Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia
Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia
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Sren Kierkegaard
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Some of Kierkegaard's key ideas include the concept of "Truth as Subjectivity", the knight of faith,
the recollection and repetition dichotomy, angst, the infinite qualitative distinction, faith as a
passion, and the three stages on life's way. Kierkegaard's writings were written in Danish and were
initially limited to Scandinavia, but by the turn of the 20th century, his writings were translated into
major European languages, such as French and German. By the mid-20th century, his thought
exerted a substantial influence on philosophy,[18] theology,[19] and Western culture.[20]
Contents
1 Early years (18131836)
1.1 Journals
1.2 Regine Olsen and graduation (18371841)
2 Authorship (18431846)
2.1 Hidden inwardness
2.2 Pseudonyms
2.3 The Corsair Affair
3 Authorship (18471855)
3.1 Attack upon the Lutheran State Church and death
4 Reception
4.1 19th century reception
4.2 Early 20th century reception
4.2.1 German and English translators of Kierkegaard's works
4.3 Later 20th century reception
4.3.1 Kierkegaards influence on Karl Barths early theology
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Copenhagen in the 1830s and 1840s had crooked streets where carriages rarely went. Kierkegaard
loved to walk them. In 1848, Kierkegaard wrote, "I had real Christian satisfaction in the thought
that, if there were no other, there was definitely one man in Copenhagen whom every poor person
could freely accost and converse with on the street; that, if there were no other, there was one man
who, whatever the society he most commonly frequented, did not shun contact with the poor, but
greeted every maidservant he was acquainted with, every manservant, every common laborer."[28]
Our Lady's Church was at one end of the city, where Bishop Mynster preached the Gospel. At the
other end was the Royal Theatre where Fru Heiberg performed.[29]
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From 1821 to 1830 Kierkegaard attended the School of Civic Virtue, stre Borgerdyd Gymnasium,
when the school was situated in Klarebodeme, where he studied Latin and history among other
subjects. He went on to study theology at the University of Copenhagen. He had little interest in
historical works, philosophy dissatisfied him, and he couldn't see "dedicating himself to
Speculation."[39] He said, "What I really need to do is to get clear about "what am I to do", not what
I must know." He wanted to "lead a completely human life and not merely one of knowledge."[40]
Kierkegaard didn't want to be a philosopher in the traditional or Hegelian sense[41] and he didn't
want to preach a Christianity that was an illusion.[42] "But he had learned from his father that one
can do what one wills, and his father's life had not discredited this theory."[43]
One of the first physical descriptions of Kierkegaard comes from an attendee, Hans Brchner, at his
brother Peter's wedding party in 1836: "I found [his appearance] almost comical. He was then
twenty-three years old; he had something quite irregular in his entire form and had a strange
coiffure. His hair rose almost six inches above his forehead into a tousled crest that gave him a
strange, bewildered look."[44] Another comes from Kierkegaard's niece, Henriette Lund
(18291909). When Sren Kierkegaard was a little boy he "was of slender and delicate appearance,
and ran about in a little coat of red-cabbage color. He used to be called fork by his father, because
of his tendency, developed quite early, toward satirical remarks. Although a serious, almost austere
tone pervaded the Kierkegaards house, I have the firm impression that there was a place for
youthful vivacity too, even though of a more sedate and home-made kind than one is used to
nowadays. The house was open for an 'old-fashioned hospitality'" (1876).[45]
Kierkegaard's mother "was a nice little woman with an even and happy disposition," according to a
grandchild's description. She was never mentioned in Kierkegaard's works. Ane died on 31 July
1834, age 66, possibly from typhus.[46] His father died on 8 August 1838, age 82. On 11 August,
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Kierkegaard wrote: "My father died on Wednesday (the 8th) at 2:00 a.m. I so deeply desired that he
might have lived a few years more... Right now I feel there is only one person (E. Boesen) with
whom I can really talk about him. He was a 'faithful friend.'"[47] Troels Frederik Lund, his nephew,
was instrumental in providing biographers with much information regarding Sren Kierkegaard.
Lund was a good friend of Georg Brandes and Julius Lange.[48]
Journals
Kierkegaard's journals were the source of many aphorisms credited to the philosopher. The
following passage, from 1 August 1835, is perhaps his most oft-quoted aphorism and a key quote
for existentialist studies:
"What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except
insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see
what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is
truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."
He wrote this way about indirect communication in the same journal entry.
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One must first learn to know himself before knowing anything else ( ).
Not until a man has inwardly understood himself and then sees the course he is to take
does his life gain peace and meaning; only then is he free of that irksome, sinister
traveling companion that irony of life, which manifests itself in the sphere of
knowledge and invites true knowing to begin with a not-knowing (Socrates) just as God
created the world from nothing. But in the waters of morality it is especially at home to
those who still have not entered the tradewinds of virtue. Here it tumbles a person about
in a horrible way, for a time lets him feel happy and content in his resolve to go ahead
along the right path, then hurls him into the abyss of despair. Often it lulls a man to sleep
with the thought, "After all, things cannot be otherwise," only to awaken him suddenly
to a rigorous interrogation. Frequently it seems to let a veil of forgetfulness fall over the
past, only to make every single trifle appear in a strong light again. When he struggles
along the right path, rejoicing in having overcome temptation's power, there may come
at almost the same time, right on the heels of perfect victory, an apparently insignificant
external circumstance which pushes him down, like Sisyphus, from the height of the
crag. Often when a person has concentrated on something, a minor external
circumstance arises which destroys everything. (As in the case of a man who, weary of
life, is about to throw himself into the Thames and at the crucial moment is halted by the
sting of a mosquito.) Frequently a person feels his very best when the illness is the
worst, as in tuberculosis. In vain he tries to resist it but he has not sufficient strength,
and it is no help to him that he has gone through the same thing many times; the kind of
practice acquired in this way does not apply here.
Although his journals clarify some aspects of his work and life, Kierkegaard took care not to reveal
too much. Abrupt changes in thought, repetitive writing, and unusual turns of phrase are some
among the many tactics he used to throw readers off track. Consequently, there are many varying
interpretations of his journals. Kierkegaard did not doubt the importance his journals would have in
the future. In December 1849, he wrote: "Were I to die now the effect of my life would be
exceptional; much of what I have simply jotted down carelessly in the Journals would become of
great importance and have a great effect; for then people would have grown reconciled to me and
would be able to grant me what was, and is, my right."[55]
An important aspect of Kierkegaard's life generally considered to have had a major influence on
his work was his broken engagement to Regine Olsen (18221904). Kierkegaard and Olsen met
on 8 May 1837 and were instantly attracted to each other, but sometime around 11 August 1838 he
had second thoughts. In his journals, Kierkegaard wrote idealistically about his love for her:
You, sovereign queen of my heart, Regina, hidden in the deepest secrecy of my breast,
in the fullness of my life-idea, there where it is just as far to heaven as to hellunknown
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divinity! O, can I really believe the poets when they say that
the first time one sees the beloved object he thinks he has
seen her long before, that love like all knowledge is
recollection, that love in the single individual also has its
prophecies, its types, its myths, its Old Testament.
Everywhere, in the face of every girl, I see features of your
beauty... Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard, 11
August 1838[56]
Authorship (18431846)
Kierkegaard published some of his works using pseudonyms and for others he signed his own name
as author. Whether being published under pseudonym or not, Kierkegaard's central writings on
religion have included Fear and Trembling and Either/Or, the latter of which is considered to be
his magnum opus. Pseudonyms were used often in the early 19th century as a means of
representing viewpoints other than the author's own; examples include the writers of the Federalist
Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. Kierkegaard employed the same technique as a way to
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Kierkegaard's magnum opus Either/Or was published 20 February 1843; it was mostly written
during Kierkegaard's stay in Berlin, where he took notes on Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation.
Either/Or includes essays of literary and music criticism and a set of romantic-like-aphorisms, as
part of his larger theme of examining the reflective and philosophical structure of faith. [67][68]
Edited by "Victor Eremita", the book contained the papers of an unknown "A" and "B" which the
pseudonymous author claimed to have discovered in a secret drawer of his secretary.[69] Eremita
had a hard time putting the papers of "A" in order because they were not straightforward. "B"'s
papers were arranged in an orderly fashion.[70] Both of these characters are trying to become
religious individuals.[71] Each approached the idea of first love from an esthetic and an ethical point
of view. The book is basically an argument about faith and marriage with a short discourse at the
end telling them they should stop arguing. Eremita thinks "B", a judge, makes the most sense.
Kierkegaard stressed the "how" of Christianity as well as the "how" of book reading in his works
rather than the "what".[72]
Three months after the publication of Either/Or, 16 May 1843, he published Two Upbuilding
Discourses, 1843 and continued to publish discourses along with his pseudonymous books. These
discourses were published under Kierkegaard's own name and are available as Eighteen Upbuilding
Discourses today. David F. Swenson first translated the works in the 1940s and titled them the
Edifying Discourses; however, in 1990, Howard V. and Edna H. Hong translated the works again
but called them the Upbuilding Discourses. The word "upbuilding" was more in line with
Kierkegaard's thought after 1846, when he wrote Christian deliberations[73] about works of love.[74]
An upbuilding discourse or edifying discourse isn't the same as a sermon because a sermon is
preached to a congregation while a discourse can be carried on between several people or even with
oneself. The discourse or conversation should be "upbuilding", which means one would build up
the other person, or oneself, rather than tear down in order to build up. Kierkegaard said: "Although
this little book (which is called "discourses," not sermons, because its author does not have
authority to preach, "upbuilding discourses," not discourses for upbuilding, because the speaker by
no means claims to be a teacher) wishes to be only what it is, a superfluity, and desires only to
remain in hiding".[75]
On 16 October 1843, Kierkegaard published three more books about love and faith and several
more discourses. Fear and Trembling was published under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio.
Repetition is about a Young Man (Sren Kierkegaard) who has anxiety and depression because he
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feels he has to sacrifice his love for a girl (Regine Olsen) to God. He tries to see if the new science
of psychology can help him understand himself. Constantin Constantius, who is the pseudonymous
author of that book, is the psychologist. At the same time, he published Three Upbuilding
Discourses, 1843 under his own name, which dealt specifically with how love can be used to hide
things from yourself or others.[76] These three books, all published on the same day, are an example
of Kierkegaard's method of indirect communication.
Kierkegaard questioned whether an individual can know if something is a good gift from God or
not and concludes by saying, "it does not depend, then, merely upon what one sees, but what one
sees depends upon how one sees; all observation is not just a receiving, a discovering, but also a
bringing forth, and insofar as it is that, how the observer himself is constituted is indeed
decisive."[77] God's love is imparted indirectly just as our own sometimes is.[78]
During 1844, he published two, three, and four more upbuilding discourses just as he did in 1843,
but here he discussed how an individual might come to know God. Theologians, philosophers and
historians were all engaged in debating about the existence of God. This is direct communication
and Kierkegaard thinks this might be useful for theologians, philosophers, and historians
(associations) but not at all useful for the "single individual" who is interested in becoming a
Christian. Kierkegaard always wrote for "that single individual whom I with joy and gratitude call
my reader"[79] The single individual must put what is understood to use or it will be lost. Reflection
can take an individual only so far before the imagination begins to change the whole content of
what was being thought about. Love is won by being exercised just as much as faith and patience
are.
He also wrote several more pseudonymous books in 1844: Philosophical Fragments, Prefaces and
The Concept of Anxiety and finished the year up with Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844. He used
indirect communication in the first book and direct communication in the rest of them. He doesn't
believe the question about God's existence should be an opinion held by one group and differently
by another no matter how many demonstrations are made. He says it's up to the single individual to
make the fruit of the Holy Spirit real because love and joy are always just possibilities.
Christendom wanted to define God's attributes once and for all but Kierkegaard was against this.
His love for Regine was a disaster but it helped him because of his point of view.[80]
Kierkegaard believed "each generation has its own task and need not trouble itself unduly by being
everything to previous and succeeding generations".[81] In an earlier book he had said, "to a certain
degree every generation and every individual begins his life from the beginning",[82] and in
another, "no generation has learned to love from another, no generation is able to begin at any other
point than the beginning", "no generation learns the essentially human from a previous one."[83] He
was against the Hegelian idea of mediation[84] because it introduces a "third term"[85] that comes
between the single individual and the object of desire. Kierkegaard asked if logic ends in actuality,
can a person logically prove God's existence? Logic says no. Then he turns from logic to ethics and
finds that Hegelian philosophy is negative[86][87] rather than positive.[88] This "third term" isn't
mediation, it's the choice to love or not, to hope or not. It's the choice between the possibility of the
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"temporal and the eternal", "mistrust and belief, and deception and truth",[89] "subjective and
objective".[90] These are the "magnitudes" of choice. He always stressed deliberation and choice in
his writings and wrote against comparison.[91] This is how Kant put it in 1786 and Kierkegaard put
it in 1847:
Thinking for ones self is to seek the chief touchstone of truth in ones self (id est, in
ones own reason); and the maxim, to think for ones self at all times is Enlightening.
Thereto belongs not just so much, as those may imagine who take knowledge, to be
enlightening; as it is rather a negative principle in the use of ones cognoscitive faculty,
and he, who is very rich in knowledge, is often the least enlightened in the use of it. To
exercise ones own reason, means nothing more, than, relatively to every thing which
one is to suppose, to question ones self. Immanuel Kant, What it Means to Orient Ones
Self In Thinking 1786
Worldly worry always seeks to lead a human being into the small-minded unrest of
comparisons, away from the lofty calmness of simple thoughts. To be clothed, then,
means to be a human being-and therefore to be well clothed. Worldly worry is
preoccupied with clothes and dissimilarity of clothes. Should not the invitation to learn
from the lilies be welcome to everyone just as the reminder is useful to him! Alas, those
great, uplifting, simple thoughts, those first thoughts, are more and more forgotten,
perhaps entirely forgotten in the weekday and worldly life of comparisons. The one
human being compares himself with others, the one generation compares itself with the
other, and thus the heaped up pile of comparisons overwhelms a person. As the
ingenuity and busyness increase, there come to be more and more in each generation
who slavishly work a whole lifetime far down in the low underground regions of
comparisons. Indeed, just as miners never see the light of day, so these unhappy people
never come to see the light: those uplifting, simple thoughts, those first thoughts about
how glorious it is to be a human being. And up there in the higher regions of
comparison, smiling vanity plays its false game and deceives the happy ones so that they
receive no impression from those lofty, simple thoughts, those first thoughts.
Hidden inwardness
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throw the book away."[94] He knew he was writing books but had no idea who was reading them.
His sales were meager and he had no publicist or editor. He was writing in the dark, so to speak.[95]
He then went to Berlin for a short rest. Upon returning he published his Discourses of 184344 in
one volume, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 29 May 1845 and finished the first part of his
authorship with Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments which was a
rewrite of Philosophical Fragments as well as an explanation of the first part of his authorship. In
1851 he further explained himself in his Journal. "What I have understood as the task of the
authorship has been done. It is one idea, this continuity from Either/Or to Anti-Climacus, the idea
of religiousness in reflection. The task has occupied me totally, for it has occupied me religiously; I
have understood the completion of this authorship as my duty, as a responsibility resting upon me."
He advised his reader to read his books slowly and also to read them aloud since that might aid in
understanding.[96] Kierkegaard identified this leap of faith as the good resolution.[97] Kierkegaard
discussed the knight of faith like this in Works of Love, 1847.
Consider the woman with hemorrhages; she did not press herself forward in order to
touch Christs robe; she told no one what she had in mind and what she believed-she
said very softly to herself, If I only touch the hem of his robe, I shall be healed. The
secret she kept to herself; it was the secret of faith that saved her both temporally and
eternally. You can keep the secret to yourself also when you profess your faith with bold
confidence, and when you lie weak on your sickbed and cannot move a limb when you
cannot even move your tongue, you can still have the secret within you. But the
originality of faith is related in turn to the originality of Christianity. Works of Love,
1847, Hong 1995 p. 28-29
He was writing about the inner being in all of these books and his goal was to get the single
individual away from all the speculation that was going on about God and Christ. Speculation
creates quantities of ways to find God and his Goods but finding faith in Christ and putting the
understanding to use stops all speculation because then one begins to actually exist as a Christian or
in an ethical/religious way. He was against an individual waiting until certain of God's love and
salvation before beginning to try to become a Christian.[98] In Kierkegaard's view the Church
should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a
leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual.[99] He
wrote the following about fear and trembling and love as early as 1839, "Fear and trembling is not
the primus motor in the Christian life, for it is love; but it is what the oscillating balance wheel is to
the clock-it is the oscillating balance wheel of the Christian life.[100]
When we take a religious person, the knight of hidden inwardness, and place
him in the existence-medium, a contradiction will appear as he relates
himself to the world around him, and he himself must become aware of this.
The contradiction does not consist in his being different from everyone else
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but the contradiction is that he, with all his inwardness hidden within him,
with this pregnancy of suffering and benediction in his inner being, looks just
like all the others-and inwardness is indeed hidden simply by his looking
exactly like others. Sren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript,
Hong p. 499
What blessed equality, that in the strictest sense the sufferer can
unconditionally do the highest as fully as well as the most gifted person in
the most fortunate sense. Honor and praise be to the eternal: there is not a
shade of difference, there is no wrongdoing and no preferential treatment, but
equality. You are indistinguishable from anyone else among those whom you
might wish to resemble, those who in the decision are with the good-they are
all clothed alike, girdled about the loins with truth, clad in the armor of
righteousness, wearing the helmet of salvation! Sren Kierkegaard,
Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 111
If doubt is the beginning, then God is lost long before the end, and the
individual is released from always having a task, but also from always having
the comfort that there is always a task. But if the consciousness of guilt is the
beginning, then the beginning of doubt is rendered impossible, and then the
joy is that there is always a task. The joy, then, is that it is eternally certain
that God is love; more specifically understood, the joy is that there is always
a task. As long as there is life there is hope, but as long as there is a task there
is life, and as long as there is life there is hope-indeed, the task itself is not
merely a hope for a future time but is a joyful present. Sren Kierkegaard,
Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 279-280, 277
How much that is hidden may still reside in a person, or how much may still
reside hidden! How inventive is hidden inwardness in hiding itself and in
deceiving or evading others, the hidden inwardness that preferred that no one
would suspect its existence, modestly afraid of being seen and mortally afraid
of being entirely disclosed! Is it not so that the one person never completely
understands the other? But if he does not understand him completely, then of
course it is always possible that the most indisputable thing could still have a
completely different explanation that would, note well, be the true
explanation, since an assumption can indeed explain a great number of
instances very well and thereby confirm its truth and yet show itself to be
untrue as soon as the instance comes along that it cannot explain-and it
would indeed be possible that this instance or this somewhat more precise
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specification could come even at the last moment. Therefore all calm and, in
the intellectual sense, dispassionate observers, who eminently know how to
delve searchingly and penetratingly into the inner being, these very people
judge with such infinite caution or refrain from it entirely because, enriched
by observation, they have a developed conception of the enigmatic world of
the hidden, and because as observers they have learned to rule over their
passions. Only superficial, impetuous passionate people, who do not
understand themselves and for that reason naturally are unaware that they do
not know others, judge precipitously. Those with insight, those who know
never do this. Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, (1847) Hong 1995 p.
228-229
This poetical venture is entirely correct and perhaps can, among other things,
serve to shed light on a fraud or a misunderstanding that has appeared
repeatedly in all Christendom. A person makes Christian humility and
self-denial empty when he indeed denies himself in one respect but does not
have the courage to do it decisively, and therefore he takes care to be
understood in his humility and self-denial which certainly is not self-denial.
Therefore, in order to be able to praise love, self-denial is required inwardly
and self-sacrificing outwardly. If, then, someone undertakes to praise love
and is asked whether it is actually out of love on his part that he does it, the
answer must be: No one else can decide this for certain; it is possible that it
is vanity, pride-in short, something bad, but it is also possible that it is love.
Soren Kierkegaard, 1847, Works of Love, Hong 1995 p. 374
Kierkegaard wrote his Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments in 1846 and
here he tried to explain the intent of the first part of his authorship.[101][102] He said, "Christianity
will not be content to be an evolution within the total category of human nature; an engagement
such as that is too little to offer to a god. Neither does it even want to be the paradox for the
believer, and then surreptitiously, little by little, provide him with understanding, because the
martyrdom of faith (to crucify one's understanding) is not a martyrdom of the moment, but the
martyrdom of continuance."[103][104] The second part of his authorship was summed up in Practice
in Christianity:
The deification of the established order is the secularization of everything. With regard
to secular matters, the established order may be entirely right: one should join the
established order, be satisfied with that relativity, etc. But ultimately the relationship
with God is also secularized; we want it to coincide with a certain relativity, do not want
it to be something essentially different from our positions in life rather than that it
shall be the absolute for every individual human being and this, the individual persons
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God-relationship, shall be precisely what keeps every established order in suspense, and
that God, at any moment he chooses, if he merely presses upon an individual in his
relationship with God, promptly has a witness, an informer, a spy, or whatever you want
to call it, one who in unconditional obedience and with unconditional obedience, by
being persecuted, by suffering, by dying, keeps the established order in suspense. Sren
Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (1850) p. 91 Hong [105]
Early Kierkegaardian scholars, such as Theodor W. Adorno and Thomas Henry Croxall, argue that
the entire authorship should be treated as Kierkegaard's own personal and religious views.[106] This
view leads to confusions and contradictions which make Kierkegaard appear philosophically
incoherent.[107] Later scholars, such as the post-structuralists, interpreted Kierkegaard's work by
attributing the pseudonymous texts to their respective authors. Postmodern Christians present a
different interpretation of Kierkegaard's works.[108] Kierkegaard used the category of "The
Individual"[109] to stop[110] the endless Either/Or.[111]
Pseudonyms
All of these writings analyze the concept of faith, on the supposition that if people are confused
about faith, as Kierkegaard thought the inhabitants of Christendom were, they will not be in a
position to develop the virtue. Faith is a matter of reflection in the sense that one cannot have the
virtue unless one has the concept of virtue - or at any rate the concepts that govern faith's
understanding of self, world, and God.[113]
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On 22 December 1845, Peder Ludvig Mller, who studied at the University of Copenhagen at the
same time as Kierkegaard, published an article indirectly criticizing Stages on Life's Way. The
article complimented Kierkegaard for his wit and intellect, but questioned whether he would ever
be able to master his talent and write coherent, complete works. Mller was also a contributor to
and editor of The Corsair, a Danish satirical paper that lampooned everyone of notable standing.
Kierkegaard published a sarcastic response, charging that Mller's article was merely an attempt to
impress Copenhagen's literary elite.
Kierkegaard's response earned him the ire of the paper and its second
editor, also an intellectual of Kierkegaard's own age, Mer Aron
Goldschmidt.[115] Over the next few months, The Corsair took
Kierkegaard up on his offer to "be abused", and unleashed a series of
attacks making fun of Kierkegaard's appearance, voice and habits. For
months, Kierkegaard perceived himself to be the victim of harassment
on the streets of Denmark. In a journal entry dated 9 March 1846,
Kierkegaard made a long, detailed explanation of his attack on Mller
and The Corsair, and also explained that this attack made him rethink
his strategy of indirect communication.[116]
There had been much discussion in Denmark about the pseudonymous A caricature of
authors until the publication of Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Kierkegaard published in
Philosophical Fragments, 27 February 1846, where he openly The Corsair, a satirical
admitted to be the author of the books because people began journal
wondering if he was, in fact, a Christian or not.[117][118] Several
Journal entries from that year shed some light on what Kierkegaard hoped to achieve.[119][120]
[121][122] This book was published under an earlier pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. On 30 March
1846 he published Two Ages: A Literary Review, under his own name. A critique of the novel Two
Ages (in some translations Two Generations) written by Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-
Ehrensvrd, Kierkegaard made several insightful observations on what he considered the nature of
modernity and its passionless attitude towards life. Kierkegaard writes that "the present age is
essentially a sensible age, devoid of passion [...] The trend today is in the direction of mathematical
equality, so that in all classes about so and so many uniformly make one individual".[123] In this,
Kierkegaard attacked the conformity and assimilation of individuals into "the crowd"[124] which
became the standard for truth, since it was the numerical. How can one love the neighbor if the
neighbor is always regarded as the wealthy or the poor or the lame?[125]
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A useless and perhaps futile conflict goes on often enough in the world, when the poor
person says to the wealthy person, "Sure, its easy for you-you are free from worry about
making a living." Would to God that the poor person would really understand how the
Gospel is much more kindly disposed to him, is treating him equally and more lovingly.
Truly, the Gospel does not let itself be deceived into taking sides with anyone against
someone else, with someone who is wealthy against someone who is poor, or with
someone who is poor against someone who is wealthy. Among individuals in the world,
the conflict of disconnected comparison is frequently carried on about dependence and
independence, about the happiness of being independent and the difficulty of being
dependent. And yet, yet human language has not ever, and thought has not ever,
invented a more beautiful symbol of independence than the poor bird of the air. And yet,
yet no speech can be more curious than to say that it must be very bad and very heavy to
be-light as the bird! To be dependent on ones treasure-that is dependence and hard and
heavy slavery; to be dependent on God, completely dependent-that is independence.
Sren Kierkegaard, 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 180-181
As part of his analysis of the "crowd", Kierkegaard accused newspapers of decay and decadence.
Kierkegaard stated Christendom had "lost its way" by recognizing "the crowd," as the many who
are moved by newspaper stories, as the court of last resort in relation to "the truth." Truth comes to
a single individual, not all people at one and the same time. Just as truth comes to one individual at
a time so does love. One doesn't love the crowd but does love their neighbor, who is a single
individual. He says, "never have I read in the Holy Scriptures this command: You shall love the
crowd; even less: You shall, ethico-religiously, recognize in the crowd the court of last resort in
relation to 'the truth.'"[126][127]
Authorship (18471855)
Kierkegaard began to write again in 1847. His first work in this period was Edifying Discourses in
Diverse Spirits which was made up of three parts.[57] It included Purity of Heart is to Will One
Thing, What we Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds in the Air,[128] and The
Gospel of Sufferings. These questions are asked, What does it mean to be a single individual who
wants to do the good? What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to follow
Christ? He now moves from "upbuilding (Edifying) discourses" to "Christian discourses", however,
he still maintains that these are not "sermons".[129] A sermon is about struggle with oneself about
the tasks life offers one and about repentance for not completing the tasks. [130] Later, in 1849, he
wrote devotional discourses and Godly discourses.
Is it really hopelessness to reject the task because it is too heavy; is it really hopelessness
almost to collapse under the burden because it is so heavy; is it really hopelessness to
give up hope out of fear of the task? Oh no, but this is hopelessness: to will with all
ones might-but there is no task. Thus, only if there is nothing to do and if the person
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who says it were without guilt before God-for if he is guilty, there is indeed always
something to do-only if there is nothing to do and this is understood to mean that there is
no task, only then is there hopelessness. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong
p. 277
While the Savior of the world sighs, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me,"
the repentant robber humbly understands, but still also as a relief, that it is not God who
has abandoned him, but it is he who has abandoned God, and, repenting, he says to the
one crucified with him: Remember me when you come into your kingdom. It is a heavy
human suffering to reach for Gods mercy in the anxiety of death and with belated
repentance at the moment of despicable death, but yet the repentant robber finds relief
when he compares his suffering with the superhuman suffering of being abandoned by
God. To be abandoned by God, that indeed means to be without a task. It means to be
deprived of the final task that every human being always has, the task of patience, the
task that has its ground in Gods not having abandoned the sufferer. Hence Christs
suffering is superhuman and his patience superhuman, so that no human being can grasp
either the one or the other. Although it is beneficial that we speak quite humanly of
Christs suffering, if we speak of it merely as if he were the human being who has
suffered the most, it is blasphemy, because although his suffering is human, it is also
superhuman, and there is an eternal chasmic abyss between his suffering and the human
beings. Sren Kierkegaard, 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p.280
Works of Love[131] followed these discourses on (September 29, 1847). Both books were authored
under his own name. It was written under the themes "Love covers a multitude of sins" and "Love
builds up." (1 Peter 4:8 and 1 Corinthians 8:1) Kierkegaard believed that "all human speech, even
divine speech of Holy Scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical speech".[132] "To
build up" is a metaphorical expression. One can never be all human or all spirit, one must be both.
When it is said, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, this contains what is
presupposed, that every person loves himself. Thus, Christianity which by no means
begins, as do those high flying thinkers, without presuppositions, nor with a flattering
presupposition, presupposes this. Dare we then deny that it is as Christianity
presupposes? But on the other hand, it is possible for anyone to misunderstand
Christianity, as if it were its intention to teach what worldly sagacity unanimously-alas,
and yet contentiously-teaches, that everyone is closest to himself. Is it possible for
anyone to misunderstand this, as if it were Christianitys intention to proclaim self-love
as a prescriptive right? Indeed on the contrary, it is Christianitys intention to wrest
self-love away from us human beings. Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love, Hong p. 17
All human speech, even the divine speech of Holy Scripture, about the spiritual is
essentially metaphorical [overfot, carried over] speech. And this is quite in order or in
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the order of things and of existence, since a human being, even if from the moment of
birth his is a spirit, still does not become conscious of himself as a spirit until later and
thus has sensately-psychically acted out a certain part of his life prior to this. But this
first portion is not to be cast aside when the spirit awakens any more than the awakening
of the spirit in contrast to the sensate-physical announces itself in a sensate-physical
way. On the contrary, the first portion is taken over [overtage] by the spirit and, used in
this way, is thus made the basis it becomes the metaphorical. Therefore, the spiritual
person and the sensate person say the same thing; yet there is an infinite difference,
since the latter has no intimation of the secret of the metaphorical words although he is
using the same words, but not in their metaphorical sense.
There is a world of difference between the two; the one has made the transition or let
himself be carried over to the other side, while the other remains on this side; yet they
have the connection that both are using the same words. The person in whom the spirit
has awakened does not as a consequence abandon the visible-world. Although conscious
of himself as spirit, he continues to remain in the visible world and to be visible to the
senses, in the same way he also remains in the language, except that his language is the
metaphorical language!
But the metaphorical words are of course not brand-new words but are the already given
words. Just as the spirit is invisible, so also is its language a secret, and the secret lies in
its using the same words as the child and the simpleminded person but using them
metaphorically, whereby the spirit denies the sensate or sensate-physical way. The
difference is by no means a noticeable difference. For this reason we rightfully regard it
as a sign of false spirituality to parade a noticeable difference-which is merely sensate,
whereas the spirits manner is the metaphors quiet, whispering secret for the person
who has ears to hear. Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 1847, Hong 1995 p. 209-210
Love builds up by presupposing that love is present. Have you not experienced this
yourself, my listener? If anyone has ever spoken to you in such a way or treated in in
such a way that you really felt built up, this was because you very vividly perceived how
he presupposed love to be in you. Wisdom is a being-for-itself quality; power, talent,
knowledge, etc. are likewise being-for-itself qualities. To be wise does not mean to
presuppose that others are wise; on the contrary, it may be very wise and true if the truly
wise person assumes that far from all people are wise. But love is not a being-for-itself
quality but a quality by which or in which you are for others. Loving means to
presuppose love in others. Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love, Hong p. 222-224
Later, in the same book, Kierkegaard deals with the question of sin and forgiveness. He uses the
same text he used earlier in Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 Love hides a multitude of sins. (1
Peter 4:8). He asks if "one who tells his neighbors faults hides or increases the multitude of
sins".[133]
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But the one who takes away the consciousness of sin and gives the consciousness of
forgiveness instead-he indeed takes away the heavy burden and gives the light one in its
place. Soren Kierkegaard, 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 246
The one who loves sees the sin he forgives, but he believes that forgiveness takes it
away. This cannot be seen, whereas the sin can indeed be seen; on the other hand, if the
sin did not exist to be seen, it could not be forgiven either. Just as one by faith believes
the unseen into what is seen, so the one who loves by forgiveness believes away what is
seen. Both are faith. Blessed is the believer, he believes what he cannot see; blessed is
the one who loves, he believes away that which he indeed can see! Who can believe
this? The one who loves can do it. But why is forgiveness so rare? Is it not because faith
in the power of forgiveness is so meager and so rare? Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love,
1847 Hong p. 289-295
In 1848 he published Christian Discourses under his own name and The Crisis and a Crisis in the
Life of an Actress under the pseudonym Inter et Inter. Christian Discourses deals the same theme as
The Concept of Anxiety, angst. The text is the Gospel of Matthew 6 verses 24-34. This was the
same passage he had used in his What We Learn From the Lilies in the Field and From the Birds of
the Air of 1847. He wrote:
A man who but rarely, and then only cursorily, concerns himself with his relationship to
God, hardly thinks or dreams that he has so closely to do with God, or that God is so
close to him, that there exists a reciprocal relationship between him and God, the
stronger a man is, the weaker God is, the weaker a man is, the stronger God is in him.
Every one who assumes that a God exists naturally thinks of Him as the strongest, as He
eternally is, being the Almighty who creates out of nothing, and for whom all the
creation is as nothing; but such a man hardly thinks of the possibility of a reciprocal
relationship. And yet for God, the infinitely strongest, there is an obstacle; He has
posited it Himself, yea, He has lovingly, with incomprehensible love posited it Himself;
for He posited it and posits it every time a man comes into existence, when He in His
love makes to be something directly in apposition to Himself. Oh, marvelous
omnipotence of love! A man cannot bear that his creations should be directly in
apposition to Himself, and so he speaks of them in a tone of disparagement as his
creations. But God who creates out of nothing, who almightily takes from nothing and
says, Be, lovingly adjoins, Be something even in apposition to me. Marvellous love,
even His omnipotence is under the sway of love! Soren Kierkegaard, Christian
Discourses, 1848 Lowrie 1940, 1961 p. 132
It is actually true that Christianity requires the Christian to give up and forsake all
things. This was not required in Old Testament times, God did not require Job to give up
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anything, and of Abraham he required expressly, as a test, only that he give up Isaac.
But in fact Christianity is also the religion of freedom, it is precisely the voluntary which
is the Christian. Voluntarily to give up all is to be convinced of the glory of the good
which Christianity promises. There is one thing God cannot take away from a man,
namely, the voluntary and it is precisely this which Christianity requires of man.
Thoughts Which Wound From Behind For Edification 1848 p. 187-188 (From
Christian Discourses Translated by Walter Lowrie 1940, 1961)
Kierkegaard tried to explain his prolific use of pseudonyms again in The Point of View of My Work
as an Author, his autobiographical explanation for his writing style. The book was finished in 1848,
but not published until after his death by his brother Christian Peter Kierkegaard. Walter Lowrie
mentioned Kierkegaard's "profound religious experience of Holy Week 1848" as a turning point
from "indirect communication" to "direct communication" regarding Christianity.[134] However,
Kierkegaard stated that he was a religious author throughout all of his writings and that his aim was
to discuss "the problem of becoming a Christian, with a direct polemic against the monstrous
illusion we call Christendom."[135] He expressed the illusion this way in his 1848 "Christian
Address", Thoughts Which Wound From Behind for Edification.
Oh, in the customary course of life there is so much to lull a man to sleep, to teach him
to say, Peace and no danger. It is for this cause we go into the house of God, to be
awakened out of sleep and to be riven away from the enchantments. But then again
when there is so much in the house of God to lull us! Even that which in itself is
arousing, such as thoughts, reflections, ideas, can by custom and monotony lose all their
significance, just as a spring can lose the resilience which makes it what it is. So, then
(to approach nearer to the subject of this discourse), it is right, reasonable, and a plain
duty, to invite men, over and over again, to come to the house of the Lord, to summon
them to it. But one may become so accustomed to hearing this invitation that one may
lose all sense of its significance, so that at last one steps away and it ends with the
invitation preaching the church empty. Or one may become so accustomed to hearing
this invitation that it develops false ideas in those that come, makes us self-important in
our own thoughts, that we are not as they who remain away, makes us self-satisfied,
secure, because it envelops us in a delusion, as though, since we are so urgently invited,
God were in need of us, as though it were not we who in fear and trembling should
reflect what He may require of us, as though it were not we who should sincerely thank
God that He will have dealings with us, that He will suffer and permit us to approach
Him, suffer that we presume to believe that He cares for us, that without being ashamed
He will be known as one who is called our God and our Farther. So concerning this
matter let us for once talk differently, in talking of these words of the preacher: Keep thy
foot when thou goest to the house of the Lord. (Ecclesiastes 5:1) Soren Kierkegaard,
Thoughts Which Wound From Behind for Edification, Christian Address, Copenhagen
1848 , Lowrie translation1961 p. 173 -174[136]
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He wrote three discourses under his own name and one pseudonymous book in 1849. He wrote The
Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air. Three Devotional Discourses, Three Discourses at the
Communion on Fridays and Two Ethical-Religious Essays. The first thing any child finds in life is
the external world of nature. This is where God placed his natural teachers. He's been writing about
confession and now openly writes about Holy Communion which is generally preceded by
confession. This he began with the confessions of the esthete and the ethicist in Either/Or and the
highest good peace in the discourse of that same book. His goal has always been to help people
become religious but specifically Christian religious. He summed his position up earlier in his
book, The Point of View of My Work as an Author, but this book was not published until 1859.
In the month of December 1845 the manuscript of the Concluding Postscript was
completely finished, and, as my custom was, I had delivered the whole of it at once to
Lune [the printer]-which the suspicious do not have to believe on my word, since Lunos
account-book is there to prove it. This work constitutes the turning-point in my whole
activity as an author, inasmuch as it presents the problem, how to become a Christian.
In a Christian sense simplicity is not the point of departure from which one goes on to
become interesting, witty, profound, poet, philosopher, &c. No, the very contrary. Here
is where one begins (with the interesting, &c.) and becomes simpler and simpler,
attaining simplicity. This, in Christendom is the Christian movement: one does not
reflect oneself into Christianity; but one reflects oneself out of something else and
becomes, more and more simply, a Christian.
I have never fought in such a way as to say: I am the true Christian, others are not
Christians. No, my contention has been this: I know what Christianity is, my
imperfection as a Christian I myself fully recognize-but I know what Christianity is.
And to get this properly recognized must be, I should think, to every mans interest,
whether he be a Christian or not, whether his intention is to accept Christianity or to
reject it. But I have attacked no one as not being a Christian, I have condemned no one.
And I myself have from the first clearly asserted, again and again repeated, that I am
without authority.[137] Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View of My Work as an Author
Lowrie, 53, 144, 153-155
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in Kierkegaard's earlier writings.[140] This sickness is despair and for Kierkegaard despair is a sin.
Despair is the impossibility of possibility.[141] Kierkegaard writes:
When a person who has been addicted to some sin or other but over a considerable
period has now successfully resisted the temptation-when this person has a relapse and
succumbs again to the temptation, then the depression that ensues is by no means always
sorrow over the sin. It can be something quite different; it might also, for that matter, be
resentment of divine governance, as if it were the latter that had let him fall into
temptation and should not have been so hard on him, seeing that until now he had for so
long successfully resisted the temptation. Such a person protests, perhaps in even
stronger terms, how this relapse tortures and torments him, how it brings him to despair:
he swears, 'I will never forgive myself.' He never forgives himself-but suppose God
would forgive him; then he might well have the goodness to forgive himself. The
Sickness Unto Death, by Anti-Climacus, Edited by Soren Kierkegaard, Copyright 1849
Translation with an Introduction and notes by Alastair Hannay 1989 p. 144
In Practice in Christianity, Sep 25, 1850, his last pseudonymous work, he stated, "In this book,
originating in the year 1848, the requirement for being a Christian is forced up by the
pseudonymous authors to a supreme ideality."[142] This work was called Training in Christianity
when Walter Lowrie translated it in 1941.
Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only true explanation of what
truth is. Therefore one can ask an apostle, one can ask a Christian, "What is truth?" and
in answer to the question the apostle and the Christian will point to Christ and say: Look
at him, learn from him, he was the truth. This means that truth in the sense in which
Christ is the truth is not a sum of statements, not a definition etc., but a life. The being of
truth is not the direct redoubling of being in relation to thinking, which gives only
thought-being, safeguards thinking only against being a brain-figment that is not,
guarantees validity to thinking, that what is thought is-that is, has validity. No, the being
of truth is the redoubling of truth within yourself, within me, within him, that your life,
my life, his life is approximately the being of the truth in the striving for it, just as the
truth was in Christ a life, for he was the truth. And therefore, Christianly understood,
truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Sren Kierkegaard, Practice
in Christianity, Hong p. 205 (1850)
He now pointedly referred to the acting single individual in his next three publications; For
Self-Examination, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, and in 1852 Judge for
Yourselves!.[143][144] Judge for Yourselves! was published posthumously in 1876.
In 1851 Kierkegaard wrote his Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays where he once more
discussed sin, forgiveness, and authority using that same verse from 1 Peter 4:8 that he used twice
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Would that there were a hiding place where I am so hidden that not even the
consciousness of my sin can find me! Would that there were a border, however narrow,
if it still makes a separation between me and my sin! Would that on the other side of a
chasmic abyss there were a spot, however little, where I could stand, while the
consciousness of my sin must remain on the other side. Would that there were a
forgiveness, a forgiveness that does not increase my sense of guilt but truly takes the
guilt from me, also the consciousness of it. Would that there were oblivion! But now this
is indeed that way it is, because love (Christs love) hides a multitude of sins. Behold,
everything has become new. . A human being has no authority, cannot command that
you shall believe and just by commanding you with authority help you to believe. But if
it requires authority even to teach, what authority is required, even greater, if possible,
then the authority that commands the heaving sea to be still, to command the despairing
person, the one who in the agony of repentance is unable and does not dare to forget, the
prostrate penitent who is unable and does not dare to stop staring at his guilt, what
authority is required to command him to shut his eyes, and what authority is then
required to command him to open the eyes of faith so that he sees purity where he saw
guilt and sin! That divine authority he alone has, Jesus Christ, whose love hides a
multitude of sins. He hides it very literally. Just as when one person places himself in
front of another person and covers him so completely with his body that no one, no one,
can see the person hidden behind him, so Jesus Christ covers your sin with his holy
body.
Soren Kierkegaard, Two Discourses at Friday Communion, 1851 (Love Will Hide
a Multitude of Sins 1 Peter 4:8) From Without Authority, Hong 1997 p. 184-185
Kierkegaard began his 1843 book Either/Or with a question: "Are passions, then, the pagans of the
soul? Reason alone baptized?"[145] He didn't want to devote himself to Thought or Speculation like
Hegel did. Faith, hope, love, peace, patience, joy, self-control, vanity, kindness, humility, courage,
cowardliness, pride, deceit, and selfishness. These are the inner passions that Thought knows little
about. Hegel begins the process of education with Thought but Kierkegaard thinks we could begin
with passion, or a balance between the two, a balance between Goethe and Hegel.[146] He was
against endless reflection with no passion involved. But at the same time he did not want to draw
more attention to the external display of passion but the internal (hidden) passion of the single
individual. Kierkegaard clarified this intention in his Journals.[96]
Schelling put Nature first and Hegel put Reason first but Kierkegaard put the human being first and
the choice first in his writings. He makes an argument against Nature here and points out that most
single individuals begin life as spectators of the visible world and work toward knowledge of the
invisible world.
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Is it a perfection on the part of the bird that in hard times it sits and dies of
hunger and knows of nothing at all to do, that, dazed, it lets itself fall to the
ground and dies? Usually we do not talk this way. When a sailor lies down in
the boat and lets matters take their course in the storm and knows nothing to
do, we do not speak of his perfection. But when a doughty sailor knows how
to steer, when he works against the storm with ingenuity, with strength, and
with perseverance, when he works himself out of the danger, we admire him.
Sren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, 1847, Hong p.
198
Suppose that it were not one man who traveled from Jericho to Jerusalem,
but there were two, and both of them were assaulted by robbers and maimed,
and no traveler passed by. Suppose, then, that one of them did nothing but
moan, while the other forgot and surmounted his own suffering in order to
speak comfortingly, friendly words or, what involved great pain, dragged
himself to some water in order to fetch the other a refreshing drink. Or
suppose that they were both bereft of speech, but one of them in his silent
prayer sighed to God also for the other-was he then not merciful? If someone
has cut off my hands, then I cannot play the zither, and if someone has cut off
my feet, then I cannot dance, and if I lie crippled on the shore, then I cannot
throw myself into the sea in order to rescue another persons life, and if I
myself am lying with a broken arm or leg, then I cannot plunge into the
flames to save anothers life-but I can still be merciful. I have often pondered
how a painter might portray mercifulness, but I have decided that it cannot be
done. As soon as a painter is to do it, it becomes dubious whether it is
mercifulness or it is something else.
But what does this mean, what have I to do, or what sort of effort is it that can be said to
seek or pursue the kingdom of God? Shall I try to get a job suitable to my talents and
powers in order thereby to exert an influence? No, thou shalt first seek Gods kingdom.
Shall I then give all my fortune to the poor? No, thou shalt first seek Gods kingdom.
Shall I then go out to proclaim this teaching to the world? No, thou shalt first seek Gods
kingdom. But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do. Yes, certainly, in a certain it
is nothing, thou shalt in the deepest sense make thyself nothing, become nothing before
God, learn to keep silent; in this silence is the beginning, which is, first to seek Gods
kingdom. In this wise, a godly wise, one gets to the beginning by going, in a sense,
backwards. The beginning is not that with which one begins, but at which one arrives at
the beginning backwards. The beginning is this art of becoming silent; for to be silent, as
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nature is, is not an art. It is mans superiority over the beasts to be able to speak; but in
relation to God it can easily become the ruin of man who is able to speak that he is too
willing to speak. God is love, man is (as one says to a child) a silly little thing, even so
far as his own wellbeing is concerned. Only in much fear and trembling can a man walk
with God; in much fear and trembling. But to talk in much fear and trembling is difficult
for as a sense of dread causes the bodily voice to fail; so also does much fear and
trembling render the voice mute in silence. This the true man of prayer knows well, and
he who was not the true man of prayer learned precisely this by praying.
Nikolai Berdyaev makes a related argument against reason in his 1945 book The Divine and the
Human.[147][148]
Kierkegaard described the hope the witness to the truth has in 1847.
When the concepts are shaken in an upheaval that is more terrible than an earthquake,
when the truth is hated and its witness persecuted-what then? Must the witness submit to
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the world? Yes. But does that mean all is lost? No, on the contrary. We remain
convinced of this, and thus no proof is needed, for if it is not so, then such a person is
not a witness to the truth either. Therefore we are reassured that even in the last
moments such a person has retained a youthful recollection of what the youth expected,
and he therefore has examined himself and his relationship before God to see whether
the defect could lie in him, whether it was not possible for it to become, as the youth had
expected, something he perhaps now desired most for the sake of the world-namely, that
truth has the victory and good has its reward in the world. Woe to the one who
presumptuously, precipitously, and impetuously brings the horror of confusion into more
peaceable situations; but woe, also, to the one who, if it was necessary, did not have the
bold confidence to turn everything around the second time when it was turned around
the first time! Sren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p.
330
Before the tenth issue of his periodical The Moment could be published, Kierkegaard collapsed on
the street. He stayed in the hospital for over a month and refused communion. At that time he
regarded pastors as mere political officials, a niche in society who were clearly not representative
of the divine. He said to Emil Boesen, a friend since childhood who kept a record of his
conversations with Kierkegaard, that his life had been one of immense suffering, which may have
seemed like vanity to others, but he did not think it so.[57][152]
Kierkegaard's pamphlets and polemical books, including The Moment, criticized several aspects of
church formalities and politics.[154] According to Kierkegaard, the idea of congregations keeps
individuals as children since Christians are disinclined from taking the initiative to take
responsibility for their own relation to God. He stressed that "Christianity is the individual, here,
the single individual."[155] Furthermore, since the Church was controlled by the State, Kierkegaard
believed the State's bureaucratic mission was to increase membership and oversee the welfare of its
members. More members would mean more power for the clergymen: a corrupt ideal.[156] This
mission would seem at odds with Christianity's true doctrine, which, to Kierkegaard, is to stress the
importance of the individual, not the whole.[51] Thus, the state-church political structure is
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offensive and detrimental to individuals, since anyone can become "Christian" without knowing
what it means to be Christian. It is also detrimental to the religion itself since it reduces Christianity
to a mere fashionable tradition adhered to by unbelieving "believers", a "herd mentality" of the
population, so to speak.[157] Kierkegaard always stressed the importance of the conscience and the
use of it.[158]
Reception
19th century reception
In September 1850, the Western Literary Messenger wrote: "While Martensen with his wealth of
genius casts from his central position light upon every sphere of existence, upon all the phenomena
of life, Sren Kierkegaard stands like another Simon Stylites, upon his solitary column, with his
eye unchangeably fixed upon one point."[159] In 1855, the Danish National Church published his
obituary. Kierkegaard did have an impact there judging from the following quote from their article:
"The fatal fruits which Dr. Kierkegaard show to arise from the union of Church and State, have
strengthened the scruples of many of the believing laity, who now feel that they can remain no
longer in the Church, because thereby they are in communion with unbelievers, for there is no
ecclesiastical discipline."[159][160]
Hans Martensen was the subject of a Danish article, Dr. S. Kierkegaard against Dr. H. Martensen
By Hans Peter Kofoed-Hansen (1813-1893) that was published in 1856[162] (untranslated) and
Martensen mentioned him extensively in Christian Ethics, published in 1871.[163] "Kierkegaard's
assertion is therefore perfectly justifiable, that with the category of "the individual" the cause of
Christianity must stand and fall; that, without this category, Pantheism had conquered
unconditionally. From this, at a glance, it may be seen that Kierkegaard ought to have made
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Otto Pfleiderer in The Philosophy of Religion: On the Basis of Its History (1887), claimed that
Kierkegaard presented an anti-rational view of Christianity. He went on to assert that the ethical
side of a human being has to disappear completely in his one-sided view of faith as the highest
good. He wrote, "Kierkegaard can only find true Christianity in entire renunciation of the world, in
the following of Christ in lowliness and suffering especially when met by hatred and persecution on
the part of the world. Hence his passionate polemic against ecclesiastical Christianity, which he
says has fallen away from Christ by coming to a peaceful understanding with the world and
conforming itself to the world's life. True Christianity, on the contrary, is constant polemical pathos,
a battle against reason, nature, and the world; its commandment is enmity with the world; its way
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An article from an 1889 dictionary of religion revealed a good idea of how Kierkegaard was
regarded at that time, stating: "Having never left his native city more than a few days at a time,
excepting once, when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy. He was the most
original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced. His fame has been steadily
growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religio-philosophical light of
Germany, not only his theological, but also his aesthetic works have of late become the subject of
universal study in Europe."[159][176]
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During the 1890s, Japanese philosophers began disseminating the works of Kierkegaard, from the
Danish thinkers.[186] Tetsuro Watsuji was one of the first philosophers outside of Scandinavia to
write an introduction on his philosophy, in 1915.
The yes of the promise is sleep-inducing, but the no, spoken and therefore audible to
oneself, is awakening, and repentance is usually not far away. The one who says, "I will,
sir," is at the same moment pleased with himself; the one who says no becomes almost
afraid of himself. But this difference if very significant in the first moment and very
decisive in the next moment; yet if the first moment is the judgment of the momentary,
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the second moment is the judgment of eternity. This is precisely why the world is so
inclined to promises, inasmuch as the world is the momentary, and at the moment a
promise looks very good. This is why eternity is suspicious of promises, just as it is
suspicious of everything momentary. And so it is also with the one who, rich in good
intentions and quick to promise, moves backward further and further away from the
good. By means of the intention and the promise, he is facing in the direction of the
good, is turned toward the good but is moving backward further and further away from
it. With every renewed intention and promise it looks as if he took a step forward, and
yet he is not merely standing still, but he is actually taking a step backward. The
intention taken in vain, the unfulfilled promise, leaves despondency, dejection, that in
turn perhaps soon blazes up into an even more vehement intention, which leaves only
greater listlessness. Just as the alcoholic continually needs a stronger and stronger
stimulant-in order to become intoxicated, likewise the one who has become addicted to
promises and good intentions continually needs more and more stimulation-in order to
go backward. Sren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong p. 93-94 (1850)
One thing James did have in common with Kierkegaard was respect for the single individual, and
their respective comments may be compared in direct sequence as follows: "A crowd is indeed
made up of single individuals; it must therefore be in everyone's power to become what he is, a
single individual; no one is prevented from being a single individual, no one, unless he prevents
himself by becoming many. To become a crowd, to gather a crowd around oneself, is on the
contrary to distinguish life from life; even the most well-meaning one who talks about that, can
easily offend a single individual."[189] In his book A Pluralistic Universe, James stated that,
"Individuality outruns all classification, yet we insist on classifying every one we meet under some
general label. As these heads usually suggest prejudicial associations to some hearer or other, the
life of philosophy largely consists of resentments at the classing, and complaints of being
misunderstood. But there are signs of clearing up for which both Oxford and Harvard are partly to
be thanked."[190]
The Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics had an article about Kierkegaard in 1908. The article
began:
"The life of Sren Kierkegaard has but few points of contact with the external world; but
there were, in particular, three occurrencesa broken engagement, an attack by a comic
paper, and the use of a word by H.L. Martensenwhich must be referred to as having
wrought with extraordinary effect upon his peculiarly sensitive and high-strung nature.
The intensity of his inner life, againwhich finds expression in his published works,
and even more directly in his notebooks and diaries (also published)cannot be
properly understood without some reference to his father."[159][191]
Friedrich von Hgel wrote about Kierkegaard in his 1913 book, Eternal life: a study of its
implications and applications, where he said: "Kierkegaard, the deep, melancholy, strenuous,
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Hermann Gottsche published Kierkegaard's Journals in 1905. It had taken academics 50 years to
arrange his journals.[204] Kierkegaard's main works were translated into German by Christoph
Schrempf from 1909 onwards.[205] Emmanuel Hirsch released a German edition of Kierkegaard's
collected works from 1950 onwards.[205] Both Harald Hoffding's and Schrempf's books about
Kierkegaard were reviewed in 1892.[206][207]
In the 1930s, the first academic English translations,[208] by Alexander Dru, David F. Swenson,
Douglas V. Steere, and Walter Lowrie appeared, under the editorial efforts of Oxford University
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Press editor Charles Williams, one of the members of the Inklings.[209][210] Thomas Henry Croxall,
another early translator, Lowrie, and Dru all hoped that people would not just read about
Kierkegaard but would actually read his works.[211] Dru published an English translation of
Kierkegaard's Journals in 1958;[212] Alastair Hannay translated some of Kierkegaard's works.[57]
From the 1960s to the 1990s, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong translated his works more than
once.[213][214] The first volume of their first version of the Journals and Papers (Indiana,
19671978) won the 1968 U.S. National Book Award in category Translation.[213][215] They both
dedicated their lives to the study of Sren Kierkegaard and his works, which are maintained at the
Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library.[216] Jon Stewart from the University of
Copenhagen has written extensively about Sren Kierkegaard.
In 1955 Morton White wrote about the word "exists" and Kierkegaard's idea of God's is-ness.
The word exists is one of the most pivotal and controversial in philosophy. Some
philosophers think of it as having one meaning: the sense in which we say that this book
exists, that God does or does not exist, that there exist odd numbers between 8 and 20,
that a characteristic like redness exists as well as things that are red, that the American
government exists as well as the physical building in which the government is housed,
that minds exist as well as bodies. And when the word exists is construed in this
unambiguous way, many famous disputes in the history of philosophy and theology
appear to be quite straightforward. Theists affirm that God exists while atheists deny the
very same statement; materialists say that matter exists while some idealists think that it
is illusory; nominalists, as they are called, deny the existence of characteristics like
redness while platonic realists affirm it; some kinds of behaviorists deny that there are
minds inside bodies. There is, however, a tendency among some philosophers, to insist
that the word exists is ambiguous and therefore that some of these disputes are not
disputes at all but merely the results of mutual misunderstanding, of a failure to see that
certain things are said to exist in one sense while others exist in another. One of the
outstanding efforts of this kind in the twentieth century occurs in the early writings of
realists who maintained that only concrete things in space and time exist, while abstract
characteristics of things or relations between them should be said to subsist. This is
sometimes illustrated by pointing out that while Chicago and St. Louis both exist at
definite places, the relation more populous than which holds between them exists neither
in Chicago nor in St. Louis nor in the area between them, but is nevertheless something
about which we can speak, something that is usually assigned to a timeless and
spaceless realm like that of which Plato spoke. On this view, however, human minds or
personalities are also said to exist in spite of being non-material. In short, the great
divide is between abstract subsistents and concrete existents, but both human
personalities and physical objects are existents and do not share in the spacelessness and
timelessness of platonic ideas.
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So far as one can see, Kierkegaard too distinguishes different senses of exists, except
that he appears to need at least three distinct senses for which he should supply three
distinct words. First of all he needs one for statements about God, and so he says that
God is. Secondly, and by contrast, persons or personalities are said to exist. It would
appear then that he needs some third term for physical objects, which on his view are
very different from God and persons, but since existentialists dont seem to be very
interested in physical objects or mere things, they appear to get along with two. The
great problem for Kierkegaard is to relate Gods is-ness, if I may use that term for the
moment, to human existence, and this he tries to solve by appealing to the Incarnation.
Christs person is the existent outgrowth of God who is. By what is admittedly a
mysterious process the abstract God enters a concrete existent. We must accept this on
faith and faith alone, for clearly it cannot be like the process whereby one existent is
related to another; it involves a passage from one realm to another which is not
accessible to the human mind, Christians who lacked this faith and who failed to live by
it were attacked by Kierkegaard; this was the theological root of his violent criticism of
the Established Church of Denmark. It is one source of his powerful influence on
contemporary theology.
20th Century Philosophers, The Age of Analysis, selected with introduction and
commentary by Morton White 1955 p. 118-121 Houghton Mifflin Co
In 1964 Life Magazine traced the history of existentialism from Heraclitus (500BC) and
Parmenides over the argument over The Unchanging One as the real and the state of flux as the
real. From there to the Old Testament Psalms and then to Jesus and later from Jacob Boehme
(15751624) to Rene Descartes (15961650) and Blaise Pascal (16231662) and then on to
Nietzsche and Paul Tillich. Dostoevski and Camus are attempts to rewrite Descartes according to
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their own lights and Descartes is the forefather of Sartre through the fact that they both used a
"literary style." The article goes on to say,
But the orthodox, textbook precursor of modern existentialism was the Danish
theologian Sren Kierkegaard (18131855), a lonely, hunchbacked writer who
denounced the established church and rejected much of the then-popular German
idealism in which thought and ideas, rather than things perceived through the senses,
were held to constitute reality. He built a philosophy based in part on the idea of
permanent cleavage between faith and reason. This was an existentialism which still had
room for a God whom Sartre later expelled, but which started the great pendulum-swing
toward the modern concepts of the absurd. Kierkegaard spent his life thinking
existentially and converting remarkably few to his ideas. But when it comes to the
absurdity of existence, war is a great convincer; and it was at the end of World War I
that two German philosophers, Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, took up
Kierkegaards ideas, elaborated and systematized them. By the 1930s Kierkegaards
thinking made new impact on French intellectuals who, like Sartre, were nauseated by
the static pre-Munich hypocrisy of the European middle class. After World War II, with
the human condition more precarious than ever, with humanity facing the mushroom-
shaped ultimate absurdity, existentialism and our time came together in Jean-Paul Sartre.
Kierkegaards influence on Karl Barths early theology is evident in The Epistle to the Romans.
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The early Barth read at least three volumes of Kierkegaards works: Practice in Christianity, The
Moment, and an Anthology from his journals and diaries. Almost all key terms from Kierkegaard
which had an important role in The Epistle to the Romans can be found in Practice in Christianity.
The concept of the indirect communication, the paradox, and the moment of Practice in
Christianity, in particular, confirmed and sharpened Barths ideas on contemporary Christianity and
the Christian life.
Wilhelm Pauk wrote in 1931 (Karl Barth Prophet Of A New Christianity) that Kierkegaard's use of
the Latin phrase Finitum Non Capax Infiniti (the finite does not (or cannot) comprehend the
infinite) summed up Barth's system.[228] David G. Kingman and Adolph Keller each discussed
Barth's relationship to Kierkegaard in their books, The Religious Educational Values in Karl Barth's
Teachings (1934) and Karl Barth and Christian Unity (1933). Keller notes the splits that happen
when a new teaching is introduced and some assume a higher knowledge from a higher source than
others. But Kierkegaard always referred to the equality of all in the world of the spirit where there
is neither "sport" nor "spook" or anyone who can shut you out of the world of the spirit except
yourself. All are chosen by God and equal in His sight. The Expectancy of Faith," Before this faith
came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was
put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we
are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ
Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you
belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. The Bible
NIV" Galatians 3:2329; "In the world of spirit to become ones own master, is the highest and in
love to help someone toward that, to become himself, free, independent, his own master, to help
him stand alone that is the greatest beneficence. The greatest beneficence, to help the other to
stand alone, cannot be done directly."[229] "If a person always keeps his soul sober and alert in this
idea, he will never go astray in his outlook on life and people or "combine respect for status of
persons with his faith." Show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. (James
2.1) Then he will direct his thoughts toward God, and his eye will not make the mistake of looking
for differences in the world instead of likeness with God.[230]
It was in his study of Paul that he found his first peace of mind. He was fascinated by
the revelation of the power of the Holy Spirit when it once touched a man; at the
completeness with which it overwhelms and keeps its chosen ones loyal. He conceived
of Paul as one upon whom God had laid His hand' Barth writes: "The man Paul
evidently sees and hears something which is above everything, which is absolutely
beyond the range of my observation and measure of my thought." Following this
observation Barth too became a "listener" and in that moment was born the "Theology
of Crisis." Besides affecting Barth deeply, the philosophy of Kierkegaard has found
voice in the works of Ibsen, Unamuno, and Heidegger, and its sphere of influence seems
to be growing in ever widening circles. The principle contribution of Kierkegaard to
Barth is the dualism of time and eternity which Kierkegaard phrases: "The infinite
qualitative difference between time and eternity."[231]
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Kierkegaard and the early Barth think that in Christianity, direct communication is impossible
because Christ appears incognito.[233] For them Christ is a paradox, and therefore one can know
him only in indirect communication. They are fully aware of the importance of the moment when
the human being stands before God, and is moved by him alone from time to eternity, from the
earth to which (s)he belongs to the heaven where God exists. But Kierkegaard stressed the single
individual in the presence of God in time in his early discourses and wrote against speculative
arguments about whether or not one individual, no matter how gifted, can ascertain where another
stood in relation to God as early as his Two Upbuilding Discourses of 1843 where he wrote against
listening to speculative Christians:
The expectation of faith is then victory, and this expectation cannot be disappointed
unless a man disappoints himself by depriving himself of expectation; like the one who
foolishly supposed that he had lost faith, or foolishly supposed that some individual had
taken it from him; or like the one who sought to delude himself with the idea that there
was some special power which could deprive a man of his faith; who found satisfaction
in the vain thought that this was precisely what had happened to him, found joy in
frightening others with the assurance that some such power did exist that made sport of
the noblest in man, and empowered the one who was thus tested to ridicule others. Sren
Kierkegaard, Two Edifying Discourses 1843, Swenson trans., 1943 p. 30
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Barth endorses the main theme from Kierkegaard but also reorganizes the scheme and transforms
the details. Barth expands the theory of indirect communication to the field of Christian ethics; he
applies the concept of unrecognizability to the Christian life. He coins the concept of the "paradox
of faith" since the form of faith entails a contradictory encounter of God and human beings. He also
portrayed the contemporaneity of the moment when in crisis a human being desperately perceives
the contemporaneity of Christ. In regard to the concept of indirect communication, the paradox, and
the moment, the Kierkegaard of the early Barth is a productive catalyst.[234]
Kierkegaard also stresses the importance of the self, and the self's relation to the world, as being
grounded in self-reflection and introspection. He argued in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to
Philosophical Fragments that "subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity." This has to do with a
distinction between what is objectively true and an individual's subjective relation (such as
indifference or commitment) to that truth. People who in some sense believe the same things may
relate to those beliefs quite differently. Two individuals may both believe that many of those around
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them are poor and deserve help, but this knowledge may lead only one of them to decide to actually
help the poor.[244] This is how Kierkegaard put it: "What a priceless invention statistics are, what a
glorious fruit of culture, what a characteristic counterpart to the de te narratur fabula [the tale is
told about you] of antiquity. Schleiermacher so enthusiastically declares that knowledge does not
perturb religiousness, and that the religious person does not sit safeguarded by a lightning rod and
scoff at God; yet with the help of statistical tables one laughs at all of life."[245][246] In other words,
Kierkegaard says: "Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a
meteor's distance from everyday life -- or the learner who should put it to use?"[247] This is how it
was summed up in 1940.
Kierkegaard does not deny the fruitfulness or validity of abstract thinking (science,
logic, and so on), but he does deny any superstition which pretends that abstract
theorizing is a sufficient concluding argument for human existence. He holds it to be
unforgivable pride or stupidity to think that the impersonal abstraction can answer the
vital problems of human, everyday life. Logical theorems, mathematical symbols,
physical-statistical laws can never become patters of human existence. To be human
means to be concrete, to be this person here and now in this particular and decisive
moment, face to face with this particular challenge. C Svere Norborg, David F. Swenson,
scholar, teacher, friend. P. 20-21 Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota, 1940
Kierkegaard primarily discusses subjectivity with regard to religious matters. As already noted, he
argues that doubt is an element of faith and that it is impossible to gain any objective certainty
about religious doctrines such as the existence of God or the life of Christ. The most one could
hope for would be the conclusion that it is probable that the Christian doctrines are true, but if a
person were to believe such doctrines only to the degree they seemed likely to be true, he or she
would not be genuinely religious at all. Faith consists in a subjective relation of absolute
commitment to these doctrines.[248]
Philosophical criticism
Kierkegaard's famous philosophical 20th century critics include Theodor Adorno and Emmanuel
Levinas. Non-religious philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger supported
many aspects of Kierkegaard's philosophical views,[249] but rejected some of his religious views.
[250][251] One critic wrote that Adorno's book Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic is "the
most irresponsible book ever written on Kierkegaard"[252] because Adorno takes Kierkegaard's
pseudonyms literally, and constructs a philosophy which makes him seem incoherent and
unintelligible. Another reviewer says that "Adorno is [far away] from the more credible translations
and interpretations of the Collected Works of Kierkegaard we have today."[107]
Levinas' main attack on Kierkegaard focused on his ethical and religious stages, especially in Fear
and Trembling. Levinas criticises the leap of faith by saying this suspension of the ethical and leap
into the religious is a type of violence (the "leap of faith" of course, is presented by a pseudonym,
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thus not representing Kierkegaard's own view, but intending to prompt the exact kind of discussion
engaged in by his critics). He states: "Kierkegaardian violence begins when existence is forced to
abandon the ethical stage in order to embark on the religious stage, the domain of belief. But belief
no longer sought external justification. Even internally, it combined communication and isolation,
and hence violence and passion. That is the origin of the relegation of ethical phenomena to
secondary status and the contempt of the ethical foundation of being which has led, through
Nietzsche, to the amoralism of recent philosophies."[253]
Levinas pointed to the Judeo-Christian belief that it was God who first commanded Abraham to
sacrifice Isaac and that an angel commanded Abraham to stop. If Abraham were truly in the
religious realm, he would not have listened to the angel's command and should have continued to
kill Isaac. To Levinas, "transcending ethics" seems like a loophole to excuse would-be murderers
from their crime and thus is unacceptable.[254] One interesting consequence of Levinas' critique is
that it seemed to reveal that Levinas viewed God as a projection of inner ethical desire rather than
an absolute moral agent.[255] However, one of Kierkegaard's central points in Fear and Trembling
was that the religious sphere entails the ethical sphere; Abraham had faith that God is always in one
way or another ethically in the right, even when He commands someone to kill. Therefore, deep
down, Abraham had faith that God, as an absolute moral authority, would never allow him in the
end to do something as ethically heinous as murdering his own child, and so he passed the test of
blind obedience versus moral choice. He was making the point that God as well as the God-Man
Christ doesn't tell people everything when sending them out on a mission and reiterated this in
Stages on Life's Way.
Sartre objected to the existence of God: If existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning
of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. In Being and Nothingness,
Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi (a being-for-itself; a consciousness) who is also
an en-soi (a being-in-itself; a thing) which is a contradiction in terms.[250][256] Critics of Sartre
rebutted this objection by stating that it rests on a false dichotomy and a misunderstanding of the
traditional Christian view of God.[257] Kierkegaard has Judge Vilhelm express the Christian hope
this way in Either/Or,
Either, the first contains promise for the future, is the forward thrust, the endless
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impulse. Or, the first does not impel the individual; the power which is in the first
does not become the impelling power but the repelling power, it becomes that which
thrusts away. .... Thus for the sake of making a little philosophical flourish, not with
the pen but with thought-God only once became flesh, and it would be vain to expect
this to be repeated. Soren Kierkegaard, Either Or II 1843, p. 40-41 Lowrie Translation
1944, 1959, 1972
Sartre agreed with Kierkegaard's analysis of Abraham undergoing anxiety (Sartre calls it anguish),
but claimed that God told Abraham to do it. In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre
wondered whether Abraham ought to have doubted whether God actually spoke to him.[250] In
Kierkegaard's view, Abraham's certainty had its origin in that 'inner voice' which cannot be
demonstrated or shown to another ("The problem comes as soon as Abraham wants to be
understood").[258] To Kierkegaard, every external "proof" or justification is merely on the outside
and external to the subject.[259] Kierkegaard's proof for the immortality of the soul, for example, is
rooted in the extent to which one wishes to live forever.[260]
Faith was something that Kierkegaard often wrestled with throughout his writing career; under both
his real name and behind pseudonyms, he explored many different aspects of faith. These various
aspects include faith as a spiritual goal, the historical orientation of faith (particularly toward Jesus
Christ), faith being a gift from God, faith as dependency on a historical object, faith as a passion,
and faith as a resolution to personal despair. Even so, it has been argued that Kierkegaard never
offers a full, explicit and systematic account of what faith is.[64] Either/Or was published 20
February 1843; it was mostly written during Kierkegaard's stay in Berlin, where he took notes on
Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation. According to the Routledge Companion to Philosophy and
Religion, Either/Or (vol. 1) consists of essays of literary and music criticism, a set of romantic-
like-aphorisms, a whimsical essay on how to avoid boredom, a panegyric on the unhappiest
possible human being, a diary recounting a supposed seduction, and (vol. II) two enormous didactic
and hortatory ethical letters and a sermon.[67][68] This opinion is a reminder of the type of
controversy Kierkegaard tried to encourage in many of his writings both for readers in his own
generation and for subsequent generations as well.
Kierkegaardian scholar Paul Holmer[261] described Kierkegaard's wish in his introduction to the
1958 publication of Kierkegaard's Edifying Discourses where he wrote:
Kierkegaards constant and lifelong wish, to which his entire literature gives expression,
was to create a new and rich subjectivity in himself and his readers. Unlike any authors
who believe that all subjectivity is a hindrance, Kierkegaard contends that only some
kinds of subjectivity are a hindrance. He sought at once to produce subjectivity if it were
lacking, to correct it if it were there and needed correction, to amplify and strengthen it
when it was weak and undeveloped, and, always, to bring subjectivity of every reader to
the point of eligibility for Christian inwardness and concern. But the Edifying
Discourses, though paralleling the pseudonymous works, spoke a little more directly,
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albeit without authority. They spoke the real authors conviction and were the purpose of
Kierkegaards lifework. Whereas all the rest of his writing was designed to get the
readers out of their lassitude and mistaken conceptions, the discourses, early and late,
were the goal of the literature. Edifying Discourses: A Selection 1958 Introduction by
Paul Holmer p. xviii[262]
Later, Naomi Lebowitz explained them this way: The edifying discourses are, according
to Johannes Climacus, humoristically revoked (CUP, 244, Swenson, Lowrie 1968) for
unlike sermons, they are not ordained by authority. They start where the reader finds
himself, in immanent ethical possibilities, aesthetic repetitions, and are themselves
vulnerable to the lure of poetic sirens. They force the dialectical movements of the
making and unmaking of the self before God to undergo lyrical imitations of meditation
while the clefts, rifts, abysses, are everywhere to be seen.
Influence
Many 20th-century philosophers, both theistic and atheistic, and
theologians drew concepts from Kierkegaard, including the notions of
angst, despair, and the importance of the individual. His fame as a
philosopher grew tremendously in the 1930s, in large part because the
ascendant existentialist movement pointed to him as a precursor,
although later writers celebrated him as a highly significant and
influential thinker in his own right.[263] Since Kierkegaard was raised
as a Lutheran,[264] he was commemorated as a teacher in the Calendar
of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 11 November and in the Calendar
of Saints of the Episcopal Church with a feast day on 8 September.
Philosophers and theologians influenced by Kierkegaard are numerous The Sren Kierkegaard
and include major twentieth century theologians and philosophers. [265]
Statue in the Royal
Paul Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism in the philosophy of Library Garden in
science was inspired by Kierkegaard's idea of subjectivity as truth. Copenhagen
Ludwig Wittgenstein was immensely influenced and humbled by
Kierkegaard,[266] claiming that "Kierkegaard is far too deep for me,
anyhow. He bewilders me without working the good effects which he would in deeper souls".[266]
Karl Popper referred to Kierkegaard as "the great reformer of Christian ethics, who exposed the
official Christian morality of his day as anti-Christian and anti-humanitarian hypocrisy".[267][268]
[269][270][271] Hilary Putnam admires Kierkegaard, "for his insistence on the priority of the
question, 'How should I live?'".[272] By the early 1930s, Jacques Ellul's three primary sources of
inspiration were Karl Marx, Sren Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth. According to Ellul, Marx and
Kierkegaard were his two greatest influences, and the only two authors of which he read all of their
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work.[273]
Kierkegaard has also had a considerable influence on 20th-century literature. Figures deeply
influenced by his work include W. H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Don DeLillo, Hermann Hesse,
Franz Kafka,[274] David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.D.
Salinger and John Updike.[275] What George Henry Price wrote in his 1963 book The Narrow Pass
regarding the "who" and the "what" of Kierkegaard still seems to hold true today: "Kierkegaard was
the sanest man of his generation....Kierkegaard was a schizophrenic....Kierkegaard was the greatest
Dane....the difficult Dane....the gloomy Dane...Kierkegaard was the greatest Christian of the
century....Kierkegaard's aim was the destruction of the historic Christian faith....He did not attack
philosophy as such....He negated reason....He was a voluntarist....Kierkegaard was the Knight of
Faith....Kierkegaard never found faith....Kierkegaard possessed the truth....Kierkegaard was one of
the damned."[276]
Selected bibliography
(1841) On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (Om Begrebet Ironi med
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Notes
a. Kierkegaard is not an extreme subjectivist; he would not reject the importance of objective truths.
References
Citations
1. H. Newton Malony (ed.), A Christian Existential Psychology: The Contributions of John G. Finch,
University Press of America, 1980, p. 168.
2. Ostenfeld & McKinnon 1972
3. Jon Bartley Stewart, Kierkegaard and Existentialism, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2011, p. 204.
4. Swenson, David F. Something About Kierkegaard, Mercer University Press, 2000.
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5. Kierkegaard, Sren (1849), "A New View of the Relation PastorPoet in the Sphere of Religion", JP VI
6521 Pap. X2 A 157, "Christianity has of course known very well what it wanted. It wants to be
proclaimed by witnessesthat is, by persons who proclaim the teaching and also existentially express it.
The modern notion of a pastor as it is now is a complete misunderstanding. Since pastors also
presumably should express the essentially Christian, they have quite rightly discovered how to relax the
requirement, abolish the ideal. What is to be done now? Yes, now we must prepare for another tactical
advance. First a detachment of poets; almost sinking under the demands of the ideal, with the glow of a
certain unhappy love they set forth the ideal. Present-day pastors may now take second rank. These
religious poets must have the particular ability to do the kind of writing that helps people out into the
current. When this has happened, when a generation has grown up that from childhood on has received
the pathos-filled impression of an existential expression of the ideal, the monastery and the genuine
witnesses of the truth will both come again. This is how far behind the cause of Christianity is in our
time. The first and foremost task is to create pathos, with the superiority of intelligence, imagination,
penetration, and wit to guarantee pathos for the existential, which the understanding has reduced to the
ludicrous.".
6. Gardiner 1969
7. Emanuel, Swedenborg The Soul, or Rational Psychology (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record
/100138089) translated by Tafel, J. F. I. 1796-1863, also see Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong
trans., p. 332ff (The Thorn in the Flesh) (arrogance)
8. Sren Kierkegaard 1846, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Hong p.
310-311
9. See Book Twelve of Goethe's Autobiography (https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyofg00goet#page
/436/mode/2up)
10. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, A Mimical-Pathetic-Dialectical
Compilation an Existential Contribution Volume I, by Johannes Climacus, edited by Soren Kierkegaard,
Copyright Feb 28, 1846 Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1992 Princeton
University Press p. 9-10
11. Point of View by Lowrie, p. 41, Practice in Christianity, Hong trans., 1991, Chapter VI, p. 233ff, Sren
Kierkegaard 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 225-226, Works of Love IIIA, p.
91ff
12. Duncan 1976
13. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Hong trans., pp. 1517, 555610
Either/Or Vol II, pp. 14, 58, 216217, 250 Hong
14. Howland 2006
15. Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 1847 Hong 1995 p. 283
16. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong trans., 1992, p. 131
17. Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Postscript both deal with the impossibility of an objectively
demonstrated Christianity, also Repetition, Lowrie 1941 p 114-115, Hong p. 207-211
18. Stewart, Jon (Ed.) Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy, Volume 11, Tomes IIII. Ashgate, 2012.
19. Stewart, Jon (Ed.) Kierkegaard's Influence on Theology, Volume 10, Tomes IIII. Ashgate, 2012.
20. Stewart, Jon (Ed.) Kierkegaard's Influence on Literature and Criticism, Social Science, and Social-
Political Thought, Volumes 1214. Ashgate, 2012.
21. Glimpses and Impressions of Kierkegaard, Thomas Henry Croxall, James Nisbet & Co 1959 p. 51 The
quote came from Henriette Lund's Recollections of Sren Kierkegaard written in 1876 and published in
1909 Sren was her uncle. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001396450
22. Johannes Climacus by Sren Kierkegaard, p. 17
23. Dorrien 2012, p. 13 (https://books.google.com/books?id=B8JJYOysH9EC&pg=PA262)
24. "See David F. Swenson's 1921 biography of SK, pp. 2, 13". Archive.org. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
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25. Kierkegaard's indebtedness to the Anti-Enlightenment author is explained in this book by Smith G
Hamann 17301788 A Study In Christian Existence (https://archive.org/stream
/jghamann17301788013654mbp#page/n0/mode/2up) (1960) by Ronald Gregor Smith
26. Either/Or Part I Swenson, 1944, 1959 p. 1967ff Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong trans., p. 72ff
27. Either/Or Part I title page, Stages on Life's Way, p. 150, 216, 339
28. The Point of View of My Work as An Author: A Report to History by Sren Kierkegaard, written in 1848,
published in 1859 by his brother Peter Kierkegaard Translated with introduction and notes by Walter
Lowrie, 1962, Harper Torchbooks, pp. 4849
29. Hohlenberg, Johannes (1954). Sren Kierkegaard. Translated by T.H. Croxall. Pantheon Books.
OCLC 53008941.
30. Watkin 2000
31. Garff 2005
32. Outstanding Christian Thinkers, Soren Kierkegaard 1997 p. 8ff - Watkin taught philosophy at University
of Tasmania and ran The Kierkegaard Research Center
33. Papers VI B 13 n.d 14-145, Sren Kierkegaard Works of Love, Hong p. 380 (1848), Concluding
Unscientific Postscript, Hong p. 226ff, Sickness Unto Death, Hannay p. 154ff
34. Caesar did many an illustrious deed, but even if nothing were preserved but one single statement he is
supposed to have made, I would admire him. After Cato committed suicide, Caesar is supposed to have
said, "There Cato wrested from me my most beautiful victory, for I would have forgiven him." Stages on
Life's Way, Hong p. 384, 481-485 he wrote more about this in 1847 and linked forgiveness to self-denial.
In eternity you will not be asked how large a fortune you are leaving behind-the survivors
ask about that; or about how many battles you won, about how sagacious you were, how
powerful your influence-that after all, becomes your reputation for posterity. No, eternity
will not ask about what worldly things you leave behind you in the world. But it will ask
about what riches you have gathered in heaven, about how often you conquered your own
mind, about what control you have exercised over yourself or whether you have been a
slave, about how often you have mastered yourself in self-denial or whether you have never
done so, about how often you in self-denial have been willing to make a sacrifice for a good
cause or whether you were never willing, about how often you in self-denial have forgiven
your enemy, whether seven times or seventy times seven times, about how often you have
suffered, not for your own sake, for your own selfish interests sake, but what you in
self-denial have suffered for Gods sake. Sren Kierkegaard 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in
Various Spirits, Hong p. 223-224
35. Johann Goethe was also very much interested in suicide and wrote about it in his autobiography where
he described external methods used for committing suicide Suicide from Goethe's Autobiography
(https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyofg00goet#page/506/mode/1up)
36. Edna Hong, Forgiveness is a Work as Well as a Grace, 1984 Augsburg Publishing House p. 58.
37. Sren Kierkegaard 1847 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 246-247.
38. Sren Kierkegaard Works of Love, 1847 Hong p. 342-344, 384-385.
39. Johannes Climacus by Sren Kierkegaard, p. 29
40. Kierkegaard's Journals Gilleleie, 1 August 1835. Either/Or Vol II pp. 361362
41. Johannes Climacus by Sren Kierkegaard, pp. 2223, 2930, 3233, 6770, 7476
42. Point of View by Lowrie, pp. 2830
43. Johannes Climacus by Sren Kierkegaard, p. 23
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44. Garff 2005, p. 113 Also available in Encounters With Kierkegaard: A Life As Seen by His
Contemporaries, p. 225.
45. Thomas H. Croxall, Glimpses & Impressions of Kierkegaard, 1959, James Nisbet & Co. Ltd. From
Recollections From Home by Henriette Lund, p. 49
46. Kierkegaard by Josiah Thompson, Published by Alfred P. Knoff, inc, 1973 pp. 1415, 4344 ISBN
0-394-47092-3
47. Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 August 1838
48. Born at Copenhagen in 1840 Frederik Troels-Lund comes of a family distinguished in art and letters.
The famous naturalist P. W. Lund was his uncle. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Philosopher, exerted a
great influence oved the young man, the first wife of Frederiks father having been the sister of
Kierkegaard. The early environment was one almost entirely of men and women fond of literature and
often writers of note. Among Troels-Lunds student contemporaries were Georg Brandes, Julius Lange
and others who have won fame at home and abroad. The Sun., November 14, 1915, SIXTH SECTION,
Page 4, Image 40 (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1915-11-14/ed-1/seq-
40/#date1=1836&index=5&rows=20&words=Kierkegaard&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&
date2=1922&proxtext=kierkegaard&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1)
49. Hugo Bergmann Dialogical Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Buber (https://books.google.com
/books?id=fNZqBNL9ewAC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&
dq=Dialogical+philosophy+from+Kierkegaard+to+Buber&source=bl&ots=0HBUwd0S9o&sig=r85n-
3XdHekYlBHwmindzxR6Qow&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_eKPVZPALIWjyATQ87nAAQ&
ved=0CDcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false) p. 2
50. Given the importance of the journals, references in the form of (Journals, XYZ) are referenced from
Dru's 1938 Journals. When known, the exact date is given; otherwise, month and year, or just year is
given.
51. Dru 1938
52. Conway & Gover 2002, p. 25
53. Concluding Postscript, Hong trans., p. 247
54. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Faust, by AUTHOR.". Retrieved 27 March 2015.
55. Dru 1938, p. 354
56. Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 August 1838 (http://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts
/Kierkegaard,Soren/JournPapers/II_A.html)
57. Hannay 2003
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58. See Stages on Life's Way, Hong trans., p. 195ff and 423ff Here he wrote about his conflict with his own
guilt. Stages, p. 380-382 Am I guilty, then? Yes. How? By my having begun what I could not carry out.
How do you understand it now? Now I understand more clearly why it was impossible for me. What
then is my guilt? That I did not understand it sooner. What is your responsibility? Every possible
consequence of her life. Why every possible one, for this certainly seems to be exaggeration? Because
here it is not a matter of an event but of an act and an ethical responsibility, the consequence of which I
do not dare to arm against by being courageous, for courage in this case means opening oneself to them.
What can serve as your excuse? ...
Think of the first word and the hyphen of a compound word, and now suppose that you do
not know any more about how it hangs together-what will you say then? You will say that
the word is not finished, something is lacking. It is the same with the one who loves. That
the relationship came to a break cannot be directly seen; it can be known only in the sense
of the past. But the one who loves does not want to know the past, because he abides, and to
abide is in the direction of the future. Therefore, the one who loves expresses that the
relationship, which the other call a break, is a relationship that has not yet finished. But it is
still not a break because something is missing. Therefore, it depends on how the relationship
is viewed, and the one who loves-abides. So it came to a break. It was a quarrel that
separated the two; yet one of them made the break, saying, "It is all finished between us."
But the one who loves abides, saying, "It is not all finished between us; we are still in the
middle of the sentence; it is only the sentence that is not finished." Is this not the way it is?
What is the difference between a fragment and an unfinished sentence? In order to call
something a fragment, one must know that nothing more is coming; If one does not know
this, one says that the sentence is not yet finished. When from the angle of the past it is
settled that there is no more to come, we say, "It is a fragment"; from the angle of the future,
waiting for the next part, we say, "The sentence is not finished; something is still missing."
. Get rid of the past, drown it in the oblivion of eternity by abiding in love-then the end is
the beginning, and there is no break! Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong 1995 p.
305-307
59. The Christianity of us men is, to love God in agreement with other men, to love and be loved by other
men, constantly the others, the herd included. The Christianity of the New Testament would be: in case
that man were really able to love in such a way that the girl was the only one he loved and one whom he
loved with the whole passion of a soul (yet such men as this are no longer to be found), then hating
himself and the loved one, to let her go in order to love God.-And it is in view of this I say that such
men, men of such quality and caliber, are not born any more. Kierkegaards Attack Upon "Christendom"
Lowrie 1944 p. 163
60. Kierkegaard may have been discussing his life and relationships in his book Upbuilding Discourses in
Various Spirits - see Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing p. 160ff
61. Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 13 May 1839
62. Kierkegaard 1989
63. Tristram Hunt, Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Henry Holt and Co., 2009:
ISBN 0-8050-8025-2), pp. 4546.
64. Meister, edited by Chad; Copan, Paul (2012). The Routledge companion to philosophy of religion
(Second Edition. ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 9780415782951.
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65. Jon Stewart, "Kierkegaard's Phenomenology of Despair in The Sickness Unto Death"
(http://www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fkier.1997.1997.issue-
1$002f9783110243994.117$002f9783110243994.117.xml), Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
1997:117143.
66. Johannes Climacus, or, De omnibus dubitandum est, and A sermon (https://books.google.com
/books?id=dImaAAAAIAAJ&dq=). Translated, with an assessment by T. H. Croxall, Stanford
University Press, 1958 Johannes Climacus, or, De omnibus dubitandum est, and A sermon
(https://books.google.com/books?id=dImaAAAAIAAJ&dq=). Translated, with an assessment by T. H.
Croxall, Stanford University Press, 1958.
67. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Religion (Second ed.). Routledge. July 15, 2014. p. 183.
ISBN 978-0-415-78295-1.
68. Kierkegaard's notes on Schelling's work are included in Hong's 1989 translation of the Concept of Irony
69. Either/Or Vol I Preface Swenson, pp. 36
70. Either/Or Vol I Preface Swenson, pp. 78, also see Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong trans.,
1992, p. 555ff for a relationship of Religiousness A to Religiousness B
71. Either/Or Part I, Swenson trans., p. 6973, 143ff, Either/Or Part II, Hong trans., 3036, 4348
72. The Racine Daily Journal, Saturday Afternoon, 11 November 1905, p. 7
73. See Sren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits 1847 for a more thorough discussion
of what he meant by deliberating. Pages 306ff Hong translation
74. Sren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong 1995 trans., p. 3, 210ff, 301-303
75. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Sren Kierkegaard 18431844, 1990 by Howard V. Hong, Princeton
University Press, p. 5
76. Fear and Trembling, Hong trans., 1983, Translator's introduction, p. xiv
77. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, p. 59-60
78. Sren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, p. 122-123, Concluding Postscript, pp. 322323, 242, Works
of Love, Hong trans., p. 13.
79. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong trans., p. 295
80. Sren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, Hong trans., pp. 363368.
81. The Concept of Anxiety, p. 7, 20 and Either/Or Part II, Hong trans., p. 342
82. Either/Or Part II, Hong trans., p. 31
83. Fear and Trembling, pp. 121123.
84. Either/Or Part II, Hong trans., pp. 170176, The Concept of Anxiety, p. 11-13 including note,
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong p. 33, 105, 198, 369, 400ff, Mediation looks fairly good on
paper. First one assumes the finite, then the infinite, and then says on paper: This must be mediated. An
existing person has unquestionably found there the secure foothold outside existence where he can
mediate-on paper. p. 419
85. Johannes Climacus by Sren Kierkegaard, Edited and Introduced by Jane Chamberlain, Translated by T.
H. Croxall 2001, pp. 8081, Either/Or II, pp. 5557, Repetition, pp. 202203, Works of Love, 1847,
Hong 1995, pp. 164-166, 332-339, Soren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses April 26, 1848 Lowrie
1961 Oxford University Press p. 333ff
86. See Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, here is a short excerpt that explains the basics. The Philosophy of
Religion, excerpts by (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13620/13620-h/13620-
h.htm#GEORG_WILHELM_FRIEDRICH_HEGEL) Edward Caird
87. See Percy Bysshe Shelley The Necessity of Atheism (https://archive.org/stream
/selectedprosewor00shelrich#page/n13/mode/2up) 1811, 1813
88. The Concept of Anxiety, pp. 913, 2024. See also Why Study Negative Theology with Simon Oliver
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X2Buxlcv6g) YouTube
89. Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong 1995 p. 227-228
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90. Hegel wrote of Schelling's use of subject and object according to the natural sciences
In one of his earlier writings, the System of Transcendental Idealism; which we shall
consider first of all, Schelling represented transcendental philosophy and natural philosophy
as the two sides of scientific knowledge. Respecting the nature of the two, he expressly
declared himself in this work, where he once more adopts a Fichtian starting-point: All
knowledge rests on the harmony of an objective with a subjective In the common sense of
the words this would be allowed; absolute unity, where the Notion and the reality are
undistinguished in the perfected Idea, is the Absolute alone, or God; all else contains an
element of discord between the objective and subjective. We may give the name of nature
to the entire objective content of our knowledge the entire subjective content, on the other
hand, is called the ego or intelligence. They are in themselves identical and presupposed as
identical. The relation of nature to intelligence is given by Schelling thus: Now if all
knowledge has two poles which mutually presuppose and demand one another, there must
be two fundamental sciences, and it must be impossible to start from the one pole without
being driven to the other. Thus nature is impelled to spirit, and spirit to nature; either may
be given the first place, and both must come to pass. If the objective is made the chief we
have the natural sciences as result, and; the necessary tendency the end, of all natural
science thus is to pass from nature to intelligence. This is the meaning of the effort to
connect natural phenomena with theory. The highest perfection of natural science would be
the perfect spiritualization of all natural laws into laws of intuitive perception and thought."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) Lectures on the Philosophy of History Vol 3
1837 translated by ES Haldane and Francis H. Simson) first translated 1896 p. 516-517
(https://archive.org/stream/lectureshistoryp03hegeuoft#page/514/mode/2up)
91. Sren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, 1847, Hong p. 306-308; Sren
Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong trans., pp. 301, 160161, 225ff.
92. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong trans., 1992, p. 243
93. Journals of Sren Kierkegaard VIII1A4
94. Stages on Life's Way, Hong trans., p. 398
95. Sren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, Hong trans., pp. 485486.
96. Journals of Sren Kierkegaard, 1 June 1851.
97. Sren Kierkegaard, Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life, (1845), Swenson trans., pp. 6970.
98. Daniel Taylor, writing in The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment
(ISBN 978-0830822379 1986, 1992), says "human beings are explanation generators" and he agrees
with Kierkegaard that it would be very strange if Christianity came into the world just to receive an
explanation.
99. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, p. 465.
100. Journals of Soren Kierkegaard III 2383 Papers IIA 370 February 16, 1839, Works of Love Hong 1992 p.
395
101. The Point of View of My Work as An Author: Lowrie, pp. 142143
102. See also Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Volume I by Johannes
Climacus, edited by Sren Kierkegaard, 1846 Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H.
Hong, 1992, Princeton University Press, pp. 251300 for more on the Pseudonymous authorship.
103. Concluding Postscript, Hong trans., p. 559, Practice in Christianity p. 91 Hong translation
104. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Hong trans., pp. 496497, 501505,
510, 538539, 556.
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143. Lowrie 1942, pp. 69, 24, 30, 40, 49, 7477, 89
144. Lowrie 1968
145. Either/Or Part I Swenson title page
146. Sren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong trans., pp. 9596.
147. The Divine and the Human, by Nicolai Berdyaev 1945 p. 30.
148. "Divine and the human". Retrieved 27 March 2015.
149. Attack Upon Christendom by Sren Kierkegaard, 18541855, translated by Walter Lowrie, 1944, 1968,
Princeton University Press
150. Attack Upon Christendom Translated by Walter Lowrie 1944, 1968 introduction page xi
151. For instance in "Hvad Christus dmmer om officiel Christendom." 1855.
152. Sren Kierkegaard Attack Upon "Christendom", 18541855, Lowrie 1944, pp. 37, 6, 31, 2728.
153. Krasnik, Benjamin (2013). "Kierkegaard dde formentlig af Potts sygdom" (in Danish). Kristeligt
Dagblad. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
154. Kierkegaard 1998b
155. Kirmmse 2000
156. Walsh 2009
157. Kierkegaard 1999b
158. Journals of Sren Kierkegaard, X6B 371 1853.
159. The Western literary messenger, Volume 13, Issue 1Volume 14, Issue 5, 1850 p. 182
160. Evangelical Christendom: Christian Work and the News of the Churches (1855), The Doctrines of Dr
Kierkegaard, p. 129
161. Evangelical Christendom, Volumes 1112 J.S. Phillips, 1857 Denmark: Remarks on the State of the
Danish National Church, by The Rev. Dr. Kalkar, Copenhagen, 1 August 1858. pp. 269274 quote from
pp. 269270
162. "Dr. S. Kierkegaard mod Dr. H. Martensen: et indlaeg : Hans Peter Kofoed -Hansen : Free Download &
Streaming : Internet Archive". Archive.org. 2001-03-10. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
163. Martensen 1871
164. Christian ethics : (General part) Vol. XXXIX, by Hans Martensen, Translated by C. Spence,
pp. 206236
165. "The Growth of a Soul". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 27 March 2015.
166. He write the following in Zones of the Spirit:
One can read fragments of Plato with interest, and also the unappreciated Schopenhauer,
especially in his least-valued work Parerga and Paralipomena, but not in his systematic
treatise The World as Will and Idea. Kierkegaard is not regarded as a philosopher, nor are
Feuerbach and his pupil Nietzsche, but they are extraordinarily instructive. All who
construct an empty system with facts are fools. Such is Bostrm, who tries to subtilise
conceptions, analyse ideas, and classify and arrange God, man, and human life under heads.
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169. Kierkegaard's Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art: The Germanophone World Feb 28, 2013, by
Jon Stewart p. xii (https://books.google.com/books?id=lVCJtJDKOjAC&pg=PR12&lpg=PR12&
dq=Jorge+Luis+Borges+kierkegaard&source=bl&ots=72574Q0nC6&
sig=4CEwkWb1B9db8qdaP7GjPrUUKAI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QOy-VPjPGoaaNtX5gaAC&
ved=0CFMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Jorge%20Luis%20Borges%20kierkegaard&f=false) Stewart
explains the links further here
170. Furcht und Zittern (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100375517) 1882 German printing
171. Stewart, Jon, ed. (2009). Kierkegaard's International Reception: Northern and Western Europe. Ashgate
Publishing. p. 388.
172. Die krankheit zum tode (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100029755) 1881
173. Zwlf Reden von Sren Kierkegaard (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100545859) 1886
174. Stadien auf dem lebenswege (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100619465) 1886
175. The Philosophy of Religion: On the Basis of Its History, Otto Pfleiderer, 1887 p. 212
176. The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazetteer 1889, Kierkegaard, Sren Aaby, Edited
by Talbot Wilson Chambers, Frank Hugh Foster, Samuel Macauley Jackson, pp. 473475
177. Hall 1983
178. "Sren Kierkegaard, ein literarisches Charakterbild. Autorisirte deutsche Ausg (1879)". Archive.org.
2001-03-10. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
179. Reminiscences of my childhood and youth (1906) (https://archive.org/stream
/reminiscencesmy00brangoog#page/n110/mode/1up), pp. 98108, 220
180. George Brandes, Recollections of My Childhood and Youth (1906) p. 214.
181. 1911 Edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica/Sren Kierkegaard
182. Reminiscences of My Childhood and Youth by George Brandes, September 1906, p. 108
183. Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche 1st ed. edited, with a preface by Oscar Levy; authorized
translation by Anthony M. Ludovici Published 1921 by Doubleday, Page & Co "Selected letters of
Friedrich Nietzsche".
184. "Essays on Scandinavian literature". Retrieved 27 March 2015.
185. Main Currents in Nineteenth, Century Literature Vol. 2 Georg Brandes, 1906 Introduction p. 11.
186. Masugata 1999
187. The American Journal of Theology Published 1908 (https://archive.org/stream
/americanjournal00schogoog#page/n330/mode/1up) p. 325
188. William James, A Pluralistic Universe, 1909 (https://archive.org/stream
/apluralisticuni01jamegoog#page/n258/mode/2up) Longmans, Green, and Co. New York see also
(James) Essays in Radical Empiricism and Pragmatism (https://archive.org/details
/essaysinradical00unkngoog).
189. Sren Kierkegaard, On the Dedication to "That Single Individual"
190. "A Pluralistic Universe". Archive.org. Retrieved 2013-07-17. pp. 34.
191. Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, Vol. 7 (1908) by James Hastings, John Alexander Sebie and Louis
H. Gray, p. 696
192. "Final Unscientific Postscript to the ' Philosophical Crumbs,' " chap. iv. " How can an Eternal Beatitude
be based upon an Historical Knowledge?" German translation of the Gesammelte Werke, Jena, 1910,
vol. vii. pp. 170, 171)
193. "Eternal Life: a study of its implications and applications (1913), Friedrich von Hgel, pp. 260261".
Archive.org. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
194. Robertson's obituary (http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/robertson-john-george-14224)
195. Soren Kierkegaard The Modern language review by Modern Humanities Research Association, 1914
John George Robertson 1867-1933 editor and Charles Jasper Sisson 1885-1966 editor p. 500-513
(https://archive.org/stream/modernlanguagere09modeuoft#page/500/mode/2up)
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196. See "Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard" in external links below. Also honorarium for
Hollander Utexas.edu (http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/2000-2001/memorials/SCANNED
/hollander.pdf)
197. See D. Anthony Storms Commentary: Armed Neutrality http://sorenkierkegaard.org/armed-
neutrality.html
198. Sixteen Logical Aphorisms The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods
199. "Sixteen Logical Aphorisms". Archive.org. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
200. Scandinavian studies and notes, Volume 6 No. 7: Sren Kierkegaard by David F Swenson, University of
Minnesota, Editor A. M. Sturtevant, Feb 1920, p. 41
201. Disguises of love; psycho-analytical sketches. By Wilhelm Stekel. Authorized translation by Rosalie
Gabler. 1922 Chapter V The Collector (http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002965864;
view=1up;seq=65)
202. The Philosophy Of Karl Jaspers (https://archive.org/stream/philsophyofkarlj033381mbp#page
/n7/mode/2up) edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp 1957 p. 26 This book mentions Kierkegaard's name very
often.
203. Jaspers 1935
204. Buch des Richters: Seine Tagebcher 18331855, (8 volumes) Hermann Gottsched (1905) the link is
below in web
205. Bsl 1997, p. 12
206. The Philosophical Review, Volume I, Ginn and Company 1892 p. 282-283
207. "The Philosophical Review". Archive.org. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
208. An independent English translation of selections/excerpts of Kierkegaard appeared in 1923 by Lee
Hollander, and published by the University of Texas at Austin.
209. Hannay & Marino 1997
210. See Michael J. Paulus, Jr. From A Publisher's Point Of View: Charles Williams's Role In Publishing
Kierkegaard In English online --
211. Kierkegaard studies, with special reference to (a) the Bible (b) our own age. Thomas Henry Croxall,
1948, pp. 1618.
212. The Journals Of Kierkegaard (1958) Archive.org (https://archive.org/details
/journalsofkierke002379mbp)
213. "Howard and Edna Hong" (http://www.stolaf.edu/collections/kierkegaard/about/hongs.html). Howard V.
and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. St. Olaf College. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
214. Hong, Howard V.; Edna H., Hong (eds.). Sren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers (in English
translation). Translated by Hong; Hong. ISBN 978-1-57085-239-8 via Intelex Past Masters Online
Catalogue. (subscription required (help)).
215. "National Book Awards 1968" (http://www.nationalbook.org/nba1968.html). National Book
Foundation. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
216. See this video about the mission and history of the Sren Kierkegaard research library at St. Olaf
College in Northfield, MN (https://vimeo.com/674216)
217. Stewart 2009
218. Bsl 1997, p. 13
219. Bsl 1997, p. 14
220. Bsl 1997, pp. 1617
221. Bsl 1997, p. 17
222. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Notes to pp. 190, 235, 338.
223. Bsl 1997, p. 19
224. Beck 1928
225. Wyschogrod 1954
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External links
Sren Kierkegaard (http://dmoztools.net/Society/Philosophy/Philosophers/K/Kierkegaard,_S
%c3%b8ren) at DMOZ
Manuscripts in the Sren Kierkegaard Archive in the Royal Library (http://www.kb.dk/kultur
/expo/sk-mss/)
Works by or about Sren Kierkegaard (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject
%3A%22Kierkegaard%2C%20Sren%20Aabye%22%20OR%20subject
%3A%22Kierkegaard%2C%20Sren%20A%2E%22%20OR%20subject
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%20%28-mediatype:software%29) at Internet Archive
Works by Sren Kierkegaard (http://librivox.org/author/693) at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
Categories: Sren Kierkegaard 1813 births 1855 deaths 19th-century Christian Universalists
19th-century Danish writers 19th-century philosophers Anglican saints Anti-natalists
Anti-nationalists Christian ethicists Christian existentialists Christian humanists
Christian poets Christian philosophers Christian Universalist theologians
Continental philosophers Danish humanists Danish literary critics Danish novelists
Danish philosophers Danish male poets Danish male writers Diarists
Existentialist theologians Irony theorists Moral philosophers
People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar People from Copenhagen
Philosophers of religion University of Copenhagen alumni Social critics Male novelists
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Sren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sren_Kierkegaard
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