The Book on Adler

Søren Kierkegaard, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780691140827, 9780691032276
• eBook ISBN: 9781400832392
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Kierkegaard was driven to write The Book on Adler after news spread that a Danish pastor, Adolph P. Adler, claimed to have experienced a revelation in which Christ dictated a new doctrine. Like many others, Kierkegaard was intrigued by Adler--but for different reasons than most. Over the eight years during which Kierkegaard worked on the manuscript, the phenomenon of Adler became a concern secondary to the larger question of authority. Kierkegaard revised the manuscript many times, and published a segment of it as "The Difference between a Genius and an Apostle" in Two Ethical-Religious Essays, but did not publish the work as a whole before his death. The latest integral version of The Book on Adler is included here, along with excerpts from the earlier drafts and a sampling of writing by Adler himself.

[VIII2 B 13 60] 1CHAPTER I

The Historical Situation

THE COLLISION OF MAGISTER ADLER, AS A TEACHER IN THE STATE CHURCH, WITH THE ESTABLISHED ORDER; THE SPECIAL INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS A REVELATION-FACT

It was in 1843 that Magister Adler published his Sermons, in the preface to which he in the most solemn manner announced that a revelation had been bestowed upon him, that by this a new doctrine2 had been communicated to him, and in the sermons themselves he made a distinction, whereby everything became decisively clear, between the sermons that were by himself and those that were dependent on the immediate assistance of the Spirit.* In the preface he informed us that the Spirit had ordered him to burn everything else that he had written.3 So he stood or in the preface he dramatically presented himself as an image of a new point of departure in the most decisive sense—behind him a conflagration and he, with the new, rescued like a refugee.

At the time he was a teacher in the state Church.4 However agreeable it may be for the state or the state Church to see, if it is so, a new generation of prospective public officials growing up who are all equipped with abilities and competence entirely different from what the former ones had, however agreeable it may be to see the most remarkable and excellent abilities dedicated to the service of the state and, in the area of religion, of the state Church—it is self-evident that this joy has one condition—namely, that they actually do serve the state, that they want to use their glorious abilities within its principles and acknowledge these ex animi sententia [with a sincere heart]. If that is not the case, the joy must change to concern and, if there is danger brewing, to concern and uneasiness about its own survival, but in any case to concerned sympathy for the individual or the individuals who thus fall short in their lives. The state and the state Church are not selfish, not tyrannical (something only the malicious and discontented want to make themselves and others believe). They are, in their own view, benevolent; when they accept the individual’s service, they also intend to do him a service by assigning him the desirable, the suitable place for the appropriate and beneficial use of his powers.

Magister Adler’s collision is easy to see: the collision of the special individual with the universal, increased by his also being an officeholder in the service of the universal. But since this collision occurs more frequently, I have treated it in more detail in Addendum I, to which referral is made.

But Magister Adler’s collision has something even more crucial. He is the special individual who has a revelation-fact. By his revelation-fact, by the new doctrine,* by being under the direct impulsion of the Spirit, Magister Adler must himself readily become conscious of being placed completely outside the universal, completely extra ordinem [VIII2 B 13 61] [outside the order] as an extraordinarius in the most decisive sense, qualitatively different from every other special individual (the genius—the immediate genius or the genius of reflection), be he ever so great or ever so much a genius, when he nevertheless cannot appeal to having had a revelation. To want to be in the service of the established order under such conditions is a self-contradiction, and to demand of the established order that it should keep him in service is actually to want to make a fool of it, as if it were something so abstract that it could not concentrate with energetic consciousness on what it is and what it wants. To want to be in the service of the established order and then to want to serve that which aims, even if not in reality yet all the more formally, at the very life of the established order, is just as unreasonable as if someone wanted to be in a man’s service and yet openly acknowledged that his work and diligence and mind belonged to another man. Nobody would tolerate that, and the reason one wishes that the universal, the established order, should tolerate it is that one has a fantastic-abstract idea of the impersonality of the universal, and a fantastic conception of livelihood, according to which the state must support every graduate. When the army is drawn up facing the established order, then wanting to be in the ranks and a stipendiarius [receiver of a stipend] but wanting to stand turned the opposite way cannot be done; the moment they are to march (as soon as life stirs), it will be apparent that he is walking the opposite way. An extraordinary with a revelation-fact must step out of the ranks. His importance demands it as does also the earnestness of the universal, because such a one is too important to be together in the ranks, and the earnestness of the universal demands unity and uniformity in the ranks, demands to see the extraordinary or to see that he is the extraordinary. In this discrimen [distinction] such an extraordinary has his place. This is his situation: on the one side to be pointed out as a special individual in comparison with the universal, so that no sagacious person could be his friend or even walk with him on the street, so that his friend, if he was sagacious, would swear that he did not know him,5 at whom “those who passed by shook their heads”6—and then nevertheless to be the one who by a revelation and in virtue of it is to bring the new, to be the one from whom the new reckoning of time is to begin.

Magister Adler’s collision with the universal is, therefore, that of the special individual who has a revelation. To want summarily to deny the possibility that this extraordinary experience could happen to a person also in our age would certainly be a very dubious sign. But if there is nothing new under the sun, neither is there any direct, uniform repetition—there are continually ever new modifications. Our age is an age of reflection and common sense. It might be assumed, then, that the person who in our age is thus called by God would be related to his age. He [VIII2 B 13 62] presumably would have superior reflective powers at his disposal as a ministering factor. This, then, would be the apparent difference between such a called person in our age and one in an earlier age (since the essential likeness is and remains the call)—namely, that the called person in our age would as a ministering agent have a ministering reflection, before which I, a lowly critic, bow seven times, and seventy times before his call by a revelation. The called person in our age will not be merely an instrument (immediate) but will consciously undertake his call in quite another sense than what always has been the case in a divine call—will make up his mind that this extraordinary thing has happened to him and understand himself in that.

Thus whether it is possible to think a divine call into human reflection, to think a coordination of them, is a question that I, a lowly ministering critic, would not dare presume to answer. Only the life of the extraordinary person, if such a one did appear, would contain the answer. But I can, up to a certain point, dialectically work through the idea until reflection runs aground.

If, then, everything is in proper order in this matter of a person’s having been called by a revelation, but he had a superior reflection as a ministering factor, he would then understand that the ethical accompaniment to this call and having a revelation corresponds ethically to an enormous responsibility in all directions, not only inwardly (that he himself was sure, understood himself in the fact that this extraordinary thing had happened to him, this we take for granted) but outwardly in relation to the established order, because in reflection the extraordinary has the dialectic of being the supreme salvation but also of being able to be the worst corruption. His responsibility in reflection would then be that he not become the worst misfortune for the established order and that with fear and trembling he see to it, as far as he is able, that no one is harmed by a direct relationship to his extraordinariness. If we now let the ministering reflection alone give counsel, then the final consequence would be that, humanly understood, he would completely destroy himself, the impression [VIII2 B 13 63] of himself, make himself as lowly and insignificant as possible, almost repugnant, because in reflection (where every qualification is indeed dialectical) he would properly understand that the extraordinary, beyond the point where it is in truth and is the extraordinary, is and can occasion the most frightful corruption. In the final consequence of reflection, he would then transform the revelation-fact itself into his life’s deepest secret, which in the silence of the grave would become the law of his existence, but which he would never communicate directly. —But see, precisely this would be to fail completely in his task, in fact, would be like disobedience to God. The person who is called by a revelation is specifically called to appeal to his revelation; he must indeed use authority by virtue of being called by a revelation. In a religious revival it is not up to the person who has been awakened in an extraordinary way to go out and preach this to people; on the contrary, it can be completely right and pleasing to God and obedience to God for this to remain the awakened person’s secret with God. But if the person who by a revelation is called to communicate a revelation wants to be silent about the revelation-fact, then he offends against God and reduces God’s will to nothing. It is the very revelation-fact that is decisive; it is this that gives him divine authority. It does not depend, as is taught in the confused philosophy of our age, upon the content of the teaching, but the revelation-fact and the divine authority that follows from it are what is decisive. If I imagined a letter from heaven, then it is not the content of the letter, no matter from whom it came, that is the main point. The main point is that it is a letter from heaven.

So it is seen that when a person places his reception of a revelation entirely into reflection, this in one way or another becomes something impenetrable or works itself into a self-contradiction. If the ministering reflection’s idea is to conquer, then he will [VIII2 B 13 64] keep the revelation-fact itself hidden as a something isolated, in fear and trembling will keep watch on the terrible consequences that direct communication could have and will quake before the responsibility. But he thereby also gives up the authority; he presumptuously makes himself into a genius as a substitute for his having been called by God to be an apostle. That is, in reflection’s idea a genius is the highest, an apostle an impossibility, since the category of apostle is precisely the divine authority.

Thus reflection comes to a halt at the question: whether it is possible that human reflection is able to undertake a call by a revelation, whether a revelation does not presuppose a continued revelation. But on the other hand, since our age is an age of reflection and the human race may be assumed to be continually developing more and more in reflection, it seems, humanly speaking, obvious that if a person in such an age is called by a revelation he must have an element of reflection more than the person called in an earlier age. In the earlier age the reflection of the called person signified only a reflection within himself, that he understood himself in having been granted the extraordinary; now it must signify a reflection over his entire relation to the surrounding world. Thus, in the moment of the undertaking, the person called must consciously be able in one way or another to explain to himself both his responsibility in concreto and that the same thing would happen to him as happened to the person called in an earlier age. The person called by a revelation in our age must be the synthesis of his age’s greatest maieutic and the one called, the synthesis of being the one called and the one devoting oneself. In addition to the divine authority (which is qualitatively decisive) granted to him, he must have an eminent wisdom for surveying the circumstances.7

The human dialectic cannot proceed further than to this admission, that it cannot think this, but also to the admission that this does not imply anything more than that it cannot think this. [VIII2 B 15 65] But the human dialectic, if it wants to understand itself, consequently [VIII2 B 15 66] to be humble, never forgets that God’s thoughts are not human thoughts, that all this about genius and culture and reflection makes no difference, but that divine authority is what is decisive, that the person whom God calls in this way, whether he is a fisherman or a shoemaker (nowadays it is perhaps all too easy to understand that Peter became an apostle, but at the time it was much easier to understand that he was a fisherman!)—he is the apostle.

The divine authority is the category, and here also, altogether appropriately, is the mark: the possibility of offense. It is true that a genius can be an offense, esthetically, for a moment or fifty years or a hundred, but he can never be an offense ethically; what offends is that a human being has divine authority.

But with regard to the qualification of being called by a revelation, just as with everything Christian, in the course of time indolence and habit, lack of spirit or absence of spirit, and thoughtlessness have been allowed to dampen the coiled spring. At one moment it was a hysterical woman who had a revelation, then a sedentary artisan, then a professor who became so profound that he could almost be said to have a revelation, then a peering genius who peered so deeply that he almost, nearly, as good as—had revelations. This gradually came to be what people understood to be called by a revelation, and in this sense Paul also had a revelation, except that he also had an uncommonly good head on his shoulders.

No, the divine authority is the category. Here there is very little or nothing at all for assistant professors and licentiates and paragraph swallower...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Historical Introduction
• The Book on Adler: The Religious Confusion of the Present Age Illustrated by Magister Adler as a Phenomenon
• Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter I The Historical Situation: The Collision of Magister Adler, as a Teacher in the State Church, with the Established Order; the Special Individual Who has a Revelation-Fact
• Chapter II A Revelation in the Situation of the Present Age
• Chapter III Adler’s Own Shifting of His Essential Point of View, or That He Does Not Understand Himself, Does Not Himself Believe That a Revelation Has Been Given to Him.
• Appendix to Chapter III
• Chapter IV A Psychological View of Adler as a Phenomenon and as a Satire on Hegelian Philosophy and the Present Age
• Addendum I The Dialectical Relations: the Universal, the Single Individual, the Special Individual
• Addendum II The Difference between a Genius and an Apostle
• Supplement
• Editorial Appendix