42 Kierkegaard
realized that the transition that he was looking for―in critical opposition to the
“notion of mediation”43 and to every “dialectical transition” as hallmarks of Hegelian
philosophy—is accompanied, and indeed made possible, by “passion,” and is thus a
“pathos-laden transition,”44 which Kierkegaard considered to be equivalent to “the
qualitative transition of the leap.”45
in existence, all transitions are pathos-laden,46 namely, by the decisions that the
individual makes in passion about his existence in general, by virtue of his infinite
interest in his own existence.47 the so-called “motion” of “dialectical transitions” is
only apparent motion, since it concerns only essence, rather than being, and does not
4, 137 / FT, 42; SKS 11, 48 / WA, 44; SKS 21, 338, nb10:166 / KJN 5, 349; see also SKS 2,
379–80 / EO1, 392–3; SKS 3, 242 / EO2, 253; SKS 5, 461 / TD, 92; SKS 5, 464 / TD, 97; SKS
5, 466 / TD, 99; SKS 8, 85 / TA, 89; SKS 8, 102–3 / TA, 108–9; SKS 5, 455 / TD, 86.
36
SKS 7, 313 / CUP1, 342; cf. SKS 4, 25 / R, 149; SKS 15, 74 / R, supplement, 309–10;
Pap. V b 55:1; Pap. iV b 118:7; SKS 4, 273–5 / PF, 73–5; SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82; SKS 4, 385 /
CA, 82. on “the occasion” as “the essential category of transition from the sphere of the idea
to actuality,” see SKS 2, 231–2 / EO1, 238.
37
SKS 4, 273 / PF, 73.
38
Cf. SKS 4, 273–4 / PF, 73 and SKS 19, 395, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393.
39
SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75.
40
SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74.
41
Cf. SKS 19, 395, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393; SKS 19, 415, not13:50 / KJN 3, 413; SKS
19, 415, not13:50.a / KJN 3, 413; SKS 19, 420, not13:55 / KJN 3, 418; see also SKS 27, 270,
papir 278 / JP 5, 5601; SKS 19, 245, not8:50 / KJN 3, 23.
42
Wilhelm gottlieb tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, leipzig: J.a.
barth 1798–1819 (ASKB 815–826).
43
SKS 18, 125, HH:2 / KJN 2, 117.
44
Cf. SKS 19, 386, not13:8.a / KJN 3, 384, as well as the two entries SKS 19, 375,
not12:4 / KJN 3, 373 and SKS 19, 386, not13:8.c / KJN 3, 384, which likely arose at the same
time; compare also note 16 above.
45
SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 12; cf. SKS 19, 375, not12:4 / KJN 3, 373.
46
Cf. SKS 27, 408, papir 368:2.b / JP 1, 653 (no. 5).
47
Cf. SKS 27, 267, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 261.
change anything in actuality.48 the primus motor of authentic movement is pathos.
the pathos-laden transition is potentially available to every human being, because
it has to do with the will49 and not merely with the individual’s intellectual talents,
as is the case with the “dialectical transition” that takes place “with immanent
necessity.”50 the pathos-laden transition is thus the result of an active decision51 on
the part of the individual that does not come about “by itself,” but rather “re–sults”52
(literally, “jumps back”) from, and in, procedures of communication.
Kierkegaard’s examples of pathos-laden transitions not infrequently concern
the transition from ideality (the realm of thought) to reality (the realm of the will),
or they illustrate the ethical resolve with which a human being grasps an idea in
order to live by it. other noteworthy examples include (1) the characterization of
the transition from natural experience to pure understanding, which Kierkegaard
embarks on in opposition to rationalist metaphysics, as a consciously undertaken
transition desired in personal passion;53 (2) the transition between various “stages”54
or “spheres”55 of existence, whether this be the transition “from esthetics to ethics”56
or that “from ethics to religion”;57 (3) the “transition to Christianity”58 and to faith in
an eminent sense. “Faith is” the “pathos-laden transition (the leap).”59 Kierkegaard
emphasizes repeatedly, and untiringly, that there is no “direct and immediate
transition” to “becoming Christian,” “Christianity,” or “faith”;60 there is only “the
qualitative transition of the leap from unbeliever to believer.”61 the transition to
Christianity is “the transition whereby something historical and the relation to this
48
Cf. SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348.
49
Cf. SKS 19, 386, not13:8.a / KJN 3, 384; SKS 7, 80–1 / CUP1, 80–1.
50
see note 23 above.
51
Cf. SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; see also SKS 7, 313 / CUP1, 342–3.
52
Cf. SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221; see also
SKS 27, 338, papir 326:1 / JP 5, 5779; Pap. Vi b 13 / JP 5, 5787 (no. 7).
53
Cf. SKS 19, 386, not13:8.a / KJN 3, 384.
54
SKS 7, 262 / CUP1, 287.
55
SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476; cf. SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501.
56
SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; cf. SKS 19, 375, not12:4 / KJN 3, 373; SKS 22,
236, nb12:148 / KJN 6, 237; SKS 22, 315, nb13:68 / KJN 6, 317; SKS 21, 332, nb10:152 /
KJN 5, 343; SKS 3, 222 / EO2, 232.
57
SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; cf. SKS 7, 238 / CUP1, 262; Pap. Vii–2 b
241:7 / BA, supplement, 218; SKS 15, 256 / BA, 99; Pap. iX b 10, p. 310 / BA, supplement,
230; SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2350.
58
as we already see in SKS 17, 31, aa:13 / KJN 1, 25.
59
SKS 27, 408, papir 368:2.a / JP 1, 653 (emphasis mine).
60
SKS 12, 104–5 / PC, 96; SKS 7, 54 / CUP1, 49 and SKS 4, 291 / PF, 94 respectively;
see also SKS 10, 64 / CD, 54–5; SKS 11, 205–6 / SUD, 93–4; SKS 12, 143–4 / PC, 140–1; SKS
14, 174–5 / M, 44; Pap. Vi b 95; SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 / KJN 6, 36; SKS 23, 51, nb15:75 / JP
1, 73; SKS 24, 67, nb21:110 / JP 6, 6679; SKS 25, 491, nb30:135 / JP 1, 554; SKS 26, 182,
nb32:93; SKS 26, 290–4, nb33:50 / JP 2, 2080; SKS 27, 349, papir 340:1 / JP 3, 3628; Pap.
iX b 10, p. 310 / BA, supplement, 230 (“the leap into the religious”).
61
SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 12; cf. SKS 7, 332–3 / CUP1, 365–6; SKS 7, 347 / CUP1, 381; SKS
7, 350 / CUP1, 384; SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 / KJN 6, 36; Pap. iX b 10, p. 310 / BA, supplement,
230.
Transition 191
becomes decisive for an eternal happiness…a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος…a leap
for both the contemporary and the one who comes later.”62
see also actuality; being/becoming; existence/existential; Faith; god; immanence/

transcendence; leap; mediation/sublation; movement/motion; sin.
62
SKS 7, 96–7 / CUP1, 98; cf. Pap. Vi b 35:30; Pap. Vi b 95; SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 /
KJN 6, 36; SKS 27, 349, papir 340:1 / JP 3, 3628.
trial/test/tribulation
geoffrey dargan
Trial/Test/Tribulation (Anfægtelse—noun; Anfægtning—noun; anfægte—verb)
a cognate of the german Anfechtung, Anfægtelse is etymologically related to

the word “fight” (fægte). Defined as a feeling of doubt or concern, it can also
refer to an expression of suspicion regarding the validity or trustworthiness of
something.1 Kierkegaard employs the term as a depiction of spiritual trial,2 which
is to be distinguished from the test as an ordeal (Prøvelse). in the english edition,
Kierkegaard’s Writings, the Hongs explain that Anfægtelse, “in contrast to ‘temptation’
and in relation to ‘test,’ is the struggle and the anguish involved in venturing out
beyond one’s assumed capacities or generally approved expectations.”3 moreover,
they suggest, the word can be understood “both as ‘temptation’ [Fristelse] and in
the higher and stricter sense of ‘spiritual trial’ in which the ethical itself becomes a
temptation.”4
For Kierkegaard, temptation is fought by “avoiding” that which tempts, whereas
“one must go through” a spiritual trial.5 though the conditions in which both take
place are “deceptively similar,” temptation is “in accord with inclination,” while
“spiritual trial [is] contrary to inclination. therefore the opposite tactic must
be employed.”6 In other words, one must flee that which excites human craving,
and confront that which one does not crave. additionally, whereas temptation is
generally motivated from without, spiritual trial comes from within. it belongs “to
the inwardness of religiousness…to the individual’s absolute relation to the absolute
τέλος.”7 the individual’s position also differs: in temptation “it is the lower that
tempts; in spiritual trial it is the higher.”8 spiritual trial “lies a whole quality higher
1
2
molbech’s 1833 Dansk Ordbog describes an “attack” with figurative “weapons,”
which is a “challenge” or temptation by the devil. However, for Kierkegaard, the word comes
to refer to less of an attack by the devil and more as a trial given by god. Cf. Christian
molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen:
gyldendal 1833, vol. 1, pp. 36–7.
3
FT, 343 note 14.
4
CUP2, 185 note 3.
5
SKS 22, 194, nb12:94 / JP 4, 4023.
6
SKS 20, 119–20, nb:203 / JP 4, 4367.
7
Pap Vi b 60:2 / JP 1, 634.
8
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 459.
194 Geoffrey Dargan
than temptation” and “can be fought only with the rashness of faith, which charges
head-on.”9 Consequently, there is a difference of intensity: “one year of exposure to
temptation is nothing compared with one hour in spiritual trial.”10
on the other hand, there exists some consonance, at least in the ethical sphere,
between temptation and spiritual trial. in Either/Or, part two, Judge William
expresses confidence that a person with “the courage to transform the outer trial into
an inner trial has already virtually surmounted it, since by faith a transubstantiation
takes place even in the moment of suffering.”11 this is not to say that the trial becomes
easier; rather, internalization makes the trial more difficult. However, “precisely
therein [lie] the educative and idealizing aspects.”12 William correlates this trial to a
universal concept (marriage); thus, though for Kierkegaard the “transubstantiation”
will come to refer to spiritual trials in a broad sense, it seems clear the trial being
described here is that wherein a person struggles against a temptation to avoid ethical
responsibility.
most people initially avoid any spiritual trial. Vigilius Haufniensis opines, “the
most effective means of escaping spiritual trial…is to become spiritless, and the
sooner the better.”13 if one ignores a spiritual trial, eventually it will fade, simply
because one’s situation changes over time. this allows one to argue that the trial was
nothing more than a “piquant poetical fiction.”14 of course, new trials will present
themselves, but they may be subsequently ignored as well. the continual suppression
of spiritual trials on the part of the person leads to spiritlessness in which he or
she no longer recognizes any self-responsibility. if one matures, however, one will
become concerned with how one’s “better nature extricates itself from the tortures of
spiritual trials.”15 that is, one will attempt to live ethically in the midst of suffering.
Accordingly, says William, “I shall not fix my gaze upon the cup [of suffering] but
upon the one who hands it to me.”16 to focus on the other person rather than on my
own sufferings is, he thinks, “the way a person must ethically regard the struggle.”17
William knows better than to believe that an ethical life will be “easy or without
spiritual trials.”18 everyone faces these trials, and the way to become truly ethical is
to “incorporate the entire universal in [oneself].”19 this involves a struggle wherein
one must give up oneself to the universal. giving up oneself, in effect, lessens the
difficulty of the trial, because the universal comes to the rescue of the one undergoing
the trial. to refuse the universal is to commit an immoral act and remain in the trial.20
9
SKS 24, 254, nb23:93 / JP 4, 4378.
10
SKS 13, 48 / FSE, 19.
11
SKS 3, 124 / EO2, 124.
12
ibid.
13
SKS 4, 419 / CA, 117.
14
ibid.
15
SKS 3, 272 / EO2, 287.
16
ibid.
17
ibid.
18
SKS 3, 313 / EO2, 332.
19
ibid.
20
SKS 4, 148, 172 / FT, 54, 82.
Trial/Test/Tribulation 195
insofar as the person “feels an impulse to assert himself as the single individual,”21
he faces a spiritual trial that can only be overcome when he “repentantly surrender[s]
as the single individual in the universal.”22 returning to the universal is akin to
repenting from one’s sins before god. the only way to overcome this trial is to
disclose oneself to the universal and admit that one has erred in opposing it. as
Johannes de silentio describes the ethical task, the individual must “strip himself of
the qualification of interiority [and] express this in something external. Every time
the individual shrinks from it…he is immersed in spiritual trial.”23
the same must hold true, ethically, for abraham: “he must declare that his
situation is a spiritual trial…for he has no higher expression of the universal that
ranks above the universal he violates.”24 However, there is a dilemma. de silentio
wonders, “the person who gives up the universal in order to grasp something even
higher that is not the universal—what does he do? is it possible that this can be
anything other than a spiritual trial?”25 in other words, if abraham submits to the
universal, he does not genuinely face his spiritual trial because he senses profoundly
that his situation is different. if he chooses to ignore this possibility, he will never
know whether or not there was, in fact, anything to overcome. but, if he does not
return to the universal, then he will forever be caught in another (ethical) trial. thus,
either way he faces a spiritual trial.26 abraham, we are told, is “almost shocked at the
thought that for him such wishes constitute a spiritual trial,”27 yet this is precisely the
double bind in which he finds himself.
in a draft version of Fear and Trembling, Johannes de silentio wonders whether
it would have been “more burdensome if abraham had had something for which
to reproach himself.”28 in other words, he wonders whether a trial brought on by
recognition of sin (that is, an ethical trial) would be worse than the trial brought
on by the test of his faith. He concludes that “abraham’s ordeal [Prøvelse] was
the most difficult, because…that one who has called down wrath upon himself is
not tried but is punished.”29 He admits that the two trials are “of equal degree or of
the same intensity.”30 What makes Abraham’s trial more difficult is that he has no
way rationally to assess his suffering. punishment for sin can be a valid reason for
suffering, but abraham has nothing other than the belief that god has commanded
him to act in such a way that it produces suffering. and yet, abraham passes through
the trial without returning to the universal. How does abraham accomplish this?
His only option is, by faith, to embrace the paradox.
21
SKS 4, 148 / FT, 54.
22
ibid.
23
SKS 4, 161 / FT, 69.
24
SKS 4, 153 / FT, 60.
25
SKS 4, 154 / FT, 60.
26
SKS 4, 162 / FT, 70.
27
SKS 4, 168 / FT, 76.
28
Pap iV b 66 / FT, supplement, 247.
29
ibid. it is intriguing that Johannes de silentio uses the term Prøvelse at this point to
describe what is clearly for abraham a spiritual trial.
30
ibid.
196 Geoffrey Dargan
the paradox has nothing to do with the trial, ethically speaking. though de
silentio admits that the paradox can be easily confused with a trial, he points out
the characteristics “whereby the paradox can be distinguished from a spiritual
trial.”31 First, the paradox is the absurd.32 second, the paradox cannot be mediated;
no one can experience the paradox on behalf of another. if abraham were to try
to relate his experience of the paradox to someone else, he would either have to
“confess that he was in a spiritual trial…or…in repentance he must come back to
the universal.”33 Abraham’s situation is thus doubly difficult: he faces not only a
spiritual trial brought on by the ethical,34 but also a spiritual trial brought on by the
paradox. the trial brought on by the ethical differs from the higher form of trial
found in the paradox. “the true knight of faith,” says de silentio, endures “solitary
spiritual trials” from which “he dares not flee.”35 at any point, abraham can return
to the universal: “he can repent of the whole thing as a spiritual trial…but then he is
no longer abraham.”36
We have moved, then, from an ethical trial to a religious trial.37 the religious trial
comes from the paradox, or god, and though it displays the same structure as the
ethical trial, it signifies that one is “being educated or brought up to faith.”38 What are
the marks of this trial? First, every Christian will face such a trial.39 it is “the most
extreme spiritual strenuousness in the Christian life”40 and should be understood as
a “specifically Christian category.”41 Johannes Climacus tells us that spiritual trial
can only be defined in the category of “religious suffering” and “begins only in the
sphere of the religious proper.”42 “in the sphere of the relationship with god,” he
states, “it is what temptation is in the sphere of the ethical relation.”43 so, whereas
temptation is the greatest danger for the ethical person, spiritual trial is the greatest
danger for the religious person. For Climacus, it resides at the boundary in which
the individual “succeeds in practicing the absolute relation through the renunciation
of relative ends…spiritual trial then becomes the expression for the boundary.”44
31
SKS 4, 150 / FT, 56.
32
ibid.
33
SKS 4, 150 / FT, 56–7.
34
de silentio says that the knight of faith is “constantly being tested [prøves], and at
every moment there is the possibility of his returning penitently to the universal, and this
possibility may be a spiritual trial [Anfægtelse] as well as the truth” (SKS 4, 169 / FT, 78).
35
SKS 4, 170–1 / FT, 79–80.
36
SKS 4, 202 / FT, 115.
37
Kierkegaard clearly has a conception of spiritual trial that includes different types;
thus, he says in The Concept of Irony, “irony, just as any position in life, has its spiritual trials
[Anfægtelser], its battles, its retreats, its victories” (SKS 1, 214 / CI, 166). He also specifically
mentions religious spiritual trial in SKS 23, 176, nb17:17 / JP 4, 4377.
38
SKS 23, 110, nb16:25 / JP 2, 1401.
39
SKS 5, 91 / EUD, 84.
40
SKS 26, 99, nb33:53 / JP 2, 1447.
41
SKS 12, 117 / PC, 109.
42
SKS 7, 416 / CUP1, 458.
43
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 459.
44
ibid.
in other words, the religious spiritual trial, as de silentio also recognizes, is the
struggle against the paradox.
it is not, however, as a religious believer might initially suppose, a temptation
from the devil. Kierkegaard acknowledges his debt to luther, but says that luther’s
ascription of Anfechtung to satan is “more childish than true.”45 this trial comes from
the divine itself; it is the “hair shirt of sufferings that the exception must wear,” not
out of enjoyment, but out of necessity.46 neither is the trial a result of transgression;
the person is not being tried for his or her sins.47 religious spiritual trial is a test
brought upon the person by god. Kierkegaard writes, “the thought that god tests
[prøver], yes, tempts [frister] a man…must not horrify us. the way one looks upon
it makes the crucial difference.”48 disbelief, he says, leads only to anxiety, and the
believer must accept that god provides the spiritual trial “in order that [the person]
shall meet the test.”49 Clearly, the test will not be easy. one must face the religious
trial alone.50 the individual facing the trial is “by god or because of god imprisoned
within himself.”51
as mentioned above, the primary response to spiritual trials is to avoid them.
this is particularly a danger in the religious sphere. For Kierkegaard, a Christian
who claims not to have spiritual trials is, quite simply, not committed to his or
her faith.52 Christians ought to expect trials, precisely because they are following
Christ’s example.53 Consequently, “when spiritual trials disappear, Christianity
disappears.”54 Climacus echoes these statements, saying that “spiritual trial is
the response to the absolute expression of the absolute relation.”55 in contrast to
temptation, which “attacks the individual in his weak moments,” the trial attacks, as
it were, “the intense moments in the absolute relation.”56 in other words, a religious
trial will express itself right at the point where faith is most necessary. in fact, the
trial “increases in proportion to the religiousness.”57 this echoes our assessment that
spiritual trial is at a higher level than temptation and involves a more intense kind
of suffering.
45
SKS 21, 210, nb9:22 / JP 4, 4372.
46
SKS 6, 169 / SLW, 182.
47
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 459: “the individual is certainly innocent in spiritual trial.”
48
SKS 23, 110, nb16:25 / JP 2, 1401.
49
ibid. emphasis in the original.
50
SKS 13, 48 / FSE, 19. likewise, de silentio tells us that the knight of faith is solitary
and cannot be understood by anyone.
51
SKS 13, 48 / FSE, 20.
52
SKS 20, 104, nb:159 / JP 4, 4365; SKS 20, 113, nb:187 / JP 2, 1354.
53
SKS 12, 117–18 / PC, 109.
54
SKS 23, 250, nb17:111 / JP 4, 4950. as Kierkegaard states elsewhere in his journals,
“life is just not lived religiously; this can be proved indirectly by the disappearance of
spiritual trial” (SKS 21, 209, nb9:22 / JP 4, 4372).
55
SKS 7, 417 / CUP1, 459.
56
ibid.
57
ibid.
198 Geoffrey Dargan
A religious trial may stem from a deep feeling of “infinite unworthiness” before
god, which pressures the believer to turn back.58 trials also come when we attempt
to demonstrate god’s existence. Climacus asks, “What are the god’s works? the
works from which i want to demonstrate his existence do not immediately and
directly exist….do we not encounter the most terrible spiritual trials here?”59
Why must there be such trials? because, as Climacus explains, once i try to prove
god empirically or rationally, i become “obliged continually to live in suspenso
lest something so terrible happen that my fragment of demonstration would be
ruined.”60 When inquiring about the truth of Christianity, the individual must either
be already convinced by faith or is “objectively in a relationship of observation and
as such is not infinitely interested in deciding the question.”61 Faith is “precisely the
infinite interest in Christianity,” and “any other interest easily becomes a temptation
[Anfægtelse].”62
one should not assume that religious activity will prevent spiritual trial. in fact,
because trials increase in proportion to religiousness, the person who attends church
and prays regularly will probably have the most intense trials. this person, says
Kierkegaard, no matter how difficult the trial may be, “will struggle and listen.”63
unfortunately, no matter how much they struggle and listen, they cannot escape
the trial. Climacus suggests that such trials are misunderstood due to the fact that
churches do not address them. instead, pastors offer “the kind of pious address
in which everything is rounded off by having the absolute τελος exhaust itself
in relative ends.”64 that is, ethical action becomes the benchmark for Christian
behavior, rather than faith in god. this attempt to resolve the dilemma may actually
result in the opposite of the intended effect. Climacus asks: “What, i wonder, would
he [the one experiencing the trial] think of the Christian-religious address he was
accustomed to hearing?”65 He concludes that such a person will likely decide that
the Christian message is nothing more than a delusion, since it fails to provide any
means for overcoming the trial.
many Christians, having found themselves in a religious trial, are told that either
they have sinned or that they can overcome the test of their faith through certain
behaviors and activities. but inevitably these attempts all fail and the trial remains.
as Kierkegaard explains in Works of Love, “the worldly always needs decisions
in the external sphere.”66 but whereas the world seeks to analyze empirical data in
order to determine, for example, god’s existence, the lack of evidence is “precisely
the spiritual trial in which faith is tested.”67 We must also be careful not to confuse the
religious trial with the demonic. Haufniensis warns that “in the religious sphere the
58
SKS 21, 105, nb7:59 / JP 2, 2008.
59
SKS 4, 247 / PF, 42.
60
ibid.
61
SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 21.
62
ibid.
63
SKS 27, 335, papir 323:2 / JP 3, 3467.
64
SKS 7, 418 / CUP1, 460.
65
ibid.
66
SKS 9, 147 / WL, 145.
67
SKS 9, 147 / WL, 146.
demonic may have a deceptive resemblance to a spiritual trial [Anfægtelse]. Which
it is can never be determined in abstracto.”68 take, for example, a Christian who
becomes anxious about going to Communion. the demonic will attempt to escape
anxiety over the validity of the sacrament by means of rationalization. Conversely,
the person who faces the spiritual trial “wants to go on to that from which the
spiritual trial would keep him away.”69 thus, the demonic represents “unfreedom” or
that which seeks to be safely within necessity, while the spiritual trial, paradoxically,
is freedom.70
a further religious trial takes place when a person “in the strictest sense sins
against his will.”71 this person has “sinful thoughts which he…does everything to
avoid, but they still come.”72 this, says Kierkegaard, “is a special kind of spiritual
trial” which he compares to the Apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”73 this trial is
“excruciating” and “dialectically complicated almost to the point of madness.”74
Kierkegaard calls it an “educational torture” for the teleological purpose of breaking
“all self-centered willfulness.”75 again, the one undergoing the trial is not guilty:
“He himself does not, as in sin, deliberately provoke these thoughts; it is just the
opposite, these thoughts plague him.”76 the most extreme form involves a situation
wherein one feels completely abandoned by god—and in fact Kierkegaard suggests
that, to some extent, one is abandoned by god—in the “last spiritual trial.”77 this is
most vividly expressed in Jesus’ cry on the cross: “my god, my god, why have you
forsaken me?”78 Kierkegaard says it is impossible for human beings to comprehend
this cry. but we sense something of what Jesus felt in our own experience of
abandonment, which is “freedom’s ultimate spiritual trial.”79
is there any hope for those facing such trials? Kierkegaard believes there is,
and, in his edifying discourses, provides descriptions of this hope and advice on
how one might pass through the trial. The first step is simply to admit that such
trials face all Christians. in the 1844 discourse “the thorn in the Flesh” we read:
“no one enters the kingdom of heaven without suffering. Just to be reminded of it is
instructive.”80 Kierkegaard asks us to consider a person in the midst of an extreme
religious trial. it may weaken that person’s “inner being” to such an extent that he
or she concludes that they have become “a child of wrath.”81 such a one may, in
68
SKS 4, 443 / CA, 143.
69
ibid.
70
ibid.
71
SKS 21, 113, nb7:74 / JP 4, 4368.
72
ibid.
73
SKS 21, 114, nb7:75 / JP 4, 4370. see 2 Corinthians 12:7.
74
ibid.
75
ibid.
76
ibid.
77
SKS 25, 151, nb27:38 / JP 4, 4699. Christ, however, experienced complete
abandonment by god, which is why his trial was so much more extreme than our trials.
78
matthew 27:46.
79
SKS 20, 333, nb4:95 / JP 4, 4611.
80
SKS 5, 321 / EUD, 331.
81
SKS 5, 103 / EUD, 98.
200 Geoffrey Dargan
despair, rebel and say: “god himself…plunged [me] down into damnation.”82 but if,
instead, the person in a spiritual trial does not “relinquish the concern,” but instead
“wait[s] for an explanation,” that person will discover this: “the time of testing can
certainly become very long, [but] god can make up for everything because to him
one day is as a thousand years.”83 so, the person’s inner being is strengthened by the
encouragement of faith, and the trial becomes “a confidant, a friend in disguise.”84
though one cannot understand how to make sense of such a situation rationally,
one must remain religiously engaged—and one will find that the spiritual trial is
not only from god, it is a gift from god: “For him the spiritual trial served as a
strengthening…he learned the most beautiful thing of all, the most blessed—that
god loved him, because the one god tests he loves.”85 thus, hope in the midst
of spiritual trial is found in the recognition that strength comes from suffering.
Kierkegaard writes, “the world cannot take away such hope, because it is acquired
in tribulation and becomes strong through tribulation.”86 moreover, in the midst
of the trial, one of the most valuable tools is patience. in the discourse “to need
god is a Human being’s Highest perfection,” Kierkegaard describes the trial as a
“maelstrom” which appears to be “more terrible than death.”87 in such a situation,
the person must “confide” in God and patiently “[fight] through the terrors,”88 until
he or she finds calm in trusting God. Patience has the power to “preserve the soul.”89
of course, this does not mean the person’s life will necessarily be easier. one’s
circumstances may still be crushingly bleak and terrifying. but the one dealing
with a spiritual trial does not run from suffering, because “as he turns to flee he
sees…an even greater horror behind him.”90 this horror is the trial itself, and it is “a
formidable disciplinarian who can give courage.”91 One is no longer terrified by one’s
circumstances because the spiritual trial is, ironically, more terrifying; one becomes
less afraid of the situation and more afraid, so to speak, “of god.”92 Kierkegaard
reminds us again and again that we must not “despair of the possibility of salvation,
not abandon god.”93 even when experiencing the most extreme spiritual trial, the
Christian must, in faith, accept that the situation is from god, and humbly submit to
the reality that “Christ is given to him to console him as he bears this cross.”94
82
ibid.
83
ibid.
84
ibid.
85
SKS 5, 103–4 / EUD, 98.
86
SKS 5, 101 / EUD, 95.
87
SKS 5, 314 / EUD, 323–4.
88
ibid.
89
see the 1844 discourse “to preserve one’s soul in patience” (SKS 5, 185–205 / EUD,
181–203).
90
SKS 13, 48 / FSE, 20.
91
SKS 13, 49 / FSE, 20.
92
ibid.
93
SKS 21, 116, nb7:75 / JP 4, 4370.
94
SKS 21, 113, nb7:74 / JP 4, 4368.
Finally, one must never assume that one’s own experience of spiritual trial
warrants complaint due to its incommunicability.95 in the discourse, “the High
priest,” a complainant suggests that the trial would only be understood if another
were “in his place.”96 Kierkegaard reminds us, however, that there is one who has
been in our place, and it is “the lord Jesus Christ.”97 so, no one should claim that
they are not understood, because there is one who understands our sufferings,
although we can never understand the extent of his. after all, “surely no human
being has experienced that spiritual trial, the spiritual trial of being abandoned by
god—but he was tempted in that way.”98 This is the final hope, that Christ endured
sufferings far more intense than ours, and that his suffering as the god-man affects
the possibility of forgiveness and restoration, something that we cannot achieve for
ourselves. it is this hope, and nothing else, which makes possible the traversing of
the religious spiritual trial: “when in spiritual trial the one…doubts whether his sins
also are forgiven, he will surely find comfort in hearing, as it were, Christ say to him:
Just believe it; i have laid down my life in order to gain for you the forgiveness of
your sins…a stronger assurance is impossible.”99
see also Confession; demonic; edifying discourses/deliberations/sermons; god;

grace; martyrdom/persecution; offense; repentance; sin; temptation.
95
SKS 11, 256 / WA, 120.
96
SKS 11, 255 / WA, 119.
97
SKS 11, 256 / WA, 120.
98
SKS 11, 257 / WA, 121.
99
SKS 12, 272 / WA, 159.
truth
Jamie turnbull
Truth (Sandhed—noun; sand—adjective)
From the old norse sannr, the danish term sand refers to the property or relation
of being true. this is used especially in relation to utterances and more generally as
an expression signifying that something actually is what it is said to be or has the
correct or proper character.1
the concept of truth is one of the most central concepts, if not the most
central concept, in Kierkegaard’s thought. in this entry i will chart some of the
major treatments of the subject of truth in Kierkegaard’s writings and in doing so
attempt to give the reader a sense of the interconnected or, indeed, unified nature of
Kierkegaard’s reflections on this concept. While, prima facie, these treatments might
seem to contain different concepts of truth, they are united by a common motivation
and agenda. put otherwise, these different treatments concern the same concept of
truth, even if they stress different facets of it. the main question regarding truth, for
Kierkegaard, is whether it is the province of man or god: whether human beings are
capable of determining the truth about their own nature or are dependent upon god
to reveal that truth to them.
the subject of truth is a pervasive theme within Kierkegaard’s writings, but
its most extended treatments occur in those attributed to the pseudonym Johannes
Climacus, namely, the Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript. Significant remarks on truth can also be found in the later, and more
explicitly theological, considerations of Practice in Christianity. these apparently
different treatments have a common focus and concern, namely, to ensure that the
figure of Christ remains integral to the unique relationship between Christian believer
and transcendent god (a relation of faith and grace), and to our understanding of
what constitutes truth for human beings.
Kierkegaard’s reflections on truth take place against the backdrop of a position
that the texts themselves identify as “the scientific—scholarly endeavor” and
“speculative thought.”2 the motivating context of Kierkegaard’s ideas about truth
is the attempt of speculative theologians to apply a Hegelian logic of mediation to
Christian theology. if the truth of Christianity could be arrived at by means of human
1
2
SKS 4, 3 / PF, 5; SKS 7, 9 / CUP1, 5. Cf. SKS 12, 128 / PC, 123.
204 Jamie Turnbull
reason alone, then in principle it could be obtained independently of any role for
Christ as transcendent god and unique locus of Christian truth.
“Can the truth be learned?” So begins the first chapter of Philosophical
Fragments.3 in response to this question the Fragments develops two different,
indeed supposedly mutually exclusive, answers, in the form of socratic and non-
socratic hypotheses. the socratic hypothesis holds that truth is immanent, or latent
within, human nature, and that it is within the cognitive capacities of human beings
to discern the truth about their own natures.4 as the opening chapter of the Fragments
explains, from this supposition it follows that numerous relations surrounding the
truth in question must be held to be arbitrary. For if truth is inherent in human nature,
so the argument goes, then the nature of what is taught (as well as the relations
between the teacher and the truth, what is taught and the learner, and the teacher and
learner), must be contingent.
if the socratic hypothesis holds, then the truth i learn, and the teacher who brings
it, are both merely accidental. the fact that socrates calls this truth to mind, as
opposed to a maidservant, is of no significance.5
by contrast, the non-socratic hypothesis assumes that truth is not latent within
human nature but brought to human beings from the outside by a transcendent god.6
according to this view, human beings are not naturally constituted to have access to
the truth, but are in a state of “untruth” (sin).7 the non-socratic hypothesis differs
from the socratic in that the nature of what is taught (as well as the relations between
the teacher and the truth, what is taught and the learner, and the teacher and learner),
turns out not to be arbitrary and contingent but necessary (and eternal).
in terms of the non-socratic hypothesis, the truth can only be brought by a
transcendent god. similarly, in this case, the relationship between what is taught and
the learner, and the teacher and the learner, become matters of necessity. moreover,
the non-socratic hypothesis, if true, would have profound consequences for human
beings. For by entering into a relationship with such a truth (the god-relationship),
a human being is thought to gain a new nature.8
What, one might ask, is the purpose of outlining these two theories concerning
the relationship of human beings to the truth? As Kierkegaard later tells us, the figure
of socrates and his hypothesis are used in the Fragments to stand as proxy for the
Hegelian, or speculative, philosophical position.9 the purpose of the Fragments in
this respect might be said to be to reveal that Hegelian theology, in sharing common
pelagian assumptions with socrates, cannot be correct in its claim to be a Christian
philosophy. the aim is rather to reveal that speculative, Hegelian, theology and a
more supernatural conception of Christian doctrine must be taken to be mutually
exclusive. indeed the point of the Fragments would seem to be that the concepts of
3
SKS 4, 9 / PF, 9.
4
SKS 4, 9, 15 / PF, 9, 13.
5
SKS 4, 13 / PF, 12.
6
SKS 4, 18 / PF, 15.
7
SKS 4, 16 / PF, 14.
8
SKS 4, 23–5 / PF, 18–19.
9
SKS 7, 188 / CUP1, 206.
Truth 205
Christian doctrine (savior, rebirth, etc.), and indeed Christian truth per se, can only
be accounted for by assuming the negation of a speculative and Hegelian theological
position.10
that the Concluding Unscientific Postscript is also concerned with the truth of
Christianity is indicated by the titles of its two parts: “the objective issue of the truth
of Christianity” and “the subjective issue, the subjective individual’s relation to
the truth of Christianity, or becoming a Christian.”11 in this text, Kierkegaard is
once again concerned with the attempt of speculative, Hegelian, thought to apply a
logic of mediation to Christian dogmatics. the Hegelian assumes that the life of the
Christian subject can be thought to be continuous, or identical, with the existence of
human beings qua natural and social creatures. this Hegelian theology presupposes
that human beings can discern the truth of their theological natures, as well as
identify it with (and by means of) what is true of their existence as human beings
per se. The consequence of such an identification would, Kierkegaard thinks, be
a conception of Christianity as fundamentally indistinguishable from paganism in
anything but name.12
the problem with applying a Hegelian logic of mediation to Christianity, for
Kierkegaard, is that it misrepresents both our theological predicament and the
solution to that predicament. For rather than portraying us as separated from the
truth and subject to a nature corrupted by sin (including the corruption of our
cognitive capacities), Hegelianism presents us as both in a continuous relation to
divine truth and able to discern it by means of reason. moreover, Hegelianism does
not portray the truth of Christianity as lying in a response to the absolute paradox of
the incarnation, and the subsequent relationship to a transcendent god by means of
faith and grace. according to Kierkegaard, the relation of humanity and divinity is
represented, or rather misrepresented, as a tautological predicate of human nature as
such. The result of this, again, for Kierkegaard is that divinity is made superfluous to
Christianity, which in turn is reduced to an entirely human and social phenomenon.13
against this, of course, Kierkegaard contends that the truth of Christianity is
not to be understood in terms of objectivity, but is rather to be identified by means
of inwardness or subjectivity. The truth of Christianity cannot be identified with
the conceptual contents of Christian doctrine (the “what” of Christian belief), and
so is not a matter of the operations that might be performed upon that doctrine by
Hegelian logicians. if Christianity cannot be accounted for in terms of its conceptual
contents, then it cannot be translated into a system of philosophy or natural theology.
The truth of Christianity is located rather in “the passion of the infinite” (the “how”
of Christian belief).14 the latter, for Kierkegaard, serves as the fundamental feature
of ethical and religious knowledge.15
10
SKS 4, 21–2 / PF, 17.
11
SKS 7, 27, 63 / CUP1, 19, 59.
12
SKS 7, 173–5, 335 / CUP1, 189–90, 368.
13
SKS 7, 54–6 / CUP1, 50–1.
14
SKS 7, 186, 182 / CUP1, 203, 199.
15
SKS 7, 180–1 / CUP1, 197–8.
206 Jamie Turnbull
Kierkegaard takes pains to elaborate on the distinction between subjective and
objective truth at the end of the Postscript, where he makes clear that the essence,
or truth, of Christianity is located neither in objectivity, nor a subjectivity of pathos
in general, but in “baptism” (that is, “the witness of the spirit,” the experience of
god’s divine love alive in the Christian believer).16 it is this passion, or love, that
connects subject and object, humanity and divinity, and the natural and Christian
natures of human beings. the essence and truth of Christianity, for Kierkegaard, is
not to be found in the cognitive and philosophical natures of human beings, but in
the experience of divine love.17
the same focus can also be discerned in the remarks on truth in Practice in
Christianity. in accord with the overall focus of that book—what it is to relate to
Christ in his humanity and in his divinity—Christ is presented as the truth in at
least two different senses. Christ is the truth in the sense of the ideal prototype of
the ethical and religious life for human beings, as well as the unique and individual
means by which human beings can fulfill their own theological natures.18 Kierkegaard
is clear that human beings cannot come to acquire Christian truth simply by being
acculturated to a Christian society but must come to stand in a unique and individual
relationship to a transcendent god (a relation that can obtain only via responding to
the absolutely paradoxical, and essentially offensive, figure of Christ).19
Kierkegaard stresses that the relation between Christ and the truth of Christianity
is essential and necessary. in doing so Kierkegaard compares the relation of Christ
to the Christian truth to the relation between gunpowder and its inventor.20 once
gunpowder was invented, Kierkegaard reasons, both the process of its invention
(the way) and the person who invented it became, in a sense, accidental to it. For
now others can begin to make gunpowder without having to recreate its process of
invention, and without having to know the identity of the inventor. if the truth that
Christ brought were analogous to the invention of gunpowder, Kierkegaard explains,
then it would have been entirely appropriate for the generation to take over that truth
as a matter of course.21
However, for Kierkegaard, the relation between Christ and the truth of
Christianity is not arbitrary, as in the manner of the relation between gunpowder
and its inventor, but necessary. if the truth Christ brought were merely an objective
result, formulated in a set of concepts or doctrines, which could then be passed on to
later generations (like the recipe for gunpowder), then Christ’s relation to the truth
would be contingent. However, far from being accidental to the truth of Christianity,
Christ “is indeed the truth.”22 in the case of Christ it makes no sense to conceive of
the truth as something in principle separable from, and so over and above, Christ
himself. Christ is identical with the Christian truth, the embodiment of it. it is in this
16
SKS 7, 554 / CUP1, 609–10.
17
SKS 7, 180 / CUP1, 197.
18
SKS 12, 233 / PC, 239.
19
SKS 12, 200 / PC, 203.
20
SKS 12, 204–5 / PC, 207–8.
21
SKS 12, 206 / PC, 210.
22
SKS 12, 157 / PC, 154 (my emphasis). Cf. SKS 12, 200–1 / PC, 203–4.
Truth 207
respect that “truth in the sense in which Christ is the truth is not a sum of statements,
not a definition etc., but a life.”23
it is this life, the Christian life, for which Christ is “the way.”24 Christ is the
unique and individual means by which human beings can fulfill their theological
natures. For in responding to the absolutely paradoxical figure of Christ, by
following his example, the individual comes to stand in an existential relationship to
the transcendent god, and so begins to exist as a Christian. Here, as in the Postscript,
the definitive feature of Christianity is life in Christ, or Christ alive in the Christian
believer (“the witness of the spirit”).25 it is in this respect that “the being of truth is
the redoubling of truth within yourself, within me, within him, that your life, my
life, his life, expresses the truth…just as the truth was in Christ a life, for he was
the truth.”26 Christian truth is the reduplication of the life that Christ makes possible
within each believing Christian. this is a truth that can only obtain between each
individual Christian believer and god, and so cannot be generalized or universalized
to the natural and social nature of human beings per se.
the central role of the concept of truth in Kierkegaard’s thought should now
be apparent. it is by means of his analysis of truth that Kierkegaard endeavors to
ensure that Christian truth is clearly distinguished from attempts to assimilate it to
a holistic system of logical (and, he thinks, relativizing) relations. by identifying
Christian truth with subjectivity and inwardness, Kierkegaard seeks to ensure that
truth remains the province of god.
see also archimedean point; being/beginning; Contingency/possibility; Contradiction;

existence/existential; immanence/transcendence; logic; moment; objectivity/
subjectivity; paradox; reason.
23
SKS 12, 208 / PC, 205.
24
SKS 12, 205 / PC, 208.
25
SKS 7, 554 / CUP1, 610.
26
SKS 12, 208 / PC, 205.
understanding/Comprehension
matthew brake and William mcdonald
Understanding/Comprehension (Forstaaelse—noun; Forstand—noun; forstaae—

verb)
the word Forstaaelse is derived from the old danish forstande, which is borrowed
from the middle low german vorstan, from the old saxon farstandan. it is cognate
with the english word “understanding,” which was originally the act of standing
under something in order to observe it.1 by extension, it is the act, relation or condition
of comprehending the meaning of a thing, like a book or natural phenomenon.
it can also have the connotation of sympathizing with a person, or harmonizing, as
between different political entities. to have an understanding with someone may be
to be in complicity or cahoots,2 or, more positively, to be on the same wavelength.
Forstand is an older new danish word, which is derived from the middle low
german vorstant and corresponds to the modern german Verstand. its primary
meaning is the ability to understand or to think and may be contrasted with madness
(through losing one’s Forstand).3 the word Forstand, however, can also mean
“sense” in certain phrases, such as “in an even deeper sense [Forstand],”4 and this
is how Kierkegaard uses it in the vast majority of cases. However, when it is used
with the definite article (Forstanden), it often refers to the understanding as a faculty
of mind. although other terms, such as Erkendelse and Opfattelse, can be used as
synonyms for Forstaaelse and Forstanden, this study will focus on Kierkegaard’s
usage of the latter two terms and their grammatical variants.
Kierkegaard frequently uses the term Forstaaelse and its grammatical variants
throughout his writings. it occurs most often in the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript, followed by Stages on Life’s Way. among the published works the
next most frequent occurrences are in the early upbuilding discourses, followed
by Either/Or. Forstand occurs most frequently in the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript followed closely by Stages on Life’s Way, Philosophical Fragments, and
the early upbuilding discourses. this article will concentrate on Kierkegaard’s use
of the term in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Philosophical Fragments,
and The Sickness unto Death, along with supplementary passages from For Self-
1
2
3
ibid., columns 889–93.
4
SKS 1, 53 / EPW, 98.
210 Matthew Brake and William McDonald
Examination, Judge for Yourself!, Fear and Trembling, and Works of Love. these
works bring out quite adequately Kierkegaard’s concept of the understanding, its
history in the greek world, and its relationship with divine revelation.
We will begin by discussing Kierkegaard’s conceptual delineation of the
understanding, then Anti-Climacus’ definition of Socratic understanding, which
holds that right understanding requires action. We will then contrast the socratic
understanding of sin’s cause, comparing it with the Christian understanding.
Finally, we will present Kierkegaard’s view of the relationship between faith and
understanding.
I. Kierkegaard’s Conceptual Delineation of the Understanding
For immanuel Kant, the understanding (Verstand) is a cognitive faculty, whose

function is to marshal intelligible content under concepts, which in turn are taken
to be general representations that express logical forms. the other basic cognitive
faculty according to Kant is sensibility (Sinnlichkeit), which delivers intuitions, sense
perceptions, and mental imagery to consciousness. both faculties are subordinated
to reason (Vernunft), which processes the content delivered by the understanding and
sensibility into coherent, logical inferences and discursively consistent sequences and
makes practical decisions or moral choices with respect to this content. the exercise
of reason, for Kant, is based on principles or laws. in addition, both the understanding
and sensibility are served by the faculty of imagination (Einbildungskraft), which
mediates between them by containing elements of both. Finally, Kant regards
the power of judgment (Urteilskraft) as the function of mind that coordinates the
understanding, sensibility, and reason to produce a single cognitive product, while
rational self-consciousness has the executive function of producing these judgments.
While Kierkegaard was fully cognizant of Kant’s faculty theory of mind, he did
not distinguish systematically between the understanding (Forstand) and reason
(Fornuft). rather, he assimilated both to the limits imposed by their immanence
to human beings. nor did Kierkegaard posit the same relationship between the
understanding and imagination as Kant did. in The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard
criticizes Friedrich schlegel’s Lucinde for “letting fantasy alone prevail” since
“[w]hen fantasy alone gains the upper hand in this way, it exhausts and anesthetizes
the soul, robs it of all moral tension, makes life a dream.”5 While Kierkegaard
places a very high value on the imagination (Indbildning, Phantasie), which he
describes as “the capacity instar omnium [for all capacities],”6 he thinks it should
be subordinated to ethical-religious purposes. imagination ultimately serves faith
rather than reason or rational self-consciousness and so is inherently practical rather
than cognitive. despite his rebuke of schlegel, which could be read as an implicitly
Kantian critique, Kierkegaard (under the pseudonym anti-Climacus) also disagrees
with Kant’s view of the relationship between imagination and the understanding and
5
SKS 1, 326n / CI, 292n.
6
SKS 11, 147 / SUD, 31.
Understanding/Comprehension 211
with Kant’s view of the relationship between the imagination and the self or rational
self-consciousness:
Imagination is infinitizing reflection, and therefore the elder Fichte quite correctly
assumed that even in relation to knowledge the categories derive from the imagination.
The self is reflection, and the imagination is reflection, is the rendition of the self as the
self’s possibility. The imagination is the possibility of any and all reflection….7
in Either/Or, part one, the aesthete contrasts the understanding with feelings. He
asserts that “[w]hen two people fall in love with each other and sense that they are
destined for each other, it is a question of having the courage to break it off, for by
continuing there is only everything to lose, nothing to gain. it seems to be a paradox,
and indeed it is, for the feelings, not for the understanding.”8 We might note the irony
here, that the understanding is credited with greater powers of discernment than the
feelings in matters of love, especially in light of the epigram for the whole of Either/
Or, part one: “is reason then alone baptized, are the passions pagans?”9
this contrast of the understanding with both feelings and imagination
underscores a conception of the understanding as primarily cognitive. the aesthete
conceives the understanding as operating in a “calm, cold light,”10 as does Judge
William.11 moreover, Constantin Constantius implies that the understanding is
concerned with truth, when he says that a “somewhat true classification cannot
satisfy the understanding.”12 but this is in the “worldly” sense of “truth.” When
Christianity defines sin as “untruth” the relationship between the understanding and
truth is inverted, so that those who remain satisfied with a worldly understanding
of truth are actually in untruth. as a result, the understanding can only take offense
at the paradox and cannot even grasp that the paradox originates outside of human
understanding.13 only faith, which is a passion,14 can grasp the paradox, not in the
mode of cognitive understanding, but as a practical act on which it can base an
ethical-religious life.
in Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus draws attention to socrates’
conception of understanding as having this practical, ethical dimension. While
Kierkegaard ultimately wants to retain this aspect of socratic understanding, he also
wants to show how socratic understanding differs from Christian understanding,
which is radically informed by the notion of sin.
7
ibid.
8
SKS 2, 286 / EO1, 298.
9
SKS 2, 9 / EO1, 1.
10
SKS 2, 375 / EO1, 387.
11
SKS 3, 255 / EO2, 268. note that here the Hongs translate Forstandens as “of…
common sense.”
12
SKS 4, 37 / R, 162.
13
SKS 4, 256 / PF, 52–3.
14
Cf. SKS 4, 261 / PF, 59.
II. Socratic Understanding as Practical Reason
For socrates, right understanding is ethical understanding, which has practical

consequences; it does not stop at abstract rational cognition. right understanding
leads to right action, whereas wrong action implies lack of understanding.15 anti-
Climacus states, “When someone does not do what is right, then neither has he
understood what is right.”16 Wrong action, including inaction, is the fault of ignorance
and not a person’s unwillingness to do the good he knows he ought to do.17
in keeping with anti-Climacus’ notion of the socratic necessity of acting on
what one understands, Kierkegaard writes, “no, there is nothing more deceitful than
the human heart, and this perhaps never appears more clearly than in this misrelation
between our understanding and our acting.”18 action must follow immediately after
understanding, for this is the “right relation” between understanding and acting.
nevertheless, Kierkegaard bemoans the tendency of humans to put off taking right
action, sometimes for an agonizingly long time.19 anti-Climacus criticizes his own
age for being full of people who understand “in abstracto”20 but whose “lives do not
express in the remotest way what they have understood, but rather the opposite”;21
however, what is necessary is understanding “in concreto”22 taking the form of
action.23 Johannes Climacus echoes this sentiment. He writes, “the qualitative
dialectic continually enjoins that one is not to flirt in abstracto with that which is the
highest and then want to dabble in it, but one is to comprehend one’s essential task
in concreto and essentially express it.”24
to take one’s essential task in concreto is to take it in the context of one’s historical
actuality. this includes not only one’s particular social, historical circumstances
but also one’s existing affects, desires, drives, and capabilities. these need to be
considered when undertaking the task of becoming a self, since from a Christian
point of view this task ultimately requires acknowledgment of one’s sinfulness.
III. Understanding and Sin
anti-Climacus draws a contrast between the socratic and the Christian views of
understanding regarding sin. anti-Climacus notes, “the intellectuality of the greeks
was too happy, too naïve, too esthetic, too ironic, too witty—too sinful—to grasp
that anyone could knowingly not do the good, or knowingly, knowing what is right,
15
SKS 11, 205 / SUD, 92–3.
16
ibid.
17
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 94–5.
18
SKS 16, 174 / JFY, 119.
19
SKS 16, 175 / JFY, 120.
20
SKS 11, 203 / SUD, 90.
21
ibid.
22
SKS 4, 442 / CA, 142.
23
SKS 4, 442–3 / CA, 142–3.
24
SKS 7, 512 / CUP1, 563.
Understanding/Comprehension 213
do wrong.”25 this is an apt description of the socratic view.26 While anti-Climacus
states that “to be in kinship with socrates is not too bad,”27 he finds that it falls
short of the Christian view. He writes, “Christianity begins in another way: man has
to learn what sin is by a revelation from god; sin is not a matter of a person’s not
having understood what is right but of his being unwilling to understand it.”28
anti-Climacus says that it is an offense to the natural man that he is unable to
comprehend “what sin is and how deeply it is rooted” without god’s revelation.29
Christianity thus establishes “sin so firmly as a position that the human understanding
can never comprehend it,”30 and through the atonement, it seeks “to eliminate this
position in such a way that the human understanding can never comprehend it.”31
modern philosophy may declare, “i think therefore i am,”32 but Christianity declares,
“[a]ccording to your faith, be it unto you.”33
IV. Understanding and Faith
Johannes Climacus writes, “this, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to

want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.”34 the understanding
continually arrives at and collides with the unknown, or the god.35 Climacus states,
“the understanding does not go beyond [the unknown]; yet in its paradoxicality the
understanding cannot stop reaching it and being engaged with it.”36 the problem
with the understanding is that it “counts and counts, calculates and calculates, but it
never arrives at the certainty that faith possesses.”37 Faith believes the absurd, and
“[t]he absurd does not belong to the differences that lie within the proper domain
of the understanding. it is not identical with the improbable.”38 it is the absurd, and
faith believes in what the understanding calls impossibility.39
one cannot arrive at faith on one’s own by the use of good reasons. anti-Climacus
compares believing because of good reasons to a lover who defends his love by the
use of good arguments as though love belonged to the realm of sound propositional
defenses;40 rather, faith “passes all understanding.”41 in For Self-Examination,
25
SKS 11, 203 / SUD, 90.
26
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 94–95.
27
SKS 11, 206 / SUD, 93.
28
SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 95.
29
SKS 11, 208 / SUD, 96.
30
SKS 11, 212 / SUD, 100.
31
ibid.
32
SKS 11, 206 / SUD, 93.
33
ibid.
34
SKS 4, 243 / PF, 37.
35
SKS 4, 249–51 / PF, 44–6.
36
SKS 4, 249 / PF, 44.
37
SKS 9, 109 / WL, 105.
38
SKS 4, 141 / FT, 46.
39
SKS 4, 141 / FT, 46–7.
40
SKS 11, 215 / SUD, 103.
41
ibid.
Kierkegaard writes, “Faith is against the understanding; faith is on the other side of
death. and when you died or died to yourself, to the world, then you also died to all
immediacy in yourself, also to your understanding.”42 true faith is a gift from the
Holy spirit.43 Faith is given when all “probability is extinct, when it is dark as on a
dark night—it is indeed death we are describing—then comes the life-giving spirit
and brings faith.”44
On this conception, the understanding is confined to human immanence. By
contrast, faith is a gift from the transcendent and cannot be achieved by human effort
alone. The understanding belongs to human immediacy and defiantly clinging to it
by taking offense at the Christian paradox constitutes an obstacle to being “reborn”
through faith. Christian understanding requires an acknowledgment that the paradox
has a transcendent origin and that it can only be grasped by faith.45 it also requires a
“dying to” worldly understanding.
For Kierkegaard, as with his hero socrates, understanding involves action, not
just propositional knowledge. unlike socrates, Kierkegaard holds to the Christian
belief that right action is impossible for human beings because of sin, a condition
that only god in Christ can remove by means of the atonement. to partake of the
Christian promises, one must die to one’s natural, immediate understanding and
receive the gift of faith from the Holy spirit.
see also absurd; anxiety; Certainty; Concrete/abstract; despair; Faith; Holy spirit;
irrational; moment; offense; paradox; reason; resignation; sin.
42
SKS 13, 103 / FSE, 82.
43
ibid.
44
ibid.
45
SKS 4, 256 / PF, 52–3.
Vaudeville/Farce
mads sohl Jessen
Farce (Farce—noun), Vaudeville (Vaudeville—noun)
the concept of farce derives from the French farce. the concept contains two
different meanings in Danish. First, it relates to a theater genre defined by hilarious
mishaps and funny situations. the second meaning is of something happening in
the world that one cannot possibly take seriously.1 Vaudeville is a noun that comes
from the French vaudeville. the word derives from old French vaudevire or vau
de Vire, the valley of Vire (normandy), a place well known for its song tradition in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its lexical meaning in Danish is the same as in
French; it denotes a light comedy with inserted songs and musical accompaniments
made for dramatic performances.2
I. Farce
Kierkegaard uses the danish word Farce only three times in his published writings
and twice in his journals. However, english readers know Kierkegaard as an
exquisite interpreter of theater farces in Repetition. in fact, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym
Constantin Constantius uses the german concept of Posse in the original danish to
refer to the theater play he sees in berlin. on the other hand, the translation of Posse
into “farce” is legitimate, and i will therefore comment on Constantius’ extensive
deliberations on Posse/farce.
First, I will present Kierkegaard’s five references to the actual Danish concept of
farce in chronological order. in 1837 he refers to “farce” as belonging to the genre
of lower comedy together with burlesque.3 He does not use the concept again until
the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, where Johannes Climacus argues that the
religious has been subsumed by the aesthetic: “but all this balderdash is the result
of having made the religious a farce.”4 Climacus also relates what he refers to as the
religiosity of the “arrogating revivalist”5 to “farce”6 in the same work. in his later
1
2
ibid., vol. 26, column 703.
3
SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / KJN 1, 107.
4
SKS 7, 477 / CUP1, 524.
5
SKS 7, 514 / CUP1, 565.
6
ibid.
works and journals, Kierkegaard often views the way Christian faith is preached as
farcical without necessarily using the concept of farce. in a journal entry from 1847,
the last reference to farce in Kierkegaard’s writings, he states: “but the fact is that
people want to play providence themselves. then world history will truly become
a mere farce.”7 For Kierkegaard, the vision or possibility of a purely secular society
was deeply farcical.
as mentioned above, Kierkegaard’s most extended analysis of farce (Posse) can
be found in Repetition. Constantin Constantius discusses farce from a number of
perspectives, including that of the writer of farce himself, of the audience and of
suitable actors for farces. according to Constantius, the individual who produces
farces is drawn to the genre because it is imperfect: “since tragedy, comedy, and
light comedy fail to please him precisely because of their perfection, he turns to
farce.”8 Constantius then humorously muses that farces are ideal for the lower
classes: “Farce generally moves on the lower levels of society, and therefore the
gallery and second balcony audiences recognize themselves immediately, and their
noise and cheers are not an esthetic appraisal of the individual actor but a purely
lyrical outburst of their feeling of well-being.”9 in fact, educated people will not
enjoy the show as much: “For a cultured person, seeing a farce is similar to playing
the lottery, except that one does not have the annoyance of winning money.”10
Constantius thinks of the aesthetics of farce in terms of contingency: “seeing a farce
can produce the most unpredictable mood.”11 part of the imperfection of farce lies in
the fact that it is not an ironic art form: “no effect in farce is brought about by irony;
everything is naiveté.”12
Constantius also argues that the actors must be fully given to spontaneity: “they
are not so much reflective artists who have studied laughter as they are lyricists
who themselves plunged into the abyss of laughter and now let its volcanic power
hurl them out on the stage.”13 Constantius even drolly lauds the air at the theatrical
performance of farce: “the air in the theater is also fairly pure, untainted by the
sweat of a fervent empathizing audience or by the miasma of art enthusiasts.”14 as
Constantius ends his discussion of farce and starts to describe his own experience of
viewing the actual farce in berlin he begins to laugh so much that he has to lie down
on the floor: “Thus did I lie in my theater box, discarded like a swimmer’s clothing,
stretched out by the stream of laughter and unrestraint and applause that ceaselessly
foamed by me.”15 Here Kierkegaard elegantly turns his narrator’s discourse of farce
into the representation of a farcical situation.
one may ask why Kierkegaard chooses to deliberate so extensively on farce
in Repetition. one obvious answer is that he was very adept at including farcical
7
SKS 20, 221, nb2:207 / KJN 4, 220.
8
SKS 4, 33 / R, 158.
9
SKS 4, 34 / R, 159.
10
ibid.
11
SKS 4, 35 / R, 160.
12
ibid.
13
SKS 4, 36 / R, 161.
14
SKS 4, 39 / R, 165.
15
SKS 4, 40–1 / R, 166.
Vaudeville/Farce 217
elements in his own writings and therefore could easily write very intelligently on
the aesthetics of farce. Kierkegaard’s early dramatic experiment, The Battle Between
the Old and the New Soap-Cellars from 1837 is a farce,16 as are parts of Either/Or,
part one and Prefaces; in addition, the indirect reference to Johan ludvig Heiberg’s
“conversion” to Hegelianism as dr. Hjortespring in the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript is pure farce:
but i have no miracle to appeal to; ah, that was dr. Hjortespring’s happy fate! according
to his own very well written report, he became an adherent of Hegelian philosophy
through a miracle at Hotel streit in Hamburg on easter morning (although none of
the waiters noticed anything)—adherent of the philosophy that assumes that there are
no miracles. Wondrous sign of the times! if this man is not the expected philosopher,
who is it, then, who knows the demands of the times as he does! Wondrous sign of the
times, far more magnificent and important than the conversion of Paul, because Paul’s
conversion through a miracle to a doctrine that declares itself to be a miracle is rather
straightforward, but to be converted by a miracle to the teaching that accepts no miracles
is rather topsy-turvy.17
though Kierkegaard did not invest much time in the concept of farce, he did,
however, write passages of great farcical energy.
II. Vaudeville
Vaudevilles are rarely written or performed in denmark today, but as an historic art
form vaudevilles are mostly associated with three of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries:
Johan ludvig Heiberg, Henrik Hertz, and Christian Hostrup. Heiberg inaugurated
the genre with King Salomon and Jørgen Hattemager, which made its debut at the
Royal Danish Theater on November 28, 1825. Highly influenced by the French
vaudeville tradition, Heiberg also published a theory of the vaudeville in 1826.18
one may distinguish between three phases of Kierkegaard’s use of the concept of
vaudeville. In the first phase from 1837 to 1838 Kierkegaard makes two references
to vaudevilles in the context of genre analysis, where he associates vaudevilles with
other forms of musical drama. in the second phase from Fear and Trembling to the
Concluding Unscientific Postscript Kierkegaard uses the concept as a derogatory
term in opposition to seriousness and religiosity. in the third phase from 1847 to
1855 the concept seems to have slight or no relevance to him. in the following the
most important references to the concept in Kierkegaard’s journals and published
works will be commented on.
In the first entry in his journals from 1836 Kierkegaard relates the concept
to opera: “What are the limits of opera? our opera—i.e., as we present it here—
16
see SKS 17, 280–97, dd:208 / KJN 1, 272–89.
17
SKS 7, 169–70 / CUP1, 184.
18
Johan ludvig Heiberg, Om Vaudevillen, som dramatisk Digtart, og om dens Betydning
paa den danske Skueplads. En dramaturgisk Undersøgelse, Copenhagen: Jens Hostrup schultz
1826.
approaches vaudeville.”19 Kierkegaard’s comment points to an interest in interpreting
the similarities between contemporary opera and vaudeville. likewise in a journal
entry dating from January 16, 1837 he is engaged in drawing out a genre scheme
where the concept of vaudeville figures together with “Singspiel” and “Operetta.”20
it should be noted that vaudeville is associated with other genres involving singing
and music. in an entry from 1838 Kierkegaard writes, “Vaudeville is the musical
association of ideas.”21 From Kierkegaard’s first references to vaudeville it is
impossible to conclude whether he had a positive or negative attitude to the value
of vaudevilles. He seems to be interested in analyzing the generic similarities and
differences between vaudevilles and other dramatic genres involving music like
opera and Singspiel.
However, there can be no doubt that Kierkegaard’s use of the concept of vaudeville
is negative throughout his pseudonymous authorship as well as his journal entries
from the early 1840s onwards. The first occurrence in the pseudonymous writings
is in Fear and Trembling from 1843, where we find the phrase: “the whole event
is a vaudeville”22—meaning an event with no importance at all. a similar use is to
be found in The Concept of Anxiety, where the narrator argues that “the negative
has gradually become a vaudeville character”23 in recent philosophy. Kierkegaard
clearly uses the concept of vaudeville to denote something lacking in seriousness.
Prefaces is mainly a satire directed at Heiberg, who is referred to as “the vaudeville
poet, admired as much for his wit and his humor as for his lyrical-musical fervor.”24
again one notices that Kierkegaard associated Heiberg’s vaudevilles with comedy
as well as musicality. one might think that Kierkegaard is praising Heiberg. on
the contrary, the passage read in context is sarcastic: Kierkegaard did not esteem
Heiberg’s vaudevilles highly in the 1840s. in a journal entry from 1844 he also
equates one of them with nonsense.25
in Stages on Life’s Way from 1845 Kierkegaard employs an expression used
to designate a movement from the serious to the ludicrous: “He [goethe] has left
tragedy and drama and is established in vaudeville.”26 this expression is similar to
one found in his journal from the same year: “existence always begins as a tragedy
and turns into a vaudeville.”27 Kierkegaard is ironically using the concept to refer to
the banality of secular everyday life. in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript from
1846 the concept is used in clear opposition to the religious: “the battle of faith is
not a topic for vaudeville poets,”28 and later on in the same work the concept is again
associated with mediocre secularity: “between poetry and religiousness, worldly
wisdom about life performs its vaudeville. every individual who does not live either
19
SKS 18, 79, FF:21 / KJN 2, 72.
20
SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / KJN 1, 107.
21
SKS 18, 107, FF:167 / KJN 2, 99.
22
SKS 4, 126 / FT, 115.
23
SKS 4, 435 / CA, 134.
24
SKS 4, 483 / P, 20.
25
SKS 18, 173–4, JJ:106 / KJN 2, 160–1.
26
SKS 6, 141 / SLW, 150.
27
SKS 18, 264, JJ:374.c / KJN 2, 244.
28
SKS 7, 205 / CUP1, 225.
Vaudeville/Farce 219
poetically or religiously is obtuse.”29 this marks the last time Kierkegaard uses the
concept of vaudeville in the pseudonymous authorship.
two journal references to the concept of vaudeville stand out from the rest. in
1845 he writes on a “droll plot for a vaudeville,”30 and in 1847 he employs the phrase
“a little trait that lends itself to a vaudeville.”31 upon reading these references one
might think that Kierkegaard was seriously thinking about writing vaudevilles, but
this is doubtful when one considers that he was an established prose writer in the
1840s. rather, Kierkegaard’s “idea” for a vaudeville should possibly be seen in the
context of how his journals function as a reservoir for later more fully composed
prose texts, where one paragraph might include a humorous reference to somebody
having a certain “droll plot” for vaudeville production.
From 1848 to 1855 there is only one important reference to vaudeville in
Kierkegaard’s journals:
Heiberg has not only demoralized the public by flattering it (both in the vaudevilles and
in the theory he developed in the book on the vaudeville, to the effect that the public
is the judging authority), but demoralizes it even worse precisely because he wants to
reform the public without himself having the ethical power to do without it, which is
conditio sine qua non for a person to be truly capable of striking a blow.32
this quotation can be regarded as Kierkegaard’s last point of view in regard to the
concept of vaudeville: Heiberg, who introduced the art form as well as the theory of
it, is guilty of having imported and practiced the vaudeville that has in effect turned
out to have a demoralizing effect on the danish audience. since Kierkegaard only
uses the concept once in the last phase of his authorship one should perhaps not place
too great an emphasis on the centrality of vaudevilles for his view of the cultural
decline of his own time.
to conclude, three different developments in Kierkegaard’s use of the concept
of vaudeville have been presented: First, in an early period from 1837 to 1838,
Kierkegaard speculated on how vaudevilles are related to other dramatic genres.
second, in a more varied and indeed negative use from 1843 to 1847, the concept of
vaudeville is used synonymously with the ludicrous and the mediocre. in the larger
context of Kierkegaard’s thinking the negative use of the concept of vaudeville in the
1840s is certainly marked by his quite idiosyncratic and tireless will to polemicize
against Heiberg, who was perhaps the most influential man of culture at that time.
Kierkegaard’s polemic against Heiberg was on the wane in the late 1840s as well as
the first half of the 1850s, which may explain his lack of interest in the concept in
his last years.
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; Comic/Comedy; Humor; irony; music; parody/

satire; theater/drama.
29
SKS 7, 415 / CUP1, 457.
30
SKS 18, 260–1, JJ:365 / KJN 2, 240.
31
SKS 20, 266, nb3:41 / KJN 4, 267.
32
SKS 22, 393, nb14:84 / KJN 6, 398.
Vortex
Vortex (Hvirvel—noun)
Hvirvel is derived from the older new danish huirvel, huervil, huirrel and the old
norse hvirfill, meaning a circle or ring. a vortex, as is commonly known, is either a
mass, usually of liquid or air, that flows in a hasty, circular or spiral-shaped movement,
or the movement itself. The canonical definition of “vortex” in Kierkegaard’s time is
given by Molbech, whose dictionary published in 1833 defines it as “something that
runs around or is moved rapidly in a circle.”1
the most frequent occurrence of the concept vortex in Kierkegaard’s published
works is in Stages on Life’s Way, with five occurrences, followed by both Upbuilding
Discourses in Various Spirits and Works of Love, with four each, then Either/Or,
part one, with three occurrences. However, one could argue that the single most
important passage on this concept occurs in a letter dated from 1848 in which it
appears seven times.2
the concept of vortex is one of the oldest philosophical concepts, and as such it
demands one’s attention on account of its shifts of meaning. It first appeared either
in the thought of anaxagoras of Clazomenae (ca. 500–428 bC) or in the thought
of the greek “atomists.” anaxagoras conceived the beginning of the cosmos as an
undifferentiated mixture of all sorts of materials until νοῦς (mind, understanding,
or reason) provoked the separation of the materials by its impetus and velocity,3
producing thereby the distinctive delineation of the cosmos.4 subsequently,
leucippus and democritus, as founders of the “atomist” theory, developed the idea
of explaining natural phenomena in terms of a vortex-like motion of the indivisible
constituents of the universe.5
1
1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1833, vol. 1, p. 478.
2
SKS 28, 399–401, brev 266 / LD, 261–2, letter 186.
3
Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vols. 1–13, ed. by Joachim ritter, Karlfried
gründer, and gottfried gabriel, darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft 1971–2007,
vol. 12, W–z, p. 820.
4
see daniel W. graham, “empedocles and anaxagoras: responses to parmenides,”
in The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, ed. by a.a. long, Cambridge:
Cambridge university press 1999, pp. 162–3.
5
see W.K.C. guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume II, The Presocratic
Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2003,
pp. 400ff.
indeed, such an idea lasted until quite recently, since rené descartes developed a
conception of the movement of planets according to which the latter revolved around
the sun in a vortex-like movement initiated by god.6 although descartes’ theory met
with innumerable criticisms throughout the following decades, eventually leading to
vortex-theories being discredited as an explanation of the movement of planets, the
late eighteenth century witnessed a shift in the application of the notion of vortex
to social issues. For example, rousseau described the modern city as a “social
vortex,”7 and later, after the French revolution, the term was applied to political
phenomena. Conservative or reactionary political thinkers started to employ it as a
metaphor through which they could describe the revolution and its effects.8 even if
edmund burke does not seem to have used such a metaphor in his classic work on
the French revolution, notwithstanding his criticisms regarding “this strange chaos
of levity and ferocity, and all sorts of crimes jumbled together” and in which “the
most opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in
the mind,”9 his successor Joseph de maistre conceived the French revolution exactly
as a “dragging force” or “vortex” (tourbillon).10
Kierkegaard’s use of this image also seems to follow this trend. the main
difference is that Kierkegaard, at least in his “first authorship,” employs the concept
mainly as a romantic metaphor for the tribulations of existence. after the “Corsair
affair,” though, Kierkegaard started using the concept “vortex” to address socio-
political matters as his socio-political awareness became more pronounced. thus,
there seem to be two major applications of the concept “vortex” in his production:
one subjective, in that it is engaged as a generic poetic metaphor for addressing
matters related to subjectivity or inwardness; and the other objective in the sense that
it becomes a key concept in his increasingly polemical relationship with the “world.”
I. Vortex as a Metaphor for the Tribulations of Existence
Kierkegaard’s very first mention of the word “vortex” in his published writings
occurs in “the immediate erotic stages or the musical erotic,” in Either/Or, part
one.11 there the word is used poetically to refer to don giovanni as “the vortex of
seduction,”12 which the aesthete hears in mozart’s musical portrayal of don giovanni
as a force of nature. later in Either/Or, part one the concept of vortex reappears in a
6
see Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 12, W-z, pp. 820ff.
7
Jean-Jacques rousseau, Émile ou De L’Éducation, in Œuvres Complètes, vols. 1–5,
ed. by bernard gagnebin and marcel raymond, paris: gallimard 1959–95, vol. 4, p. 551 (my
translation).
8
see laurence guellec, Tocqueville et les langages de la démocratie, paris: Honoré
Champion 2004, pp. 315ff.
9
edmund burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. by J.C.d. Clark, stanford:
stanford university press 2001, pp. 154–5.
10
Joseph de maistre, Considérations sur la France, ed. by Jean-louis darcel, genève:
editions slaktine 1980, p. 65 (my translation).
11
see SKS 2, 53–136 / EO1, 45–135.
12
SKS 2, 107 / EO1, 103.
Vortex 223
more literal application when the aesthete A conjures it on the first anniversary of the
founding of the society of the Συμπαρανεκρωμένοι (the fellowship of the dead):
Yes, would that the vortex, which is the world’s core principle, even if people are
not aware of it but eat and drink, marry and propagate themselves with carefree
industriousness, would that it might erupt with deep-seated resentment and shake off the
mountains and the nations and the cultural works and man’s clever inventions; would
that it might erupt with the last terrible shriek that more surely than the trumpet of doom
announces the downfall of everything; would that it might stir and spin this bare cliff on
which we stand as light as thistledown before the breath in its nostrils.13
the concept of vortex is used in this context to symbolize the nihilistic “doctrine of
the downfall of everything”14 supported by the members of that strange society, a
doctrine which Kierkegaard himself was to repudiate vehemently particularly after
the “Corsair affair.” but in regard to its use in both volumes of Either/Or it remains
tied to a poetical and, therefore, to a fundamentally metaphorical understanding of
the word, as when Johannes the seducer speaks of the “vortex of passions”15 in
relation to a young girl’s first love or when Judge William reprimands his friend,
the aesthete, by warning of the “whirlpool” into which a young man may fall in the
world.16 thus, in both volumes of Either/Or, despite the differences in life-views
(Livs-Anskuelser) between its pseudonymous authors, the concept of vortex retains
its poetical sense, instead of being taken in a strictly physical sense, as it appears,
for instance, in The Concept of Anxiety. Vigilius Haufniensis likens hereditary sin to
“that vortex about which greek speculation concerning nature had so much to say, a
moving something that no science can grasp.”17
the same romantic-poetic meaning of vortex predominates both in the aesthetic
works Repetition, Fear and Trembling and Stages on Life’s Way and in the series
of upbuilding discourses published in 1843–44. in Repetition one sees a repetition
of the metaphorical romantic construction in which “vortex” is juxtaposed with
“passion,”18 while in Fear and Trembling Johannes de silentio applies it to the
“whirlwind of doubt.”19 in these works the general meaning of “vortex” is poetical-
metaphorical by being applied to existential matters. For example, in Stages on
Life’s Way Quidam confesses that “[i]n antiquity there were those who assumed that
the principle of existence was a vortex. so is my life.”20 indeed, later in the same
narrative he asks himself: “What is this? What does it mean? i am as agitated as the
forest’s anxious quivering [Hvirvel] before the storm. What kind of presentiment
13
SKS 2, 166 / EO1, 168.
14
SKS 2, 165 / EO1, 167.
15
SKS 2, 415 / EO1, 427. note that this is translated as “the tumult of passion” in the
Hong edition.
16
SKS 3, 87 / EO2, 83.
17
SKS 4, 327 / CA, 20.
18
see SKS 4, 77 / R, 209, rendered by the Hongs as “the maelstrom of passion.”
Kierkegaard used the danish word Malstrøm (maelstrom) only twice in his published writings.
see SKS 3, 39 / EO2, 31; SKS 3, 200 / EO2, 208.
19
SKS 4, 198 / FT, 109.
20
SKS 6, 209 / SLW, 224.
oppresses me?”21 Vortex in these works, as well as on the upbuilding discourses of
the years 1843–44,22 almost always represents either the inner movement present
throughout his writings or the state of inner confusion in which either his pseudonyms
or characters find themselves.23
but then comes the vortex in Kierkegaard’s own private life, which posterity
would know as the “Corsair affair,” and with it a profound shift in the application
of the concept: from the romantic metaphor for subjectivity to a synonym for the
objective world and, in this sense, a word loaded with socio-political connotations.
in other words, after 1846 Kierkegaard started using it as a conservative-political
tool in the same way his predecessors had been using it since the French revolution.
II. Vortex as a Metaphor for the Modern World
this socio-political application of the metaphor had already been intimated by

Kierkegaard long before the vortex in his private life caused by the “Corsair affair,”
when in Either/Or, part two Judge William spoke of the annulment of the principle
of contradiction as a supposed effect of speculative philosophy.24 if the principle
of contradiction is annulled, then anything goes—chaos is unleashed or at the very
least, in the absence of all distinction, the logic of “leveling” reigns: “[t]he present
age…has nullified the principle of contradiction.”25 if the concept or image of the
vortex is not readily apparent in A Literary Review of Two Ages, it is nevertheless
implied,26 as when Kierkegaard argues that “[n]o period, no age, and therefore not
the present one, either, can halt the the skepticism of leveling.”27 leveling, according
to Kierkegaard, is a fundamental dynamic, which pervades the various institutions,
cultural practices, values and beliefs that shape or constitute modern life; it is, in
sum, movement itself.28
the ontological importance of movement for modernity is further elaborated
in The Book on Adler, in which not only is the age recognized as “the age of
movement,”29 but also in which Kierkegaard spells out his dialectic of movement:
21
SKS 6, 202 / SLW, 216.
22
see SKS 5, 160 / EUD, 160; SKS 5, 314 / EUD, 323; SKS 5, 370 / EUD, 387.
23
see SKS 6, 134 / SLW, 143; SKS 6, 340 / SLW, 367; SKS 6, 359 / SLW, 387.
24
see SKS 3, 166–7 / EO2, 170–1.
25
SKS 8, 92 / TA, 97 (original emphasis).
26
Kierkegaard’s metaphors in A Literary Review of Two Ages are never that far away
from the vortex, for he either compares leveling to “the sharp northeaster [Østens skarpe
Vind]” (SKS 8, 84 / TA, 88) or to “a tradewind [Passat] that consumes everything” (SKS 8, 84
/ TA, 87). thus, if, on the one hand, the metaphor of vortex is not itself engaged there, then, on
the other, the winds that cause the “friction” (see SKS 8, 84 / TA, 87) are a close analogue.
27
SKS 8, 83 / TA, 86 (my emphasis).
28
see Kresten nordentoft, Hvad siger Brand-Majoren? Kierkegaard’s Opgør med sin
Samtid, Copenhagen: g.e.C. gad 1973, pp. 46–7.
29
see particularly SKS 15, 119ff. / BA, 143ff. indeed, both nordentoft as well as Vergote
had already acknowledged the importance of the image of vortex in Kierkegaard’s writings,
with the latter specifically claiming that in Kierkegaard’s description of vor Tid (our time)
it is “the age of vortex [tourbillon]…what one understands by movement” (Henri-bernard
Vortex 225
All movement presupposes a point, a fixed point outside (anyone will assure himself
of that if he will consider its dialectic)—and in the same way the true extraordinary is
the point outside—he stands on that archimedean point outside the earth, that is, in his
absolute relation to God he has a fixed point extra ordinem—et terram movebit [outside
the order—and will move the earth].30
it is easy to see that Kierkegaard is trying here to halt the dynamics of accelerated
movement/modern energy which gives modernity its peculiar shape,31 so much that
not only does Kierkegaard refer to the individuals of this period as the “men of
movement [Bevægelses-Mænd],” but he also elaborates with a culinary metaphor:
the man of movement perhaps could…be called a puddling stick [Røre-Pind]. the
essential difference between movement and puddling [røre, stirring] is that the direction
of the movement is forward; puddling is movement up and down and around, like the
dasher in a butter churn…like rumor and gossip, like a ladle in the cook’s hand when he
stirs the batter.32
Such people are, as Kierkegaard had called them in his very first published book,
“individuals shaken together like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.”33 it is in this sense
that Kierkegaard envisaged the danish pastor adolph peter adler as a sign of the
times. adler’s mental confusion, he argues, was caused by a mixture of speculative
philosophy with Christianity: adler was, “rather than a chosen one, a person whirled
around [Henhvirvlet].”34 thus, Kierkegaard chose adler as a psychological case
study because he was a representative product of the modern vortex.
Yet this modern vortex only became clear to Kierkegaard in 1848, the year when
“the shriek that announces chaos was heard,”35 for it taught him that everything
was “sheer movement.”36 While Kierkegaard’s theory of movement is to be found
scattered throughout different writings of the period 1846–48,37 it is in the letter
mentioned at the beginning of this essay and which was sent to the Conferentsraad
(Counselor) Kolderup-rosenvinge sometime around august 1848 that it received
Vergote, Sens et répétition. Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, tome i, paris: Cerf/orante
1982, p. 240, my translation). see also nordentoft, Hvad siger Brand-Majoren? Kierkegaard’s
Opgør med sin Samtid, p. 41.
30
SKS 15, 136 / BA, 160.
31
indeed, Hannay stresses leveling as being an “unstoppable process.” see alastair
Hannay, “Kierkegaard’s levelings and the Review,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 1999,
p. 86. on the other hand, Hannah arendt had explained that, in regard to modernity, “[i]n
the place of the concept of Being we now find the concept of Process.” see Hannah arendt,
The Human Condition, Chicago and london: university of Chicago press 1998, p. 296
(my emphasis). in sum, i deal here with Kierkegaard’s concept of vortex as a metaphor for
modernity, which i expressed as the “modern world” at the head of this section in order to
retain Kierkegaard’s Christian overtones with respect to the “worldly.”
32
SKS 15, 137 / BA, 161.
33
SKS 1, 28 / EPW, 72.
34
SKS 15, 172 / BA, 50 (my emphasis).
35
SKS 13, 26 / PV, 19–20.
36
SKS 28, 399, brev 266 / LD, 261, Letter 186 (translation slightly modified).
37
see SKS 13, 26 / PV, 19–20; SKS 16, 116 / AN, 134.
its most concise development. indeed, this letter could have as its subtitle “a little
theory of ‘motion’ to which category stopping in turn belongs.”38 the letter begins
with Kierkegaard commenting on a recent newspaper article in which it was reported
that a carpenter named Øigaard had died in an accident with a train on account
of his not knowing how to use the brakes (Bremse, which also means “gadfly”).39
this lexical ambiguity leads Kierkegaard to comment on the relationship between
movement and the need for either a stopping point or a stopping device, for, as he
put the matter to his friend,
…now back to the gadfly [Bremsen] and to wanting to stop by means of a gadfly, and
you will see that this is related to what we spoke of last time. For is this not the law
of confusion that governs recent european events? they wish to stop by means of a
revolution and to stop a revolution by means of a counterrevolution. but what is a
counterrevolution if it is not also a revolution? …i am sure you will agree that i am
right in considering the whole development in europe as an enormous skepticism or as
a vortex. What does a vortex seek? —A fixed point where it can stop…please permit me
to essay a theory of “motion,” to which category stopping in turn belongs. most people
believe that so long as one has a fixed point to which one wants to get, then motion
[Bevægelsen] is no vortex. but this is a misunderstanding. it all depends on having a
fixed point from which to set out. stopping is not possible at a point ahead, but at a point
behind. that is, stopping is in the motion [Bevægelsen], consolidating the motion. and
this is the difference between a political and a religious movement [Bevægelse]. any
purely political movement, which accordingly lacks the religious element or is forsaken
by god, is a vortex, cannot be stopped….We all seem to agree that a stop is necessary.
But that person who, while wishing to stop, fails to find a fixed point—that person who
in other words wants to stop by means of the moved [det Bevægede] or the moving
[det Bevægende] only enlarges the vortex. For a long time now there has been so much
discussion of the need for movement relative to what is established that the need of the
established relative to movement has been completely forgotten. Yet throughout europe
nothing is really established at this moment….and therefore my opinion about the
whole european confusion is that it cannot be stopped except by religion….(therefore,
you see, i seek—said in parenthesi—“that single individual”).40
this letter is a veritable goldmine in terms of Kierkegaard’s views of the relationship

between socio-political issues and theological ones, and, as such, it contains many
of his most fundamental ideas, values, and beliefs, as well as some of his most
important concepts, such as “that single individual.” it also contains the seven
repetitions of the word “vortex.”41 as one of the most concise and probing narratives
on modernity, it deals primarily with what Kierkegaard himself would later term
“world-shift [Verdens-Bevægelsen]”42 or the “vortex.”
38
SKS 28, 400, brev 266 / LD, 262, letter 186.
39
the news report is reproduced in SKS K28, 397.
40
SKS 28, 399–400, brev 266 / LD, 260–2, letter 186.
41
With respect to the penultimate line of the quotation, see SKS 16, 57 / PV, 78. With
respect to the last line see SKS 16, 49 / PV, 68–9.
42
SKS 24, 82, nb21:132 / JP 2, 1792.
Vortex 227
in short, the concept of vortex mostly operates in the work of Kierkegaard as a
metaphor through which he dealt with the immensely problematic and fundamentally
intangible question of the modern movement and, consequently, of modernity.
see also ambiguity; Chatter; Christendom; envy; leveling; movement/motion;

negation; politics; present age; press/Journalism; progress; Worldliness/secularism.
Voting
narve strand
Voting (Stemme, Ballotation, Votum—noun; stemme—verb)
From the old danish stæm(m)æ (noun) and stemmelse, stemming, stemning (verbal
nouns). both seem to go back to the middle low german stemme, stemne, stimme,
and stemmen, though the noun is widely attested in germanic languages. the base,
lexical meaning in danish is voice, as in “letting your voice ring out,” “be heard.”
Qualified, it means voicing one’s opinion, making one’s views known, giving one’s
consent. it is related to the danish bestemme, decide or determine, and most likely
to Stævne as well (old danish, stefnæ, old norse, stefna) which means gathering,
negotiation meeting. Ballotation simply means a ballot and comes from the French
balloter, which refers to the procedure of using black and white balls to decide a
vote. Votum means a ballot or election too, or the written or oral statement meant to
influence people to cast their vote in a certain way. It is a loanword from Latin where
it had clear religious overtones, meaning solemnly swear, or take an oath.1
the semantic range of the words Kierkegaard uses is quite broad, echoing a
rich political culture and history. this can be schematized in the following way:
(1) actual participation in deliberating, determining, and ratifying policies or laws;
(2) judging or criticizing these publicly; (3) taking an oath for government service;
and (4) casting a vote. as far as we can tell, pre-state denmark (before ca. ad
900) had a mixed system of government,2 meaning that a chieftain or king usually
took the lead in public affairs, but since his authority or power was not meant to
be absolute he always had to rely on the active support of the aristocracy and the
common people. the public arenas for this mutual trust were deliberative and
general assemblies. every free man who could carry a weapon basically had the right
to attend the latter. even if only the king and the aristocrats could speak on matters
of policy and law here, ordinary people had a voice too, making their judgment
heard by shouts of approval or dissent.3 With state-formation and the coming of
Christianity there was an ideological shift towards absolute monarchy, but the
danish king remained quite weak for a long time and still had to rely a great deal
1
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56. For Stemme, see vol. 21, columns
1129ff. For Ballotation, see vol. 1, column 1084. For Votum, see vol. 27, columns 480–1.
2
see a.r. meyers, Parliaments and Estates in Europe to 1789, london: thames and
Hudson 1975, for the general political trajectory of europe and denmark.
3
Cf. also tacitus, Germania, 11, 40.
230 Narve Strand
on the consent of his subjects. representative assemblies were set up under a main
state assembly (Rigsdag) with broad veto powers and the participation of all estates
of the land (church, nobility, and ordinary people). peasant farmers and artisans thus
remained free for a long time, enjoying a political and economic standing unheard
of even by Western european standards. it is only after the reformation and with
the emergence of the modern bureaucratic state (ca. ad 1600–1800) that denmark
turned into an absolute monarchy, with the danish king becoming one of the most
absolute rulers in all of europe.4 However, when the enlightenment set in, events
in europe started to put pressure on the danish Crown to allow freedom of the
press and universal male suffrage. this led to the establishment of a constitutional
monarchy and a parliamentary system in 1849, making denmark one of the most
liberal democracies in europe at that time. this is the denmark of Kierkegaard’s
lifetime, a society and culture he remained largely at odds with, as we will see.
We do not find a fully thought-out concept of voting in the Kierkegaardian
corpus. the words appear most often in the Nachlass. a quick survey reveals a
negative and even disparaging take on the notion and practice of voting itself, as
well as most of its semantic range. by cross-referencing “voting” with words like
“the numerical,” “the majority,” and “democracy,” one gets a sense of why that is:
voting stands opposed to single individuality. the most eloquent attack is found in
his review of Two Ages. Here Kierkegaard charges contemporary society with being
worldly-wise and shallow in its thinking, and for lacking true passion. He blames
modern, representational government and the rise of the public and the printing press
for this general lack of spirit, all of which are tied up with voting. Kierkegaard thinks
active citizenship and single individuality cancel each other out somehow, and he
seems to have preferred going back to absolute monarchy instead. this bent for
personal, non-reciprocal ties over public ones comes out well in his ethical-religious
writings too. the Kierkegaardian corpus tries to criticize or get beyond the danish—
european—political tradition. this raises the question of what his stance towards
politics actually is.
I. The Journals, Papers, Notebooks
if we turn to the places where voting is mentioned, we see the uses are all negative
(or else literary or reporting only): (1) truth is not decided by mass vote or public
opinion, but by individuals.5 (2) Nothing infinite, nothing of real weight and
significance, in fact, can ever be settled this way.6 (3) there is no real learning or
character formation that happens by discussion or balloting, either.7 (4) Voting is a
4
see also philip s. gorski, “the protestant ethic and the bureaucratic revolution:
ascetic protestantism and administrative rationalization in early modern europe,” in Max
Weber’s Economy and Society, ed. by Charles Camic, philip s. gorski, and david m. trubek,
stanford: stanford university press 2005, pp. 267–96.
5
SKS 20, 127, nb:215 / KJN 4, 127–8; SKS 24, 224, nb23:36 / JP 4, 4875.
6
SKS 17, 295, dd:208 / KJN 1, 286–7; SKS 24, 224, nb23:36 / JP 4, 4875; SKS 24,
227, nb23:40 / JP 4, 4199; SKS 4, 230–1, nb23:49 / JP 4, 4201.
7
SKS 24, 224–5, nb23:36 / JP 6, 6728; SKS 24, 256, nb23:100 / JP 4, 4208.
Voting 231
form of dispersion, a nonsensical way of reaching a decision (Afgjørelses Middel).8
to think one can achieve anything by voting is irresponsible (uforsvarligt).9 (5) to
deny any of this or to submit real matters to majority judgment is to confuse and
externalize everything. truth is exchanged for mere need and gain;10 majority rule
turns into a kind of idolatry—evil. the Christian has a positive duty to stay away
from all this.11
there is a general slide here from (1–4) that is hard to track. For example, it
is difficult to see how (5) follows from the earlier points. What is it about voting,
exactly, that makes it so trivial yet highly dangerous at the same time?
(6) Voting is based on the principle of multiplicity or number (det Numeriske),
which means rule by the majority (Majoriteten) and the crowd (Mængden). Where
there are many, there is relativity. this is directly opposed to the single individual.12
(7) democracy (Demokratiet, Folkeregjeringen) has multiplicity as its basic,
organizing principle. this means the downfall of everything great, everything holy.
the demand for positive participation and recognition from everybody makes it the
most tyrannical form of government, certainly the most void of spirit (aandløseste).13
democracy is the true image of hell.14
it is tempting to see all this as merely a piece of hyperbole, and to take
Kierkegaard’s negative comments about voting and majority rule (1)–(4) as a healthy
corrective to mixing politics up with either morality or religion, or as a warning
perhaps against giving clear priority to the former over the latter two in our lives.
this guarding against the tyranny of majority opinion as well as majority rule makes
good liberal sense, of course, and Kierkegaard is one of the first modern thinkers
to do this. However, there is still a sense in which voting—indeed political life as a
whole—is disparaged here.
II. A Literary Review of Two Ages
the same deep misgivings are found in this work written under Kierkegaard’s
own name. First we get a brilliant lesson on the dangers of modern, representative
rule: (1) There is a real difference between reflection (Reflexion) or deliberation
(Overveielse), on the one hand, and decision (Afgjørelse) and action (Handling),
on the other. this must always be kept in mind.15 (2) Every form of reflection or
deliberation that does not lead to real decision and action is not only an abstraction,
but a kind of evasion and dodging of real, individual responsibility.16 (3) modern
8
SKS 24, 239–40, nb23:63 / JP 4, 4203.
9
SKS 24, 224–5, nb23:36 / JP 6, 6728.
10
SKS 23, 59–60, nb15:85 / JP 1, 986.
11
SKS 23, 37–8, nb15:54 / JP 3, 2951.
12
SKS 20, 371–2, nb5:4 / KJN 4, 371–2; SKS 24, 97, nb21:160 / JP 4, 4190.
13
SKS 20, 371–2, nb5:4 / KJN 4, 371–2; SKS 27, 484, papir 405 / JP 4, 4144. Cf. SKS
7, 563 / CUP1, 620–1.
14
SKS 27, 484, papir 405 / JP 4, 4144.
15
SKS 8, 62–6, 74 / TA, 64–8, 77.
16
ibid.
232 Narve Strand
democracy is based on representation, which means it tends to restrict the scope
for real decision-making and action on the part of the many, the ordinary citizens.17
(4) this is closely tied to the rise of the public (Publikum) and a printing press
(Pressen) devoted to public opinion (Publikums Mening). both the public itself and
its opinions are abstractions that tend to foster calculation (Beregning); a worldly-
wise (Forstandighed, Klogskab) and at bottom irresponsible way of thinking and
behaving.18 (5) this leads to a general leveling (Nivellering) of all meaningful
distinctions. the tearing-down of the wall between the public and the private spheres
is not only damaging to government, but to real learning and character formation as
well.19 (6) it is the reciprocal recognition (gjensidig Anerkjendelse) underlying this
kind of shallow, shared deliberation (gjensidig Klogskab) that is to blame for all
this.20 (7) this can be seen in the purely numerical, arithmetic way of gauging public
opinion and deciding things in general.21
the reason Kierkegaard is highly critical of modern democracy then is that it
confuses key distinctions in human life and that it tends to encourage irresponsibility.
if it is objected that this might be true of the masses but that their representatives
still have room for real decision-making and therefore for genuine reflection or
deliberation as well, then Kierkegaard would answer: since they are ultimately
bound by public opinion and the decision of the voters, they tend to hide or avoid
real authority and leadership. so their deliberation is bound to be shallow as well.22
this is a deep and original point about modern democracy. irresponsibility seems to
be a structural trait of representational rule. it is voting that lies at the root of all this
for Kierkegaard. that is also why he seems to think there cannot be more authentic
forms of public reason under this form of government either.
to get a sharper sense of how Kierkegaard arrives at these conclusions, we need
to link these points up with his thoughts on the human being in general. Why is it
that more authentic forms of deliberation and active citizenship cannot be combined
with a system of government based on voting? the quick answer is: because there is
no such thing as positive or real reciprocity among humans.23 reciprocity is fake, or
only acceptable in a pickwickian sense. Voting assumes the contrary, which is why
Kierkegaard regards it as the root of all evil.
III. Kierkegaard and the Political
it would seem that insofar as democracy is based on voting it is not a legitimate

form of government in Kierkegaard’s eyes. it is hard to see how the new-fangled
parliamentary democracy of 1849 in denmark or the liberal democracy we have
today—or any democracy we can imagine, for that matter—can be kept or reformed
17
SKS 8, 66–7, 72–3, 76 / TA, 68–9, 74–5, 79.
18
SKS 8, 66ff. / TA, 68ff.
19
SKS 8, 80ff. / TA, 84ff.
20
SKS 8, 69 / TA, 72.
21
SKS 8, 80, 95ff. / TA, 84, 100ff.
22
SKS 8, 100ff. / TA, 106ff.
23
this is always assumed, but never argued, in the Kierkegaardian corpus.
Voting 233
if Kierkegaard is right. one gets the sense that it is the very mutuality of the trust
itself, and the freedom and equality of active citizens that goes with it, that troubles
Kierkegaard most. it is this, he thinks, that has led to the present order of things,
and which stands in the way of a more inward form of human existence (the single
individual). this is why he has a preference for absolute monarchy. being the form
of government which has the least amount of citizen participation and which is not
based on voting, absolute monarchy allows for the maximum amount of privacy to
its subjects.24 the ideal for Kierkegaard, it seems, would be a world without politics.
to sum up, the notion and practice of voting is tied up with political participation,
public deliberation, and office-holding. Kierkegaard regards this as an inauthentic
means of reaching decisions, since it is based on an illusory idea of positive,
reciprocal freedom and equality. At best it tends to foster shallow reflection and
irresponsibility; at worst, it simply levels the distinction between the public and
the private spheres. this means it is directly opposed to single individuality (and
to religious life). Voting is the organizing principle in a democracy, which makes it
the worst form of government from a religious existentialist point of view. the ideal
would be a world where voting and citizen politics played little or no part. absolute
monarchy, then, is the best form of government to live under for a Christian.
see also Common man; Crowd/public; decision/resolve; individual; law; leveling;

politics; press/Journalism; protestantism/reformation; society; state; truth; Will.
24
SKS 7, 563 / CUP1, 620; SKS 27, 484, papir 405 / JP 4, 4144.
Will
narve strand
Will (Villie—noun; ville—verb; Villen—verbal noun)
From the old danish willi or williæ or wilia, old norse vili or vilja. the lexical
meaning of the danish term is the capacity or trait of being able to make choices,
or to arrive at and stick to a decision, or purpose, which might manifest itself in
behavior. Qualified, it names a capacity or trait or state or activity of the soul. It can
also just mean predisposition, need, wish, self-assertion, stubbornness, demand, or
command.1
The term figures most prominently in Philosophical Fragments, then The
Concept of Anxiety, The Sickness unto Death, Either/Or (pseudonymous works),
and Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits and Works of Love (signed works).
there are also some remarks in his journals and notebooks, but nowhere in the
Kierkegaardian corpus do we find an in-depth discussion of the concept itself, as
with terms such as “anxiety” or “love.” to speak of a concept of will in Kierkegaard
involves some reconstruction.
We might distinguish the following senses of will in Kierkegaard’s corpus.
(1) the basic conceptual requirement of will is that there is something up to us, in our
power, as opposed to what we are unable to influence or do something about, or what
just happens anyway either by force or luck. this is tied (2) to negative possibility (not
only willing this thing or in this way but not willing it), and (3) to the counterfactual
(that one could have willed or done otherwise). (4) Consciousness (self-awareness,
being conscious of various possibilities, not just intending what is at hand) is bound
to be involved too. this scheme (1)–(4) underlies both intellectualist and voluntarist
defenses of the will, as well as the distinction between first-order agency (words and
deeds) and that of the second-order (psychological states, existential orientation, or
choice). For the intellectualist the will is not merely dependent on the intellect, or
practical reason, or deliberation; it is a direct expression or epiphenomenon of these.
the voluntarist denies this, claiming it is the will that most deeply characterizes
the self instead.2 Kierkegaard follows this scheme (1)–(4) throughout his writings,
and he is best seen as (5) a voluntarist. ultimately though, his focus lies elsewhere:
(6) with a Christian existentialist notion of willing only the good.
1
2
see thomas pink, “Will, the,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vols. 1–10,
ed. by edward Craig, london and new York: routledge 1998, volume 9, pp. 720–5.
236 Narve Strand
I. What Is Up To Us
The Sophists were the first to narrow in on what’s voluntary or deliberate, sparking
off the whole debate on how free agency is linked to chance, force, duress, weakness,
ignorance, and blame. it is only with the Church father augustine though that the will
becomes an explicit concept (latin, voluntas) and a comprehensive theory is worked
out. For it is only here that will becomes the driving force behind all consciousness
and action, both human and divine.3 in the “interlude” of Philosophical Fragments,
Climacus takes up this view: everything that happens has a cause, and this in turn
can be traced back to a freely acting cause (fritvirkende Aarsag), either of the relative
or absolute kind.4
the discussion is well articulated: all coming to be is a transition, a change,
or movement from possibility to actuality. every transition happens by freedom
(Frihed)—a freely acting cause. this is so in the realms of both nature and history.
Whereas natural creatures are rooted in the present moment, historical agents have
a double aspect (or plurality of possibilities), allowing them to be oriented towards
the future and the past as well. necessity is excluded on all counts because what is
necessary simply is and so cannot come to be at all. seeing the historical as necessary
then is an illusion: all deception is will-based. Chance is excluded too, by inference,
both because first-order and second-order agency are free and because natural causes
all end in an absolute freely acting cause anyway. everything basically happens by
an act of will (Villies-Akt).
II. Negative Possibility
Will involves spontaneity. being something that happens or is done by our own
initiative, what is voluntary cannot be forced. to be forced to will is a contradiction
in terms. spontaneity is not enough though: without the ability to break off an act
of will, or forestall it at least, the voluntary becomes something natural or automatic
and in a sense necessary again. Climacus is alive to this when he talks about the
will as a freely acting cause of plural possibilities. He then goes on to say that in the
transition to reality (or action) possibilities may not only be assumed but may also
be excluded (udelukket), being seen as nothing or made into nothing (tilintetgjort) by
us in the very moment of realization (or acting). this is proof, he thinks, that human
agency is not necessitated or constrained.5
3
For will as the motive power of the human and divine mind, see augustine,
Confessiones (book 13); De Trinitate (especially books 9–12); as basis of human action
(good and bad): De Libero Arbitrio; as the driving force in human society and history as a
whole: De Civitate Dei (especially books 14–15). augustine even thinks the will controls
human physiology and spatial movement (De Genesi ad Litteram, book 8). see also narve
strand, “augustine on predestination and divine simplicity,” Studia Patristica, vol. 38, 2001,
pp. 290–305.
4
SKS 4, 272–87 / PF, 72–89.
5
ibid.
Will 237
III. The Counterfactual
an obvious objection here would be to point out ways in which we are not fully
free (that is, being subject to external force or pressure, involuntary movements,
pain, cognitive disorders, and so on). none of this is fully up to us, and negative
possibility makes even less sense here, and so how can any of this be said to be
voluntary? the best way to answer this is to say it is still voluntary but in a limited
way. even if we have no real control over nature or the acts of others, we ourselves
produce the conscious states we experience (being hit versus feeling the pain, say).
talk of responsibility and blame should only attach to that part of human agency
that is fully voluntary. Kierkegaard is not all that interested in the physiological and
perceptual aspects of the will, but something like a determination of degrees of the
voluntary does seem implied in the whole discussion in the Fragments. the proper
sphere of the will is freedom for Kierkegaard: only insofar as we are freely acting
causes, with plural possibilities, does it make sense to speak of our willing or doing
otherwise.
IV. Consciousness and Understanding
that Kierkegaard admits gradations in the will is also clear from The Sickness unto
Death. Here, being a self is based on having a will, and the more will one exercises,
the more self-consciousness (Selvbevidsthed) one is also said to possess. the will is
the self in a way and its understanding and freedom are a function of self-relating.6
anti-Climacus is acknowledging here that consciousness is at bottom the work
of the will, which is not just the moving force in human interaction. the point is
made openly in the appendix of the second chapter where socratic intellectualism
is rejected.7 although there is always an inner relation between consciousness and
will, one cannot simply equate the two: one cannot blame wrongdoing on simple
ignorance (Uvidenhed) for example. i may actively work to blunt or obscure my
knowledge (Erkjendelse) of what is right or true. also, there is always going to be
a gap between understanding something and actually doing it. therefore, conscious
understanding may be highly complex and indispensable to human agency, but it is
still the will that steers it and that acts as a bridge between the individual and the
world for Kierkegaard.
V. Voluntarism
given (1)–(4) above, a good case can be made for why Kierkegaard is a voluntarist.
Will for Kierkegaard is not only the freely acting cause that links up possibility
and actuality, thought and action; it moves the self. that he is a voluntarist is also
clear from the fact that he gives the intellect, practical reason, and deliberation at
best supporting roles in human life. again, it is the will that steers and shapes the
6
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13; SKS 11, 145 / SUD, 29.
7
SKS 11, 201–8 / SUD, 87–96.
238 Narve Strand
understanding, not the other way around. He seems to think ethical action is pretty
straightforward: everyone knows intuitively what is the right thing to do in any given
situation and no real conflicts or doubts are possible that would make deliberation
necessary, much less the deciding factor.8 last, in an existential and religious
sense at least it is the baptism of will (Villiens Daab) that counts.9 long, drawn-
out reflection here is an excuse for not choosing or acting and therefore engenders
a kind of irresponsibility—bad faith even.10 the Kierkegaardian corpus does not
really leave room for a positive take on practical reason.11
VI. Willing Only the Good
this brings out Kierkegaard’s real concerns in his talk about the will. if we stick to the
difference between first-order and second-order agency, and between a psychological
and existential gloss on the latter, then we can say that the Kierkegaardian corpus
as a whole is primarily interested in the latter. the will is not at bottom an act of the
psyche or a bodily state for Kierkegaard but rather a spiritual orientation, a way of
seeing and relating to one’s life as a whole.12 When key elements of the voluntary
like decision (Afgjørelse) and resolve (Beslutning) are brought into play, they are
also given this broader, existential meaning. that is why he can say that to think
we can stand back from and decide between orientations is a fallacy. We are always
already relating to life in some way or other; wanting to stand back and choose
from a neutral point of view is like wanting to have no will. this is as absurd for
Kierkegaard as being forced to will. even if he defends freedom of will (libertas
voluntatis), he ends up rejecting freedom of choice (liberum arbitrium) in the sense
of freedom of indifference (libertas indifferentiae).13 it is not choosing between
alternatives, but deciding on and sticking by the right kind of existential orientation
that counts.
(a) The Aesthetic. the individual who has this orientation belongs to the
lowest level of human existence. He or she is taken with possibility and lost in
mere difference—plurality. Freedom is falsely thought to lie in choosing between
alternatives and then living these out. the medium in which the individual views and
relates to life in general is that of fantasy or imagination (abstraction). the dominant
mode of will here is desire, it seems, and because of this the individual has no real
regard for others either.14
(b) The Ethical. the aesthetic individual is in a deeper sense a mere watcher of
life, indifferent to being a self. the ethical person by contrast is engaged in bringing
8
For example, SKS 23, 336, nb19:12 / JP 3, 2874.
9
SKS 3, 166 / EO2, 169.
10
ibid.
11
Kierkegaard ironizes about wisdom (Klogskap), prudence (Forstandighed), and the
practical (det Praktiske). see gregor malantschuk, Nøglebegreber i Søren Kierkegaards
tænkning, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1993, pp. 74–5. “practical reason” is never named.
12
Cf. SKS 3, 163–6 / EO2, 166–9.
13
SKS 3, 169 / EO2, 173–4; SKS 4, 355 / CA, 49; SKS 19, 187, not5:32 / KJN 3, 183.
14
see, for example, SKS 3, 163–4 / EO2, 166–7.
Will 239
this self into actuality, recognizing ties to others.15 there is a shift here from willing
variation to wanting some kind of stability in life. this is a higher power of will.
The first form of the ethical is more outward-looking, concerned with conforming
to social mores or institutions (such as marriage).16 With the second there is an
inward turn, and only now does the person really discover that he or she has a self,
charged with the task of becoming a single individual.17 ethical will is bound to fail
in this though, Kierkegaard thinks, because it is vainly trying to unify freedom and
necessity in itself (that is, in moral autonomy). For how can the will bind itself if it is
essentially free (that is, to command and obey itself at the same time)? How can this
kind of unity remain anything but a thought? external compulsion is clearly needed
if the self is to become fully actual. to engage others in a serious way means risking
one’s self-sufficiency anyway: that is what it means to act.18
(C) Religiousness A.19 the ethical stage reveals something new about the will.
as a freely-acting cause and a self-relation it is both spontaneous and free, but as
relational it is always limited by something beyond itself. the self, paradoxically,
is a synthesis of freedom and necessity, although that synthesis is never achieved
by the self alone.20 The will is not self-sufficient, which is to say it is not perfect
either. a truly serious engagement with the ethical is also bound to involve guilt-
consciousness (Skyld-bevidsthed) on some level, not just the awareness that there
is a gap between doing what is right and getting rewarded for it (happiness).21 and
since none of us is a perfect being, this is bound at some point to lead to an appeal
to heaven. the self or will is radically torn, which marks the movement toward
religion. the dominant mode of the will at this stage is passion, it seems, and the
self is characterized by an inward deepening here, leading in its highest power to
resignation and a total self-annihilation before the divine.22
(d) Religiousness B.23 this is where Christianity comes in, a supernatural or
transcendent paradigm largely borrowed from augustine.24 the will is not only
imperfect; it is positively sinful. that the will is corrupt is not something we
can figure out on our own, however: sin-consciousness (Syndsbevidsthed),25 the
knowledge that before god one is always in the wrong, is something that has to
be revealed from above. the condition for becoming truly aware, turning one’s
will around, has to be given by the eternal god himself through the saving work of
Christ.26 only through the god-man, this absolute paradox of the eternal in history,
can a true decision be reached: one can either be transformed and made whole again
15
ibid.
16
SKS 3, 43ff. / EO2, 36ff.
17
SKS 7, 505–10 / CUP1, 555–61.
18
SKS 23, 45–6, nb15:66 / JP 1, 188.
19
see SKS 7, 505–10 / CUP1, 555–61.
20
see SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14.
21
For example, SKS 7, 477ff., 505–10 / CUP1, 525ff., 555–61.
22
ibid.
23
see SKS 7, 505–10 / CUP1, 555–61.
24
see strand, “augustine on predestination and divine simplicity.”
25
SKS 4, 411 / CA, 109.
26
SKS 4, 258–71 / PF, 55–71.
240 Narve Strand
through self-annihilation and a leap to faith,27 or else remain caught between two
wills (to Villier), two minds (Tvesindet), stuck forever in doubt (Tvivl) and despair
(Fortvivlelse).28 The latter decision is at bottom a defiant will (trodsige Villie) against
god for Kierkegaard.29 The first is something to be realized resolutely through a
lifetime. the chief modes of the will here are faith, hope, and love.30
this raises a whole host of questions of course, the two most important being:
“How does the will become bad in the first place?” and “How does Christ help in
willing only the good?” in The Concept of Anxiety the first is answered by claiming
that though everyone born after the first man who sinned (Adam) is predisposed to
corruption, sin only actually enters by a qualitative leap of the individual’s will. it is
freedom itself, the sheer possibility of being able, and the anxiety about and being
overwhelmed by this that makes us guilty before god.31 but wouldn’t this only make
sin something inevitable again, almost natural? if so, how can it be fully voluntary?
is it possible not to sin? (see (2)). Could either we or adam have willed otherwise
here? (see (3)). Haufniensis has to admit that it is all very mysterious. Kierkegaard
himself would deny that god predestines or discriminates. the leap of faith is still
up to us even if sinning is not, and the condition for the leap itself has to be given by
Christ. For Kierkegaard, Christ is also an example to be imitated in life. to obey the
will of god and suffer everything for his sake; to love god with a resolute will by
giving up all claims to human autonomy and self-sufficiency; to forsake the many
and become a single individual: that is what it means to will only one thing—the
good.32
(e) Religiousness “C”?33 Kierkegaard is a Christian existentialist above all.
the basic point of convergence in the Kierkegaardian corpus is the god-relation.
the way the will is brought out conceptually is mainly a function of this. but the
Christian is not only commanded to love god with an undivided heart. it is also
said: “love your neighbor as yourself.”34 but how can anyone do both at once?
according to Kierkegaard in Works of Love this can be done by existing and acting
so that others may want to enter into the god-relation too. a right ordering of the will
means placing oneself on the same level as others, loving them for the sake of the
good. The God-relation comes first of course, so there cannot be talk of any concrete
or real dependence on others.35 since deliberative reason cannot be said to have a
positive role in second-order agency for Kierkegaard (see (4)), there is no real place
for it in human interactions either. there is no place for reciprocal love or willing in
27
SKS 4, 161–2 / FT, 69; SKS 7, 97 / CUP1, 98–9.
28
SKS 4, 430 / CA, 129; SKS 8, 144, 169 / UD, 30, 60.
29
SKS 5, 123 / EUD, 118; SKS 11, 191–3 / SUD, 77–9.
30
SKS 8, 203–5 / UD, 99–101.
31
SKS 4, 347–57 / CA, 41–51.
32
SKS 8, 123, 157, 169, 182; 184ff., 227–37 / UD 7, 46, 60, 74, 76ff., 127–39.
33
see merold Westphal, “Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of religiousness b,”
in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community, ed. by george b. Connell and C.
stephen evans, atlantic Highlands, new Jersey: Humanities press 1992, p. 114.
34
matthew 22:37–8.
35
SKS 9, 36–7 / WL, 29; SKS 9, 51 / WL, 44; SKS 9, 68 / WL, 61.
Will 241
this picture. but though Kierkegaard has yet to come up with a full-blooded social
or political model of the will, he has nevertheless given it a kind of sociality here.
in The Sickness unto Death the self is defined as will, that is, as (1) a synthesis
of psyche and body (that is, spirit), (2) as that relation’s relating itself to itself (in
self-reflection and freedom), (3) as posited by and therefore inherently relational
and limited by something beyond itself. this is also why the will only truly exists
and reaches its full power when (4) it gives itself over to the absolute, resting
transparently in the power that posited it.36 (5) nothing should ever be allowed to
come between the will and God. This could serve as a summary definition of the
concept of will in the Kierkegaardian corpus as a whole.
see also anxiety; decision/resolve; desire; existence/existential; Faith; Freedom;

Hope; leap; love; paradox; passion/pathos; religion/religiousness; salvation/
eternal Happiness.
36
SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13; SKS 11, 161 / SUD, 46; SKS 11, 163–4 / SUD, 48–9.
Witness
ulrich lincoln
Witness (Vidne—noun)
the noun Vidne in danish refers to a person who gives an account (Vidnesbyrd)
of something that he or she has seen or heard. The witness is defined by personal
experience and by bodily presence with the event that the witness describes. in a
forensic context “witness” takes on the meaning of a trustworthy sign or proof.1
Classical rhetoric deals extensively with those methods of proof that generally
rely on trustworthiness and personal knowledge.2 the biblical term “martyr”
refers to a person who met Jesus personally, as well as to the apostolic account of
such experiences.3 in post-biblical writing the term μαρτύριον comes to include
suffering and dying for the Christian faith.4
Kierkegaard uses the term “witness” extensively throughout his writing, mainly
in the trivial sense of giving a sign or proof or of indicating a personal experience.
sometimes it is used metaphorically, for example, in the meaning of being aware of
one’s own thoughts and feelings,5 or to describe the experience of conscience.6 there
is also a conceptual use of the term dealing with epistemological and theological
questions with regard to the historical relation between Jesus Christ and the present
age.
I. The Epistemological Dialectics of Witness in the philosophical Fragments
“Can a historical point of departure be given for an eternal consciousness; how can
such a point of departure be of more than historical interest; can an eternal happiness
be built on historical knowledge?”7 Johannes Climacus builds his search for an
1
Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 1–28, published by the society for danish
2
aristotle, Rhetoric, 1395b ff.
3
Cf. luke 2:1–4; 1 peter 5:1; for the forensic usage cf. deuteronomy 19:15; matthew
18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 timothy 5:19.
4
gerhard schneider, “martys/zeuge” in Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament,
vols. 1–3, ed. by Horst balz and gerhard schneider, 2nd ed., stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1992, vol.
2, pp. 970–4.
5
SKS 5, 338 / EUD, 350.
6
SKS 5, 302 / EUD, 309.
7
SKS 4, 213 / PF, 1.
244 Ulrich Lincoln
historical epistemology on these questions. He introduces the figure of the god as
a teacher who comes into the world as the absolutely “unknown,”8 that is, as the
paradox that cannot be apprehended by immanent, reflective thinking. The teaching
of this god-teacher can only be apprehended indirectly, that is, by faith. How is the
contemporary student of the teacher to be pictured? at this point the concept of the
witness comes into play: “a contemporary such as this is not an eyewitness (in the
sense of immediacy), but as a believer he is a contemporary in the autopsy of faith.”9
Climacus defines faith in its difference from the eyewitness, but he also
builds his further metaphorical interpretation of faith on this notion. First, the
eyewitness stands for an understanding of historical knowledge that does not
suffice for the question of faith. Climacus’ use of the term “eyewitness” invokes the
epistemological understanding of the term: the truth of an eyewitness report is based
on an unmediated sensuous perception. one has to see and hear with one’s own eyes
and ears to become a witness of an event. this scheme also applies to questions
of historical knowledge. the historian, just as the judge, has to rely on witnesses
who were present at a certain event and saw it with their own eyes. but regarding
the teacher of the paradox “the trouble is that knowing a historical fact—indeed,
knowing all the historical facts with the trustworthiness of an eyewitness—by no
means makes the eyewitness a follower.”10 there is just a human person to be seen
and heard, whereas the paradoxical presence of the eternal can only be apprehended
by faith. secondly, faith itself must also be described as a kind of higher-ranking
eyewitness: as an “autopsy of faith.”11 in this sense faith indeed is a kind of seeing:
a self- or auto-seeing. one must not rely on other people’s reports but must be one’s
own witness.
Here the forensic-historical concept of the witness runs into difficulties. If
everyone has to see for himself, then there is no need for a witness anymore. on
the other hand, without a witness there would be no chance of communicating
knowledge to other people. Finally, it is evident that the term “autopsy of faith”
means a person’s own seeing, but it does not mean an immediate, direct seeing. Faith
is a person’s own mediated seeing, a mediated self-witness. and it is at this point
that the witness becomes relevant again. Climacus has to show how that autopsy
can be passed on. His answer is twofold: first, the epistemological situation of the
contemporary essentially does not differ from the situation of the later student.
precisely because the apprehension of the paradox is not a question of immediate
perception there is no advantage to the contemporary. second, precisely by virtue
of this essential equality the contemporary becomes a witness for the later follower.
He must believe himself, that is, independently of other peoples’ reports and
trustworthiness. but the relationship to the god is mediated by historical witnesses.
Climacus puts it in terms of the difference between instrumentality and causality:
“By means of [formedelst] the contemporary’s report (the occasion), the person who
8
SKS 4, 249–50 / PF, 44.
9
SKS 4, 271 / PF, 70.
10
SKS 4, 262 / PF, 59.
11
SKS 4, 270 / PF, 70.
Witness 245
comes later believes by virtue of the condition he himself receives from the god.”12
the contemporary is a historical witness in the sense of a mediating messenger who
does not claim any causality or authorship for faith but nevertheless is an essential
part of the communication between the god and the later follower.
the later follower is not an eyewitness. even though his faith bears the
characteristics of autopsy, his main instrument of relating to the god is his ears:
he becomes the hearer of the witness who must have the “ears of faith”13 in order
to apprehend the god.14 With these ears he hears the contemporary’s report. that
report can only paradoxically refer to the witness’ own belief, insofar as it can only
point beyond itself to the transcendent ground of faith as a third party between the
contemporary and later follower. the paradigm for that kind of witness is taken
from st. paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:23): “if i say, ‘i believe and have believed that
this happened, although it is folly to the understanding and an offense to the human
heart,’ i have in the very same moment done everything to prevent anybody else
from making up his mind in immediate continuity with me and to decline all
partnership.”15
a historical witness refers to the hidden, paradoxical ground of faith, which cannot
be immediately apprehended by the witness or the hearer. this witness can therefore
never be more than a maieutic occasion for the one who comes later.16 by outlining
the dialectics of the witness in this way, Climacus enters into a theological debate on
the trustworthiness of the bible. the constellation of contemporary and later follower,
which we read as the figure of the witness and his hearer, can also be read as the relation
of the biblical text and its reader. the text is the witness.17 this contextualization brings
out the following problems with Climacus’ concept of witness.
First, the understanding of a witness as a means of historical mediation of
knowledge is almost given up: “there is no follower at second hand.”18 this leads
to a devaluation of the biblical texts. the historical details of the biblical witness are
merely “minor matters [det Smaalige].”19 However, if the biblical witness is not more
than det Smaalige, one will also give up the doctrine of the inspiration of the bible
and the canonical status of its texts. Climacus here radicalizes schleiermacher’s
view of the primacy of faith over against the doctrine of Holy scripture.20
12
SKS 4, 301 / PF, 104.
13
SKS 4, 271 / PF, 70.
14
regarding this switch from seeing to hearing and its importance for the notion of
witness see paul ricoeur, “l’hermeneutique du temoignage,” Archivo di Filosofia, vol. 42,
1972, pp. 35–61.
15
SKS 4, 299 / PF, 102.
16
later this maieutic understanding of witness is changed into a qualitative difference
of maieutic method and Christian witness: SKS 21, 50, nb6:68 / JP 2, 1957.
17
Cf. Karl barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, vols. 1–4, munich: Kaiser 1932–67, vol. 1, tome
i, pp. 114ff.
18
SKS 4, 301 / PF, 104.
19
SKS 4, 300 / PF, 104.
20
Friedrich schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der
evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhang dargestellt, 7th ed., berlin: Walter de gruyter 1960,
§ 128.
246 Ulrich Lincoln
second, Climacus insists that only the god himself can give the follower
faith as a precondition for apprehending the paradox. He thereby invokes the
protestant doctrine of the inner witness of the Holy spirit (testimonium spiritus
sancti internum).21 this doctrine teaches that the Holy spirit not only inspires the
biblical writers but also those who listen to the written word. With this doctrine the
protestant theologians tried to safeguard the essential importance of the external,
written word for Christian faith against any other human authorities. However, by
distinguishing faith and biblical witness, Climacus qualitatively cuts faith off from
its biblical medium. For him, neither the texts nor their writers are inspired. rather,
it is only the reception of the text that counts as inspired by god’s spirit. thus, while
the concept of witness helps Climacus to raise important questions with regard to the
theological problem of historicism, he fails to offer satisfying answers.
II. Witness or Apostle?
in the essay “the difference between a genius and an apostle” (1847) the author
H.H. does not use the term “witness,” but his explanation of the concept of apostle
evokes the figure of the witness: an apostle is a person who “is called by a revelation
to go out in the world, to proclaim the Word, to act and to suffer…[and] is called to
the unceasingly active life as the lord’s messenger.”22 interestingly, the notion of
historical apostleship is applied to the present situation of the reader. in this way, the
term “apostle” takes on the meaning of the witness as it is found in Philosophical
Fragments: being a witness is more than just being an eyewitness, but rather it is
an act of proclamation. the witness is a messenger who communicates a message.
in combining the notions of apostle and witness, H.H. follows biblical patterns.
Compare, for example, 1 John 1:1–3: “that which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and
our hands have handled…declare we unto you.”23 in a way, H.H. de-historicizes the
concepts of apostle and of witness. the term “apostle” does not refer anymore to
a specific group of historical persons but to an ontological feature of all Christian
proclamation: its origin in a revelation and its paradoxical teleology. putting all
historical distances aside, the figure of the historical apostle is used in order to point
to the absolute “authority” that distinguishes Christian witness from all other forms
of communication.24
the apostle as a witness exerts his authority simply by repeating Christ’s
message: “these words are by the one whom…all power is given in heaven and on
earth,” and every sermon should be accompanied by this explanation.25 this remark
again highlights the characteristic feature of the apostolic witness as a messenger.
When he speaks, it is actually Christ who speaks. acting as a witness is a “double
21
John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, vols. 1–2, trans. by Ford lewis
battles, philadelphia: Westminster press 1961, vol. 1, book 1, chapter 7, § 4, pp. 120–1.
22
SKS 11, 110 / WA, 106.
23
Quoted from the new international Version (london, Hodder & stoughton 1973).
24
SKS 11, 101 / WA, 97.
25
SKS 11, 108 / WA, 105.
Witness 247
agency discourse,” that is, a speech act in which the words of the speaker at the same
time have to count as the words of another person in whose name they are uttered.26
the de-historicized concept of witness still refers to the act of communicating a
historical message. but the problem of history now lies in the present time. and more
and more, Kierkegaard’s authors become interested in looking at the conditions for
acting as a witness in the present situation.
III. The Authenticity of the Christian Witness
in Practice in Christianity, anti-Climacus is not interested in the epistemological

and forensic aspects of the witness. the quest for the truth of the witness is changed
to the question of the witness’ personal truthfulness or authenticity. the witness has
to take a stand for his conviction, publicly and with his whole life.
anti-Climacus explores the motive of authenticity by asking the witness about
the truth that his life expresses: “the being of truth is the redoubling of truth within
yourself, within me, within him, that your life, my life, his life expresses the truth
approximately in the striving for it, that your life, my life, his life is approximately
the being of truth in the striving for it, just as the truth was in Christ a life, for he was
the truth.”27 truth is not a matter of propositional knowledge, but a way of living that
manifests the relatedness to the one who is the truth.
truth is not a result but a way, and on that way there are no shortcuts. thus,
the Christian witness is placed in striking contrast to the attempts of contemporary
Christendom to cut the way short by relying on history, culture, or historical science.
the Christian witness, by contrast, will inevitably evoke a situation of contrast and
conflict: “To be a Christian in the Church militant means to express being Christian
within an environment that is the opposite of being Christian.”28
the aesthetic notion of expression is crucial to anti-Climacus’ understanding of the
witness. a witness has to make manifest the power that he believes in. anti-Climacus
takes this motive from the Ausdrucksanthropologie (expressivist anthropology) of
Herder and Hegel,29 but adds a new twist. the authentic expression of Christian truth
is an external, bodily expression in the public space. these descriptive moments
come together most strikingly in the notion of the martyr. However, anti-Climacus
approaches this topic very carefully. there is an internal dialogue about martyrdom in
Practice in Christianity. several times the author quotes voices that raise objections
against the idea. the author answers: “i have never asserted that every Christian is a
martyr [Martyr], or that no one was a true Christian who did not become a martyr.”30
Anti-Climacus admits that there are significant doubts with regard to martyrdom that
need to be addressed. the notion of martyrdom is not essential to the description of
26
nicolas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that
God Speaks, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1995, pp. 38ff.
27
SKS 12, 203 / PC, 205.
28
SKS 12, 208 / PC, 212.
29
Cf. Charles taylor, Hegel, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1975, pp. 13–50.
30
SKS 12, 221 / PC, 226–7.
248 Ulrich Lincoln
the true church. However, it is a possibility and choice that can no longer be ignored
given the desperate situation of the church.
the foregoing points to an evolution in Kierkegaard’s understanding of the
concept of witness. by looking at the contemporary conditions of witnessing, the
author leaves the epistemic and linguistic functions of the witness behind. the
transfer of knowledge through language becomes irrelevant because it is impossible.
the witness has no message (in the semantic sense) to convey, and he can no longer
bear witness—except to his own truthfulness.31
IV. “Truth-Witness”: The Ecclesiological Dialectics of the Witness
in the dispute over martensen’s use of the term “truth-witness” (Sandhedens Vidne)
in 1854–55, the questions regarding martyrdom reappear. martensen claimed that
Kierkegaard had conflated the terms “truth-witness” and “martyr” (Blodvidne).
Kierkegaard flatly denied the assertion, clarifying that he was referring to the
suffering witness “without in any way whatever asserting that to suffer should mean
to suffer death.”32 Kierkegaard rejected any exclusively martyriological definition of
his concept of witness.
before 1854, Kierkegaard uses the term “truth-witness” frequently, but not
extensively, and mainly in unpublished works.33 being a truth-witness characterizes
the apostle.34 From around 1850 onward, the term appears again and again in
the journals. Kierkegaard refers to the notion in a general way, not limited to the
Christian witness, and denotes the martyr as an ethical category.35 For Kierkegaard,
it is not the truth-witness that counts as a specific Christian concept but the witness.36
everything changes when martensen enters the scene calling the deceased bishop
mynster a truth-witness. He explains “that there stretches from the days of the
apostles until our day a chain of truth-witnesses.”37 martensen interprets the term not
as a moral characterization but as an ecclesiological category: for him it is all about
the question of “whether, on the presupposition that the true Church is in fact to be
found among us, bishop mynster has a place among the Christian truth-witnesses in
our fatherland.”38 martensen’s argument goes as follows. First, he invokes the notion
of the apostolicity of the church. second, he claims that the validity of this article is
identical with the presence of the true apostolic church in contemporary denmark.
31
Cf. sybille Krämer, Medium, Bote, Übertragung. Kleine Metaphysik der Medialität,
Frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 2008, pp. 242–3.
32
SKS 14, 129 / M, 9.
33
SKS 16, 180–3 / JFY, 125, 129–30; SKS 16, 89–99 / PV, 109, 119. For the published
works see SKS 13, 47 / FSE, 18; SKS 9, 363 / WL, 370; SKS 12, 96 / PC, 87.
34
SKS 5, 322 / EUD, 333.
35
SKS 24, 416, nb24:145 / JP 3, 3575 talks about michael servetus as a witness for the
truth; cf. SKS 21, 284, nb10:54 / JP 1, 693; SKS 10, 234–5 / CD, 226.
36
Cf. SKS 23, 220, nb17:74 / JP 4, 4967.
37
Quoted from M, supplement, 361.
38
Quoted from M, supplement, 363–4.
Witness 249
third, he concludes that the reality of an apostolic church implies the reality of
witnesses, and that mynster certainly must be counted among them.
martensen argues deductively. He starts from the presupposed historical reality
of the true church and deduces from this the legitimacy of applying the category of
witness to mynster: “the true Church is in fact to be found among us,”39 here in
denmark. it is against this argument that Kierkegaard’s protest is leveled. it is not
a dispute about mynster as a person but about the situation of the danish Church
and its theological evaluation. by introducing the notion of truth-witness into public
discussion, martensen has opened a debate about this question. and Kierkegaard
not only defends himself against a martyriological misinterpretation of his words by
martensen, but goes on to explain the Christian meaning of the term, thereby shedding
light on martensen’s positivism.40 Kierkegaard argues, first, that in actuality the true
church has been abolished by Christendom. second, it follows that martensen’s use
of the term “witness” with regard to mynster cannot be maintained. third, the term
“witness” can only be used in an inductive, empirical way of thinking, exactly as
it was used in Practice in Christianity. the truth of a witness is not a matter of the
ideality of the church, but it is a bodily and public expression by which a person
manifests his relation to Christ—under the circumstances of Christianity’s non-
existence within Christendom. the controversy with martensen concerning the term
“truth-witness” is related to the question of whether there is a truly Christian church
in the present age.
Kierkegaard argues for the apostolicity and holiness of the church. as we saw,
he has a strong understanding of apostleship. He does not reject the notion of a
“holy chain (of witnesses)” invoked by martensen. However, given the history of
the term “witness” in the pseudonymous writings it does not make sense for him
to accept the concept of witness as a historical mediation (“chain”) of knowledge.
rather, the witness is the Christian image of a human life that is radically centered
in the present, and at the same time radically decentered, insofar as it expresses a
relationship to a higher authority.
see also apostle; Church; dogma/doctrine; dying to/renunciation; Faith; History;

martyrdom/persecution; paradox; religious/religiousness; revelation.
39
Quoted from M, supplement, 362.
40
Cf. SKS 14, 147 / M, 25.
Women
Céline léon
Women (Kvinder—noun)
derived from the old danish qwinne, Kvinde (plural Kvinder) is actually the genitive
plural of Kone (wife). it refers to a person of the female gender.1
From “another defense of Woman’s High aptitude,” a brief article in Copenhagen’s
Flying Post (1834), where Kierkegaard’s pseudonym a derides Johan ludvig Heiberg’s
attempt to open his philosophy lectures to both sexes,2 to the later direct outbursts
against women, pastors, and the danish lutheran Church, there is plenty of evidence
to show that women were never far from Kierkegaard’s thought. Indeed, definitions of
what woman represents are attempted in the signed communications, as well as in all
three existence-spheres of the pseudonymous works.
There are, to begin with, the speeches of the five Aesthetes, convened in Stages on
Life’s Way (1845), for the purpose of finding “In vino veritas,” to wit, the true nature of
love and of man’s partner in the association. From the higher perspective of the ethical,
“Woman” is portrayed in her interaction with the man to whom she is married, be he
Judge William (b), in Either/Or, part two (1843) and Stages, or nicolaus notabene
(n.n.) in Prefaces (1844). Within the religious, or highest, sphere, the feminine mode
of relating is presented as the choice paradigm for Christian life. in the “poetic Venture”
of Philosophical Fragments (1844), Johannes Climacus devises a parable—that of
a king and a maiden—to show how god/the god may go about introducing a less
hierarchically structured, hence “feminine,” relationship between himself and human
beings. in The Sickness unto Death (1849), a book that Kierkegaard acknowledged
as editor, anti-Climacus puts forth the feminine as the proper way for the converse
movement: that by which individuals relate to the divinity. by means of “the Woman
Who Was a sinner,” an 1850 edifying discourse, and of the “silent woman” of For
Self-Examination (1851), Kierkegaard presents women as apostolic paradigms of
piety, and thus expresses much the same thought. as for women’s emancipation, a
subject repeatedly taken up by author and pseudonyms, it is equally objected to by all.
Kierkegaard’s remark that the five speakers of “In vino veritas” “illuminate
women essentially but nevertheless falsely” points to the rise on the pseudonymous
1
2
“ogsaa et Forsvar for Qvindens høie anlæg” (SKS 14, 9 / EPW, 3). When not enough
men, and only two women, signed up, nothing came of the project. see EPW, explanatory
notes, 230–1, note 15.
252 Céline Léon
ladder as indicative of a concurrently greater sympathy for, and appreciation of,
“the fair sex.”3 one would be remiss though in jumping from the realization that the
banqueters’ speeches should not be taken at face value to declaring them entirely
without validity. indeed, more often than not, the author’s voice can be heard through
that of a penname, even one from the very beginning of the production. With each
layer of reticence shed, what surfaces is not a jarring and contradictory picture, but
a richer, more complex, more incisive one, in faithfulness to evolving, yet abiding,
convictions, and in full agreement with a principle that Kierkegaard claims for
himself in an all-important note he appended to Judge for Yourself!: “now i speak
much more decisively, unreservedly, truly, without, however, thereby implying that
what i said earlier was untrue.”4
(I) In the first two existence-spheres, there emerges a picture of basic differences
between the sexes—psychological, intellectual, and so on—with potentially
significant repercussions for woman’s existence in the realms of the ethical and the
religious. (II) There are, however, far from negligible differences between the first
two spheres. Whereas, in the first case, woman is derided by men whose “genuine”
existence only begins with her release, in the latter one, she finds herself the
object of encomia which, their problematic aspect notwithstanding, acknowledge
her significance for ethical man as well as for herself, both in her access to the
religious and in her existence within that sphere. (iii) With the crossing into the
third, or highest, sphere, what is proclaimed is the cancellation of all differences—
including the sexual one—and, along with it, the superiority of the feminine.
(iV) the stance, however, is complicated by the unquestioned acceptance of
differences responsible, in the eyes of the higher pseudonyms and of their author,
for women’s lesser religiosity. (V) as for the objection to emancipation, it directly
arises from the fear of altering a status quo respectful of precisely such differences.
I. Ethical-Aesthetical Consensus Regarding Woman’s Aesthetic Being
like the aesthetes of the sphere that precedes his own, Judge William, the paradigmatic
ethicist of the authorship, describes woman as spontaneous, instinctive, imaginative,
unreflective, as well as relational, oriented towards finitude, and essentially aesthetic
in her immediacy. Just like them, he links her essence (Væsen) to nature: “she is
nature’s mistress; her it understands, and she understands it; it is at her beck and
call.”5 the like-mindedness is further in evidence on the question of the sexes’
intellectual disparity: “a woman in understanding is not a man in understanding.”6
The contrast identified by Johannes the Seducer, the vilest of the aesthetic personae,
is thus reaffirmed: “Woman is substance, man is reflection.”7 nicolaus notabene, the
3
SKS 27, 315, papir 308 / JP 5, 5755.
4
SKS 16, 259 / JFY, 215. see also søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon “Christendom,”
trans. by Walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1968, p. 52; SKS 25, 411,
nb30:37.a / JP 2, 6886.
5
SKS 3, 296 / EO2, 313.
6
SKS 6, 158 / SLW, 166.
7
SKS 2, 418 / EO1, 431.
Women 253
other married man of the Kierkegaardian corpus, imputes the mental inferiority of
woman to the fact that her “reasoning goes to the heart, whence it actually comes.”8
Far from exhorting her to greater intellectual reliance, William prescribes instead:
“a feminine soul does not have and should not have reflection the way a man does.”9
II. The Gains Said to be Woman’s in the“Ethical”
in Judge William’s own sphere, however, the one-sided claims are tempered by
characterizations which counter the inferiority of that “more imperfect” being with
her greater perfections:
if we wish to characterize the most pure and perfect, we say “a woman”; if we wish to
characterize the weakest and most fragile, we say “a woman”; if we want to convey a
conception of the spirituality [sic] elevated above the sensuous, we say “a woman”; if we
want to convey a conception of the sensuous, we say “a woman”; if we wish to characterize
innocence in all its uplifting greatness, we say “a woman”; if we wish to characterize the
depressing feeling of guilt, we say “a woman.” thus in a certain sense woman is more
perfect than man, and scripture expresses this by saying she has more guilt.10
over against man who, prey to complex movements of his thought, tends to get
sidetracked by questions, tends to agonize before reaching a decision, woman, the Judge
argues, is driven by passion and single-minded determination; she looks for answers,
smoothes out difficulties for her husband, whose embattled self she reconciles to the
demands of daily existence.11 this grounding ability William links to her collusion
with earthly existence: “the reason she is everything to man is that she presents him
with the finite; without her he is an unstable spirit, an unhappy creature who cannot
find rest, has no abode.”12 a woman’s particular strength lies in her remarkable aptitude
for buoying up man’s (ethical) self, a gift further enhanced by her ability to mask its
origin: “she is man’s deepest life, but a life that is supposed to be hidden and secret, as
the life of the root always is.”13 William finds accreditation for his belief in the biblical
injunction that a man “should leave father and mother and cling to his wife.”14
The notion that woman/a wife develops toward faith “without reflection” and
through man/her husband is more boldly stated in Stages on Life’s Way than in
Either/Or, part two:
8
SKS 4, 473 / P, 25.
9
SKS 6, 158 / SLW, 166 (emphasis mine). Cf. SKS 6, 89 / SLW, 91. because of space
constraints, the strongly gendered categories of anxiety (feminine) and despair (masculine)
are not considered in these pages.
10
SKS 3, 94 / EO2, 92; 1 timothy 2:14.
11
SKS 3, 293–4 / EO2, 310–11.
12
SKS 3, 296 / EO2, 313. the notion that “woman is and ought to be a corrective in
proclaiming the ethical-religious” also appears in the journals (see SKS 22, 360, nb14:28 / JP
6, 6531).
13
SKS 3, 294 / EO2, 311.
14
SKS 3, 296 / EO2, 313.
254 Céline Léon
when an intimation of the thought, the content of which the man’s reflection ideally
exhausts, passes through her consciousness, she faints, while her husband hurries off
and, equally moved but also through reflection, is not overwhelmed; he stands firm,
the beloved leaning on him until she opens her eyes again. in this swooning, she is
transferred from the immediacy of erotic love into that of the religious, and here they
meet again.15
Far from being troubled by the vicariousness, Judge William embraces it as the proper
manner for woman to gain access to the highest. deep indeed is his conviction that
she is “not supposed to know the anxiety of doubt or the agony of despair. she is not
supposed to stand outside the idea, but she has it at second hand.”16
in his second letter, in Either/Or, part two, William touches on the difference
between woman’s and man’s prayer: “it is a woman’s nature to pray for others…for
her parents, for her beloved, for her husband, for her children, always for others. man
by nature prays for himself.”17 in fact, so intrinsically wedded to her essence is this
“praying for others” that “her intercessory prayer for man will be different from his
own prayer.”18 A second difference identified by William with respect to the highest
has to do with faith. man, inclined to doubt, assumes as a matter of course that
“for god some things are impossible”; woman, meanwhile, more readily perceives
what lies beyond the scope of her energies and capabilities, and is thus confident
that “for god all things are possible.”19 the superiority with which she is invested
by virtue of her ability to grasp, and meet, the proper requirement of belief against
the understanding is therefore consonant with the “humble faith with respect to the
extraordinary” for which Kierkegaard commends the woman who was a sinner.20
III. Women and the Feminine in Relation to the Religious
rather than praising woman’s differences, as Judge William does, Johannes Climacus,
the proto-Christian pseudonym of the authorship, stresses instead their irrelevance
in light of the absolute difference in comparison with which all “vain quantitative
differences vanish.”21 in The Sickness unto Death, anti-Climacus, his extraordinary
Christian counterpart, insists that the invitation “to live on the most intimate terms
with god” is extended to all, that it knows nothing of the sexual difference.22
in the non-pseudonymous Work of Love released in 1847, hence between these two
works, Kierkegaard links the equality (Ligheden) of all persons (Mennesker) before
god to the second new testament commandment of loving one’s neighbor; “in
15
SKS 6, 164 / SLW, 167.
16
SKS 3, 294 / EO2, 311.
17
SKS 3, 297 / EO2, 315.
18
ibid.
19
ibid. translation amended. For Climacus, the channel of predilection to the Christian
life is the belief that “for god everything is possible.”
20
SKs 12, 263 / WA, 149. translation amended.
21
SKS 7, 374 / CUP1, 495.
22
SKS 11, 198–9 / SUD, 85.
Women 255
inwardness before god,” woman, he maintains, is “absolutely equal with the man.”23
He concurs in his journal that “of course every religious view” sees woman “as
essentially identical with man.”24 in “the expectancy of Faith,” Kierkegaard relies
on the apostle paul (“there is neither Jew nor greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Jesus Christ”) in an attempt to
exhort women to patience in the expectancy of the “continually postponed result”
invoked by the Judge.25
that the feminine mode of relating constitutes the appropriate pattern for
Christians—men, as well as women, in the god-relation—is a point shared by
Kierkegaard and his highest pseudonym.26 Climacus, meanwhile, demonstrates why,
after sensible consideration of various possibilities, the feminine mode of relating is
god’s/the god’s preferred strategy in his approach to human beings.
(1) The feminine as paradigm for the human–divine relation. in the crucial
footnote of The Sickness unto Death where he declares the sexual difference erased
in the god-relationship and full selfhood within reach of both sexes, anti-Climacus
shows how the transformation is effected: “it holds for men as well as for women
that devotion is the self and that in the giving of oneself the self is gained.”27
“devotedness,” he explains, “is the one unique quality that woman has”; “the man,”
meanwhile, “does not give himself in this way,” for, even when he gives himself,
“his self remains behind.”28
by means of a hypothetical dialogue, the preacher in “the Woman Who Was
a sinner” (1850) conveys the pedagogical relevancy held for the Christian in the
attitude of a woman who “does nothing at all,” who “practices the sublime, rare,
exceedingly difficult, true feminine art: to do nothing at all.”29 other than that,
“she is silent—she weeps.”30 one year later, in For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard
reintroduces the theme of the “silent woman” as a model from which all can learn.31
(2) The feminine as paradigm for the divine–human relation. in Philosophical
Fragments, Johannes Climacus avails himself of a love story between a king and
a maiden32 to illustrate, through the relation of the former to the latter, the proper
way for god/the god to relate to human beings. after eliminating from his parable
a number of alternatives that would betray a mis-relation between the parties, the
pseudonym declares the path of descent best suited towards removing the difference
between them. two years later, the tale, reprised in Concluding Unscientific
23
SKS 9, 143 / WL, 140; SKS 9, 140 / WL, 138.
24
Pap. V b 23:25 / JP 4, 4989.
25
galatians 3:27–28; SKS 5, 143–5 / EUD, 141–3; SKS 5, 157–8 / EUD, 157–8; SKS 6,
438 / SLW, 442.
26
Cf. SKS 26, 240, nb32:148 / JP 4, 5006.
27
SKS 11, 165n / SUD, 50n.
28
ibid.
29
SKS 12, 270 / WA, 157.
30
SKS 12, 269 / WA, 156; luke 7:37–50.
31
SKS 13, 69–76 / FSE, 46–51.
32
SKS 4, 233–40 / PF, 26–35.
256 Céline Léon
Postscript, suffers a twist that allows the mortal maiden to be “raised up by the
thought that he [the god] thought humanly about her.”33
IV. Women’s Lesser Religiosity
Kierkegaard urges men and women to acquire, and develop, characteristics of

each other; even affirms an ideal of complementarity in which “the truly religious”
rests upon on an alliance between “an eminently masculine intellectuality” and “a
feminine submissiveness.”34 Yet, if males are shown possible ways by means of
which to transcend maleness toward humanity, no comparable treatment is given
to either the curbing of feminine characteristics, or the appropriation of masculine
ones, by “the fair sex.” the presence in man’s partner of “more feeling, imagination,
and passion” is, let us not forget, concomitant with her having “fewer ideas and
also fewer half-ideas, than the man.”35 How then will a being who does not have
“in a decisive sense, intellectuality” acquire what the men deem an indispensable
ingredient of the spiritually defined life?36
One suggested way around the difficulty is through the substitution of one human
faculty for another: “Christianity, or becoming a Christian, has nothing to do with
a change in the intellect—but in the will,” assures Kierkegaard.37 already in 1844,
Vigilius Haufniensis had presented willing as a universal, hence higher, gift than
genius where the religious is concerned.38
even then, however, problems remain, linked to the vicarious status of (a) woman’s
ethos. Climacus’ remark, although made in reference to a masculine pseudonym,
that “a feminine inwardness,” equated with devotedness, is “less inwardness”
because, oriented “outward, toward,” it retains something of the externality of
the aesthetic, confirms the suspicion that, at its source, lies the conviction that it
applies to the entire feminine gender.39 nor does anti-Climacus contest the notion
that “in most cases the woman relates to god only through the man.”40 Far from
disavowing his extraordinary Christian pseudonym, Kierkegaard concurs that
“Christianity…cannot be a religion for women, at most secondhand”41 and points to
the contradiction inherent in the indirectness: “a relationship to god at second-hand
is just as impossible and as completely nonsensical as being in love second-hand.”42
What prevails in the end is an insuperable difference between the sexes—nowhere
more noticeable than in woman’s inability to hold on to two passions simultaneously,
33
SKS 7, 446 / CUP1, 491.
34
SKS 26, 240, nb32:148 / JP 4, 5006.
35
SKS 22, 360, nb14:28 / JP 6, 6531.
36
SKS 11, 165n / SUD, 49n.
37
SKS 27, 689, papir 588 / JP 6, 6966.
38
Cf. SKS 4, 417 / CA, 114.
39
SKS 7, 266 / CUP1, 291. Woman is said to be more god-fearing, hence more pious,
than man by virtue of her devotedness.
40
SKS 11, 165n / SUD, 50n.
41
SKS 26, 365, nb35:5 / JP 4, 5007.
42
SKS 26, 97, nb31:128 / JP 2, 1441.
Women 257
a feat best exemplified in man’s trust that the wish he has relinquished will eventually
be granted; or, in conformity with the author’s biography, that the beloved released
will be returned to him. Kierkegaard delineates the contrast:
as a psychologist i maintain that no woman can endure a dialectical redoubling

[Fordoblelse], and everything that is essentially Christian is intrinsically dialectical.
the essentially Christian task requires a man, it takes a man’s toughness and strength
simply to be able to bear the pressure of the task.43
is a feminine exception conceivable? Victor eremita, an early pseudonym, stops to

consider the possibility, but immediately links its materialization to an even more
formidable impossibility, namely, that “an erotic relationship” with her “would
be unthinkable.”44 When all is said and done, inescapable is the conclusion that
Kierkegaard had no qualms about upholding an unfair status quo from the perspective
of the highest existence-sphere: “[that] Christianity makes man and woman equal,
and therefore the woman must relate to Christianity the same way as the man, is
baseless talk. Christianity does indeed make man and woman equal, but it still does
not change their natural qualifications.”45 nor does it appear that he made allowance
for cultural, and therefore modifiable, ones.
V. Women’s Emancipation
derided by a, as noted at the beginning of this article, the idea of women’s

emancipation is sharply rejected by Judge William, as well as by Kierkegaard
speaking in his own name in Works of Love (1847) and in his journals. For the
ethicist, it is but “one of the many unbeautiful phenomena of which the men are
guilty,” or worse, it is a “seemingly delightful fruit” with which “the serpent” may
“tempt” the fair sex.46 as for the author, appalled at the thought of “what battles
there have been to establish in a worldly way the woman in equal rights with the
man,” he flatly dismisses the conceit, calling it the “invention of the devil.” 47 A firm
believer in a purely inner, or transcendent, equality, he enjoins the highest order to
silence those interested in the abolition of relative, earthly distinctions: “in the name
of Christianity, fatuous people have fatuously been busy about making it obvious in
a worldly way that the woman should be established in equal rights with the man—
Christianity has never required or desired this.”48
the desire for liberation and equality Kierkegaard and Judge William alternately, or
jointly, blame on a multitude of “ills”: undue reflectiveness; sexual appetite, examples
of which are adduced from free love when it is not from unions between elderly women
and younger men;49 sameness emblematized in an amalgam of pseudo-virile women and
43
SKS 26, 365, nb35:5 / JP 4, 5007.
44
SKS 6, 65 / SLW, 65.
45
SKS 26, 368, nb35:6 / JP 4, 5008.
46
SKS 3, 31 / EO2, 21; SKS 3, 294 / EO2, 311–12.
47
SKS 22, 94, nb11:159 / JP 4, 4992; SKS 9, 140 / WL, 138.
48
SKS 9, 140 / WL, 138–9.
49
SKS 6, 153 / SLW, 155.
258 Céline Léon
pseudo-feminine males (“half-men,” men “not much good at being men”50); disregard
for the biblically ordained division of labor (work, “man’s sour sweat,” would become
woman’s lot51); and extension of the work ethic to women in protestant countries.52
akin is Kierkegaard’s concern that, in the advent of emancipation, the uniformity and
the conformity which the rootlessness of the age has progressively imposed upon man
will analogously become woman’s lot.53 undergirding the boogiemen is the sincere
conviction that the best defense of woman is through maintenance of the status quo:
not until she ceases to imitate male conduct will she be her true self!
predictably then Kierkegaard shows very little sympathy for women interested
in intellectual, political, or philosophical pursuits. take, for example, Frederika
bremer (1801–65), the Finnish-born author at the origin of the suffragette movement
in sweden. When she asks for an interview, he refuses to see her, and when she
counters the offense by calling him “sickly and irritable,” he declares her a “smug
spinster” and a “silly tramp.”54 no more sympathy is extended to mathilde Fibiger
(1830–72). in an unpublished review of Tolv Breve, he scoffs at Clara raphael for
wanting a brother–sister relationship with her beloved, failing to appreciate even
the mild (cultural) type of liberation sought by the author behind the pseudonym.55
In fine, despite the promise held in the comment that the Aesthetes of “In vino
veritas” “illuminate women falsely,”56 despite the expressly stated assurance in the
fundamental equality of all human beings before god—in their equal potential for
spiritual and religious development—misogyny permeates much of the authorship.
a man of his time, Kierkegaard no more relinquishes his insistence that women
never become men’s equal than he loosens his adherence to the creed of essential
and insuperable differences between the sexes. on the one hand, women, equated
with their wifely function, are enjoined to remain silent and subservient to their
husbands; on the other hand, there is no indication that the negative associations
of the female sex with the natural life of immediacy, weakness, relatedness, and so
forth, ever subside. but even more perniciously than the paeans sung to women, the
appropriation, by the author and his highest male pseudonyms, for their own benefit,
of values that women have no choice but to embrace, does confirm the tendency to
“illuminate women essentially but nevertheless falsely” not to have been confined to
the sole banqueters and their mystifying speeches.57
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; anxiety; Communication/indirect Communication;

despair; ethics; Freedom; love; marriage; pseudonymity; religious/religiousness;
stages.
50
SKS 3, 295 / EO2, 312.
51
SKS 6, 158 / SLW, 166; genesis 3:17–19.
52
SKS 26, 99, nb31:133 / JP 6, 6904.
53
SKS 22, 94, nb11:159 / JP 4, 4992.
54
SKS 22, 239, nb12:157 / JP 6, 6493.
55
SKS 24, 136–8, nb22:63 / JP 6, 6709.
56
SKS 27, 315, papir 308 / JP 5, 5755.
57
ibid.
Wonder
robert Wyllie
Wonder (Vidunder—noun; forundre—verb; beundre—verb)
the danish verb forundre is derived from undre, which has its roots in the old
danish and old norse undra. it corresponds to the german wundern and the
english “wonder.”1 its lexical meaning in danish is a feeling of adoration, awe,
and veneration. according to the Ordbog over det danske Sprog, forundring may
have a colloquial connotation of foolish stupefaction.2 Forundre may also be used
as a synonym of the related verb beundre, which means admiration. Conversely,
the Hongs note that Kierkegaard’s use of beundre may also connote wonder. they
propose that “under the influence of the double meaning of the Latin admiratio,
[Kierkegaard] perhaps conflated the two Danish terms, Beundring and Forundring,
as synonymous.”3 the danish noun Vidunder, derived from ved and undre, is the
object of wonder. a secondary meaning is miracle, although the common term for
miracle in danish is Mirakel.4 english translations render this word in various ways,
generally as wonder, but also as “marvel,”5 “miracle,”6 and even “prodigy.”7
The wonder (Vidunderet) is a phenomenon that awes individuals, and one which
they intuitively link to the divine. the wonder has a transformative effect upon the
knight of faith in Fear and Trembling and the love poet in Philosophical Fragments.8
the wonder manifests itself as an a priori intuition with a non-innate source. in
Philosophical Fragments, for example, the poet draws a disjunction between the
wonder and poetic creativity. the poet’s intuition is that the wonder, not human
creativity, is behind his poem of the incarnation.9
Wonder (Forundring or Beundring) is the passion related to the wonder
(Vidunderet). the poet speaks of a “wonder” (Forundring) that grips his soul
1
2
language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 2005, vol. 3, columns 1301–2.
3
PF, 310, note 35.
4
nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, p. 455.
5
SKS 4, 141 / FT, 4, 46.
6
SKS 4, 320 / CA, 12.
7
SKS 4, 501 / P, 39.
8
SKS 4, 144 / FT, 51; SKS 4, 267 / PF, 36.
9
SKS 4, 242 / PF, 36.
260 Robert Wyllie
when he encounters the wonder.10 Wonder (Beundring) is also a significant concept
in Kierkegaard’s metaphilosophy. the passion of wonder is the starting point of
Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. The unfinished Johannes Climacus, or De
Omnibus dubitandum est distinguishes ancient greek philosophy, which began with
wonder, from modern philosophy, which begins with doubt.
both senses of wonder appear in the upbuilding discourses, especially Four
Upbuilding Discourses (1843) and Two Upbuilding Discourses (1844). in a
disenchanted and skeptical age, Kierkegaard exhorts his readers not to equate
childlike wonder (Beundring) with gullibility and foolishness.11 For this reason,
Kierkegaard is reluctant to present a wonder (et Vidunder) as a “proof” of Christianity
when it is demanded by doubt, and not the passion of wonder.12
I. The Wonder
the phenomenon of the wonder plays a pivotal role in Kierkegaard’s account of

faith. in Fear and Trembling abrahamic faith is “the one and only wonder.”13 the
movement of faith is contrasted with resignation, which Johannes de silentio claims
is a “purely philosophical movement,” one that he is able to make all by himself.14
the wonder, however, is the manifestation of something external. the wonder is
“over and beyond human powers,” not a purely philosophical matter since it involves
divine cooperation.15 The knight of faith can only go beyond infinite resignation after
the manifestation of the wonder. the knight of faith
does exactly the same as the other knight did: he infinitely renounces the love that is the
substance of his life, he is reconciled in pain. but then the wonder happens, he makes
one movement even more wonderful than all the others, for he says: nevertheless i have
faith that i will get her—by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of the fact that for god all
things are possible.16
Here, the knight of faith goes beyond the “proper domain of the understanding” and
believes what is absurd.17
the wonder is not a visible or audible phenomenon. nor is it obvious, like the
sublime; Johannes de silentio paradoxically names the wonder the “sublime in
the pedestrian.”18 the wonder manifests itself as a change in an internal state, a
10
Ibid. I have modified the translation to render Forundring as “wonder” rather than
“amazement.”
11
see, for example, SKS 5, 244 / EUD, 226.
12
SKS 5, 138 / EUD, 135.
13
SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41 (translation modified).
14
SKS 4, 142 / FT, 48.
15
ibid.
16
SKS 4, 141 / FT, 46. I have modified the translation to render Vidunderet as “the
wonder” rather than “the marvel.”
17
ibid.
18
SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41.
Wonder 261
sudden feeling of passion.19 but this passion is inspired by an external source. in
Philosophical Fragments, for example, the poet imagines how god might reveal
himself to human beings without coercing their love. as soon as he poeticizes the
essential content of the incarnation—the god took the form of man in order to save—
he is struck by wonder:
But then my soul is gripped by a new wonder—indeed, it is filled with adoration, for it
certainly would have been odd if it had been a human poem….is not the whole thing
wondrous, does not this word come to my lips as a felicitously foreshadowing word,
for do we not, as i in fact said and you yourself involuntarily say, stand here before the
wonder?20
As soon as the poet thinks he has imagined the Incarnation, he is filled with guilt:
“this would indeed be the worst of thoughts.”21 the wonder is not an external
phenomenon perceptible to the senses, but is a composite intuition. one component,
obviously, is the intuition of the incarnation. but the wonder is manifest in a second
intuition that the intuition of the incarnation comes from a source external to the
imagination and the understanding.
the understanding cannot account for how it received the complex intuition
that Kierkegaard calls the wonder. Climacus argues that neither the imagination
nor the understanding could have invented the myth of divine incarnation.22 the
understanding is even correct “in the finite world where it dominates” to suspect that
the wonder is an impossibility.23 this requires a protracted skeptical argument in the
interlude of Philosophical Fragments, where Climacus denies that human beings
have epistemic access to how any events and objects come into existence.24 so one
cannot account for how the wonderful intuition came into existence, but this does
not give the understanding warrant to dismiss the wonder. Climacus argues human
beings lack knowledge about how things come into existence simpliciter. Climacus’
argument attempts to show that faith is a properly basic or axiomatic belief because
the wonder is an incorrigible intuition.
the wonder does not manifest itself as an external phenomenon, but within the
passions of anxiety, guilt, and of course, wonder. Johannes de silentio describes being
gripped by anxiety, “my eyes darken. every time i want to make this movement, i
almost faint; the very same moment i wonder absolutely [beundrer jeg absolut], i am
seized with great anxiety.”25 the poet, guilty, asks for forgiveness that he imagined
having poeticized the myth of the incarnation.26 His intuition strikes him as ineffable.
19
see for example SKS 4, 137n / FT, 42n.
20
SKS 4, 242 / PF, 36. I have modified the translation to render Forundring as “wonder”
rather than “amazement.”
21
SKS 4, 242 / PF, 36.
22
SKS 4, 252 / PF, 47.
23
SKS 4, 141 / FT, 47.
24
SKS 4, 274–5 / PF, 73–6.
25
SKS 4, 142 / FT, 48. I have modified the translation to render Beundring as “wonder”
rather than “admiration.”
26
SKS 4, 242 / PF, 36.
262 Robert Wyllie
But the poet is most obviously filled with astonishment, awe, and adoration. His
intuition is “the most wondrously beautiful thought.”27
It is difficult to express the concept of the wonder with great clarity. The poet
paradoxically describes the wonder as a “solemn silence” that produces “awe-
inspiring words.”28 it would therefore seem that the wonder is not a mental image,
but a language of thought that cannot be expressed in natural language. Climacus
defines the inexpressibility of the wonder as its Socratic structure, “within this wonder
everything is again structured socratically.”29 indirect communication is necessary
to make an interlocutor “feel” the wonder. Without this intuition, the wonder is
incommunicable, because the wonder is “only for faith.”30 in fact, Climacus claims,
“faith itself is a wonder.”31
Kierkegaard appears to worry that his usage of the wonder implies that a kind of
special revelation is necessary for salvation. one might assume faith is the result of
an extraordinary experience that very few individuals are able to have. but Johannes
de silentio corrects this view, “Faith is a wonder and yet no human being is excluded
from it; for that which unites all human life is passion, and faith is a passion.”32 all
human beings, fools and children especially, are able to wonder. if one is able to
suppress doubt, envy, and pride, the wonder would be manifest to all.
II. Wonder as a Passion
in his Two Upbuilding Discourses (1844), Kierkegaard remarks that wonder

is a much-maligned passion that moderns have in short supply. He confirms the
connotation between “wonder” and childishness, superstition, and gullibility.
Kierkegaard proposes that people commonly think life “seeks in vain to take the
soul by surprise or to captivate it in wonder [Beundring], since to wonder at nothing
is the highest wisdom.”33 For Kierkegaard, this is an attitude of self-importance
that is antithetical to all kinds of passionate idealism. in The Concept of Anxiety,
Vigilius Haufniensis considers descartes’ claim that admiratio, related to one’s
first wondrous encounter with an astonishing object, is the only passion without a
corresponding opposite.34 Haufniensis rejects this claim, suggesting that the opposite
of wonder is not only doubt, but also envy.35 this anticipates Kierkegaard’s critique
of the spiritless age, where he laments even the demise of political idealism.36
27
ibid.
28
ibid.
29
SKS 4, 267 / PF, 65.
30
SKS 4, 290 / EUD, 93.
31
SKS 4, 267 / PF, 65.
32
SKS 4, 159 / FT, 67.
33
SKS 5, 224 / EUD, 226.
34
descartes, Tractatus de passionibus animae; Passiones, sive Affectus Animae, II, LIII,
Admiratio; Opera Philosophica, amsterdam: typographia blaviana 1685, p. 27.
35
SKS 4, 445n / CA, 146n.
36
SKS 8, 63 / TA, 65–6.
Wonder 263
in A Literary Review of Two Ages Kierkegaard takes envy to be the “negatively
unifying principle” of modern, reflective public society.37
pride and envy are obstacles to wonder, and can only be overcome by soberly
assessing human finitude and the limits of human intelligence. The difficulty of
accepting human limits is at the root of the widespread inability to wonder:
if, however, a person knew how to make himself what he truly is—nothing—knew how
to set the seal of patience on what he had understood—ah, then his life, whether he is the
greatest or the lowliest, would even today be a joyful surprise…there is truly only one
eternal object of wonder—that is god—and only one possible hindrance to wonder—
and that is a person when he wants himself to be something.38
Human beings should be skeptical of the reach of their imagination and understanding.
Kierkegaard exhorts “the single individual to use doubt in the right way, not to doubt
what stands firm but to doubt that which in itself is transitory…to doubt himself, his
own capacity and competence.”39 this is an apologia for the philosophical method
of Johannes Climacus in Philosophical Fragments.
the proper use of doubt and wonder is the most obvious category of Kierkegaard
pertaining to metaphilosophy. The Concept of Anxiety claims that the “fundamental
error of recent philosophy” is that it begins with doubt (the negative) rather than the
positive.40 this was a major theme in the unpublished De Omnibus. the assumption
that philosophy begins with doubt presents an infinite regress problem. Something
must be doubted, since doubt “is a polemic against what went before.”41 the ancient
greeks, at least plato and aristotle, avoided this problem by teaching that philosophy
begins with wonder.42
if philosophy is distinguishable from intellectual history, there must be some
absolute object of wonder. Climacus considers that any positive principle of
philosophy, such as wonder, “cannot give rise to any historical consequence
whatsoever.”43 Climacus also presents a second problem: “Wonder is plainly an
immediate category and involves no reflection upon itself. Doubt, on the other
hand, is a reflection category.”44 Climacus is unwilling to annul the immediacy of
the wonder by subjecting it to doubt, preferring first to “use doubt” against his own
capacity for understanding.
Kierkegaard—or the anonymous author of De Omnibus—knowingly chides
the young Climacus for not asking whether doubt is “a part of philosophy or the
whole of philosophy” or what the other part might be.45 in Philosophical Fragments,
Climacus is much matured. His text compares two philosophies that begin with
37
SKS 8, 78 / TA, 81.
38
SKS 5, 225 / EUD, 226.
39
SKS 5, 139–40 / EUD, 137.
40
SKS 4, 445n / CA, 146n.
41
SKS 15, 38 / PF, 145.
42
ibid.
43
ibid.
44
ibid.
45
SKS 15, 39 / PF, 147.
264 Robert Wyllie
absolute objects of wonder—the platonic Forms and “the god-man.” since these
objects of wonder are absolute with respect to history, they are elevated as the two
plausible starting points for philosophy. that there might be abstract objects at all,
curiously, is not brought into question. the methodological reason can be found
in De Omnibus: such skepticism would put the very foundation of philosophy, the
immediacy of wonder, in doubt.
III. The Limits of the Wonder and Other Uses
the wonder is ineffable and immediate. For the wonder to be doubted or brought into
reflection would change the concept entirely. In Four Upbuilding Discourses (1843),
Kierkegaard inveighs against equating the wonder to a proof or demonstration of
faith:
How should such an identifying sign be constituted…? should it be a sign, a wonder?

is not wonder the alchemy of doubt, with which it is never combined? should it be an
experience? is not doubt the very unrest that makes the life of experience unstable so
that it never finds peace or takes a rest, is never finished with observing, and even if it
ever did that would never find rest?46
Here the metaphor of alchemy implies the impotence of doubt to generate the wonder.
Just as the alchemist desires the gold he cannot synthesize, so the understanding
cannot, on its own, intuitively apperceive the wonder. this anticipates Climacus’
claim in Philosophical Fragments that the wonder is “only for faith.”47 there is no
proof of the wonder “in the way that doubt demands,” but only reassurance from
looking to heaven in a gaze that “no envy obscures.”48
starting in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard begins to use the
term “miracle” (Mirakel) where one may have been accustomed to seeing wonder.
before this, one sees the miracle implicitly contrasted with the wonder only once.
ignoring the anxious ordeal, the sleepless man expects a miracle to take place right
away.49 Johannes de silentio did warn that the wonder “can so easily deceive.”50
in the Postscript, however, the movement of faith theretofore called a wonder is
now called a “miracle.”51 Kierkegaard’s earlier reluctance may be theologically
advisable. the wonder is not plainly visible, as the miracles of Jesus were. Climacus
considers a notable exception, the conversion story of paul, noting that it is
“straightforward” to be converted by a miracle “to the doctrine that proclaims that
it is itself a miracle.”52 Climacus contrasts this favorably to Johan ludvig Heiberg’s
“conversion” to Hegelianism, a doctrine that does not admit miracles. again, he
uses the term “miracle” rather than wonder, despite having sarcastically called
46
SKS 5, 138 / EUD, 135.
47
SKS 4, 290 / EUD, 93.
48
SKS 5, 138 / EUD, 135–6.
49
SKS 4, 146 / FT, 52.
50
SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41.
51
SKS 7, 523 / CUP1, 576.
52
SKS 7, 169 / CUP1, 184.
Wonder 265
Hegelianism a “wonder” in two earlier writings.53 by describing Christian doctrine
as a miracle, Climacus is obviously not indicating a visible phenomenon, like the
blinding light in the conversion of paul. in this case, Climacus uses miracle in a
loose sense and conflates the term with wonder.
Wonder is also used outside of the religious context by Kierkegaard. in Stages
on Life’s Way, for example, the married man proposes that the birth of a child and
falling in love (that is, romantic love) are wonders.54 the married man writes, “all
falling in love is a wonder—no wonder, then, that the understanding stands still
while the lovers kneel in adoration before the wonder’s sacred symbol.”55 Falling
in love has the immediacy that warrants Johannes Climacus’ “imperfect metaphor,”
which assimilates wonder to erotic love in Philosophical Fragments.56 the married
man extends the metaphor. it is foolish to give reasons for love, for doing so might
“be very amusing by quite humorously placing the whole substance of erotic love in
relation to a triviality, as if the husband were to tell his wife that he really loved her
because she had blond hair.”57
Wonder, for Kierkegaard, unites the manifestation of god’s grace with the
appropriate passion for it. although it is annulled by coming into contact with
doubt, it can also be preserved by skeptical philosophy that defines the limits of the
understanding. Kierkegaard laments the lack of this passion in the present age.
see also admiration; Faith; miracle; skepticism/doubt; understanding/Compre-

hension.
53
SKS 4, 320 / CA, 12; SKS 4, 501 / P, 39.
54
SKS 6, 116 / SLW, 123.
55
SKS 6, 114 / SLW, 121. I have modified the translation to render hvad Under as “no
wonder.”
56
SKS 4, 252 / PF, 48.
57
SKS 6, 115 / SLW, 122.
Worldliness/secularism
david Coe
Worldliness/Secularism (Verdslighed—noun; verdslig—adjective)
the adjectival form verdslig is derived from the old danish werdzlig and the older
new danish verdslig. the state of being verdslig is characterized by a focus on the
material, outer, temporal, or secular world, rather than the spiritual, inner, eternal, or
religious part of reality. in one sense, “worldliness” refers to the hedonistic pursuit
of the aesthetic goods and pleasures of this world, rather than ethical or religious
goods. more generally, it can refer to anything non-ecclesiastical, bourgeois, or
secular. in another sense, “worldliness” refers to wisdom in the affairs of this world.1
although Verdslighed gets translated in the Hongs’ edition as both “worldliness”
and “secularism,” for the purposes of simplicity this entry will only use the word
“worldliness.”
the majority of Kierkegaard’s references to worldliness occur in Works of Love.
the concept also occurs in much of Kierkegaard’s signed corpus, for example in
Four Upbuilding Discourses (1844), Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits,
Christian Discourses, and For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!. anti-
Climacus, Kierkegaard’s superlatively Christian pseudonym, also covers the
concept in Practice in Christianity. throughout these works, Kierkegaard accords
worldliness little worth.
generally, Kierkegaard does not speak of worldliness except as a foil for
Christianity. “the world, as is natural, speaks about this world, simply and solely
about this world, does not know and does not wish to know that there is another
world.”2 Christianity, on the other hand, “speaks eternally and about this other
world, about eternity.”3 Kierkegaard’s contrast of worldliness and Christianity is not
merely ontological, but primarily both theological and sociological. theologically,
the Christian perpetually bears god in mind in every circumstance, producing a
psychological earnestness4 and ethical integrity in the world.5 “in the Christian sense,
a person ultimately and essentially has only god to deal with in everything, although
he still must remain in the world and in the earthly circumstances assigned to him.”6
1
2
SKS 16, 200 / JFY, 150.
3
ibid.
4
SKS 9, 215 / WL, 320.
5
SKS 9, 103 / WL, 98.
6
SKS 9, 370 / WL, 377.
268 David Coe
instead of seeking god alone, worldliness seeks the world’s honor and prestige,7
producing a “divided and scattered,”8 “double-minded,”9 and “thousand-minded”10
man, aiming to please a multiplicity of personalities. Worldliness wills the good only
out of fear of the world’s punishment, but the Christian walks safely, holding the
hand of god, even if punished by the world.11 Worldliness thrives in comparison, but
Christianity says, “get out, and take comparison with you.”12 Worldliness measures
success in large sums of money,13 but Christianity says, “You cannot serve both
god and mammon.”14 Kierkegaard even disparages the world’s modern desire for
temporal human equality.15 Christianity “allows all the dissimilarities to stand but
teaches the equality of eternity,”16 making “every human relationship between person
and person a relationship of conscience.”17 most important to Kierkegaard is the
contrast between worldly and Christian love. Kierkegaard regards worldly love as
an alliance in self-love between persons.18 This alliance sacrifices a portion of self-
love in order to hold together a united self-love that gets each person ahead in the
world. on the other hand, “Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between:
a person—god—a person, that is, that god is the middle term.”19 Christian love is
willing to sacrifice personal relationships to make room for God because “to help
another person to love god is to love another person; to be helped by another person
to love god is to be loved.”20 Finally and ultimately, in contrast to Christianity,
Kierkegaard bemoans the world as sinful, wicked, and ungodly.21
While praising Christianity over against worldliness, Kierkegaard straightaway
decrees, “just when Christianity is being praised most strongly, the difficulty must
simultaneously be emphasized.”22 Kierkegaard’s rule is that when Christianity is
lauded in its positivity, straightaway its concomitant negativity must also be noted.
this negativity safeguards a correct expression of Christianity’s positivity and allows
the hearer to choose Christianity over against worldliness. “the person who chooses
Christianity should at that very moment have an impression of its difficulty so that
he can know what it is that he is choosing.”23 For Kierkegaard, Christianity always
involves a double danger, theologically first and sociologically second. Theologically,
7
SKS 10, 235 / CD, 227.
8
SKS 9, 103 / WL, 98.
9
SKS 8, 142 / UD, 28.
10
ibid.
11
SKS 8, 168 / UD, 59.
12
SKS 9, 185 / WL, 185.
13
SKS 9, 316 / WL, 319.
14
SKS 8, 302 / UD, 207.
15
SKS 9, 78 / WL, 71.
16
SKS 9, 79 / WL, 72.
17
SKS 9, 137 / WL, 135.
18
SKS 9, 123 / WL, 119.
19
SKS 9, 111 / WL, 107.
20
ibid.
21
SKS 11, 254 / WA, 118.
22
SKS 9, 193 / WL, 193.
23
SKS 9, 193 / WL, 194.
Worldliness/Secularism 269
the individual must first fight with himself and God, reaching forgiveness through
the consciousness of sin. Kierkegaard here follows martin luther: “take away from
the forgiveness of sins the battle of the anguished conscience (to which, according
to luther’s excellent explanation, this whole doctrine is to lead), and then close the
churches, the sooner the better.”24 sociologically, “Christian love is hated, detested,
and persecuted by the world.”25 Christianity renounces the world to serve god alone
and concomitantly suffers for it. Kierkegaard sees this offense of Christianity and the
world’s persecution as essential to Christianity, not accidental.26 He writes,
as long as this world lasts and the Christian Church in it, it is a militant Church. but
woe, woe to the Christian Church when it will have been victorious in this world, for
then it is not the Church that has been victorious but the world. then the heterogeneity
between Christianity and the world has vanished, the world has won, and Christianity
has lost.27
in the early church, a Christian might suffer persecution in the form of physical
martyrdom. Yet in Kierkegaard’s nineteenth-century lutheran denmark, where
everyone is nominally Christian by means of infant baptism,28 a true Christian
suffers persecution in the form of character martyrdom. the Christian may be
judged “eccentric,” an “exaggeration,”29 “obtuse,”30 “intoxicated,”31 and “mad.”32
Kierkegaard saw himself suffering this character martyrdom at the hands of meir
goldschmidt during the so-called “Corsair affair” of 1846.33 Kierkegaard’s prototype
for sociological suffering is Christ, who did not withdraw from the world in monastic
solitude, but remained to love the unloving world and suffer.34 Kierkegaard again
references luther, “the superb teacher of our Church,” who continually points out
that to do good and suffer for it belong to true Christianity.35 “thus the apostles, in
conformity with their prototype, resolved to love, to suffer, to endure all things, to
be sacrificed in order to save this unloving world.”36 While painful, the sociological
sufferings also maternally wean the Christian from the world:
Just as we speak of a child’s having to be weaned when it no longer is allowed to be as

one with the mother, so also in the most profound sense a person must be weaned by
24
SKS 9, 199 / WL, 201.
25
SKS 9, 123 / WL, 120.
26
SKS 9, 193 / WL, 194.
27
SKS 12, 218 / PC, 223.
28
SKS 12, 215 / PC, 219.
29
SKS 9, 317 / WL, 320.
30
SKS 9, 194 / WL, 195.
31
SKS 16, 155 / JFY, 97.
32
SKS 9, 329 / WL, 333.
33
SKS 21, 289, nb10:60 / JP 6, 6356.
34
SKS 16, 221 / JFY, 168.
35
SKS 16, 222 / JFY, 169.
36
SKS 13, 105 / FSE, 85.
270 David Coe
sufferings, weaned from the world and the things of this world, from loving it and from
being embittered by it, in order to learn for eternity.37
in sum, Kierkegaard disparages worldliness as the antithesis of Christianity.

but straightaway, Kierkegaard candidly presents the offensive theological and
sociological double danger essential to Christianity, lest Christianity “falsely have a
fascinating effect.”38 “Christian self-denial knows in advance that this will happen to
it and freely chooses it.”39
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; apostle; Christ; Christendom; Crowd/public; god;

love; martyrdom/persecution; offense; trial/test/tribulation.
37
SKS 8, 355 / UD, 257.
38
SKS 9, 191 / WL, 191.
39
SKS 9, 194 / WL, 195.
Writing
thomas J. millay
Writing (Skrift—noun; skrive—verb)
From the old danish skriuæ, old norse skrífa, derived from the latin scribere.1
its lexical meaning in danish refers to the production of a text by means of putting
letters together, or to the act of forming words through letters;2 in both cases, the
referent is an action, which distinguishes “writing” from “a writing” (Skrift—noun)
or “writings” (Skrifter—noun), the latter referring only to the finished result of the
action of writing.3
To begin with the difficulties, there are three main obstacles that stand in the
way of gaining a comprehensive view of Kierkegaard’s concept of writing. First, the
term “writing” is often used in a purely conventional sense in Kierkegaard (one that
adds nothing to the dictionary definition as given above). Such instances require no
further commentary. Second, and more significantly, writing is never the object of
direct conceptualization by Kierkegaard. thus, the interpreter is forced to attempt
a probable exegesis of how an implicit understanding of writing is being utilized.
Despite this problem, it can be reasonably (though not absolutely or definitively)
demonstrated that writing is implicitly understood as a concept in two primary ways
in Kierkegaard’s writings: (1) as a tool that results in a material object, that is, in
writings (Skrifter) and (2) as an activity.
The final obstacle is that Kierkegaard’s understanding of writing is easily
collapsed into two related concepts: (a) Writing is to be distinguished from the
concept of authorship, a broader topic that refers to the effects Kierkegaard
wanted his activity of writing to accomplish. rather than being synonymous with
his authorship, writing is the material tool or physical activity that Kierkegaard
uses to actuate the goals of that authorship. (b) in a similar way, writing must be
distinguished from communication. Writing plays a specific role in Kierkegaard’s
understanding of direct and indirect communication. rather than being homologous
with communication, writing is a fitting and suitable tool or activity that lets
Kierkegaard put his theory of communication into action.
1
2
ibid.
3
among many possible examples, see SKS 17, 76, bb:7 / KJN 1, 70: “writings of
goethe [Skrifter af Goethe].”
272 Thomas J. Millay
excising these two possible confusions from the subject matter, the scope here
will be limited to how Kierkegaard understands writing as both a tool and a specific
activity. This refined focus will, however, necessarily point toward how writing is
used within the broader topics of authorship and communication. though a rigorous
delimitation of the concept is commendable as a goal, one cannot and should not
completely abandon these topics of authorship and communication when trying to
grasp what writing means to Kierkegaard.
I. Writing as a Tool
as with many of Kierkegaard’s concepts, there are positive and negative valences to
the use of writing as a tool, and this serves as a useful way to group the various texts.
These valences of the concept of writing will be treated in turn, first establishing
Kierkegaard’s positive use of writing before turning to (what he sees as) the various
spuria.
there are two texts that may serve as summaries of the diverse positive
conceptualizations of writing as a tool in the authorship: the “preface” to Two
Upbuilding Discourses (1843) and the appendix to the Concluding Unscientific
Postscript, “a First and last explanation.” Writing is not explicitly conceptualized
in these passages; rather, the notion of writing as productive of a material artifact is
implicitly at work in these texts—something that may be missed at first glance, but
will be seen to be a necessary part of the communicative equation.
Writing is a tool that results in a lasting material artifact: namely, the book.
Kierkegaard puts this seemingly mundane fact to remarkable use in his “preface”
to the Two Upbuilding Discourses of 1843. there, he describes his “almost fantastic
hope” for his “little book”: the hope that the book will find the “single individual
[hiin Enkelte] whom i with joy and gratitude call my reader.”4 this illustrates a key
characteristic of how Kierkegaard conceives his authorship: it is directed to the
single individual. Yet within this larger goal, the material element of writing plays a
surprising role. Kierkegaard explicates that role as follows:
Inasmuch as in being published it [i.e., this little book] is in a figurative sense starting
a journey, i let my eyes follow it for a little while. i saw how it wended its way down
solitary paths or walked solitary on public roads. after a few little mistakes, through
being deceived by a fleeting resemblance, it finally met that single individual [hiin
Enkelte] whom i with joy and gratitude call my reader, that single individual it is seeking,
to whom, so to speak, it stretches out its arms, that single individual who is favorably
enough disposed to allow himself to be found, favorably enough disposed to receive it,
whether at the time of the encounter it finds him cheerful and confident or “weary and
pensive.” —on the other hand, inasmuch as in being published it actually remains quiet
without moving from the spot, i let my eyes rest on it for a little while. it stood there like
a humble little flower under the cover of the great forest, sought neither for its splendor
nor its fragrance nor its food value. but i also saw, or thought i saw, how the bird i call
4
SKS 5, 13 / EUD, 5.
Writing 273
my reader suddenly noticed it, flew down to it, picked it, and took it home, and when I
had seen this, i saw no more.5
Even giving due weight to the phrase “in a figurative sense,” it is clear that the
material character of this little book plays an important role in it finding the single
individual. that is to say, writing results in a material artifact that has the potential
to be used in a non-public nature. unlike the sermon, writing results in a physical
book that the reader can snatch from its public space and read in the private realm of
the single individual. a book can be read alone, like a love letter.6 thus the material
character of writing is a tool that is uniquely suited to fulfilling Kierkegaard’s
authorial goal of speaking to the single individual.
there is another aspect in which writing as a tool plays a unique role in
Kierkegaard’s authorship. again, writing is a material tool that gives a relatively
lasting permanence and independence to what is inscribed, and this degree of
permanence and independence plays an essential role in actualizing the poetic-
imaginative character construction of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship.
in “a First and last explanation”—a critical text in which he both acknowledges
responsibility for the creation of the pseudonymous books and theoretically reflects
on how exactly his relation to those books should be understood—Kierkegaard
explains his unique practice of pseudonymity by pointing to the real existence of
the pseudonymous authors. thus, Kierkegaard—in his own name—writes that,
“i am just as remote from being Quidam of the imaginary construction as from
being the imaginative constructor, just as remote, since the imaginative constructor
is a poetically actual subjective thinker and what is imaginatively constructed is
his psychologically consistent production.”7 thus, Kierkegaard stands at a double
remove from these books; he is “the dialectically reduplicated author of the author or
of the authors”;8 and he has created a character, who then created a book.
in chiastic parallel to this double remove, writing plays a double role in the
process Kierkegaard is here concerned to clarify. Writing makes actual the existence
of both (a) the pseudonymously authored books, and (b) the pseudonymous authors
themselves. as far as his own personal responsibility for the authorship goes,
Kierkegaard writes: “it is i who have occasioned [foranlediget] the audibility of the
production in the world of actuality [Virkelighedens Verden],”9 and he has done this,
of course, through writing. Writing is the material occasion through which these
characters and their books can have a real existence.
5
ibid.
6
Cf. SKS 13, 54–60 / FSE, 26–32. to a friend who has interrupted the lover’s reading
of his letter, the lover says: “please go so I can finish” (SKS 13, 55 / FSE, 27)—the reading
cannot continue unless the reader is alone. the reader of scripture must be alone in a similar
way: “alone with god’s Word [Ene med Guds Ord]—this must one be, just as the lover
wanted to be alone with the letter, for otherwise it would not be reading the letter from the
beloved—and otherwise it is not reading god’s Word or seeing oneself in the mirror” (SKS 13,
60 / FSE, 32).
7
SKS 7, 570 / CUP1, [626].
8
SKS 7, 571 / CUP1, [627].
9
SKS 7, 570 / CUP1, [627] (emphasis in original).
it is important to insist upon the unique use of writing at work here. beyond the
obvious fact that the character’s books would not exist without writing, it is also the
case that it is through these written books that the authors live a substantial life of
their own. Johannes de silentio would simply not exist, or would exist in a purely
virtual sense known only to Kierkegaard, if Fear and Trembling had not been written
down. it is the material fact of these books that enables the imaginative characters
to take on an independent life of their own. in “a First and last explanation,”
Kierkegaard understands his authors to have, in some sense, a real life of their own;10
through their respective writings, the authors come to have an existence in actuality.
resulting in the independent material artifact of a book, then, writing allows the
independent existence of these imagined constructors; within this parallel structure
of independence the importance of writing to Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous project
can be read.
to recap this second point: without writing, Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms—and the
whole theory of indirect communication that goes with them—would have no entry
point to “the world of actuality.” Writing, as a semi-stable material artifact, enables
the real existence of the pseudonymous authors and the effectuation of the theory of
indirect communication from which they stem. thus, though technically implicit as
it is not mentioned as such, writing can be here seen as the chosen and appropriate
tool for making actual Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect communication.
in the two above instances, writing is a tool, and it is a positive one in that
it serves good ends: namely, to give “the single individual”11 “the light, doubly
reflected ideality of a poetically actual author to dance with.”12 Yet the tool of writing
can also be put to malformed ends. Kierkegaard systematically catalogues these
misdirected ends in his works Prefaces and Writing Sampler (the latter of which
remained unpublished).
these satirical works document the following improper uses of the tool of
writing. First, we have the intertwined motifs of the stunted activity of the writer
who only writes prefaces,13 but imagines he would like to write more;14 and the
writer who has a wife and thus for whom writing is an admirable pastime (which,
however, the wife does not allow).15 these may be summarized as writing that is an
indulgence to the author. next, there is writing that intends to indulge its audience.
10
see also the retrospective comment from 1846: “up until now i have made myself
useful by helping the pseudonyms become authors” (SKS 18, 279, JJ:419 / JP 5, 5877).
11
SKS 5, 13 / EUD, 5.
12
SKS 7, 571 / CUP1, [628].
13
SKS 4, 469–70 / P, 5–6: writing a preface (at skrive et Forord) is of course extolled
here, but in a satirical way.
14
SKS 4, 477–8 / P, 13–14: this is the preface to the “new Year’s gift,” which is never to
appear (though perhaps it does in this imaginatively constructed world; see the third preface,
SKS 4, 485 / P, 22. the systems, though, certainly do not appear, either in actuality or the
imaginative construction).
15
SKS 4, 470 / P, 6: “several months had passed by since the wedding. i had gradually
become somewhat practiced in the pattern of marital life; then little by little there awakened
again in me a desire that i had always nourished and in which i in all innocence thought i
might indulge myself: engagement in some literary task.”
Writing 275
Kierkegaard’s favorite example is “prof. Heiberg’s” new Year’s gift,16 which he
parodies repeatedly in Prefaces and Writing Sampler.17 such a work is brief, elegant,
written in “esthetic fine style,”18 and expensively printed. Finally, there is writing
for profit.19 (though Kierkegaard does ask for a subscription for The Moment,20 this
seems to serve the simple goal of being able to continue writing, rather than to profit
from it.)
in sum, writing is implicitly conceptualized as a unique tool that can be put to
good or bad uses; whereas many of his contemporaries used this tool for what he
sees as self-serving ends, Kierkegaard mobilizes this tool for his own specific ends.
II. Writing as an Activity
the use of writing as a tool (whether for good or ill) does not exhaust Kierkegaard’s
conceptualization of writing. He also occasionally makes reference to writing as
an activity in itself; that is, writing as a separate and contained sphere of activity.
these references to writing as an activity can be broken up into three categories:
(a) the desire to write, (b) the difficulty of writing, (c) the joy of writing. The first two
categories can be dealt with swiftly: (a) Kierkegaard often expresses the desire to
write something in particular, and (b) he frequently struggled with writing a certain
piece, writing and rewriting and rewriting again, until the piece in question met his
standards.21 the last category (c), the joy of writing, demands extended consideration
since it demonstrates how central the activity of writing was to Kierkegaard’s self-
understanding (not to mention his personal well-being).
in 1847, after the tortuous “Corsair affair,” Kierkegaard penned the following
journal entry:
Only when I am writing do I feel just fine. Then I forget all the disagreeable things in
life, all the sufferings, then i am at home with my thoughts and am happy. if i refrain
from it for just a few days, i immediately get sick, overwhelmed, depressed, and my
head gets stodgy and weighed down. an urge like this, so plentiful, so inexhaustible,
16
Kierkegaard is making reference to Johan ludvig Heiberg’s Urania: Aarbog for 1844
(Copenhagen: H.i. bing & sön 1843; ASKB u 57), a lavishly printed book released in time to
be presented as a Christmas or new Year’s gift; the book also included attacks on Repetition.
Cf. todd W. nichol’s historical introduction to Prefaces and Writing Sampler, viii–x.
17
SKS 4, 477–8 / P, 13–14; SKS 4, 485 / P, 22; SKS 4, 486–8 / P, 23–25; Pap. Vii–2 b
274: 22, 333 / WS, 88.
18
SKS 4, 486 / P, 23.
19
SKS 4, 485 / P, 22.
20
SKS 13, 141 / M, 101.
21
this is beautifully captured in SKS 20, 25, nb:14 / PJ, 222: “they say that i scrawl
[jadsker]. imagine! i am totally convinced not a danish writer treats the least word with the
excessive care i do. two drafts of everything in my own hand, three or four of larger parts, and
then, something no one knows anything about, there’s my meditating as i walk, the fact that
i have said everything aloud to myself many times before writing it down—and this is what
they call scrawling!”
which after continuing day after day for five or six years still surges just as copiously,
must certainly be a calling from god [Guds Kald].22
there are two fundamental themes Kierkegaard evokes here: writing as a pleasurable
activity, and writing as a vocation given by god.
First, writing is an activity in which Kierkegaard takes great pleasure. indeed, in
1846, Kierkegaard wrote: “i have developed as a poet to the point where the act of
writing is itself the greatest pleasure [Nydelse] for me.”23 Writing, as an activity, is
a relief, a joy, and a pleasure. Kierkegaard therefore understood writing as a sphere
of activity in which he took a particular pleasure or even delight. He expresses this
delight plangently when he has to give up the leisure of his normal writing practices
in order to write “in the moment” during the attack upon Christendom:
if i am to work in the moment, then i must, alas, take leave of you, you beloved distance,
where there was nothing urgent to be done, where there was always plenty of time,
where I could wait for hours, days, weeks to find the expression exactly as I wanted it,
whereas now a break must be made with all such considerations of tender love.24
second, writing is an activity to which Kierkegaard is called by god. as we have

seen, writing is a pleasurable or even indulgent activity for Kierkegaard; but it also
“must certainly be a calling from god.”25 Kierkegaard’s explicit reason for claiming
it as a calling is the intensity and frequency with which he practices this activity.26
in fact, the context of the above journal entry is Kierkegaard’s internal debate over
whether to continue his authorship. initially, Kierkegaard planned to terminate his
authorship, renounce this great pleasure of writing, and assume a post as a parish
22
SKS 20, 83, nb:108 / JP 5, 5962.
23
SKS 20, 75, nb:89 / JP 5, 5951. “Writing” here translates Frembringelsen rather than
Skriften; however, it is clear from the context that writing is the activity to which Kierkegaard
refers.
24
SKS 13, 130 / M, 92.
25
SKS 20, 83, nb:108 / JP 5, 5962.
26
although, Kierkegaard notes, the activity of writing could have been more intense
and more frequent if he had followed his own inspiration and not written simply in obedience
to god. this program of restraint is outlined in a passage from The Point of View (SKS 16,
53–4 / PV, 74): “at every moment i have been and still am able to perform the feat of sitting
down and writing incessantly [at skrive uafbrudt] day and night and yet another day and night,
because there is wealth enough. but if i did that, i would collapse. ah, just the slightest dietary
indiscretion, and I am in mortal danger. Then when I learn obedience, do the work as a firm
work assignment, hold the pen properly and write each letter carefully, then i can do it….thus
throughout all my work as an author i have incessantly needed god’s assistance in order to
be able to do it as a simple work assignment for which specific hours are allotted each day,
beyond which it was not permitted to work, and when this happened on rare occasions, i had
to pay dearly for it. nothing resembles my conduct less than that outburst of genius and then
a tumultuous breaking off. I have basically lived like a scribe in his office.” This need to limit
his activity of writing makes greater sense when seen in tandem with the immense pleasure
writing gave to Kierkegaard, as developed here.
Writing 277
pastor; yet he wrestled greatly with following through on such a decision.27 in this
journal entry, it seems Kierkegaard recognizes he cannot simply choose to stop or to
continue writing; rather, writing is an activity that imposes itself on him. He has little
to no choice in the matter; writing is something he must do.
the activity of writing is an inexorable calling for Kierkegaard. Writing is an
activity Kierkegaard finds he cannot arbitrarily cease: it is a duty he cannot shirk,
a command he ignores only at the risk of a physical peril. and yet, writing is also
the “greatest pleasure”28 to him, the great joy of his life. again, both these themes
are part of the same journal entry, and thus—to draw these two points together in a
properly synthetic fashion—we may summarize that writing is the great pleasure to
which god has called Kierkegaard.
Finally, it must be insisted how unique a formulation the above synthesis is for
Kierkegaard. a great deal of Kierkegaard’s writing is concerned with the necessity—
for the Christian—of suffering, which is both the renunciation of pleasure and the
acceptance of pain. Kierkegaard here offers his own summary: “Christianity is
suffering.”29 Yet writing is a great pleasure for Kierkegaard, and—though, as we
have seen, he struggled with the issue—he accepts this pleasure as something that
accompanies the vocation to which he has been called. Writing thereby occupies an
exceptional status for Kierkegaard. thus, even though by the end of his authorship
Kierkegaard believes that the destiny of Christianity is to bring the human being to
the end point of “life-weariness,”30 he still takes delight in this one earthly thing:
writing.
see also aesthetic/aesthetics; authorship; Communication/indirect Communication;

genius; governance/providence; language; poetry; pseudonymity; religious/
religiousness; story-telling.
27
SKS 20, 15–19, nb:7 / JP 5, 5886–7; SKS 20, 27, nb:15 / JP 5, 5894. Kierkegaard
also planned to stop writing after the anti-Climacus material was published (SKS 21, 228,
nb9:45 / JP 6, 6312).
28
SKS 20, 75, nb:89 / JP 5, 5951.
29
SKS 26, 238, nb32:145 / JP 4, 4725; SKS 26, 384, nb35:20 / JP 4, 4729.
30
SKS 27, 696, papir 591 / JP 6, 6969. this was Kierkegaard’s last journal entry.

Kierkegaard S Concepts Tome VI Salvation To Writing

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Kierkegaard S Concepts Tome VI Salvation To Writing

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

KierKegaard’s ConCepts

tome Vi: salVation to Writing

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources

Published 2016 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Cover design by Katalin nun

ISBN 13: 978-1-4724-6179-7 (hbk)

teleological suspension of the ethical

Lydia Amir, school of media studies, College of management academic studies,

Matthew Brake, george mason university, 4400 university dr., Fairfax, Va

Roe Fremstedal, university of tromsø, department of philosophy, 9037, tromsø,

Alejandro González Contreras, Fakultät der philosophie, universität Wien,

Gabriel Guedes Rossatti, universidade Federal de santa Catarina—uFsC,

Timothy P. Jackson, Candler school of theology, emory university, 1531 dickey

Ulrich Lincoln, german protestant ministry london, 22 downside Crescent,

William McDonald, school of Humanities, university of new england, armidale,

Marcia Morgan, department of philosophy, muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew

Kyle A. Roberts, bethel seminary, st. paul, mn 55112, usa.

Gerhard Schreiber, Johann Wolfgang goethe universität, Fachbereich ev.

Camilla Sløk, Copenhagen business school, Kileveje 14a, 2000 Frederiksberg,

Mads Sohl Jessen, department of scandinavian studies, university of Copenhagen,

Narve Strand, lillehammer university College, Faculty of social sciences, post

Curtis L. Thompson, thiel College, 75 College avenue, greenville, pa 16125,

Sean Anthony Turchin, university of maryland university College, academic

Claudia Welz, Faculty of theology, university of Copenhagen, Købmagergade 44-

Bl.art. S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død,

EP Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by H.p. barfod

AN Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

AR On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by Walter lowrie,

CA The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by reidar thomte in collaboration with

CD Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

CI The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

CUP1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

CUP2 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

CUPH Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by alastair Hannay, Cambridge

EOP Either/Or, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books

EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H.

FT Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

FTP Fear and Trembling, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin

JC Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard V.

KAC Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by Walter

LD Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik rosenmeier, princeton: princeton

LR A Literary Review, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin

P Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by todd W. nichol, princeton: princeton

PC Practice in Christianity, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

PF Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong,

PLS Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by david F. swenson and Walter

PV The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View

PVL The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an

R Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

TD Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

UD Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by Howard V. Hong and

WL Works of Love, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton:

WS Writing Sampler, trans. by todd W. nichol, princeton: princeton university

Salvation (Frelse—noun); Eternal (evig—adjective); Happiness (Salighed—noun;

Kierkegaard defines agape as, in effect, the willingness permanently to surrender

II. Eternal Happiness

Kierkegaard’s accent on “that single individual” standing before god,42 makes it

see also atonement/reconciliation; Church; dogma/doctrine; duty; dying to/

Scriptures (den hellige Skrift—noun)

“scriptures,” usually rendered in danish as den hellige Skrift (“Holy scripture”),