Redemption unto Life: Kierkegaardian Anthropology and the Relation Between Justification and Sanctification

Abstract

The Protestant Reformation’s insistence on forensic justification developed the distinct concepts of justification and sanctification. The alien righteousness of Christ is all that is needed to justify the sinner rather than the co-operating of good works as proclaimed by The Roman Catholic Church at The Council of Trent. The justification/sanctification spilt leads to a practical problem among Protestants: what is the purpose of good works if the believer is already justified? In this paper, I argue Søren Kierkegaard’s theological anthropology aids us with the bifurcation of justification and sanctification. I start with examining the components of Kierkegaardian anthropology, showing the dynamic nature of humans as beings in process. All humans have a spirit which pushes them to actualize themselves. Second, I describe Kierkegaard’s view of humans as a negative unity, living outside of faith in the life of sin. Third, I explain humans as a positive unity—those who have posited faith. Lastly, I demonstrate how Kierkegaard’s anthropology shows that all humans will do something with their existence. The sinner sins, while the justified does good deeds. Kierkegaardian anthropology shows that sanctification is a necessary result of justification, not a necessary cause of justification.

1. Introduction

Although the Protestant Reformation brought about numerous reforms to western Christianity, the chief doctrinal disagreement between Roman Catholics and Protestants was the doctrine of justification. Starting with Martin Luther, Protestants developed the concept of forensic justification, and as Alister McGrath notes,

the notional distinction, necessitated by a forensic understanding of justification, between the external act of God in pronouncing sentence, and the internal process of regeneration, along with the associated insistence upon the alien and external nature of justifying righteousness, must be considered the most reliable historical characterisation of Protestant doctrines of justification.

(McGrath 2005, pp. 209–10)

Forensic justification focuses on the righteousness of Christ being credited to the sinner’s account based solely on the grace of God. Luther denounced any interpretation of justification deriving from the good works of the individual, so much so that he was skeptical of the place of James in the New Testament Canon: “In the first place [James] is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works” (Luther 1960, vol. 35, p. 369, my emphasis). Forensic justification leads to a clear distinction between justification and sanctification. Martin Luther’s famous phrase simil justus et pecator demonstrates such bifurcation: the one expressing faith in Christ is credited as righteous, even though he is still a sinner in his present state.

The Roman Catholic Church vehemently opposed Protestant formulations of justification,1 declaring the following at the Council of Trent: “Having, therefore been thus justified … they, through the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified” (The Council of Trent, 6.10). From the Protestant perspective, justification is separate from sanctification, while Roman Catholics see a continual process of co-operation: “Jesus Christ himself continually infuses his virtue into the said justified” (The Council of Trent, 6.16). Thus, the separation of justification from sanctification is incongruent with the Council of Trent. As Peter Folan expounds, “Trent does not embrace the justification/sanctification division … when the love of God is being poured into the hearts of those being justified, that love holds back nothing. It does not keep sanctification from people, giving them only justification” (Folan 2022, p. 197).

The Protestant emphasis of forensic righteousness along with its distinction from sanctification has received consistent criticism since the doctrine’s inception from within and without (Johnson 2011, p. 767). John Calvin even remarks on Luther’s seemingly over-emphasis on justification at the expense of good works:

But, you will say, Luther exaggerates. I can grant this, but only when I say that he had a good reason which drove him to such exaggeration; that is, he saw that the world was so deprived of sense by a false a perilous confidence in works, a kind of deadly drowsiness, that it needed not a voice and words to awaken it but a trumpet call, a peal of thunder and thunderbolts. Yet there is nothing in those words of his which is not straightforwardly and unambiguously true. For since the worth of good works depends not on the act itself but on the perfect love of God, a work will not be righteous and pure unless it proceeds from a perfect love of God”.

(Calvin 1996, pp. 26–27)

The Reformation retrieval of Augustinian soteriology came with a blatant aversion to Pelagianism. The Protestant fear is that adding good works to justification is merely Pelagianism in a new wrapping; thus Luther “exaggerates”. Yet the justification/sanctification divide leads to a practical problem among Protestants, which the Council of Trent highlighted: if one is declared righteous based off of nothing other than faith in Christ, then what is the purpose of good deeds? The Catholic response is clear: good deeds are co-operation in justification, making the works necessary for justification. Luther never intimated that Christians have no need for good works. He declares in the Augsburg Confession that, “Our people are falsely accused of forbidding good works. For their writings on the Ten Commandments and other matters of similar import bear witness that they give useful teaching concerning all kinds of life and the various duties—what kinds of life and what works in each creation are pleasing to God” (Augsburg Confession Art XX). Yet even Luther’s clarification causes a conundrum in the daily lives of believers. The Bible clearly states that Christians are called to good works,2 but why should Christians perform said good works if they are already righteous? If the Law tells us what works are “pleasing to God”, why ought I perform them if Christ has already imputed his righteousness to me? As Millard Erickson states, “The common element in these nuanced formulations [of justification] is a sense that the classic Protestant view of forensic justification has too sharply separated what it terms justification and sanctification” (Erickson 2013, p. 889).

Various Protestant theologians over the centuries have attempted to thread the needle of the relationship between justification and good works. Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), a Danish Lutheran who studied for the pastorate but never entered formal ministry, encountered the practical problem of separating justification and sanctification. In Kierkegaard’s native Denmark, everyone was a “Christian” by nature of being a Danish citizen. This led to what Kierkegaard labels “that enormous illusion, Christendom, or the illusion that in such a country all are Christians of sorts” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 16, p. 11; 1998, p. 23). Kierkegaard stresses that we ought to live as authentic Christians rather than ascribe to the nominal faith of Christendom. In For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard comments on the role of faith and works: “Luther wished to take ‘meritoriousness’ away from works and apply them somewhat differently—namely, in the direction of witnessing for the truth” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 13, p. 46; 1990, p. 17). Such a statement seems to comport with a typical Lutheran perspective, as C. Stephen Evans notes, “which stresses the role of the Law as a ‘schoolmaster’ that show us our sinfulness and drives us to grace” (Evans 2004, p. 211). Lee Barrett agrees: “Kierkegaard is being thoroughly Lutheran. In the final analysis, grace provides the context in which law must be understood.” (Barrett 2002, p. 109). In Institutes of Christian Religion, Calvin explains a third use of the Law beyond what Luther endorsed: “The third use of the Law. … [enables] them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what that will of the Lord is. … [that] by frequently meditating upon it, he will be excited to obedience” (Calvin Institutes 2.7.12) For Calvin, the good works aid us to become more like Christ, equipping us to continue in perseverance. David Kim argues that Calvin’s third use of the law “may have served as foils for honing [Kierkegaard’s] own response to a perennial problem in Lutheran faith—the problem of giving good works a constructive role within the life of faith” (Kim 2009, p. 84).

While much of the literature examines Kierkegaard’s understanding of sanctification in respect to the traditional Lutheran or Reformed perspectives, I seek to propose a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard. In this paper I argue that Kierkegaard’s anthropological insights, primarily derived from The Sickness unto Death and The Concept of Anxiety, help answer the practical problem of the relationship between forensic righteousness and good works. Kierkegaard emphasizes “stages” or “spheres” in the lives of individuals, and said stages relate back to the individuals’ natures as a humans-in-process. To achieve our goal, I first begin by examining Kierkegaard’s explicit discussion of the components of anthropology in The Sickness unto Death and The Concept of Anxiety, wherein Kierkegaard identifies the constituent parts of the human as body, soul, and spirit; all humans are either a negative or positive unity of these three aspects. Kierkegaard paints a picture of the dynamic development of the human self. Second, I examine the state of a human in sin, what Kierkegaard dubs a negative unity, that misrelates itself to itself. Sin, for Kierkegaard, is not simply an action we perform but a qualitative category of existence. Third, I explain the existence of the one who has authentic faith, a positive unity that “rests transparently in the power that established it” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 130; 1983, p. 14). The positive unity is the life of faith, and like the life of sin, it is a qualitative category of existence one inhabits. In closing, I illustrate how these anthropological insights aid us in thinking about justification and sanctification.

2. Body, Soul, and Spirit

The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death are psychological deliberations wherein Kierkegaard develops a holistic view of anthropology.3 We start with Anti-Climacus’s4 definition of the “self” in The Sickness unto Death, which as Baber and Donnelly comment, is “one of the most baffling passages in philosophical psychology” (Baber and Donnelly 1987, p. 162). Kierkegaard starts his discussion with the following:

A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what 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.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 129; 1983, p. 13)

Alastair Hannay notes that Kierkegaard’s definition is “a dig at Hegelian obscurity,” but Kierkegaard also gives vital information on his perception of the self (Hannay 1987, p. 24). We need to investigate two aspects from this passage to comprehend Kierkegaard’s anthropological terms. First, Kierkegaard stresses the synthetic role of “spirit” in human composition. Second, the “self” is not equated with the “human being”. A self is something one becomes rather than something inherent to humanity.

To address the first issue, we turn to The Concept of Anxiety, a psychological investigation concerning the issue of hereditary sin. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis discusses anthropology in the context of Adam in the garden of Eden. Genesis 2 states, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen 2:7).5 Traditionally, we understand from this biblical text that humanity has at least two constituent parts: a body and soul. Kierkegaard agrees, but he notes a problem with a simple dichotomy: “Man is a synthesis of the psychical and the physical; however a synthesis is unthinkable if the two are not united in a third” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 349; 1980, p. 43). The body (physical) and the soul (psychical) are opposites, and opposites naturally repel; some third “thing” needs to relate the two together. Kierkegaard calls this third “spirit”, yet spirit does not only relate body to soul.6 In The Sickness unto Death, Anti-Climacus expands on the dual nature of spirit as “a relation that relates itself to itself and in relating itself to itself relates itself to another” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 130; 1983, pp. 13–14). Spirit connects body and soul together but also connects the human to “another,” which Kierkegaard states is “the power that established it”—God (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 130; 1983, p. 14).

This leads us to the second explanation of Kierkegaard’s definition: human beings are not de facto “selves”. Spirit is relational by nature, but why do we need a third something to aid in the relation between the individual’s constituent parts and God? Returning to the narrative of Genesis 2, the author tells us the reason God created Adam: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). The terms “working” and “keeping” denote a dual performance of both physical and spiritual work (Wenham 1987, vol. 1, p. 67). God does not create humans to be autonomous little lords, but rather we are created to be with God. C. Stephen Evans summarizes this well, “So for Kierkegaard … the term ‘person’ describes both something I am, by virtue of God’s creative activity, and something I must become, in and through my relations with God and other people” (Evans 1990, p. 47). The God-given task of humanity means we exercise both aspects of our composition (body/soul), and spirit is what allows us to actualize who God wants us to be.

Kierkegaard ponders the situation of Adam in the Garden. In Adam’s state of innocence, “spirit is present, but as immediate, as dreaming,” and spirit “constantly disturbs the relation between soul and body” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 349; 1980, p. 43). How can Adam, in his innocence, have something disturbing him? If Adam’s task is to “work” and “keep”, then, as, Gordon Wenham clarifies, “even before the fall man was expected to work; paradise was not a life of leisured unemployment” (Wenham 1987, vol. 1, p. 67). God grants Adam a task, and spirit pushes him toward actualizing the task with concrete expectations for his behavior: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). Kierkegaard notes this prohibition must have confused Adam, “for how could he understand the difference between good and evil” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 350; 1980, p. 44)? Evil had not entered the fray during Adam’s innocence, but that does not mean Adam was “off the hook” in the spiritual sense. As Calvin comments, the tree “was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God” (Calvin 2009, p. 2.1.4).

How does spirit disturb body and soul during an individual’s life? Kierkegaard declares that spirit manifests itself in anxiety, which he defines as “freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 348; 1980, p. 42). When God gives Adam the prohibition, Adam has a choice, a possibility. Either he eats or he does not eat. What Adam cannot avoid is that he must choose. Kierkegaard labels such conundrum “entangled freedom” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 354; 1980, p. 49). Adam is free in his choice, but he is not free from choice. The moment before Adam’s decision is the moment of anxiety: which will he choose? He knows what God desires of him, but he does not know what the result of either choice will be. Kierkegaard vividly describes this anxious dynamic:

Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 365; 1980, p. 61)

The possibility of actualizing spirit breeds anxiety. Kierkegaard is quick to state that anxiety is not sin, but it is the “presupposition for hereditary sin” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 353; 1980, p. 48).

Adam—and all of us—has a choice: follow God or go his own way. The moment between anxiety and choice is what Kierkegaard calls “the leap” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 366; 1980, p. 61). The famous “Kierkegaardian leap” is one of the most misunderstood yet commonly discussed concepts from his works. For Kierkegaard, a leap is always a movement from one category of existence to another. It is not the shutting of one’s eyes to reality (i.e., a leap of faith), but rather “the leap is the category of decision” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 5, p. 97; 1992, vol. 1, p. 99).7 Once spirit is actualized—meaning when one chooses in a moment of anxiety—the individual now enters a qualitatively different category of existence. When Kierkegaard speaks of a qualitative difference, he is speaking of a difference in kind. As Leo Stan explains, “In general, qualitas designates either a particular property or a quintessential trait of an object or person” (Stan 2015, p. 179). Adam was in a qualitative state of innocence. There are two possible options for Adam. If he relies on himself, he would not correctly actualize spirit; for while his spirit is still present maintaining body and soul together, it is not relating to God. Adam chose disobedience, “laying hold of finiteness to support [himself]” for his existential grounding rather than God (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 365; 1980, p. 61). As Gordon Marino elucidates, “The dizziness [of anxiety], elsewhere represented as a feeling of powerlessness, is something that we bring upon ourselves. Interestingly enough, we lay hold of the finite to steady ourselves, and this laying hold of the finite is sin.” (Marino 1998, p. 323, my emphasis). Adam leaps to sin, remaining a “negative” unity. If Adam chose to follow God, he would leap to faith, becoming a positive unity, a true self. Alas, Adam fell, and all his progeny also fell short of the glory of God. What Sickness and Anxiety highlight is the inherently dynamic character of being human. God created us to be, an existence to live. Adam and Eve were made to do something, and all humans will inevitably attempt to do something with their lives.

3. Existence in Sin: A Negative Unity

When spirit only relates body and soul together, it is operating as a negative unity. “Negative” does not necessarily mean “bad” or “evil”. Before Adam sinned, he was a negative unity, for he had not posited his spiritual life. Yet in a moment when anxiety rears its head in the face of possibility, Adam chose finiteness instead of God. This is a qualitative leap to a new sphere of existence: “To express this precisely and accurately, one must say that by the first sin, sinfulness came into Adam” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 339; 1980, p. 33). Kierkegaard consistently emphasizes that Adam is not some fantastical myth existing outside of history but a human just like all other humans: “Just as Adam lost innocence by guilt, so every man loses it in the same way. If it was not by guilt that he lost it, then it was not innocence that he lost; and if he was not innocent before becoming guilty, he never became guilty” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 342; 1980, p. 35). Adam, and all people, leap into a state of sin. All of those not in faith are operating as negative unities in the world.

The careful reader may see a potential issue with Kierkegaard’s construct of the self and the positing of spirit. Kierkegaard stresses that the spiritual dynamics operating in Adam operate in us as well: “Innocence is always lost only by the qualitative leap of the individual” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 344; 1980, p. 37). Adam was innocent, had a choice, and failed. We were innocent, had a choice, and failed. Does this not smack of Pelagianism? Kierkegaard does not think so because of what he calls the quantitative nature of sin. He states, “The race has its history, within which sinfulness continues to have its quantitative determinability” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 343–44; 1980, p. 37). In my personal existence, I am both an individual and a part of the human race. This means I cannot live free from the consequences of sin. It also means that my sins are never in isolation, for they affect those around me. As Lee Barrett correctly notes, “Vigilius, however, employs ‘anxiety’ to show how the coinherence of the individual and the race can be regarded as a psychological phenomenon in everyone”. Kierkegaard constructs an explanation that makes sin inevitable without making it necessary. As Barrett continues, “Vigilius insists that the deeds of each individual create new possibilities that alter the race, and the race presents possibilities that define the individual” (Barrett 1985, p. 58). While the quantitative nature of sin makes itself “felt in the individual”, it does not cause the individual to sin (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 357; 1980, p. 52). As Arne Grøn clarifies: “Kierkegaard distinguishes between sin and sinfulness. Sin enters the world by the qualitative leap of the individual. Sinfulness, as the constant possibility of sin, is carried on through every generation” (Grøn 2008, p. 20). In Kierkegaard’s construction, sin is decisively the fault of the individual. An individual cannot blame Adam for causing him to sin, yet he cannot escape sin’s beckoning call. As John Davenport emphasizes, “Because each person is also ‘descended’ or temporally related to others, their freedom which introduces novelty is not ahistorically isolated, but is affected by the past and affects the future possibilities of the race” (Davenport 2000, p. 134).

We all start as negative unities, and we all willingly leap into sin. What, then, is the existence of the individual as a negative unity? To start, spirit is still present, yet in a negative state. This means that the individual still feels a desire to actualize his or her spiritual nature. All people have a drive to become a self. As Grøn explains, “To be a self is to relate to oneself. Again, this is not to say that selfhood is movement but that it is a self in becoming” (Grøn 2017, p. 75). The issue is that the individual as a sinner does not have the capability to properly achieve selfhood. Kierkegaard ties the qualitative state of sinfulness to despair: “Despair is the misrelation in the relation of a synthesis that relates itself to itself” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 131; 1983, p. 15). Because a negative unity does not have a proper relation to God, it can never truly become a “self”. All its efforts to actualize true selfhood are futile. Kierkegaard calls this being sick unto death, “to be unable to die, yet not as if there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness is that there is not even the ultimate hope, death” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 133; 1983, p. 18). If God created us to relate properly to him, then when we attempt to be our own selves apart from him, we are attempting the impossible. As Hannay elucidates, “Anti-Climacus’s despair is not the idea of a propellant but of a retardant” (Hannay 1998, p. 335, my emphasis). The more we strive to be ourselves as a negative unity, the more we wallow in despair, slowly disintegrating in our Sisyphean task.

Although not a “self,” each person as a negative unity seeks to become itself. Kierkegaard defines sin considering these dynamics: “Sin is: before God in despair not to will to be oneself, or before God in despair to will to be oneself” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 195; 1983, p. 81).8 A human, on its own, cannot “will to be oneself,” for spirit’s role in positing itself means that it is established by that “which established the entire relation” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 129; 1983, p. 13). Thinking I can create myself may sound liberating, but it is a fool’s errand. I do not have the ability to create myself, yet we all at some point in our lives attempted this impossible feat. I am reminded of Augustine’s Confessions: “But I gulped down this food, because I thought it was you [God]. I had no relish for it, because the taste it left in my mouth was not the taste of truth—it could not be, for it was not you but an empty sham. And it did not nourish me, but starved me all the more” (Augustine 1961, p. 3.6). Since spirit still exists in a negative state, the individual attempts to live for itself. Spirit compels individuals to act, yet this task will eventually derail:

The despairing self is forever building only castles in the air, and is always only fencing with an imaginary opponent. All these experimental virtues look very splendid; they fascinate for a moment, like oriental poetry; such self-discipline, such imperturbability, such ataraxy, etc. border almost on the fabulous. Yes, that they do for sure, and beneath it all there is nothing.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 183; 2004, pp. 100–1)

4. Existence in Faith: A Positive Unity

In Sickness, Kierkegaard gives an explicit definition of faith in relation to selfhood: “Faith is: that the self in being itself and in willing to be itself rests transparently in God” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 11, p. 196; 1983, p. 82). Faith is the life of a positive unity. Spirit posits the relation between body and soul and between the human and God. Faith, like sin, is a qualitative change in existence, achieved through a leap. In Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus9 states that living in untruth (i.e., sin) “is not merely outside the truth but is polemical against the truth, which is expressed by saying that he himself has forfeited and is forfeiting the condition” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 224; 1987, p. 15, my emphasis). The leap into sin is a decisive move against God, and we forfeit our knowledge of and relationship with the source of our existence. Yet God, in his mercy towards us, provides a way for us to become true selves. Climacus asks,

What, then, should we call such a teacher who gives [the individual] the condition again and along with the truth? Let us call him a savior, for he does indeed save the learner from unfreedom, saves him from himself. Let us call him a deliverer, for he does indeed deliver the person who had imprisoned himself. … For by his unfreedom he has indeed become guilty of something, and if that teacher gives him the condition and the truth, then he is, of course, a reconciler who takes away the wrath that lay over the incurred guilt.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 226; 1987, p. 17)

We all imprison ourselves in our sub-self-existence, our sin. Unable to extricate ourselves, Jesus Christ descends “as the equal of the lowliest persons” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 238; 1987, p. 31). He delivers us, reconciles us, and offers us the condition of faith.

Climacus goes to great lengths to evince the necessity of God granting the condition in order for an individual to have faith. Humanity, unaided by God, will never discover its sinfulness: “If the learner is to obtain the truth, the teacher must bring it to him, but not only that. Along with it, he must provide him with the condition for understanding it. For if the learner were himself the condition for understanding the truth, then he merely needs to recollect” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 4, p. 223; 1987, p. 14). Hugh Pyper cuts to the quick: “Kierkegaard insists that there is no possibility of direct communication between the god and a human being in the grip of deception, or, in other words, of sin” (Pyper 1994, p. 141, my emphasis). Climacus argues that any self-driven knowledge of God—meaning any foundation of God-knowledge apart from a direct revelation of God—is repackaging Socratic recollection, making the individual the starting point of revelation.10 But if God truly speaks to us rather than out of us, he must make himself known to us. Our sinful condition prevents us from knowing God on our own.

Being mired in sin, only by the grace of Christ can we take the leap to faith. Such a leap is subjective in nature. The individual must decide to leap or not to leap. Climacus states in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 5, p. 186; 1992, vol. 1, p. 203, emphasis original). When Kierkegaard states the leap is an “objective uncertainty” he does not mean one leaps to nonsense. What Kierkegaard means is—like Adam in the garden with the tree—we do not know, in the existential sense, what will happen once we leap. This does not mean we are blind to reality; it simply means that we, in our finitude, cannot know the result with objective certainty:

[True faith] is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite. I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see omnipotence and wisdom, but I also see much that troubles and disturbs. The summa summarum [sum total] is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness is so very great, precisely because it grasps this objective uncertainty with all the passion of the infinite.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 5, pp. 186–87; 1992, vol. 1, pp. 203–4)

We have to jump in to see the results. When the negative unity, in despair, begins to look inward with honesty; when the Teacher comes with the condition of knowing the truth; when anxiety is at its highest and the pull to follow Christ is so great; we leap to faith.

Becoming a self for Kierkegaard is becoming a Christian. Only when one has authentic faith in Christ is one a true self.11 Faith is paradoxical, a fresh category of existence, a brave new world in which one lives. In this sense, faith is static, for one’s status of “having faith” does not change. The individual, as a negativity unity (i.e., a sinner), languishes in the sickness unto death, for sinfulness is the world he inhabits. Similarly, the individual, as a positive unity (i.e., an authentic believer), lives in redemption unto life, for faith is the world she inhabits. The nature of spirit means that we all do something with our selves; the one in faith does good works. In this sense, faith is dynamic. Being a new creation in Christ Jesus necessitates new actions. For the Christian, good works are necessary results of justification, not necessary causes of justification.

Kierkegaard ponders the life of faith in many places in his writings, but Works of Love is particularly focused on how Christians are to live out a life of love. We do not have space to cover every aspect of Works of Love, but I will highlight a few examples of how the life of a positive unity interacts with the world. Kierkegaard goes as far as to say that love binds us to eternity: “What is it, namely, that connects the temporal and eternity, what else but love” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 14; 1998, p. 6)? The loving God loves perfectly and eternally. His love resounds in our existence, so much so that we are transformed to follow God’s ways. As Kierkegaard says, “Christian love abides, and for that very reason it is. What perishes blossoms, and what blossoms perishes, but something that is cannot be sung about—it must be believed and it must be lived” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 16; 1998, p. 8, my emphasis). The “must” is not a co-operation in justification but rather the outworking of the life of faith.

Love is not a mere feeling one has, but rather Kierkegaard argues that it is an action that redoubles:

What loves does, that it is; what it is, that it does—at one and the same moment. At the same moment it goes out of itself (the outward direction), it is in itself (the inward direction); and at the same moment it is in itself, it goes out of itself in such a way that this outward going and this returning, this returning and this outward going are simultaneously one and the same.

(Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 278; 1998, p. 280)

Since faith is a new qualitative sphere of existence—an “existential-notional dissimilarity” from the previous state of sin—the “quintessential” essence of the life of faith is characterized by love (Stan 2015, pp. 183, 179). Paul states in Romans 5:5 that “hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”. If the justified Christian has the love of God, then, because of the nature of love, it will act lovingly. Kierkegaard explains: “The one who loves is or becomes what he does. He has or rather he acquires what he gives” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 279; 1998, p. 281). Martin Andic clarifies the redoubling of love: “If ‘the eternal is in a human being’ … so that you recognize its presence and relate yourself to it, it is present (says Kierkegaard) as one and the same thing both outwardly in what it is through you to others … and inwardly in what it is in you by whom it acts”(Andic 1999, p. 17).

Lastly, Kierkegaard reminds us that love is the fulfilling of the Law: “But Christian love, which is the fulfilling of the Law, is, whole and collected, present in its every expression, and yet it is sheer action” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 103; 1998, p. 98). Kierkegaard carefully notes that our actions of love do not cause us to become justified but rather “Christ came not to abolish the Law but to perfect it; therefore, from this time forth, it exists in the perfect fulfillment” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 104; 1998, p. 99). The Law, on its own, can only teach us how we ought to behave, for we are powerless as a negative unity to will the good. Amy Hall summarizes the process well:

The response that Kierkegaard intends [in Works of Love] is our recognition of epistemological and performative failure, a recognition that may enable our reception of grace and our humble approximation of God’s command. This use of the law, what theologians call the theological or convicting use, evokes self-inspection, leading the individual toward confession. … Kierkegaard’s understanding of our progress in grace involves our ever-deepening sense, before the law, of our infinite debt and dependence upon grace”.

(Hall 2002, p. 12, my emphasis)

Christ as fulfillment of the Law allows us to live out the Law, which is love: “The relation of love to the Law is here like the relation of faith to understanding. The understanding counts and counts, calculates and calculates, but it never arrives at the certainty that faith possesses; in the same way the Law defines and defines but never arrives at the sum, which is love” (Kierkegaard 1997, vol. 9, p. 109; 1998, p. 105). As the Apostle Paul states, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).

5. Conclusions: Living from God

For Kierkegaard, the dynamics of anthropology demonstrate humans as beings in the most literal sense. A positive unity is a true self, someone whose spirit relates body and soul together and relates the individual to God. God gave Adam—and all his progeny—a task. Adam was an “incomplete” spirit—not that he was deficient but that he was not being who he was created to be until he actualized his spirit. In despair, people are not being who God calls them to be. They are “sick unto death,” attempting to actualize their own selves without the power to do so. Sin is a qualitative state of existence, a way of living in the world without God. Likewise, faith is a qualitative shift in existence. Upon receiving the condition from the Teacher, the believer leaps toward God, becoming a true self. Like the sinner, the one in faith will actualize his existence, meaning he will live from God in sanctification.

I borrow the term “from God” from neoorthodox theologian Emil Brunner, who was influenced by Kierkegaard’s thought. In God and Man, Brunner states:

The man who has his life in faith knows no longer the urge to realize himself. God has realized him, has given him his value independently of his action. Therefore he needs no longer to seek himself, just as he no longer needs to seek his right relation to God. He has it. That is the presupposition of all that he does. He may in all his actions begin at that point which is only a distant goal for the other man. He lives from God, and not towards God”.

(Brunner 1936, p. 84, my emphasis)

Because we are now with God in faith, we can live outward from God. We can live the life of Christian service to God and neighbor. The relational nature of spirit indicates that the leap to faith is not the ultimate goal. It is the starting point of a vibrant life of Christian works of love. To be saved is not just a decision, but it comes with a task of becoming conformed to the image of Christ. The dynamics of spirit illuminates the draw of sanctification. And the converse is also true: if we do not see fruit of sanctification—if the “Christian” cares not about “[walking] in a manner worthy of the calling”—then we can assume the individual has not posited a true self (Eph 4:1). Church membership, baptism, confirmation, etc. are outward manifestations of the life of the Christian, but Kierkegaard calls us to remember the vibrancy of authentic selfhood, a subjective passion of being conformed to the image of Christ, which will inevitably lead to an authentic life.

The one in faith will live from God because faith is his new sphere of existence. Good works flow from this new state of being. Although the authentic Christian will still sin, his existence state is not sin. His existence state is that of the grace of Christ. The work on the cross justifies the sinner, allowing him to leap toward God. No amount of good work can cause justification. And likewise, no amount of sin can cause someone to lose his status before God. With Kierkegaard’s explication of the existing individual, we can see how Luther’s simul justus et peccator operates. The one justified by Christ is brought into the life of faith: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). The good works must be present—but neither as a sanctifying agent nor as a co-operating with justification—but as the supernatural outworking of one’s existence as a true self.

While we can say more on the tension between justification and sanctification, Kierkegaard’s musings on the nature of humanity in The Sickness unto Death and The Concept of Anxiety help to clarify a difficult topic. His explanation of the God-given drive of humans to actualize their spirituality—to exist—illuminates how justification and sanctification work together. A true believer cannot have justification without sanctification, yet justification and sanctification are two distinct doctrines. The justified enters a new sphere of existence—faith—and she now enters a new life, to live as God intends her to live, conforming evermore to the image of Christ.