Kierkegaard

A Christian Missionary to Christians

Mark A. Tietjen

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780830840977
• eBook ISBN:
  9780830899517
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Existentialism in Philosophy

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a mission. The church had become weak, flabby and inconsequential. Being a Christian was more a cultural heritage than a spiritual reality. His mission—reintroduce the Christian faith to Christians. How could he break through to people who were members of the church and thought they were Christians already? Like an Old Testament prophet, Kierkegaard used a variety of pointed and dramatic ways to shake people from their slumber. He incisively diagnosed the spiritual ailments of his age and offered a fresh take on classic Christian teaching.Mark Tietjen thinks that Kierkegaard's critique of his contemporaries strikes close to home today. We also need to listen to one of the most insightful yet complex Christian thinkers of any era. Through an examination of core Christian doctrines—the person of Jesus Christ, human nature, Christian witness and love—Tietjen helps us hear Kierkegaard's missionary message to a church that often fails to follow Christ with purity of heart.

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Kierkegaard

Friend to Christians?

MY GOAL IS TO CONVINCE CHRISTIANS as I have been convinced that Søren Kierkegaard is a voice that should be sought and heard for the edification of the church. As a philosopher and a Christian, however, I am familiar with the hesitation some in the church have about entertaining insights from philosophy. What good is philosophy in the first place, and how can philosophy help one become a better Christian? Isn’t philosophy a never-ending quest for truth, and if so, how does that square with the Christian belief that Jesus is the truth, that God is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end? Doesn’t philosophy teach that any opinion is equally valid as any other so long as one gives reasons to support it, no matter what those reasons are? These are genuine worries worthy of consideration.

On the other hand, some Christians may hold philosophy in a positive light, but they are skeptical that Kierkegaard is a voice that can be trusted. Isn’t he the father of existentialism and thus intellectual kin to atheists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus? Or, isn’t he a post­modernist, and doesn’t postmodernism clash with Christianity? Some of these more specific concerns about Kierkegaard have been voiced by a handful of influential Christian theologians and pastors over the past half-century. Kierkegaard’s writings, for them, would be the last place to turn for guidance and insight into Christian faith. We shall address some of those views as well. First, however, let us begin with a very brief sketch of Kierkegaard’s life.

WHO WAS KIERKEGAARD THE PERSON?

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (SUR-in OH-buh KEER-kuh-goh) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 5, 1813, at the outset of an era of Danish history known as the Golden Age, “a period of literary and artistic splendor, of a cultural blossoming” that would produce the likes of Hans Christian Andersen, the renowned author of children’s tales; Nikolai Grundtvig, popular educational and ecclesiastical reformer and prolific hymnodist; and Bertel Thorvaldsen, the neoclassical sculptor.1 The greatest influence on Kierkegaard’s life was his father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard (1756–1838), who had seven children in all with Søren’s mother, Michael’s second wife, Anne Sørensdatter Lund (1768–1834). Michael Kierkegaard was heir to a hosier business and was quite successful with it, and as a result Søren never had to work for his income. Kier­kegaard recalls being “favored in every way with regard to mental capacity and outward circumstances” (PV 80). Fifty-six at the time of his youngest son’s birth, Michael encouraged Søren in Christian faith in a most rigid and heavy-handed sort of way. Yet, in spite of some questionable excesses, Søren seemed generally grateful for his spiritual upbringing insofar as he received a “decisive impression of the essentially Christian,” including especially the idea that God is a God of love (BA 138). Thus does Kierkegaard recount that his relationship with Christianity “was closely linked to my relationship with my father, the person I most deeply loved” (PV 80).

Kierkegaard was reared as a Lutheran and member of the Danish state church, and the family had deep admiration for their pastor, Bishop Jacob Peter Mynster, curate at the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen. Kierkegaard recalls in his journals how Mynster’s sermons were read as devotionals by his family and how his father encouraged him to memorize sermons he heard in church (JP 6:6627, 6355). Michael also took the family to Moravian meetings, “giving the young Søren,” C. Stephen Evans writes, “a strong dose of what might loosely be termed ‘evangelical pietism’ to leaven Lutheran orthodoxy.”2 The Kierkegaard family would attend church at the great cathedral Sunday morning and then participate in Moravian meetings Sunday evening, where the latter often involved a “song service” in which no sermons were preached, but where hymns were sung by congregation members from memory.3 It is reasonable to suppose that the Moravian themes of repentance, the consciousness of sin, joy at forgiveness, witnessing and martyrdom—each of which we find emphasized in Kierkegaard’s writings—were deeply impressed on Kierkegaard through these services. Sylvia Walsh summarizes the strong Moravian influence on Kier­kegaard’s thought: “What seems to have impressed him most . . . was the way they put their beliefs into practice, especially those who were willing to leave everything to preach the gospel in foreign lands and to become martyrs for their cause.”4 Kierkegaard continued to worship in the state church until the year before his death, when his criticisms of official Christianity grew far more harsh.

Given Kierkegaard’s rearing, it should come as no surprise that his father wanted Søren to pursue the study of theology, which he did at the University of Copenhagen. Apparently in little hurry, Kierkegaard took ten years to complete his degree, which included attending lectures not only on biblical exegesis, hermeneutics and dogmatic theology, but a number of areas in philosophy, including ancient philosophy, aesthetics and logic.5 Perhaps part of the delay owed to Kierkegaard’s wandering away from faith in the mid-1830s and his struggles with doubt, drunkenness, suicidal thoughts and sexual sin. Though his journals leave an incomplete record of these experiences, the apparent autobiographical nature of many of Kierkegaard’s published writings have led scholars to draw all sorts of conclusions about this time period. Among the more persuasive claims is Walter Lowrie’s observation that when Kierkegaard portrays immature and lascivious lifestyles with authenticity, consistency and even respect, Kierkegaard is not only drawing on his own past but in doing he has “satirized himself.”6 As we shall see in chapter three, one of the virtues of Kierkegaard’s reflections on human existence is the honesty with which he explores a variety of different life-views.

By 1838 Kierkegaard’s faith seems to have reemerged, and with unusual detail he records in his journal at precisely 10:30 a.m., May 19,

There is an indescribable joy that glows all through us just as inexplicably as the apostle’s exclamation breaks forth for no apparent reason: “Rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice.”—Not a joy over this or that, but the soul’s full outcry “with tongue and mouth and from the bottom of the heart” . . . a joy which cools and refreshes like a breath of air. (JP 6:120 [#5324])

Lowrie notes the report of a pastor that a few weeks following this journal entry, Kierkegaard, having taken considerable time off, returned to church for confession and communion, giving the impression that like so many Christians reared in the church, there is a time of revolt and then a time of contrition and renewed faith. Though one can only speculate as to the cause of the immense joy he describes, from a Christian perspective it is not difficult to imagine that the joy of his salvation has been restored (Ps 51:12), that the weight of sin has been lifted, that he has received anew Christ’s gift of forgiveness and new life. On completing his degree, Kierkegaard spent a year in seminary, which would qualify him for ordination. Then immediately afterward he decided to pursue his interests in philosophy further and wrote a dissertation titled The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, which earned him the magister’s degree, or the equivalent of a PhD.

Besides his father, the second major character in Kierkegaard’s life story was Regine Olsen, his onetime fiancée and lifelong inspiration. Nearly the moment Kierkegaard proposed to Regine in 1840, he concluded he had made a grave mistake—that in fact he was not cut out for married life. Although in our day a broken engagement comes with little negative social effect, in nineteenth-century Denmark such an event caused quite a stir. Kierkegaard felt responsible for the trouble he caused Regine, and very clearly he still loved her. Thus, to deflect attention and blame from her, Kierkegaard took on a public persona of bachelor-scoundrel about town and appeared to have been rather successful (though apparently he did not fool Regine). Seven years later Regine would marry Frederik Schlegel and then, just months before Kierke­gaard’s death, in November 1855, the couple would move to the Danish West Indies, where Frederik was appointed governor. On reflection Kier­kegaard came to understand the broken engagement as freeing him to put to use his God-given intellectual ability. Given fractured relationships with his father and would-be spouse, Kierkegaard viewed himself and his life’s work not unlike those who take vows in a religious order: “This, my God-relationship, is in many ways the happy love of my unhappy and troubled life” (PV 71).7

One of the primary causes of trouble in Kierkegaard’s life came to be known as the Corsair affair. The Corsair was a widely circulated satirical paper known for its anonymous commentary on a variety of social and political issues. After one of his books, Stages on Life’s Way (1845), received a negative review, a provoked Kierkegaard sparred back, going so far as outing the author who had anonymously published the critique. The Corsair responded by attacking Kierkegaard below the belt—by printing caricatured cartoons of him (particularly the uneven length of his trousers) and making him out to be a lunatic. Up to this point in time Kierkegaard was well known for walking around the city and engaging in frequent conversation with a variety of everyday people. The Corsair event put an end to these constitutionals, as the public joined in on the finger pointing and grinning. Reflecting on the pain of this experience, Kierkegaard writes,

One must see it close up, the callousness with which otherwise kind people act in the capacity of the public because their participation or nonparticipation seems to them a trifle—a trifle that with the contributions of the many becomes the monster. One must see how no attack is so feared as that of laughter . . . because more than any other this attack isolates the one attacked. (PV 65)

Besides giving up his public presence in town, Kierkegaard gave up the dream of becoming a country pastor, a dream that had surfaced over and over again (and would resurface later). Despite the seminary training in his background, the Corsair experience seemed to solidify the conviction that he was to continue writing, no matter the public scorn he would endure.

For a few more years following the Corsair run-in, Kierkegaard continued to produce an immense amount of work. One of his last major writings, Practice in Christianity (1850), would bring to culmination a major theme in his work that has come to be known as his “attack upon Christendom.” Kierkegaard came to view the state church as a poor reflection of New Testament Christianity, and his criticism intensified on the occasion of the eulogizing of Mynster as a “witness to the truth.” Although Kierkegaard respected Mynster, he fervently believed that being a “witness to the truth” coincided with a life of self-denial and suffering like the lives of the disciples and Christ himself, and yet the established church, much like the church of the Roman emperor Constantine, had the favor of the powerful. In the least Kierkegaard desired for the church of his day to concede that its reflection of New Testament Christianity was faint: such a sign of repentance would indirectly validate that the church’s heart was leaning the right direction. But of course neither Mynster nor his successor and eulogizer Hans Lassen Martensen would admit such a thing, especially on the request of an unemployed, self-important son of a hosier with uneven trousers.

Over the last few years of his life Kierkegaard’s financial situation grew tight, though he continued to believe that he would never need to work to earn a living. At the age of forty-two, Kierkegaard passed out in the street and died just a few weeks later in the hospital. Keeping up his attack on Christendom until the very end, Kierkegaard famously refused to receive communion on his deathbed from those representing the state church.

Much more could be said about Kierkegaard’s life, but I will leave that to the biographers. I conclude this brief sketch by drawing attention to Kierkegaard’s vocation as a writer. In his short autobiographical book On My Work as an Author, he states, “‘Before God,’ religiously, when I speak with myself, I call my whole work as an author my own upbringing and development, but not in the sense as if I were now complete or completely finished with regard to needing upbringing and development” (12).

While I have pointed to decisive influences in Kierkegaard’s life—his father, his minister, his fiancée—and decisive experiences—his church life, education and spiritual struggles—Kierkegaard’s ongoing relationship with God, including particularly his sense of calling not to the pastorate but to a career of writing, must contextualize these other factors. Though much like Paul Kierkegaard concedes he is a woeful sinner, he nevertheless believes God has given him not just rare poetic ability but uncommon insight into the human condition and the spiritual malaise and hypocrisy that plagued the church of his day. In fact, the artistry and the observations commend Kierkegaard to us today, or so I plan to show. If the major figure in Kierkegaard’s story is God, as he himself might claim, then why have some Christians viewed him with suspicion? First, though, let us back up one step and ask whether the Christian should worry about philosophy itself.

SHOULD THE CHRISTIAN BE SUSPICIOUS OF PHILOSOPHY?8

Perhaps as far back as the time the great pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (624–546 BCE) fell into a well while contemplating the heavens, popular opinion of philosophers and their work has ranged from dismissive to perplexed to suspicious. Once again we might imagine our fictitious objector asking: How does contemplating the heavens, or working out logical paradoxes, or incessantly asking “but why?,” or questioning basic truths everyone knows, contribute to the common good? Why should anyone trust a bunch of navel-gazers who, it seems, do not quite live on earth, who lack everyday common sense and experience? Sure, philosophers seem like smart people, but their smarts don’t serve any tangible good. Philosophers hang out in the clouds, ivory towers and, apparently, wells.

Add to these criticisms specifically Christian concerns: philosophy is a secular activity; surely it is not essential for Christians. And, surely for those Christians who wish to dabble in it, there is great risk. Nothing is sacred to the philosopher, after all. No one expresses this view of philosophy quite like the Roman theologian Tertullian (circa 160–circa 225 CE), who lived just a few generations after Christ:

What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem? Between the Academy and the church? Our system of beliefs comes from the Porch of Solomon, who himself taught that it was necessary to seek God in the simplicity of the heart. . . . We have no need for curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor for inquiry after the gospel. When we believe, we desire to believe nothing further.9

If, as the Protestant Reformers would claim more than a millennium later, we are saved by grace alone, justified through faith alone, able to learn Christian doctrine through Scripture alone, and come to God the Father through Christ alone, then at best philosophy is superfluous and at worst a potential idol and the path to what, Christianly understood, is ignorance, not truth. If, as King Solomon wrote, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 1:7), then what use or benefit could there be from any discipline that does not start with faith?

Tertullian’s position, one I would describe as an informed antiphilosophical position (as opposed to an uninformed, anti-intellectualist position), was by no means the consensus opinion of the ancient church, and eventually the overwhelming majority of church theologians would come to reject it. In his own day Tertullian’s position was contested by Clement of Alexandria (circa 150–circa 215 CE), who viewed secular learning as a means by which God drew a particular pagan culture to himself.

For God is the source of all good things, some directly (as with the Old and New Testaments), and some indirectly (as with philosophy). But it might be that philosophy was given to the Greeks immediately and directly, until such time as the Lord should also call the Greeks. For philosophy acted as a “custodian” to bring the Greeks to Christ, just as the law brought the Hebrews.10

Clement thus offers one strategy for the Christian to view philosophy positively—namely, to consider it part of God’s providential, missional work in the world.

A few centuries later St. Augustine (354–430 CE) would draw an analogy between gleaning the best fruit philosophy has to offer and the Hebrew people’s plundering of Egypt on their way out of town (Ex 12:35-36). Gold is gold wherever you find it. The same goes for truth. Its value lies not in its source but in itself. If Christians find truth in an unlikely place, they ought not deny it but instead bring it to light and make use of it. In fact, it is plausible that such points of agreement among believers and nonbelievers could facilitate evangelism. In book VII of his autobiographical work, Confessions, Augustine carefully shows how in the writings of certain pagan philosophers he discovered many true insights that were compatible with the claims of Scripture. Interweaving quotations from the Gospel of John, he writes,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Merold Westphal
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Kierkegaard: Friend to Christians?
• 2 Jesus Christ
• 3 The Human Self
• 4 Christian Witness
• 5 The Life of Christian Love
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Praise for Kierkegaard
• About the Author
• More from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright