Theology of Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard's theology has been a major influence in the development of 20th century theology. Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a 19th century Danish philosopher who has been generally considered the "Father of Existentialism". During his later years (1848–1855), most of his writings shifted from being philosophical in nature to being religious.

Kierkegaard's theology focuses on the single individual in relation to an unprovable, yet known God. Many of his writings were a directed assault against all of Christendom, Christianity as a political and social entity. His target was the Danish State Church, which represented Christendom in Denmark. Christendom, in Kierkegaard's view, made individuals lazy in their religion. Many of the citizens were officially "Christians", without having any idea of what it meant to be a Christian. Kierkegaard attempted to awaken Christians to the need for unconditional religious commitment.

Religious background

Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard was born to a Lutheran Protestant family. His father, Michael Pederson Kierkegaard, was a Lutheran Pietist, but questioned how God could let him suffer so much. One day, he climbed a mount and cursed God. For this sin, Michael believed that a family curse was placed upon him, that none of his children would live a full life. And indeed, Kierkegaard's family suffered with early deaths of Søren's siblings, ranging from childbirth to the age of 25. Only Søren and his brother Peter survived past 25. His father died in 1838 but before his death, he asked Søren to become a pastor. Søren was deeply influenced by his father's religious experience and life, and felt obligated to fulfill his wish. In 1840, Søren was awarded his theology degree and although Søren was eligible to become a pastor, he decided to pursue a degree in philosophy instead.

Denmark and Europe

Kierkegaard accused Christian religious institutions of not being genuinely religious. Intellectual scholarship in Christianity was becoming more and more like Hegelianism, rather than Christianity. This made the scholars of religion and philosophy examine the Gospels from a supposedly higher objective standpoint in order to demonstrate how correct reasoning can reveal an objective truth. This was outrageous to Kierkegaard because this presupposed that an infinite God and his infinite wisdom could be grasped by finite human understanding. Kierkegaard believed that Christianity was not a doctrine to be taught, but rather a life to be lived. He considered that many Christians fell short of being real Christians:

…it should immediately be borne in mind that the issue is not about the truth of Christianity but about the individual’s relation to Christianity, consequently not about the indifferent individual’s systematic eagerness to arrange the truths of Christianity in paragraphs but rather about the concern of the infinitely interested individual with regard to his own relation to such a doctrine. To state it as simply as possible (using myself in an imaginatively constructing way): “I, Johannes Climacus, born and bred in this city and now thirty years old, an ordinary human being like most folk, assume that a highest good, called an eternal happiness, awaits me just as it awaits a housemaid and a professor. I have heard that Christianity is one’s prerequisite for this good. I now ask how I may enter into relation to this doctrine. “What matchless audacity,” I hear a thinker say, “what horrendous vanity, to presume to attach such importance to one’s own little self in this world-historically concerned, this theocentric, this speculatively insignificant nineteenth century.” I shudder; if I had not hardened myself against various terrors, I would probably stick my tail between my legs. But in that respect I find myself free of all guilt, because it is not I who of my own accord have become so audacious; it is Christianity itself that compels me. It attaches an entirely different sort of importance to my own little self and to every-so-little self, since it want to make him eternally happy and that precisely within this single individual it presupposes this infinite interest in his own happiness as condition sin qua non [the indispensable condition], an interest with which he hates father and mother and thus probably also makes light of systems and world-historical surveys. Although an outsider, I have at least understood this much, that the only unforgivable high treason against Christianity is the single individual’s taking his relation to it for granted. However modest it may seem to be included as part of the bargain in this way, Christianity specifically regards it as effrontery. I must therefore most respectfully refuse all theocentric helpers and the assistance of helper’s helpers to help me into Christianity in that way. So I prefer to remain where I am, with my infinite interest, with the issue, with the possibility. It is not impossible that the individual who is infinitely interested in his own eternal happiness can some day become eternally happy; on the other hand, it is certainly impossible that the person who has lost a sense for it (and such a sense can scarcely be anything but an infinite concern) can become eternally happy.

— Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript Vol I Hong 1992(1846) p. 15-17

Kierkegaard's audience

Kierkegaard's primary religious audience was Christian readers, especially those who did not fully grasp what Christianity was all about. It was not his intention to convert non-Christians to Christianity, although much of Kierkegaard's religious writings do appeal to some non-Christian readers. For example, Martin Buber was a Jewish existentialist theologian who critiqued many of Kierkegaard's ideas.

Themes in his theology

Faith

Faith is a hallmark of Kierkegaardian philosophical and religious thought. Two of his key ideas are based on faith: the leap to faith and the knight of faith. Kierkegaard was a Christian Universalist, writing in his journals, "If others go to Hell, I will go too. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that all will be saved, myself with them—something which arouses my deepest amazement."

Paradox

Briefly stated, a paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that seems to lead to a contradiction or to a situation that defies intuition. It is said to be resolved when we show that the contradiction is only apparent. Kierkegaard's story of Abraham in Fear and Trembling exhibits such a paradox. Abraham could not prove he had heard the voice of God, yet he believes, and risked his only son based on this belief. The paradox of Abraham is that the believer acts and risks much on less than complete knowledge (incomplete knowledge is not sufficient for faith for Kierkegaard; one must believe by virtue of the absurd, that is to say because something is a contradiction).

Despair and sin

According to Kierkegaard, the self is freedom. Not simply the freedom to choose, but the freedom to create choices for oneself. Therefore, human beings are fundamentally neither their thoughts nor their feelings but rather they are themselves. The self relates directly to itself and is subject to no one and everyone at the same time. In effect, when a person does not come to a full consciousness of himself or herself, then he or she is said to be in despair. Just like a physician might say that no one is completely healthy, it follows that human beings must despair at certain moments in their lives. To be in despair is to reflect upon the self. If someone does not engage in the art of despair, then he or she shall become stuck in a state of inertia with no effective progression or regression and that is the worst state of all.

Selected religious works

• (1847) Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits
• (1847) Works of Love
• (1848) Christian Discourses
• (1848) The Book on Adler
• (1849) The Sickness Unto Death
• (1850) Training in Christianity
• (1851) For Self-Examination
• (1851) Judge for Yourselves!

References

Biography and works

• Alexander Dru. The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, Oxford University Press, 1938.
• Duncan, Elmer. Søren Kierkegaard: Maker of the Modern Theological Mind, Word Books 1976, ISBN 0876804636
• Joakim Garff. Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, Princeton University Press 2005, ISBN 069109165X.
• Hannay, Alastair and Gordon Marino (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, Cambridge University Press 1997, ISBN 0521477190
• Alastair Hannay. Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, New edition 2003, ISBN 0521531810.

External links

• D. Anthony Storm's Commentary On Kierkegaard
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Søren Kierkegaard
• "Kierkegaard's Attack on Christendom". House Church. http://www.hccentral.com/gkeys/kier.html. Retrieved February 21, 2006. 
• Universidad Iberoamericana - Kierkegaard en español