Antiphilosophy of Christianity 3030732835, 9783030732837

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Ghislain Deslandes

Antiphilosophy of Christianity

Antiphilosophy of Christianity

Ghislain Deslandes

Antiphilosophy of Christianity

Ghislain Deslandes Law, Economics and Humanities ESCP Business School Paris, France

ISBN 978-3-030-73282-0    ISBN 978-3-030-73283-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 Translation from the French language edition: Antiphilosophie du christianisme by Ghislain Deslandes, © Ovadia Publishing 2008. Published by Editions Ovadia. All Rights Reserved. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In memory of Didier Cailleteau, Michel Piclin, Hélène Védrine, and Bernard Stiegler.

Preface

If we are to look to the Gospel for the salvation of our souls, not only must we eagerly await the publication of the latest tome claiming to settle the question, as per Kierkegaard’s mischievous assertion, but we must also drop everything else and devote ourselves entirely to studies which would surely occupy the rest of our days, without any real hope that this vast ocean of exegetical wisdom should ever yield even the vaguest hint of an answer to the only question that matters. Michel Henry, C’est moi la vérité.

The recent debate surrounding the potential beatification of Blaise Pascal, that great polemicist to whom this philosophical essay is largely devoted, lends my work an air of topical relevance which I could never have dreamed of during the writing process. This book in fact represents an abridged and thoroughly updated version of a Ph.D. thesis in philosophy submitted in the early years of this millennium, which set out to identify potential avenues for reflection derived from a comparative study of Pascal the Jansenist and Kierkegaard the Protestant.1 My decision to revisit this subject 15 years on may come as a surprise to some, particularly those better acquainted with my work on subjects which may seem very far removed from the question of religious faith, namely leadership2 and media studies.3 Although this is perhaps the mark of an approach to philosophy which is adventurous rather than territorial, roaming to explore new contexts and situations, often non-philosophical in nature. The religion in question, in the Pascalian and Kierkegaardian context, is of course Christianity: the religion of the word, of the cross, of “folly.” You might say that my two chosen authors were drawn to religion by a sort of natural inclination.  At Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.  A subject which greatly interested Pascal, nonetheless. He considered the education dispensed to the elite as a key question of philosophy (cf. the Discourses on the Condition of the Great and Laf. 533). 3  Essentially the subject that Kierkegaard envisaged teaching at the university (cf. Dialectic of ethical and ethical-religious communication, volume 14), before changing his mind. 1 2

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As a result, they were faced with a familiar problem: how can philosophy and Christianity coexist if, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty puts it, the former “is a self-­ sufficient activity, which begins and ends with comprehension of a concept,” while the latter requires “assent to things which cannot be seen, but are established as articles of belief by the revealed texts”? Is the gulf between the two not so vast as to preclude any genuine contrast or relationship? And yet it is precisely this problematic relationship which lies at the heart of the Pascalian and Kierkegaardian thoughts, considering philosophy to be as effective as it is affective. By this measure philosophical reflection is not a quest for truth, but rather a search for a certain form of sincerity in our relationship to the truth. For Pascal and Kierkegaard, philosophy necessarily involves a subjective angle which precludes any objective claim to truth. This is a particular position in the history of ideas, and one which I seek to contextualise as precisely as possible in these pages. Following the example of Alain Badiou, among others, I define it as antiphilosophy. While philosophy openly sets out to “harm stupidity,” as Deleuze would have it, antiphilosophy is more concerned with combatting philosophical stupidity. The latter is never so apparent, in the opinion of Pascal and Kierkegaard, as when philosophy attempts to get to grips with the event of Christianity, and often ends up with a definition dialectically opposed to what Christianity itself claims to be. Should it really come as any surprise that philosophical reason maintains a certain distance with its stated enemy? Surely the speculating being is a constant obstacle to the Christian becoming. Subjecting faith to the perils of philosophical analysis while simultaneously confronting the philosophical tradition with the truth of Christianity, occupying the shifting middle ground between the two, such is the ambitious goal of an antiphilosophy of Christianity. Paris, France

Ghislain Deslandes

Contents

1 Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard��������    1 Christian Philosophers or Philosophical Christians? ������������������������������     7 Pascal, Kierkegaard and Antiphilosophy ������������������������������������������������    14 General Outline for an Antiphilosophy of Christianity����������������������������    20 2 Mocking Philosophy��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   23 A Philosophical Critique of Reason��������������������������������������������������������    23 Facing the Philosophers ��������������������������������������������������������������������������    29 A Popular Way of Thinking ��������������������������������������������������������������������    37 Antiphilosophical Writing and Singularity����������������������������������������������    42 Adam Forma Futuri���������������������������������������������������������������������������������    47 3 “Risk Is truth”������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   53 Denaturing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    53 Betting for or Against������������������������������������������������������������������������������    54 Stupidification������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    57 Faith Which Believes in God ������������������������������������������������������������������    59 Alone Against the World, Alone Before God������������������������������������������    65 Suffering as Natural State������������������������������������������������������������������������    69 4 “Hear God”����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   75 First Statement: “The External Is of No Use Without the Internal”��������    77 Second Statement: “You Have Deposed the Pope... and Set ‘the Public’ on the Throne”����������������������������������������������������������������������    85 Third Statement: “Forget the World and Everything Except God”���������    93 Fourth Statement: Deus absconditus ������������������������������������������������������    98 Fifth Statement: “Deny, If You Will, That Christianity Is a Paradox!”����   100

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5 Contemporary Connections��������������������������������������������������������������������  105 The Christian Event����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   106 Towards a “Weak Antitheology”?������������������������������������������������������������   112 Recharging Immanence���������������������������������������������������������������������������   120 Conclusion: Post-Jansenist Meditations��������������������������������������������������������  125 Bibliography ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  135 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  141

Chapter 1

Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

Abstract  Pascal and Kierkegaard are two philosophers who have been the subject of numerous comparative studies in recent decades. Numerous commentators have noted, in their respective works, a shared desire to introduce doubt into Christian belief. Above and beyond biographical comparisons, the two thinkers are joined by a certain sense of unity, a similar philosophical orientation, and numerous shared resonances. Alain Badiou has proposed a common denomination for both thinkers, defining them as Christian antiphilosophers of “high calibre”. Pascal and Kierkegaard do indeed appear to be particularly attuned to Christian questions, capable of clearly distinguishing that which stems solely from the authority of the Word, while also rejecting the idea that religious consciousness can be achieved through philosophy. They are authentic philosophers, capable of thinking about the Christian religion in a manner not possible for exclusively Christian authors, but instead as Christian philosophers capable of questioning religion. In this introductory chapter, the three stages of Badiousian antiphilosophism are presented as the structuring elements of the book. I argue that, between the first stage of discrediting philosophy and the ultimate stage of its subversion, lies the moment of the true antiphilosophical act as exemplified by both Pascal and Kierkegaard. Keywords  Alain Badiou · Antiphilosopher · Antiphilosophy · Inner kinship · Jean Wahl · Oneness of spirit · Philosophy of Christianity · Philosophical Christian

The relationship between Western philosophy and Christianity is a long and storied one, which can be broadly condensed into four diametrically-opposed positions. The first presents Christianity as a precursor to philosophy, and philosophy as an extension of Christianity. In this tradition theology, Christianity and philosophy are all inextricably linked. This is the school of thought known as Christian philosophy, which recognizes the Christian faith as a philosophical expression belonging to the category of truth. The second school of thought is that of anti-Christian philosophy, which holds that the relationship between philosophy and Christianity is inessential, denies that the latter has any monopoly over the truth, and ultimately refuses to acknowledge any real link between the Christian faith and the categories of philosophy proper. To a certain extent, philosophy is thus considered to be aloof from the field of religion © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7_1

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by definition, representing a sanctuary unshackled from any form of religious faith by a sort of voluntary schism. Throughout the history of philosophy, the many exponents of this position have regarded Christianity as, at best, an old-world fable and, at worst, a farce reconfigured for the present day, all while noting the decline of Christian religiosity and its creeping secularisation. In this category may be placed all of those philosophies dedicated to combatting the premises of Christianity, and supplanting it with a form of disenchanted ontology. The third position requires us to introduce the category of antiphilosophy as developed by Alain Badiou. Antiphilosophy, which is itself an offshoot of developments in the history of ideas, dismisses the tenets of philosophy as both obsolescent and obscene: philosophy believes itself capable of engendering concepts, while all it actually produces is absurdities. For the antiphilosopher, who is by definition a philosopher at war with philosophy, philosophy loses all credibility as soon as it starts trying to replace authentic existential choices with knowledge derived from some theoretical truth, since profound conviction is never born of concepts. “For the antiphilosopher, the unbearable theoretical pretention which defines a philosopher, and which cements his impostor status, is the idea that ‘everything’ can be comprehended in thought,” and it is precisely this which makes philosophy fundamentally harmful to thought itself.1 We must nonetheless distinguish between the two approaches to the question of Christianity which can be discerned among the antiphilosophers, those philosophers committed to the primacy of individual existence over the universality of concepts: one is anti-Christian, and includes the works of the two great “classical” antiphilosophers to whom Badiou devoted a substantial portion of his seminar, namely Nietzsche and Lacan. The other approach can be described as “Christian,” in that it is based upon a direct relationship with the scriptures and with faith.2 In Badiou’s view this tradition of Christian antiphilosophy, which defies the three other positions as much as possible, finds its most illustrious and most fascinating representatives in the persons of Pascal and Kierkegaard.3 Despite an avowed interest in the thinker he describes as the “fundamental apostle of anti-philosophy,” St Paul, it is worth noting that Badiou ultimately abandoned his plans to devote an entire, systematic seminar cycle to the works of Pascal and/or Kierkegaard. Since Badiou announced his decision to discontinue his seminars as of 17 January 2017,4 it now seems highly unlikely that he will return to the subject. Let us therefore attempt to define a little more clearly the antiphilosophical orientation with regard to Christianity, not that I have any intention of taking up where Badiou left off and claiming to have completed the master’s task. In some respects, what I in fact propose to do is to take an alternative route to that sketched out by  A. BADIOU, L’antiphilosophie de Wittgenstein, 47.  While clearly distinguishing between the two camps, Badiou also emphasises the “friendly terms” (Nietzsche, L’antiphilosophie 1, p. 127) and “essential, fraternal connections” (idem, p. 87) which link them (particularly Pascal and Nietzsche). 3  The latter of whom Sartre described as an antiphilosopher in his Situation IX (Gallimard, 1972, 167). 4  A. BADIOU, A. La philosophie, le théâtre, la vraie vie, 2016, 44. 1 2

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Michael O’Neill Burns in his Kierkegaard and the Matter of Philosophy. O’Neill Burns contends that contemporary materialism has much to learn from Kierkegaard’s ontological project, running counter to the tenets of “mainstream” Kierkegaardian research, as embodied by the sort of scholars for whom Michael Strawser coined the term “Kierkegaardiologists.” The latter insist upon seeing Kierkegaard as first and foremost a Christian Thinker, whose work is the precise opposite of dialectical materialism, and whose key concepts – not least subjectivity and truth – represent a clear rejection of contemporary systems of philosophical materialism. And yet, as O’Neill Burns rightly notes, it is curious to observe that, of all the systems proposed by contemporary thinkers, it is Alain Badiou’s that makes the most strident use of Kierkegaard’s conceptuality: “both Badiou and Kierkegaard note that without the support of material subjectivity and willed activity, truth is nothing more than an idea which has no real effect in the actuality of the world. (…) Another fairly obvious manner in which Badiou seems to embody a Kierkegaardian ethos is the emphasis on the evental nature of truth. For both Badiou and Kierkegaard, truth is something that happens, not something that merely exists in any logical or objective fashion.”5 In short, it is entirely permissible to utilize Kierkegaard’s philosophical categories without first examining his religious convictions and seeking to establish whether or not they are authentic (which is essentially unknowable). In certain respects, Badiou himself encourages this interpretation with his frequent references to the Danish thinker. O’Neill Burns, on the other hand, suggests that we approach the contribution of Kierkegaard’s work in terms of its relationship to faith, sin and contingency, in order to better examine the material conditions of the present. My own analysis takes up this entirely legitimate proposition – legitimate in the sense that Kierkegaard did not wish for his work to be the preserve of a select few, but addressed himself first and foremost to the Singular Individual – but in an inverted fashion. By this I mean that I pay little heed to the question of whether or not Badiou should be considered antichristian. Badiou himself has frequently reiterated his view that the Christian message is, at best, a fable, although critics such as Žižek have pointed out the latent religiosity of his theory of subjectivity. I propose instead to focus solely on his philosophical interpretation of the writings of his Danish forebear, no more and no less. Even those inclined to regard Badiou’s political views as a bad taste joke, or fallacious divination, should have no problem with utilising the power of his theoretical apparatus to cast light on what he himself terms the “pure event,” in this case Jesus Christ, that which “cannot be considered a function.”6

5  O’Neill Burns Michael, Kierkegaard and the Matter of Philosophy  – A fractured Dialectic, p. 172. On page 160, he comments: “Badiou describes Kierkegaard’s ‘Christian paradox’ in a way that sounds very similar to his own theory of event, in which something infinite emerges from finite materiality. He argues that the Christian paradox is ‘a challenge addressed to the existence of each and everyone, and not a reflexive theme that a deft use of dialectical meditations would externally enlist in the spectacular fusion of time and eternity’. Once again, Badiou’s description of Kierkegaard’s thought paints a picture quite similar to Badiou’s own position. For Badiou, an event is something that necessitates a response from each person.” 6  A. BADIOU, A. Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, 59.

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Indeed, by utilising his concept of antiphilosophy and, on a methodological level, the categories based on which antiphilosophy is radically opposed to philosophy, my aim is above all to return to an Arendtian standpoint whereby the current of thought which flows through Pascal to Kierkegaard is that which first introduced doubt into the Christian faith, and in doing so radically altered its meaning. In a famous passage on the crisis of authority, Arendt argues that “since Pascal and, even more pointedly, since Kierkegaard, doubt has been carried into belief, and the modern believer must constantly guard his beliefs against doubts; not the Christian faith as such, but Christianity (and Judaism, of course) in the modern age is ridden by paradoxes and absurdity.”7 For Christian antiphilosophy, behind the consecration of philosophical reason lurks a form of idolatry which must be challenged and overthrown. Such is the strategy which Pascal and Kierkegaard devoted themselves to deploying, driven in large part by the insurmountable tension between philosophers’ words and deeds, between philosophical teaching in and of itself and the contradictions which beset its exponents. As Kierkegaard himself puts it: “In his Pensées, Pascal says ‘Few talk humbly of humility, few chastely of chastity, few doubtfully about doubt’ […] Incidentally, it is comical to think of the words ‘few speak doubtfully about doubt’ in reference to a time now recently past  – when doubt was taught.”8 The dogmatic, contradictory rigidity of professional philosophers is a central pillar of Pascalian and Kierkegaardian antiphilosophy, and the principal subject matter of this book. This reflection on Pascal by Kierkegaard, found in his Journals, is far from the only reference to his French forebear. Indeed, there are numerous instances in the Danish thinker’s writings which demonstrate both his interest in Pascal and, above all, the convergence of their opinions. “Who in modern times has been used so much by parsons and professors as Pascal?” he complains. “His Pensées are appropriated, but Pascal the ascetic with his hair-shirt and all the rest is left out of it. Or else it is explained away as the hallmark of his age, which need no longer concern us. Perfect! Pascal was an original in every other respect – except this one. But was asceticism really so widespread in his day, or had it not long ago disappeared, so that it was up to Pascal to bring it back and fly in the face of the whole age? It is ever thus; everywhere that infamous and disgusting cannibalism whereby (just as Heliogabalus ate ostrich brains) men eat the ideas, opinions, expressions and changing moods of the dead – but as for their lives and characters: no thank you, we don’t want any of that!”9

7  Arendt continues: And whatever else may be able to survive absurdity – philosophy perhaps can – religion certainly cannot. Yet this loss of belief in the dogmas of institutional religion need not necessarily imply a loss or even a crisis of faith, for religion and faith, or belief and faith, are by no means the same.” H. ARENDT. Between Past and Future, p.94 8  “Martensen demonstrates as much dogmatic inflexibility in his lessons on Omnibus Dubitandum as he does when setting out a dogma.” X3 A 543/544, Vol. 4 : 149/§3106. 9  X4 A 537, Vol. 4 : 326/§176. Translator’s note: the author’s references to Kierkegaard’s writings are taken from the French edition of the Oeuvres Complètes; the corresponding locations in the

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What Kierkegaard criticises here is the tendency of “pastors and professors” to make use of authors’ ideas while failing to do justice to the rectitude of their lives. For Kierkegaard any reflection, of any sort, must be rooted in personal experience, and not in an accumulation of more or less anecdotal knowledge and more or less gratuitous opinions. Kierkegaard’s “realism” legitimises a judgement which acknowledges not only the intellectual coherency of a “remarkable” mind, but also and above all the consistency between this mind and the author’s deeds, i.e. the things that truly mattered to him. But it is precisely this latter point, the correlation between thought and deed, which makes Pascal “original” in Kierkegaard’s eyes. It is because he writes “from experience” of the Christian life that his vision of Christianity “is correct.”10 There is no hiding the fact that the comparison between Pascal and Kierkegaard has its own history. As Jean-Marie Paul puts it in Pascal et le XIXème siècle, a work in which the links between the two thinkers are explored at some length: “what strikes one first of all is a shared negation. Neither nor Pascal nor Kierkegaard saw himself as a philosopher, and their exegetes have often been quick to emphasise this point. Emile Bréhier opens his commentary on Pascal with an unequivocal assertion: ‘Pascal is not a philosopher; he is a scholar and an apologist for the Catholic religion. As for Kierkegaard, we know very well that his work was not recognised by his contemporaries, and that his rediscovery was as long coming as he feared it would be.’”11 In fact a majority of Kierkegaard specialists are quick to align their subject with the “terrifying genius” of Pascal. From the very first critical texts to address Kierkegaard’s thought, up to Jean Wahl’s Etudes Kierkegaardiennes and beyond, the three main sobriquets which accompanied his introduction to France tagged the Dane as the “Christian Don Juan,” the “father of existentialism” and the “Pascal of the North.” While the first two have been partially abandoned in the light of more recent scholarship, the third etiquette endures. In Jean-Marie Paul’s view, it is as if “the critics were aware of a somewhat confusing link, and were unable to boil this connection down to some definitive formula, due to the non-systematic nature of their thought.”12 In this respect, two observations come to mind; the first is that the majority of the texts which focus exclusively on the relationship between Pascal and Kierkegaard are short, dated and repetitive. They also arrive at wildly different conclusions, largely because their analyses are based on very different ideas of what constitutes the common ground shared by these two thinkers.13 The second observation is that we may have been too quick to assume, particularly in Pascal’s

English translation (Princeton edition) can be found in the bibliography. In a few cases other editions have been used, and these are identified accordingly. 10  G. MALANTSCHUK, Index terminologique in 20: 102/103. 11  JM. PAUL, Pascal et Kierkegaard : Les énigmes de la foi, 129. 12  Ibid. 13  M. DE GANDILLAC, Le Siècle Traversé, Souvenirs de neuf décennies, 158.

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homeland, that Kierkegaard’s Pascalian affiliation was not ultimately of much interest on a philosophical level. In a major article, Søren Landkildehus ponders how best to interpret the sheer volume of comparative studies14 devoted to these two thinkers.15 The first paradox he identifies is that the quantity of comparative studies and doctoral theses devoted to Pascal and Kierkegaard,16 which he helpfully lists in his bibliography, seems to belie the generally-accepted view that Pascal’s work had virtually no direct influence on Kierkegaard’s own written output. Indeed, the Dane was more interested in the life of his French forebear, as attested by most of the references to Pascal in the Papirer. In other words, most of these studies are devoted not to unearthing traces of Pascalian thought in Kierkegaard’s writings – such traces being rare and, at any rate, not so significant – but instead to analysing their respective works for evidence of similarities of thought, philosophical affinities, some sense of “inner kinship.”17 Landkildehus argues that such analyses, particularly that proffered by Allen, reveal the limitations of approaches based on biographical comparisons (relationship with father, child genius, opposition to the absolutism of religious institutions etc.), such speculation being devoid of philosophical interest and liable to lead to confusion or hasty conclusions. What seems to lie behind this prestigious “pairing” is a certain sense of unity, a certain philosophical orientation, shared resonances, values and goals, an “idea of oneness of spirit”18 which, correctly elucidated, would prove to be more than a simple “accidental interest.”19 The present volume represents an attempt to put a name to this phenomenon, and to specify the terms of the corresponding philosophical category, informed by the “oneness of spirit” between Kierkergaard and Pascal. And yet, very few major thinkers have so much in common as these two. It may well seem paradoxical that these two singular autodidacts, private thinkers with neither disciples nor philosophical heirs, both highly resistant to any attempt at classification, should prove to be so ripe for comparison. But it is precisely this element of improbability which makes this study worthwhile, teasing out not only the Socratic but also the Pascalian roots of Kierkegaard’s thought. Of course, Kierkegaard did not read Pascal’s work in the original text. Although he did read

 For instance: R.  GRIMSLEY, Kierkegaard and Pascal, or Edgar Leonard Allen, Pascal and Kierkegaard. 15   S.  LANDKILDEHUS, Kierkegaard and Pascal as Kindred Spirits in the Fight against Christendom, 2009. 16  For example; V. SURIN, Pascal and Kierkegaard: Their Understanding of Man and the Human Condition, Ph. D.  Thesis, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, 1974, or M.  NETO, J. RAIMUNDO, The Christianization of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Blaise Pascal, Søren Kierkegaard, and Lev Shestov, Ph. D. Thesis, Washington: Washington University, 1991. 17  Edgar Leonard Allen, Pascal and Kierkegaard, 135. 18  Landkildehus, Søren. Kierkegaard and Pascal as Kindred Spirits in the Fight against Christiendom, 136. 19  Ibid., 140. 14

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French, he in fact owned two German translations,20 listed in the inventory of his personal library, along with a thesis by Neander entitled Sur l’importance historique des Pensées (Athéneum, Berlin 1847).21 The references to Pascal’s works (and to Pascal himself) found in Kierkegaard’s journals and notebooks can be dated to relatively late in his life, with the exception of three earlier mentions; as for his published works, they contain two references to Pascal, one which is easily-identifiable and consequently well-known, and another which is more implicit, identified for the first time by Hélène Politis in her thesis.22 Although he does not always directly mention Pascal by name, these multiple allusions nonetheless demonstrate Kierkegaard’s familiarity with and genuine interest in Pascal’s philosophy. What they do not suggest is that the connection between the two thinkers can be construed in terms of simple assimilation. Because what really unites Pascal and Kierkegaard is their exceptionalism, their unique character. And, of course, the fact that we often find the epithet “Christian” attached to their philosophy.

Christian Philosophers or Philosophical Christians? Kierkegaard must have surprised many readers when he declared that his task was “to redefine the notion of what constitutes a Christian.”23 He did not make such declarations on behalf of any church, since Kierkegaard was, like Pascal, a layman not a pastor. He spoke purely as a private thinker, who felt himself capable of philosophically correcting the notion of what it meant to be Christian, with truth as his imperative. Was Kierkegaard himself a Christian? Disconcertingly enough, the thinker’s own response was a resounding no. He considered himself, more humbly as a “Christian striver,”24 somebody who sought to become a Christian, who aspired  Gedanken uber die Religion und einige andern Gegenstande, by K.A. Blech, Berlin 1840 and Gedanken, Fragmente und Briefe, by C.F Schwarz, Leipzig 1848. 21  As André Clair has it, this thesis “is based on the recent Faugère edition”, and “in several fragments, refers to two works by Reuchlin: Histoire de Port-Royal (1839) and Vie de Pascal (1840)”. A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 510. Brandt’s biography of Kierkegaard mentions the quite astonishing fact that the thinker’s elder brother named his only son Pascal, a fairly unusual given name in Denmark at this time (F. BRANDT, Søren Kierkegaard, sa vie – ses oeuvres, 114). 22  The annexes to Hélène Politis’ thesis specify their location: “1) A single explicit reference to Pascal in the Samlede Vaerker: Stades, ‘Guilty? Not Guilty?’, SV3 VIII, 252/9: 423. 2) A reference, implicit but easy to identify (although it does not appear to have been attributed before): Judge for yourself, SV3 XVII, 151, 1.16–18/17: 170, 1.33–35 (and cf. above X3 A 544). » H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 277. 23  The Moment, 19: 302 / XXIII: 343. 24  S.  WALSH, Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence, 13. She also points out that “Christian strivers are distinguished from other persons by the fact that they beat, in addition to the other burdens or sufferings in life, the burden of the consciousness of sin. This consciousness constitutes the heaviest of all burdens in life and is what sets for the Christian strivers the tasks of contrition and repentance” Ibid., 36. 20

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

to comprehend the Christian faith and what lies behind the term “Christianity,” and who also strove to retain the urgency of philosophical investigation driven by “an external motivation–religious preoccupation.”25 An attitude which can also be found, albeit to a lesser extent, in Pascal, whose status as a believer was beyond dispute but whose Mémorial nevertheless eludes to a period when “I left him,” suggesting that his relationship to faith was not always plain sailing. The two thinkers are separated by differences of culture, tradition and religion which we can readily imagine, but more striking is the intransigent, impetuous approach to examining the Christian faith which they both share, and which seems to transcend cultural and historical factors. Their belief in the divine revelation is not “up to a point,” it is total and absolute. So perhaps the real question we must ask of Kierkegaard is that formulated by Jacques Colette: “We must follow the Kierkegaardian dialectic of existence through to its logical conclusion, in order to determine whether the irruption of this new philosophy of subjectivity is a philosophical event structurally speaking, or rather an extra-philosophical phenomenon, of a religious, Christian nature.”26 Consider Pascal. Could such a soul produce even a single thought which was not directly and exclusively related to his faith? Did Pascal not consider himself an apologist for the Christian religion? And yet Victor Cousin saw no problem in describing Pascal as an agnostic and considering him not as a Christian who thought like a Christian, but rather as a Christian who thought like a philosopher. In short, a philosopher who cannot easily be dismissed as ‘merely’ a Christian.27 This perhaps goes some way to explaining why mainstream philosophy has always considered Pascal and Kierkegaard to be somewhat apart. Hence, in my opinion, the astuteness of Vergote’s formulation philosophical Christian rather than Christian philosopher, a more judicious handle for two thinkers who “did not much care for Christian philosophy.”28 Both are Christian thinkers who know how to identify that which derives solely from the authority of the Word, and categorically refuse to believe that religion finds its fulfilment in philosophy. As true philosophers, they are also capable of conceiving the Christian religion not in the manner of exclusively Christian authors, but instead as philosophical Christians capable of questioning their religion. Tellingly enough, Kierkegaard declared that, given the choice, he would choose a brief conversation with Socrates over “those battalions of thinkers that ‘Christianity’ deploys under the banner Christian thinkers,”29 with whom he refuses all kinship. Pascal too was engaged in work of a philosophical nature, clearly expressed in the Entretien and evident in his approach to religious issues. As Fontaine would have it: “Mr. de Sacy arrived at this point directly thanks to the clarity afforded by

 V. DELECROIX, Singulière philosophie, Essai sur Kierkegaard, p. 15  J. COLETTE, La dialectique Kierkegaardienne de l’existence et la sphère éthico-religieuse, 329. 27  H. BOUCHILLOUX, Apologétique et raison dans les Pensées de Pascal, 292. 28  HB. VERGOTE, Lectures philosophiques de S. Kierkegaard, 12. 29  The Moment, 19: 301 / XXIII: 342. 25 26

Christian Philosophers or Philosophical Christians?

9

Christianity, while Mr. Pascal took a much more indirect route, cleaving to the principles of the philosophers.”30 We might interpret this judgment as follows: Pascal, who was no keener to assimilate philosophy and religion than Kierkegaard was two centuries later,31 engaged in the former to better connect with the latter. Not because he wanted to believe on philosophical grounds. That would put him in the same boat as those philosophers of various ages who were Christian “up to a point,” i.e. only on account of the reasons to believe which they found in philosophy.32 But faith and philosophy are not to be put on an equal footing. Observing Pascal’s commitment to discerning the truth in all things, it is fair to say that he is a philosopher even in his study of faith. While in belief he remains a firm Christian, philosophy pervades and shapes his thought. As for his religious studies, which are also important philosophically33, Hélène Bouchilloux astutely notes that they are always “driven by a definition of truth born of reason reflecting upon itself;”34 a principle which defines his work. Faced with Christ, reason itself is surprised, astonished even: Christianity, which is not a doctrine in the logical sense of the term, can only be a subject of astonishment and questioning for authentic philosophers. The religion of Christ is so astonishing that it requires a total reevaluation of a priori positions, which naturally provides food for thought for philosophers. Not in the interests of explanation, since this absolute paradox remains inexplicable, and certainly not to attempt a justification via the “sad sprinkling of ‘reasons’”35 which Kierkegaard abhorred in thinkers who considered themselves Christians, but instead to demonstrate the essential, absolute “otherness” of Christianity. Hence Kierkegaard agrees with Neander’s opposition to Cousin, when the latter presents Pascal as an enemy of philosophy. For he is nothing of the sort: Pascal is merely an adversary of that strain of philosophy which would ask reason to account for the choices of the heart. Nonetheless, to what extent can we say that the philosophical genius of these two thinkers was complicit with their faith, with neither weakening as a result? In other words how did Kierkegaard and Pascal begin by constructing a philosophy which transcends the epithet ‘Christian’? Talking of “Christian philosophy” – a mode of thought concerned with uniting two separate, disparate, perhaps even antagonistic types of truth, one of which is derived solely from the power of the mind, while the other is delivered by transcendent revelation – always seems to involve emphasising the former at the expense of the latter, so much so that the philosophical aspect is all but forgotten. Calling somebody a “Christian philosopher” effectively amounts to dismissing the philosopher and keeping only the Christian. Because “Christian

 A. FONTAINE, quoted by V. CARRAUD in Pascal et la philosophie, 72.  I A 94 / Vol 1: 60 / §3245. 32  Postscript, 10: 214 / XXIII: 342. 33  See. D. KANGAS, Errant affirmations: on the philosophical meaning of Kierkegaard’s religious discourses. 34  H. BOUCHILLOUX, Apologétique et raison dans les Pensées de Pascal, 19. 35  Practice in Christianity, 17 : 201/ XX: 228. 30 31

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

philosophy” transforms religion into a philosophy in its own right; as such it is neither an authentic philosophy, which requires thought before belief, nor an authentic form of Christianity, since it insists on introducing philosophy where it is not welcome. But it soon becomes clear, despite the profoundly religious significance of both philosophies, that the term “Christian” should be used with care. Or perhaps we should follow Vergote’s proposal and invert the two words. For these philosophical stances are every bit as “existential,” “subjective,” “polemical” or even “dialectical” as they are “Christian.” It seems likely that debate will always rage between those who would rank Kierkegaard and Pascal among the philosophers and those who prefer to file them as Christians. My own opinion is that they are both, fully and unequivocally. Firstly, they are fully-fledged philosophers. When the young Kierkegaard announced, in a letter from Gilleleje dated 1835, that he wished to find a truth worth living and dying for, he made it very clear that if this truth were to be Christianity, then it must be capable of allowing him to better comprehend his own life. Otherwise it would be unimportant. But they are also absolutely Christian, since both maintained that the only truly valid discourse about God was that contained in the Scriptures, bestowed by God himself.36 In fact our two antiphilosophers are relentlessly elusive: are they mere Christians, to be regarded simply as “religious authors”, or even theologians? Are they isolated individuals in the history of thought, and should they thus be labelled “subjective thinkers?” Is philosophy a justification of faith or is it faith which, in these two authors, trumps all philosophical considerations? When they began philosophising, did they cease to be Christians? When they spoke up on behalf of their faith, did they cease to be philosophers? In this case they would need to philosophise in a religious manner: religion must be true because philosophy believes it to be so. In fact, does their determination to position man in constant relation to the Christian God make them, as is widely assumed, “Christian philosophers,” i.e. Christians first and foremost, when they begin philosophising? Or is the opposite true, as suggested above? Are they in fact philosophical Christians, that is to say Christians who merit their place within the history of ideas as philosophers and not just as Christians? Christians who are also, and above all, philosophers. Answering these questions, which on the surface may appear to hark all the way back to the Enlightment, actually remains fiendishly difficult even today: philosophy and belief hold up a mirror to one another, so that philosophy is illuminated by faith and faith by philosophy. It is this reciprocity which seems to define the works of these two thinkers: philosophy informs their faith just as much as their faith illuminates their philosophy, even if the two must ultimately remain separate. For an example of this tension, we need look no further than Kierkegaard’s “enthusiasm” at the idea of a “college of the human race” gathering together all of the most eminent minds from history, which would ceaselessly amplify and refine our

 H.  MICHON, L’ordre du coeur  – Philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal, 212.

36

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11

knowledge of the world. “The Christians, however,” he writes, “have been afraid of granting these great men admission to their fellowship, in order that it not become too mixed, so that one single solitary chord can always be struck and the Christians sit thus like a Chinese council and rejoice at having erected that high, insurmountable wall against – the barbarians. And why do I say all this? Not to find fault with the Christians but to demonstrate the opposition admitted de facto within the Christian life, to caution everyone whose breast has not yet been tightly laced in this kind of spiritual corset against imprudently entering upon any such thing, to protect him against such narrow-chested, asthmatic conceptions.”37 Kierkegaard the Christian felt no need to abandon the “narrow-chested, asthmatic conceptions” of philosophy. He had no fear of being asphyxiated by the dogmas of a Christian life too wary of a philosophy too easily dismissed. Philosophy would not overtake faith, nor vice versa; Kierkegaard considered them a magnificent couple, while remaining attentive to each in its own right. Kierkegaard’s thought is an exercise in intimate simultaneity, or as he describes it: “thought which does not oppose each possibility with a counter-possibility is not worthy of the name; thought always exists as duality.”38 It is born of the relationship between objective knowledge on the one hand, and subjective interiority on the other, two things of an entirely different order. For Pascal and Kierkegaard, religion was not the final stage in the mind’s development, and philosophy alone could never answer all of life’s questions. Hence Paul Ricoeur’s description of them as “anti-dialectical dialecticians”39 whose philosophy cannot be understood without religion, nor their religion without philosophy, at the risk of contradicting (and opposing) philosophers and believers alike. There is indeed a relationship between religion and philosophy, a relationship with no pre-established sense of harmony. What both thinkers seem to fear the most, probably as a result of plentiful experience with their contemporaries, was that tendency of the intellect to seek facility and self-contentment, a state Pascal ironically describes as “rest.” This is a judgement as much on the “intelligence” of Christians who take to religion much as one might joint a political party, as on that of philosophers, who take up philosophy as if joining a religion: there is a certain comfort to be found in speaking “as a Christian,” or “as a philosopher,” which is inimical to clear perspective. Thought, constantly seeking certainties, is too often inclined to make do with a single dimension and forget about the “details.”40 In this respect the separation in question is not absolute, at least not from a philosophical perspective: there is nothing to stop philosophy taking religion as an object of thought and investigation, albeit without the ability to take full possession of the phenomenon from a subjective point of view. This is not a case of reconciling the incompatible, uniting two separate planes, running the risk of mixing up religion and philosophy and creating nothing but confusion. The real challenge is to

 I A 99, Vol. 1: 65. English translation ed. Cappelorn et al.; Princeton 2007/§3247.  X1 A 66, Vol 3: 39/§4706. 39  P. RICOEUR, Kierkegaard et le Mal, 295. 40  Laf. 150, Br. 226. 37 38

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

constantly seek out opportunities for moments of reciprocal clarity, although the distinction between the two will not disappear. This refusal to believe in the single solitary chord leads to the following situation: on one side sits faith, which is not dependent upon philosophy. This separation makes it impossible to cleave to the concept of “philosophical faith.” On the other side sits philosophy, which exists within its own register, independent of the dogmas of faith and firmly condemning all forms of philosophy born of, and inextricably dependent on, religious convictions. This leaves us with two radically divergent spheres: faith versus philosophy. Putting this principle into practice, our two thinkers talk like philosophers when they discuss philosophy. The language they use belongs to the field of philosophy; but they are also Christians, in that they acknowledge the ultimate superiority of the words spoken by Christ. Hence the difficulty of determining precisely when we are in the realm of philosophy and when we err into the territory of faith, given that it is strictly impossible to be in both spheres at the same time. Pascal and Kierkegaard thus have a certain experience as “philosophers,” and a certain experience as “Christians:” their Pensées and Journals illustrate this distinction in action. These texts reflect two heightened visions of the world which yield the same goals and a similar analysis of the human experience. Both authors lived for the same idea, an idea which may have risked putting their “head in a noose,” but an idea which represented a genuine, unique manifesto. They felt their duty was to keep watch as much as it was to raise the alarm. What most strikes us in this respect is the importance of passion to both men, the passion with which they denounce all forms of sophism and illusion, the passion which amplifies each individual phenomenon and magnifies the importance of each detail. This heartfelt passion is as integral to their personalities as it is to the central message of their work: neither Pascal nor Kierkegaard was afraid of pushing the envelope, exuberantly denouncing that which they opposed, namely the cult of reason and the vain wisdom of man. This earned them a reputation as fanatics among many of their contemporaries. “Nothing frightens Protestants, especially here in Denmark, so much as exaggeration,”41 writes Kierkegaard, for whom ruffled feathers, contradiction and offence are sure signs that the truth is near at hand. In their philosophical enquiries, neither thinker has time for half-measures: it is always all or nothing, totality or the void, life or death. Hence the radical character of their writing, informed by the attitude and the ardour of combat: in this respect they are disciples of Matthew the evangelist (10: 34-36), for whom Christianity was not “come to send peace on earth,” but rather “to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against the mother etc.” Christianity is thus a source of dissension and division, and the works of Kierkegaard and Pascal are theatres of adversarial combat. That combat may be against oneself, against false belief or against a clearly-identified antagonist, but at all times the struggle is unrelenting. For philosophical Christians combine the radical faith of the early Christians with the polemical – essentially Socratic – style of

41

 XI2 A 123, Vol 5: 243/§4814.

Christian Philosophers or Philosophical Christians?

13

the philosophers. Pascal and Kierkegaard both shared this passion for contradiction, a devotion to unpicking the latest arguments of their adversaries, a boundless and enthusiastic inclination for controversy. “Paul Möller called me thoroughly polemical”42 notes Kierkegaard in his Journals. The Provincial Letters, meanwhile, fundamentally transformed the whole genre of polemical writing. This capacity to fully comprehend an adversary’s strengths and weaknesses was exactly what prompted the powers that be at Port-Royal to turn to Pascal over Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy, Antoine Arnauld or Pierre Nicole, three of the most influential Jansenist writers in activity, tasking him with producing the most adroit defence possible of the community’s position in response to the repeated criticisms it faced from Church authorities and the Jesuits. An intense talent for persuasion is central to the polemical style of Pascal’s work. His language is not “academic” – incidentally, a reproach levelled against Kierkegaard’s thesis by his university examiners – but instead is content to say things as they are, using familiar vocabulary where necessary, deploying common expressions and eschewing “bloated verbiage” in favour of clear comprehensibility, allowing his prose to follow the beat of life itself. The Instant, a polemical attack on the Church of Denmark, is a fine example of this method in action: each new issue makes use of words and phrases from everyday life to throw the failings of the state church into stark relief. We have every reason to suspect that the bourgeois readers of the age would have been shocked by the style adopted by the author of these pamphlets, which provided the starting point for a memorable controversy. Similarly, Léon Brunschvicg notes that the “vigour of some of the Provincial Letters elicited some ‘impatient reactions’ from even the most fervent partisans of Port-Royal.”43 At the risk of causing offence, Pascal had no qualms about composing texts which were neither truly scandalous nor flatly courteous, but always filled with mockery and irony. Latent or on full display, irony is omnipresent in Pascal’s work. For example: “(...) What does this amount to other than putting a dagger into the hand of all Christians, for the purpose of killing anybody that should insult them, and assuring them that they may do so with a clean conscience, having the judgment of so many serious authors on their side?”44 To those who would object to Pascal’s language, he responds with a joke borrowed from the gospels. We owe it to truth to mock that which is false, Pascal insists, because we can only truly joke at the expense of the grotesque. Hence, it seems reasonable to infer, the undeniably “entertaining” dimension which is innate to Pascal’s irony, imbued with a penetrating force and extreme subtleness which sets him apart from other polemicists. It is almost as if this irony were both a natural gift and an excuse to play with such ideas. It was certainly one of the few pleasures that Pascal granted himself. Pascalian irony is never mediocre or gratuitous, based as it is on the belief that mockery is only justified when it operates at the expense of human pretention.

 VII A 221, Vol 2: 83/§5961.  L. BRUNSCHVICG, La solitude de Pascal, 179. 44  Provincial Letters, Letter 13. 42 43

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

The concept of irony also withstands “continual reference” to Kierkegaard. The university thesis which the latter devoted to Socratic irony serves as a perfect introduction to his thought, containing the illuminating contention (in the conclusion to the first part of the dissertation) that “Socrates, in his relation to the established order of things, was entirely negative… suspended in ironic satisfaction above all the qualifications of substantial life.”45 Socrates is the archetype of the ironic thinker, and we can easily comprehend why his irony should remain entirely negative. It remains an exercise in solitary contestation, since “there is just as little social unity in a coterie of ironists as there is real honesty in a band of thieves.”46 This is irony as resistance, an opposition which serves to pave the way from aesthetics to ethics. This road alone, portrayed as a fount of eternal youth and renewal, offers the possibility of an individual life. Not only must irony be tightly controlled, as it is in Pascal’s work: fundamentally, irony is merely a moment in time, a starting point which must be left behind. If the moral life begins with irony, in no way does irony alone offer access to the religious life. Because the infinite negativity of irony will ultimately get the better of the ironist himself: such is the case when irony exposes itself, and the ironist’s self-satisfaction is on full display.

Pascal, Kierkegaard and Antiphilosophy Defining these two thinkers as “philosophical Christians,” with the radical implications this moniker has for them as both Christians and philosophers, is nonetheless only partially satisfying. I shall now attempt to explain why this is the case. Of course, a great many scholars have attempted to define the position of these two thinkers in the history of philosophy, a position at once acknowledged yet ambiguous. They are now generally considered to be fully-fledged philosophers, in spite of the dismissive judgements of some early commentators who refused them this status. Kierkegaard, often “more of a philosopher than the Existentialists realised,”47 is a “philosopher in that he exists in relation to the philosophical tradition, he thinks with reference to this tradition – right down to the very latest modernity, not to be confused with contemporaneity in the strictest sense of the term – and he in turn produces concepts. ‘I love philosophy, I’ve loved it since I was a child:’ this exclamation from Notabene fits Kierkegaard perfectly.”48 Pascal’s position in relation to contemporary philosophy is also less than clear-­ cut. At no point does he declare himself to be a philosopher, but nor does he define Descartes as a philosopher when quoting his works. And yet, there can be no doubt that Descartes was one of them. Pascal reserves the term ‘philosopher’ solely for the

 On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, 2: 217  Kierkegaard here refers to irony in a group setting: On the Concept of Irony, 2: 249. 47  HB. VEGOTE quoted in Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard by H. POLITIS, 124. 48  H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 1155. 45 46

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philosophical schools of antiquity, a definition which seems somewhat restrictive. If we attempt to offer a broad, if not entirely uncontroversial, definition of philosophy as an intellectual pursuit whose purpose is the interpretation and general comprehension of humanity and the world, and the study of fundamental truth as certainty, there can be no doubt as to the philosophical character of Pascal’s thought. We can infer as much from the biography published in 1663 by Gilberte Périer, Pascal’s sister, barely a year after his death: “He always had an admirable mental acuity when it came to discerning falsehood, and it is fair to say that at all times and in all things truth was his sole object, because knowledge of the truth was the only thing ever capable of satisfying him.”49 We shall nevertheless have an opportunity, a little later on, to note that the partial ostracism suffered by Kierkegaard and Pascal has often worked against them in the same way, using the same criteria to exclude them. However, while these scholars situate the work of Pascal and Kierkegaard within the broad philosophical tradition, they perhaps too readily forget the strong objections raised by both thinkers against philosophy itself and its inaccessible theoretical pretentions. In their view philosophy remained a theoretical, too often dogmatic, exercise which was disconnected from urgent practical priorities: this belief is fundamental to their respective positions. In one of the two passages in his published works where he refers directly to Pascal, Kierkegaard attacks the vain accumulation of knowledge and the fruitless sense of intoxication which it generally engenders. It is worth quoting this important passage at length: “[…] it is precisely this internal orientation of knowledge which makes a man sober, as only he whose knowledge is action can be; nor is there any need to expend so much effort attempting to expand one’s knowledge, when the real priority should be to ensure its internalisation. It is deceitful to devote all one’s attention and powers to expanding one’s knowledge. In his view, a sober man is one whose knowledge is modest, but internalised and translated into action; while a man whose immense knowledge moves in the opposite direction is completely drunk. / An authorized judge on such matters once remarked that few talk humbly of humility, few doubtfully about doubt etc. In other words, it is rare to come across an exposition which truly embodies the subject exposed, so that, to borrow an example from the same thinker, doubt is presented in the form of doubt: this is how the Greeks did things, whereas nowadays one can become – and how worthy of respect it makes you! – a professor, illegitimately devoted to preaching to a converted congregation that ‘doubting everything’ must be an article of faith! But rarer still that such an exposition (as one with is subject) are examples of comprehension being translated into action, intelligence being expressed – O noble simplicity! – in actual practice.”50 This “authorized judge” is none other than Pascal, a thinker who translated his thoughts into actions and noted how unusual a step this was. A portrait to be contrasted with Kierkegaard’s depiction of Hans Lassen Martensen, the future Bishop of the Diocese of Zealand, whom he characterised as the embodiment of

49 50

 Quoted by A. FOREST in Pascal ou l’intériorité révélante, 9.  For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, 18: 170–171 / XXI: 119.

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

contemporary Danish Hegelianism, and who taught the concept of doubt without ever, not even for a second, doubting his own dogmatic mode of expression. It is almost as if the very complexity of a (philosophical) exposition makes the application of its content improbable: simplicity becomes difficulty, the sublime sobriety of practicality vanishes into the distance as the arrogance of knowledge creeps up. In such conditions, vast knowledge is the greatest obstacle to actually accomplishing something. Ultimately, what good is a wonderful recipe book if your stomach is crying out with hunger?51 In a series of works derived from his seminars, Alain Badiou offers a conceptual definition of this principled opposition to all philosophical discourse, invoking the notion of antiphilosophy previously employed by Jacques Lacan and Jean-Paul Sartre, imbuing it with new philosophical weight. This notion is inspired by thinkers such as Pascal, whom he considers to be the “classic” antiphilosoper, and Kierkegaard. This philosophical concept seems particularly pertinent to our attempts to identify as clearly as possible the precise position occupied by Pascal and Kierkegaard within the history of Western thought. As we have seen, they considered the philosophy practiced by philosophers to be less than convincing when it comes to explaining primary and ultimate goals, as if the truth(s) of philosophy were irrelevant to the biggest questions of existence, its general meaning. An antiphilosopher is a thinker who, while remaining within the framework of philosophical thought, takes a stand against philosophers by disparaging and undermining their vain and unsteady attempts to establish solid philosophical precepts, particularly with regard to truth. This is an internal conflict as old as philosophy itself: we can pit Heraclitus against Parmenides, Pascal against Descartes, Kierkegaard against Hegel. Every time it arises, the conflict between antiphilosophers and philosophy does not operate in terms of discussion and debate – like the conflict between the philosophers and the sophists, for example – but instead takes the form of a radical disagreement on what philosophy itself can ever hope to achieve. For antiphilosophers, philosophical ‘truth’ is always somewhat tragic because it is unaware of its fundamentally deceptive nature, and ultimately its own absurdity. While philosophy may sometimes be in the right, it will always fall short against the essential measure of meaning. “The destitution of the category of truth (as proposed by the antiphilosophers) operates as follows,” Badiou explains: “I have purified the notion of truth, I have eliminated its philosophical meaning, I have fundamentally and definitively resolved all problems.”52 The theoretical truths and conceptual creations of philosophy are thus deconstructed, dismantled and ultimately undone, at the expense of a higher logic which gives meaning to life itself, embodied in an absolute, individual life. To illustrate this point we might cite the example of another celebrated antiphilosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Recalling the conflicts and irritations which marked his life, Bourdieu cites one of the philosopher’s letters: “What is the point of studying philosophy, if all it does is make you capable of expressing yourself in a relatively

51 52

 II A 122, Vol 1: 117/118/§3855.  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 33.

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plausible manner on certain abstruse questions of logic etc., and if it doesn’t improve your way of thinking about the important issues of everyday life, if it doesn’t make you more sensitive than the average journalist to the use of those dangerous expression which people of that ilk use for their own purposes?”53 More than a theoretical endeavour, philosophy is an activity, an action, an act. Badiou makes dual usage of this notion in relation to Christianity: firstly the claim to “ultimate meaning” must be understood as that which lies beyond the scope of philosophy itself. This first point leads logically to the second, which concerns the relationship between antiphilosophy and the Christian religion: in Badiou’s view antiphilosophy can be broken down into two blocs, one of which is connected in principle with the Christian religion, and another in which the arms of antiphilosophy are turned against Christianity. From a Christian perspective, it is equally important to examine both the philosophical arguments on the one hand and the antiphilosophical devices on the other, even if they appear to be headed in diametrically opposite directions (albeit not without certain “essential links,”54 e.g. between Pascal and Nietzsche). And yet, the first target of Pascal and Kierkegaard’s antiphilosophy is the very idea of philosophy as system or doctrine. As Zivia Klein points out, “even leaving aside its state (in this case the fragmentary state of Pascal’s works), it seems doubtful that Pascal, had he been able to complete his Apology, would have presented it in systematic form like a work of geometry, considered the ideal science by most philosophers.”55 By opposing the veneration of pure reason, Pascal contested the value of philosophy itself. “Pure reason” in Pascal’s view is certainly not connected with mathematics. Mathematics cannot be conflated with this secular language which precludes all possibility of re-enchantment, this weapon devoted to destroying empiricism and subjectivism in all of their forms and incarnations. For Pascal the geometrician, mathematics cannot fulfil this role because it is not equipped to enlighten man about himself, to reveal his true condition. The abstract sciences, and among them mathematics, were first and foremost a career choice for Pascal. Perhaps the most beautiful job in the world, but nothing more. Due to the “little communication they allow,”56 they are powerless to rally spirits against the chaos of the world; they teach us nothing of life that we did not already know. Scientific reason has nothing conclusive to tell us about existence and its power, because it is extraneous to our being. If Pascal extends the same judgement to science – and particularly mathematics, which he admits is capable of “maintaining order,” but insists is “useless, deep down”57 – and philosophy, it is because neither is capable of comprehending the two  P. BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, 53.  “Contemporary, because the original, classic example of the antiphilosopher is Pascal, with whom his connections are essential, fraternal but complex. Herein lies the first determinant of Nietzsche’s antiphilosophy. The philosophy in antiphilosophy is in fact religion in disguise, dressed up in the rags of scientism or rationality.” A. BADIOU, Nietzsche, L’Antiphilosophie 1, 87. 55  Z. KLEIN, La notion de dignité humaine dans la pensée de Kant et de Pascal, 92. 56  Laf. 687, Br. 144. 57  Laf. 694, Br. 61. 53 54

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

greatest mysteries with which we are faced: the infinity of the universe, of which we do not even understand the first principles, and the mysterious affirmation of the self, a form of existence which eludes scientific understanding58. These two outer frontiers of reflection – comprehension of the first principles of the world to which we belong and the way in which we naturally fit into it, what we might call existence – represent the limits of mere scientific reason. Hence the vanity of science, and of those who claim that science alone can suffice. In Pascal’s words: “Vanity of science- Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.”59 There is no form of conscience which naturally precedes science, and without conscience science is vain and incapable of resolving the tribulations of existence. So it is Pascal, an uncontested master of geometry, who points out that which the abstract sciences cannot comprehend, namely the multiplicity of existence. Not that he totally disdains geometry, which earned him a certain degree of fame within his lifetime, but he downplays its significance, its profundity and, above all, its inability to sound the depths of the human soul; he knocks it down a peg or two, pointing out its failure to appreciate the variety of human phenomena. As for Kierkegaard, despite the extremely rigorous, quasi-mathematical structure of his work, and the thematic sequencing of his major writings, his vision of the sciences is clearly not that of a scientist.60 Pascal would probably have “pardoned his little knowledge,” and he would surely have agreed with Kierkegaard’s criticism of the absurd, contradictory status of the ‘man of science’: “The true difficulty of the sciences is completely overlooked. We suppose that everybody, including scholars, has an ethical understanding of what they should do in the world – and so some devote themselves to science. Take the example of a man of science who prays… there he is busily engaged in proving the existence of God. But how can he pray fervently when his very being is split by this contradiction? And if he prays f­ ervently, some will ask how he manages the transition from his prayers back to his scientific work, or how, as a man of science, he understands himself through prayer, and how he can call himself a man of science while praying.”61 Kierkegaard here reminds us  Even if, as Firtak comments: “If it were the case that research in the natural sciences could make any discoveries that would clarify mental or spiritual life, Kierkegaard writes, than “I’d be the first to get my hands on a microscope”. His aim is not to disparage biology or physics, but to point out that the sort of thing he cares about as a moral psychologist does not yield to scientific investigation” (p. 60). R. A. FURTAK, Love and the discipline of philosophy, p. 60. 59  Laf. 23, Br. 67. 60  Høffding, in his Pascal et Kierkegaard, explains that: “In psychology, the most important thing is to assign the various phenomena to different types, to identify in thought with each of these types and to seek out their motives and preoccupations. In these circumstances, mathematical reasoning would be out of place; only a “sense of finesse,” a subtle understanding of types and nuances, will allow us to untangle the distinctive elements and identify them in their various combinations.” H. HØFFDING, Pascal et Kierkegaard, 230. 61  VII A 28, Vol 1: 379. 58

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of the attachment to evidence shared by all men of science. How can this natural inclination, so like a vocation, be reconciled with the freedom to believe in that for which there is no evidence? Indeed how can we imagine a scientist praying, other than to ask for proof of the reasons which drive him to prayer? In order to avoid such questions we must suppose, as Kierkegaard puts it, “that everybody, including scholars, has an ethical understanding of what they should do in the world – and so some devote themselves to science.” But this postulate is the very core of the problem, and science has no answer to such ethical questions. Pascal is unequivocal in this respect, complaining that his study of the abstract sciences caused him to “wander farther from my own state.” The question is how one becomes a man of science, since it seems that one is not born into this condition, so a process of becoming must be required. Ultimately, since for mathematics man is just one proposition among many, and in this respect the science offers its practitioners the opportunity to lose themselves in futile, abstract research, it ends up inspiring the same “disheartenment” as philosophy.62 Even geometry, after a certain point, does not merit the slightest consideration, as Pascal put it in a letter to Pierre de Fermat – the celebrated mathematician whose correspondence with the philosopher laid the foundations of probability theory – dated 10 August 1660. This repudiation of philosophical and scientific methods and intentions, shared by both authors, sets them aside from the great majority of philosophers. Even Paul Ricoeur, for example, who argues for an impermeable line between faith and conviction, particularly with regard to philosophy, would earn the approval of neither Pascal nor Kierkegaard, since in their view criticism and conviction are permanently intertwined. Their philosophical visions of Christianity diverge since our antiphilosophers do not consider conviction to be independent of philosophy, it is not a non-philosophical instant. Precisely because it is not a form of philosophical agnosticism, Christian antiphilosophy finds in this “call to love which resounds from a further, higher place,”63 a reason to philosophise on that which cannot be philosophically rationalised. Pascal’s status as a Christian antiphilosopher is nowhere more evident than in those passages where he mocks reason and defines Christianity as the essential category of thought. Where he chides philosophy’s fundamental impotence and vain claims to self-sufficiency (even if this were possible), revealing its inability to recognise its own limitations. For the Christian antiphilosopher, or the antiphilosopher of Christianity, no man is devoid of belief. And perhaps the most remarkable belief of all is that “the truths conceived by the spirit are eternal.” In this respect philosophy too depends on a wager, it is not immune to a priori assumptions, not without a certain credulity. The idea that God is an idea born of our need for a God, roundly dismissed by our two antiphilosophers, is no more credible than the idea that reason alone can lead us to the truth, and particularly the truth about God.

62 63

 Laf. 687.  P. RICOEUR, La critique et la conviction, 220.

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1  Introduction: The Pascal of the North, the French Kierkegaard

General Outline for an Antiphilosophy of Christianity A parallel, critical reading of the works of Pascal and Kierkegaard, classic exponents of Christian antiphilosophy, with specific focus on the Journals and the Pensées: such is my ambition for this book. My aim is not to demonstrate the philosophical nature of their thought, this task having been ably accomplished by Vincent Carraud and Hélène Politis in recent works, no more than it is to depict antiphilosophy as anything other than an authentic philosophy as understood by these two eminent antiphilosophers. Nor do I propose to approach these two thinkers in terms of continuity-discontinuity: Pascal is no more a predecessor to Kierkegaard than he is a “proto-Kierkegaardian.” As Henri Gouhier puts it: “The work of authors such as Le Guern and Philippe Sellier has highlighted the importance of Cartesian and Augustinian influences, helping to demolish the myth of a romantic or Kierkegaardian Pascal, tragically condemned by his Jansenism to oscillate between scepticism and fideism.”64 Henri Gouhier is right in this respect; depicting Pascal as Kierkegaardian is clearly not an adequate description of the French thinker. Nor is presenting Kierkegaard as a Scandinavian Pascalian because his notes reveal that he had read Pascal, or attempting to view Pascal through a Kierkegaardian lens, or portraying him as a precocious post-Kierkegaardian: not only are these historical absurdities, they are errors of judgement since, and on this point at least commentators are generally in agreement, Pascal and Kierkegaard are decidedly “singular” thinkers. I shall therefore limit myself to analysing the potential parallels in the conceptual structures and general outlines of their work – even when it means acknowledging the thwarted influence of Saint Augustine on the construction of Kierkegaard’s philosophy and that of Descartes (and Saint Augustine too) on Pascal –. Along the way I shall hone in on the many points at which their philosophies overlap, studying in detail the properties they share while remaining true to the spirit of both authors, in a manner which will become clear as we go on. I thus intend to examine how two masters without disciples or heirs can still inspire “reflexive rediscovery through an act of personal re-appropriation.”65 I should make clear from the outset that my endeavour is also informed by a wealth of secondary literature, including the commentaries of Jean Wahl and André Clair, of course, but also those of thinkers as diverse as Lev Shestov, Hélène Politis, Vincent Delecroix, Henri-Bernard Vergotte, and Jean Brun (some of them being not so well-known in the Anglo-American Kierkegaardian studies), all of whom drew parallels between Pascal and Kierkegaard. Finally, as should be clear from the very first paragraphs of this work, I have been greatly inspired by Badiou’s category of antiphilosophy. Above all I have made use of his concept of “triangular machinery” – truth, word and act – to structure and frame my comparative analysis.66 But I should begin by making one thing very

 H. GOUHIER, Blaise Pascal – Conversion et apologétique, 131.  A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard, Penser le singulier, 9. 66  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 31. 64 65

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clear: what interests me here is not Badiou’s views on “Christian mumbo-jumbo,”67 or what he elsewhere describes as a “fable,”68 topics already addressed by Phelps69. The latter adroitly demonstrates how Badiou’s notion of the Event (e.g. St Paul) is symptomatic of an antiphilosophical instant which may also be, and certainly is in my view, an indicator of all that it is paradoxical in Badiou’s essentially anti-­ theological approach, having already established the inalienably philosophical nature of antiphilosophy. Nevertheless, I shall not refrain from making full use of the “formal traits” of this definition, to which he returns on several occasions over the course of his seminars and which feature prominently in Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3: “We shall recall that there are three formal traits of antiphilosophy: 1. Destitution of philosophy from its theoretical pretentions, a destitution which always works by discrediting, and not centrally or primarily through refutation. 2. Exposing the true nature of the philosophical operation. Behind the purported, discredited theoretical pretention there lurks a truly philosophical intention, which needs to be identified by antiphilosophy itself because it is, generally speaking, obscured from view by the philosopher. 3. Opposition to the philosophical act reconstituted as a new type of act, a radically “other” act which completes the destitution of philosophy.”70 These three traits, discrediting (truth), denaturation (proto-act) and destitution (act in itself) form the basis for the structure of this book, providing a thematic and conceptual framework of three interlinking movements. This three-tiered, or three-­termed, structure can also be compared to that employed by Jacques Colette in his Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie. Colette’s analysis is also based on a triple variation, breaking with the traditional structure of philosophical argument and framed around three instants which he defines as impregnation, destitution and subversion.71 I shall nonetheless prioritise Badiou’s methodology, and what he himself calls the “great triangulation of antiphilosophical machinery,”72 convinced that somewhere between the first stage (discrediting philosophy) and the final movement (subverting philosophy), corresponding to the second and fourth chapters of this book, lies the instant of the antiphilosophical posture which defines the thought of Pascal and Kierkegaard, based on the notions of faith and wagers. I shall address these matters in greater depth in the third part of my analysis. Finally, in the fifth chapter of this book I propose my own series of post-Jansenist meditations, inviting readers to tease out the connections with a number of contemporary debates.

 A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 1988, 208.  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 2013, 110. 69  H. PHELPS. Alain Badiou. Between Theology and Anti-theology. 70  Ibid. 71  J. COLETTE, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie, particularly Chap. 9. 72  A. BADIOU, A. Lacan, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 31. 67 68

Chapter 2

Mocking Philosophy

Abstract  Pascal and Kierkegaard, throughout their short lives, remained aloof from philosophy and its scholars, which no doubt explains their relative isolation within the history of ideas. There is certainly no denying that the arguments which Pascal and Kierkegaard deploy against philosophy are themselves derived from philosophical sources; although they may not have identified as philosophers, it would nonetheless be wholly unreasonable to write them out of the philosophical tradition. However, it is generally against this tradition that their anti-philosophical arguments are directed: to philosophise, Pascal explains, is to mock philosophy, where Kierkegaard would specify “objectivist or systematically oriented philosophies.” This mockery often takes the form of antiphilosophical writing in which pseudonymity plays an important role. The authors’ attempts to transcend the framework of philosophy can perhaps lead us to a better understanding of the duality of the human condition. Keywords  Adam · Descartes · Discredit · Free-thinkers · Hegel · Singular-individual · Reason · Stoicism · System · Writing

A Philosophical Critique of Reason Throughout their relatively brief lives, Pascal and Kierkegaard both maintained a certain distance from philosophy and its practitioners, which no doubt goes some way toward explaining their relatively isolated positions in the history of ideas. Neither founded a school or chapel, staffed with zealous disciples ready to perpetuate the legacy of their thought. Should we therefore consider them to be definitively excluded from the philosophical community? The reality is more complex, as Hélène Politis makes clear in her analysis of Kierkegaard, illustrating the extent to which his positions “appear more fine and nuanced when we consider the texts both in their own right and in relation to one another.1 There is certainly no denying that 1  Politis adds that: “(...) Looking at a specific example confirms the intuition derived from my initial analysis: firstly, that Kierkegaard did not talk lightly of other philosophers and that even his throwaway jokes are based on information gleaned from the finest sources; secondly, that it is

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7_2

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the arguments which Pascal and Kierkegaard deploy against philosophy are themselves derived from philosophical sources; although they may not have identified as philosophers, it would nonetheless be wholly unreasonable to write them out of the philosophical tradition. Kierkegaard certainly thought as much with regard to Pascal, noting in his Papers that: “Cousin sees Pascal as an enemy of philosophy in general: despairing of the possibility of finding truth through reason, he gratefully bends to the authority of faith and combines ‘boundless scepticism with convulsive piety’.” He goes on to add that: “Neander clearly demonstrates that this is a pure contradiction in terms, that Pascal merely highlights praxis and find its ‘ridiculous that reason should require the heart to furnish proof of its first principles before accepting them; and it would be almost equally as ridiculous for the heart to demand that reason express its feelings about all of the propositions it proposed, in order for them to be admissible.’”2 This passage is of fundamental importance to my argument: not only does Kierkegaard affirm the incontestably philosophical nature of Pascal’s work, but in doing so he also clarifies and defends his own position. Anticipating the accusations which would soon be levelled against him, Kierkegaard pre-emptively asserts the legitimacy and philosophical character of his work. He gladly takes up Pascal’s distinction between heart and reason, demonstrating the fundamental contradiction implicit in presenting reason as the basis for its opposite. Kierkegaard contends that critical and philosophical reflection is what allows us to affirm that the heart and reason are discrete forces. Being a philosopher is not a matter of venerating philosophy as a religion founded on pure reason, nor seeking salvation via the universal path of reason, as some of the more zealous representatives of the philosophical tradition would have us believe. True philosophy is about leaving room for that ineffable “other” force which Pascal calls the heart. Hence Pascal’s celebrated aphorism that “to mock philosophy is to be a true philosopher.”3 As such, and by his own definition, Pascal is very much an antiphilosopher, in the sense that his thought is disruptive, constituting “a fatal action, unrelated to any existing system of thought (…) cementing his divergence from the discursive system.”4 In his brief study of Pascal, Jean Brun notes that “he was one of the rare few, along with Kierkegaard and Shestov, who had the audacity to proclaim that the truth did not lie where men claimed to have discovered it.”5 The scope of philosophy is thus broadened to encompass the distant realm of radiant reason, and the more immediate realities of obscurantism and superstition. But if all this were true, how would we account for the dismissive attitude of our two thinkers with regard to

never advisable to make rash generalisations based on his occasionally pejorative references to philosophy, and certainly not to conclude from such remarks that he ‘was not a philosopher’.” H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 654. 2  X3 A 609, Vol 4: 166 / §3109. 3  Laf. 513, Br. 4. 4  A. BADIOU, Nietzsche L’Antiphilosophie, 155. 5  J. BRUN, La philosophie de Pascal, 114

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philosophy, which “isn’t worth an hour’s trouble?”6 Pascal displays a form of principled opposition to philosophy, and makes it clear that he is not writing for the benefit of philosophers; addressing them directly would be like talking to a beginner, a clumsy and thankless apprentice. By virtue of their status, philosophers are powerless (and probably ill-suited) to grasp the true meaning of the issue. They are out of contention, by default. As for Kierkegaard, we must first insist upon the distinction between the expression of truth which is accessible to all, particularly in matters of religion, and the very different expression of truth employed by philosophers with all their fateful carelessness and insincere gravity: “And yet, I cannot abandon the idea that we are all, absolutely all of us, no matter how simple or sick we may be, capable of the supreme understanding, that of religion. If this idea is false, then Christianity is essentially nothing more than nonsense. I am constantly appalled at the frivolity of philosophers and their ilk when they begin to introduce categories such as genius, talent etc. into the religious sphere. Little do they know that this is tantamount to abolishing religion.”7 The artifices and abstractions of philosophical language, the chimaera of pure being which would have us forget our very existence, had become the worst enemies of philosophy in its most noble sense.8 Kierkegaard had no interest whatsoever in the search for so-called ‘objective’ truth, that is to say truth without any direct connection to the person experiencing it, but nonetheless considered “consequential” from a purely logical perspective. What use could such a truth possibly be to the individual-as-person, who will never find satisfaction in things learned “second or third hand?”9 This position is reminiscent of Pascal’s assertion that knowledge of external things is no consolation in times of sadness or misfortune. Both thinkers were wary of “excessively formalist logic, bogged down in subtle distinctions,”10 and distracting us from what Kierkegaard calls the “supreme understanding.” Their objections had much to do with the language of philosophy and its inaccessibility to the common man. And yet, in Kierkegaard’s view, that common man was every bit as equipped as a philosopher to attain the supreme understanding. Philosophical language, envisioned as an asset, thus becomes nothing more than an obstacle athwart the path which leads to truth.

 Laf. 84, Br. 79..  X28 A 348, Vol 3: 306 / §1017. 8  Postscript, 11: 5 / XII (Vol 1): 305. 9  “Just as in domestic life there is a type of person who, as it is excellently phrased, peddles gossip among families, so there are a goodly number of men who, with regard to the question of unifying Christianity and philosophy, do nothing but gossip. Because, without knowing either party very well, they have gotten to know in a second or third-hand way some eminent professor who, during his travels overseas, took tea with some great scholar or other…” II A 52, Vol 1: 104 / 1570. 10  H.  MICHON, L’ordre du coeur  - Philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal, 15. 6 7

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With its pretentions to systematicity and comprehensiveness, turned in upon itself, that language has lost the ability to address those questions with which it should be most concerned. As Pascal puts it, “(...) almost all philosophers confuse ideas and things.”11 Or, as Pierre Bourdieu rephrases it, they confuse the “things of logic” with the “logic of things.”12In these conditions philosophy becomes the worst sort of diversion: a secondary ability, a barren light, a “derisory science.”13It becomes a science of subsidiary, partial questions, a representation of all that is inauthentic and inessential. It is a distraction from our real condition, a distraction afflicting that school of thought which believes itself capable of speaking eloquently of God, of God ravalé à un pur objet de savoir, of God in the form of a concept which keeps us as far removed from him as possible. At root, this philosophy is a diversion leading us further away from the God of the heart. Ultimately, it represents an impoverishment of thought, a game of trivial questions and answers occupying the space which should be occupied by the most crucial of all debates, the real “life and death question.”14 Philosophy obstructs the path to truth, a force as impotent as “a dry nurse, (that) watches our every step but cannot give us succour,” to use Kierkegaard’s colourful expression.15Philosophy is content to speculate, leaving real life to one side. The neglect of practical considerations is a complaint levelled against philosophy by both authors, who value the study of man and his existence over the examination of abstract concepts.16 Kierkegaard notes that concepts can be kept entirely separate from existence, despite the fact that existence is an inescapable fact for any “individual, animal, plant or human.” This observation provides an opportunity for Kierkegaard to once again challenge the philosophy of his age, entirely occupied with imagining the “eternity of concepts”17 and apparently uninterested in defining the place of man in the world, a place which surely cannot be explained in purely conceptual, formalist terms. Both Kierkegaard and Pascal accuse Western philosophy of excessive use and abuse of concepts. As Pierre Magnard notes, in this respect “Pascal, a nominalist, prefigured Kierkegaard the ironic critic of the system and of ‘intoxicated concepts.’”18  Laf. 199, Br. 72 (360).  P. BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, Les trois formes de l’erreur scolastique, 94. 13  H.  MICHON, L’ordre du cœur  - Philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal, 16. 14  Ibid.: 15/16. 15  II A 59, 1834/1846, Vol 1: 105 / §3252. 16  “Like Pascal, Kierkegaard was of the opinion that our personal lives require thought, but thought applied to the realities which underpin our existence” writes Høffding in one of the first articles to examine the connections between the philosophies of Pascal and Kierkegaard. “Kierkegaard distinguishes between ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ forms of knowledge, classing the following in the latter category: natural sciences, philology, history and pure philosophy. All of which are forms of thought which are of no use when it comes to defining our position in relation to the capital question of life and death.” H. HØFFDING, Pascal & Kierkegaard, 233. 17  X2 A 328, Vol 3: 300 / §1057. 18  P. MAGNARD, Pascal dialecticien, Pascal présent, Commémoration du tricentenaire, 261. 11 12

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In Kierkegaard’s view, the idea of an “eternity of concepts” inevitably raises the question of the immortality of the soul. Although writing in a different context, Pascal adopts a similar yet more forceful position when he lambasts “the falsehood of philosophers who do not address the immortality of the soul,”19 declaring that “It is certain that the mortality or immortality of the soul must make an entire difference to morality. And yet philosophers have constructed their ethics in wilful ignorance of this.”20 Both thinkers consider the prospect of philosophical reflection which fails to take this possibility into consideration to be at once a hazardous and dubious undertaking. The other key argument in the arsenal of antiphilosophy is the corrupted use of language. The very technicality of philosophical language is thus presented as symptomatic of the corruption of philosophy itself. Pascal was dismissive of the ‘grandiose’21 titles of philosophical treatises with pretentions to universal authority (“On the Principle of Things” etc.). Kierkegaard, meanwhile, sent his works into the world bearing titles far less presumptuous than those generally employed by his philosophical contemporaries (Philosophical Fragments, Postscript etc.). Above and beyond considerations of form, and particularly linguistic form, Kierkegaard and Pascal both developed their positions based on the philosophical use of reason itself. Let us not forget that Pascal, as a committed physicist and geometrician, was not against using reason to understand nature’s works. He simply bowed to that which surpasses nature and, in the process, surpasses reason. He frequently reminds us that, of the truths available to us, very few “enter” our minds by means of reason: “I refer only to those truths within our grasp; the spirit and the heart are the doors through which such truths penetrate to our soul. But very few of them enter via the spirit, instead being crowded in by the reckless whims of will, without the sage counsel of reason.”22 For example, truths derived from the observation of nature’s works are objective truths, and as such are incapable of leading us to personal edification. This disparaging view of reason and its power also has echoes in Kierkegaard: “(...) which brings me back to another phenomenon, the largely pitiful state of rationalism (…) today’s rationalists are prepared, just like the Roman consul, to throw the sacred hens overboard if they will not eat. Their fallacy is that when they are in agreement with Scripture they take it as their basis, but otherwise they do not, thus playing a double game.”23 This double game involved playing off Christianity against rationalism, which the partisans of the latter sought to link with the former to such an extent that they would become conflated in a form of rationalist, natural theology. But Christianity has at its heart something which surpasses reason and which, by definition, rationalists cannot accept. They can only

 Laf. 410, Br. 413.  Laf. 612, Br. 219. 21  Laf. 199, Br. 72. 22  Pensées, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 355. 23  I A 72, Vol 1: 46–47, §5092. 19 20

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understand Christianity in terms of a satisfactory response to a “reasonable” human need, the need to not be alone. The target here is not so much rationalists as it is our capacity for reasoning. As Pascal puts it: “We do not say that those who seek the sun at noon, or water in the sea, will find it. And so clearly the evidence of God is not of such a kind in nature. It [Scripture] also tells us elsewhere: Vere tu es Deus Absconditus.”24 Reductive reason strives to ascertain the truth if and only if this knowledge falls within its strictly delimited field of application. Reason seeks the immediacy of evidence, therein lies its reductive essence. But sometimes, paradoxically and particularly in philosophy, it does so through the use of forms which render it incomprehensible, as Kierkegaard never tired of observing with regard to the Hegelian tradition. This reductive reason knows nothing of the reasons of the heart, and appeals only to “critical” reason. There are two competing concepts of reason in play here: the first is central to Pascal’s critique, which is that reason is by definition incapable of comprehending faith; the other is self-reflexively critical, defining its own limitations and engaging in what is ultimately the greatest of all struggles.25 For this latter vision of reason is at war with facility, engaged in a constant struggle with a part of itself: using reason to examine the heart, and using the heart to examine itself. From this struggle of reason against itself, and the recognition of its limitations, emerges Kierkegaard’s concept of reduplication.26 With this concept Kierkegaard seeks to offer a critique of reason as a limited force, not to offer a defence of unreasonableness. Kierkegaard has indeed drawn some interest from the scientific community, including various interpretations of Fear and Trembling, which generally tend to agree that the irrational position, and its implications of ‘blind fanaticism’, deserves to be roundly rejected.27 Hannay and Gordon, for example, regard Kierkegaard’s irrationality as a sort of interpretative mythology, making the philosopher “an irrationalist in some sense that denies the value of clear and honest thinking.” But if “Kierkegaard did deny the ability of reasoned thought to arrive at universal and objective truth on matters of value,”28 there is no reason to suggest that this position was not in fact perfectly reasonable and thoughtful. On this subject, it is worth remembering that Kierkegaard ultimately decided not to publish his The Book on Adler, despite rewriting it three times, so as not to have his name associated with this peripheral figure and risk raising his profile in the process. The Adler in question was vicar of the parish of Hasle and Rutsker on the island of Bornholm, and a contemporary of Kierkegaard. Adler claimed to write under direct orders from Jesus Christ himself, who demanded that he throw all of  Isaiah 45:15: “Indeed, you are a hidden God.” Laf. 781, Br. 242.  For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, 18: 122 / XXI: 69. 26  “The action of struggling against oneself is reduplication, just as the pressure on the plough determines the depth of the furrow; whereas any effort whose action is not a struggle with itself simply smooths things, superficially.” X2 A 560, Vol 3: 389 / 6593. 27  J. DAVENPORT, Love and the discipline of philosophy, 206. 28  A. HANNAY. G. MARINO, Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, p. 1. 24 25

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his previous work on Hegel into the fire. Kierkegaard saw Adler as the archetypal fantasist, totally divorced from reason and to be treated with suspicion. So while “Kierkegaard’s thought stands in opposition to systematic reason (Aristotle, Hegel)... We might describe this vein of thought as transreason, an alternative to both empiricism and a priori assumptions »29. In this respect, Kierkegaard is certainly no romantic fideist. As for Pascal, he too defends the value of reason and warned against the “excessive” zeal of discarding it out of hand.30 He does so not so much to disparage the “heart” as a reason for believing, which would go against the grain of his thought as discussed heretofore, but rather to demonstrate the shortcomings of “reason” as an exclusive explanation for belief or the absence of it. In Pascal’s view, the use of reason – in the original sense of the term, that joylessly “reasoning” reason incapable of perceiving its own limitations – fatally compromises its own “reasons” for believing (just as, when one is obliged to list one’s “reasons” for loving something or somebody, love has already left the building). Pascal contests the validity of first-­ degree reason, that which has no understanding of the heart, in order to show believers that they are in fact damned, that reason disdains faith on its own terms. But we also get a glimpse of the antiphilosopher lurking beneath the surface of Pascal the Christian: he subsequently accepts that the heart too has its reasons, opening the door to a second system of critical rationality, this one truly antiphilosophical, evoking the potential reduplication of reason in relation to itself, in an effort to unlock new powers of thought and create the possibility of faith.

Facing the Philosophers The status of philosophers was a matter of no small concern for Pascal: the term appears no fewer than thirty-two times in the Pensées,31 and is a central theme of the Interview with Mr. de Sacy. It was also a constant preoccupation for Kierkegaard. Their disavowal of philosophers, men capable of lucidity and critical thinking, was by no means absolute. Their value judgements were not trained upon specific thinkers – those who neglected God, for example – but at the practice of philosophy in general. They reserved special contempt for professional philosophers in their “pedants’ gowns”. It is worth noting that Pascal does not include Aristotle or Plato among their number, describing them as “upstanding people like everybody else, laughing with their friends.”32.

 J. CARON, Kierkegaard français, 174.  Laf. 183, Br. 253. 31  Vincent Carraud notes that this figure does not include the times the term appears in the Mémorial. V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 102. 32  Laf. 533, Br. 331. 29 30

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Kierkegaard was forever criticising professional philosophers, and rarely missed an opportunity to mock them33, but his critique was at once broader and more precise. Broader in that it encompassed the entire philosophical tradition, ancient and modern, whereas reserved the title “philosopher” for the ancient authorities. And more precise because Kierkegaard’s grievances with philosophers are always highly explicit. He is not afraid to name  – and frequently to quote, particularly in the Papirer – the many philosophers whose works he studied. Not least among whom was Pascal. Pascal was particularly scathing about the pride of philosophers, manifested by those who know God but do not realise their own weakness. They are aware of just one truth which, when not backed up by an understanding of the corruption inherent in nature and the corresponding misery of man in his natural state, serves only to lead them further astray. The arrogance of philosophers has a mirror image in what Pascal calls “the despair of the atheists, who know their own misery without knowing the Redeemer.34 Kierkegaard expresses a remarkably similar sentiment when he declares that “for the philosophers, all knowledge, even the existence of God, originates with man, making it ‘incorrect to speak of revelation’.”35 The distinguishing feature of philosophers is thus not so much a refusal to accept God, but a refusal to accept revelation of any kind; they are definitively bound by their incapacity, in the Christian sense of the term, to believe. For both Kierkegaard and Pascal, the roots of this sickness can be traced back to the pagan philosophical pioneers, and particularly the Stoics. Pascal maintains that Stoicism and Pyrrhonism are the two schools of thought which essentially sum up ancient philosophy in its entirety, and whose influence continued to be felt in the philosophy of his contemporaries. Stoicism, of which the former slave Epictetus is perhaps the most emblematic exponent, emphasises the independence of man, praises his conditional wisdom, glorifies his detachment from the material world. As Lev Shestov puts it, “it is worth noting here that in spite of his affinity with Epictetus, whose austere lifestyle and indifference to worldly things are appealing to many people even now, Pascal detected in this personage something which was totally inimical to his own beliefs, something he described as ‘diabolical pride.’ Strangely enough, Kierkegaard too was suspicious of Epictetus and referred to him as a slave, in the sense that he was subjugated – on the subject of suicide – to an irreversible position. Furthermore, although direct references to the Stoicism embodied by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are few and far between in the pseudonymous works (though more numerous in the Papirer), it seems clear that Kierkegaard’s view of them becomes more critical the more closely he looks. As Rick Anthony Furtak puts it in one of his series of studies on this subject, “on the topic of ‘authentic pathos’, Kierkegaard 33  “For that, grab an editor, a philosopher, a hairdresser or any passer-by and enquire about the pressures of time.” Prefaces, 7: 273 / IX: 13. 34  Laf. 449, Br. 556. 35  II A 523, Vol 1: 174 / §2266.

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praises the same ‘vulnerability toward emotion’ that a Stoic would guard against”36. For Kierkegaard, there was nothing quite so improbable or undesirable as a soul in search of affective invincibility, since the very essence of existence is to pursue passion, which we might also call love, something to which the Stoics appear largely indifferent. The Christian position is thus far removed from the heroic, unfeeling and vain attitude of the ancient philosophers, accepting suffering as a form of self-­ revelation. Suffering is to be understood as a psychosomatic phenomenon, certainly, but also as a force which can be surmounted with genuine joy. We might even infer from the Papirer that God Himself is pure pathos, whereas the Stoic remains ­irremediably isolated, pursuing, at the expense of his emotional capacities, a cognitive autonomy which remains as unattainable as it is counter-productive. In fact, I feel that we would not be far wrong in suggesting that he shared Pascal’s uneasiness in the presence of Epictetus and his ‘diabolical pride’.”37 Although Pascal was certainly a more thorough and attentive reader of Epictetus than Kierkegaard, the latter expressed his perplexity at the Stoic’s serene disposition on several occasions. He was every bit as disdainful of the Stoic “peace of the soul” as Pascal had been. He was particularly dismissive of the Stoic approval of suicide, despite its metaphysical implications, seeing it as an artful blend of despair and impotence.38 Not to mention the pride, the singular pretentiousness, the self-­satisfied sensuality inherent to Stoicism, which certainly displeased both authors. Their rejection of philosophy did not just extend to the ancient authorities; modern thinkers were treated with equal suspicion, and not least the two pre-eminent philosophical figures of their respective ages: Descartes and Hegel. Pascal can thus be seen as the standard-bearer for anti-Cartesianism in the seventeenth century, and Kierkegaard for anti-Hegelianism in the nineteenth. This idea brings to mind a remark made by Jean Beaufret at the Kierkegaard colloquium held at UNESCO in April 1964, in response to a question from Jean Wahl regarding Heidegger: “Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Hegel echoes Pascal’s view of Descartes.” An interpretation which reminds us that, in Pascal as in Kierkegaard, the human condition cannot be reduced to the possibilities offered by a complex scientific or mathematical system. Should we thus follow Jean Brun in distinguishing between the philosophies of “I think” on the one hand, which held sway in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and the philosophies of “I am” on the other?39 What actually becomes apparent here is the similarity between the two French thinkers on the one hand, and the German and Dane on the other, i.e. the common denominator between Pascal’s anti-Cartesianism and Kierkegaard’s anti-Hegelianism.40 But the question remains

 R. A. FURTAK, Kierkergaard and Greek philosophy, 139.  L. SHESTOV, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, 231. 38  “If we wished to assign a general name to this despair, we might call it Stoicism.” 16: 224 / XIX: 68. 39  J. BRUN, La philosophie de Pascal, 75. 40  Which André Clair defines as their “post-(anti)Cartesian and post-(anti)Hegelian positions.” A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 517. 36 37

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as to whether we can truly state that Hegel was to Kierkegaard what Descartes was to Pascal. In Badiou’s view, one of the defining characteristics of the antiphilosopher is to always be in opposition to the greatest philosopher of the age: “every antiphilosopher has their chosen philosopher, their preferred scapegoat. If we were to ask Pascal who most embodied philosophy, he would certainly say Descartes. But what Pascal sees in Descartes goes above and beyond Descartes the thinker; he serves as a tutelary figure for ‘philosophy’ in general. In Pascal’s view, philosophy is a sophisticated form of diversion. Philosophy diverts our attention, preventing us from realising the reality of our situation.”41 In this respect Kierkegaard’s repudiation of Hegel is comparable to Pascal’s disavowal of Descartes, both symptomatic of a broader objection to philosophy itself. Kierkegaard’s anti-Hegelianism is in fact a form of antiphilosophy. And for Pascal, opposing Descartes means “disavowing philosophy”42 as an end in its own right, though not as a means. In their view philosophy negates the individuality of human existence, pushing us towards a form of pantheism which Pascal abhorred every bit as much as Kierkegaard. Hence André Clair’s assertion that Descartes and Hegel “as figures are representative of their respective eras, historical circumstances carrying an injunction to think with reference to these figures.”43 A different view of philosophy. Kierkegaard’s critique of this tradition reaches its zenith in his charges against Hegel’s contributions to philosophy, his surreptitious destruction of the inalienably specific character of Christianity. Hegel is the classic anti-Christian philosopher, much more so than Feuerbach or any other free-thinker. The latter are primarily opponents of Christian tradition rather than Christianity itself, as Kierkegaard would have it. Hegel’s philosophical denial of the Christ is tantamount to a denial of the history of the world, all while attempting to reconcile the mere theatre of the world as we know it with the truths of Christianity. For the Danish ‘poet-philosopher’, this was entirely unacceptable. Interior and exterior are not one and the same: religion establishes a clear separation between interior and exterior, a point to which Kierkegaard returns frequently (and to which we shall return a little later). The interiority of faith, which must not be confused with any form of quantitative or qualitative knowledge, cannot be reconciled with the exteriority of the world. The believer is not imbued with an objective knowledge, but instead with a subjective passion: Hegel is not beyond compare, Abraham is. Belief is not a stage in the process of knowledge, a milestone on the itinerary of the spirit; it is a position which precludes the possibility of any such journey. There is no point in examining Christianity solely by the light of conceptual, speculative considerations: “speculators too were baptised at the age of two weeks.”44 The question of the nature of Christianity must be asked by “a man who knows that his place is on the plane of existence with which

 A. BADIOU, Lacan, L’antiphilosophie 3, 82.  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 37. 43  A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 519. 44  Postcript, 11: 72. 41 42

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he is concerned.”45 The religion of Christ is not to be studied, it is to be sought. Quite simply because it cannot be understood unless those who seek it “take the trouble to search,” as Pascal would have it.46 With their heads, but above all with their hearts. In Michel Le Guern’s opinion, it is impossible to fully appreciate the contribution of Pascal without reference to Descartes.47Despite distancing himself from Descartes, Pascal nonetheless has a certain affinity with the Cartesian critique of the philosophical tradition initiated by the Greeks, and the confusion within that tradition. In some respects Pascal is a Cartesian, just as Kierkegaard is to some extent a Hegelian: both conduct their investigations within the framework defined by their illustrious forebears. Their goal is to demonstrate the shortcomings of these perspectives, to insist upon difference, nuance and a radical shift. And while we might describe Pascal’s philosophy as post-Cartesian – on chronological grounds if nothing else: when they met in September 1647 Descartes was 51 and Pascal 2448 – it is best defined in opposition to Cartesianiam, from which it partly stems. We might even argue that Pascal’s philosophy is post-Cartesian by nature, anti-Cartesian by choice. The unifying theme which runs through his work puts him clearly at odds with Descartes: what Pascal contests is not the idea of using reason wisely, but rather the Cartesian belief that all truth is to be sought through science. It is at this precise point, the vanity of seeking profound revelation in science, that their philosophies part ways.49 Self-satisfied and yet entirely incapable of grasping the essential truth of the destiny facing man and the world, Pascal frequently criticises science in a manner which marks him out as a loyal Port-Royalist. Despite claiming on multiple occasions that he was incapable of understanding the works of the greatest philosopher of his century, Kierkegaard was nonetheless entirely conversant with the Hegelian system. These ironic confessions of ignorance actually serve to demonstrate just how familiar he was with the core concepts of Hegel’s philosophy, which he began studying in his early years at University. We should not forget that, perhaps with the exception of Socrates, Hegel was the philosopher whom Kierkegaard most intensively studied. And these studies were to have an undeniable impact on his work and the concepts he utilised: contradiction, synthesis, dialectics and “the leap” are all concepts which Kierkegaard directly appropriated from Hegel’s toolset. Jean Wahl is not entirely wrong to suggest that

 Ibid., 71.  “Greatness - Religion is so great a thing that it is only fair that those who would not take the trouble to search for it, if it were hidden, should be deprived of it. So what is there to complain of, when it can be so easily found if one simply looks?” Laf. 472, Br. 574. 47  M. LE GUERN, Pascal et Descartes, 178. 48  A difference of twenty-seven years. Kierkegaard and Hegel never met; the age gap between them was fifteen years greater. 49  “There is surely a direct refutation of Cartesian intellectualism to be found in that passage where Pascal demonstrates the absurdity of attempting to deduce the circumference of the universe from its centre. What he describes is effectively a parody of the rationalist, Cartesian method.” H. HØFFDING, Pascal et Kierkegaard, 338. 45 46

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“Kierkegaard was initially attracted by Hegelian philosophy, and not just by what he called ‘this severe form, which seems to demand silence,’ but by its efforts to grasp the concept at the heart of the phenomenon without destroying the reality of that phenomenon, by the idea of concrete reason, by the belief in a totality that can help us to understand both the essence of the universe and the essence of the individual; surely any genuine individuality is a totality enclosed within itself, yet at the same time encompassed by a broader totality?”50 In certain respects, we might tentatively describe Kierkegaard’s philosophy as post-Hegelian. As Ricoeur notes, Kierkegaard is only truly accessible and comprehensible if one has a working knowledge of Hegel’s philosophy.51 And yet, this feigned humility actually reveals Kierkegaard’s acute antagonism for the complex categorical structures of the German thinker, and the categorical resistance which he opposed to the Hegelian tradition. This dynamic of opposition is important: in a substantial part of his philosophical output, culminating in the Postscript, Kierkegaard defines his position in opposition to Hegel. His critique is first and foremost a critique of the Hegelian “system,” which is certainly intellectually sophisticated, but also redolent of intellectual sophistry. As with Pascal’s critique of Descartes, if not more so, Kierkegaard’s polemical tone undoubtedly colored the reception of his ideas by the philosophical establishment. In their eyes Kierkegaard was operating in a register beyond the confines of philosophy. In fairness, Kierkegaard did insist upon directing his critique at the work of Hegel directly, rather than at the contemporary Danish professors who represented his philosophical legacy, and whom he treated with a different strain of ironic disdain, befitting their acolyte status. Kierkegaard opposed Hegel’s philosophy of history with a philosophy founded on personal existence, with all its passions and chills. He rejected Hegel’s system as a hermetic whole incapable of making room for the immortality of the soul, dismissed the idea of “the world as book, where rationality and reality are combined in the necessity of absolute knowledge,” 52 and refused to include movement, which is by definition illogical, in the logic of ideas. But what he most fiercely opposed was the relative insignificance of the individual in Hegel’s systematic view of history. “A little [knowledge] is enough, so they judge, and they call this a judging on the basis of knowledge,” Kierkegaard explains in his Papirer, offering a response to all rationalists, Descartes as much as Hegel, “and smugly think that by – believing – in this way on the basis of knowledge (sheer contradiction), they are secured against making mistakes  – something that is supposed to pertain only to belief (another contradiction).”53 Kierkegaard prefers to side with the ancient Greek sage who had  J. WAHL, Etudes kierkegaardiennes, 159.  He continues: The fact that Kierkegaard’s thought is inconceivable without Hegel is not merely a biographical trait, a chronological coincidence” hastening to add that “Clearly comprehending this paradoxical situation is the ultimate requirement for a new reading of Kierkegaard.” P. RICOEUR, Philosopher après Kierkegaard, Les cahiers de philosophie, 295. 52  J.E. JACKSON, Kierkegaard ou la pure cérémonie du mouvement fictif, 163. 53  Works of Love, XVI: 232. 50 51

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faith in his own ignorance, a position shared by Pascal when he lauds the “learned ignorance that is conscious of itself.”54 The abstraction of existence has reached such a point that it can no longer be distinguished from essence; but Kierkegaard remains a firm believer in the postulated distinction between essence and existence, complaining that the latter has been neglected and even sacrificed on the altar of objectiveness. In short, Hegel’s commitment to the general and universal causes him to neglect the primacy of individual practice55. The critique of Descartes’ philosophy found in Pascal’s writing hews to his usual laconic style. Kierkegaard’s criticisms of Hegel takes many forms, often with a brevity which harks back to Pascal. Although Kierkegaard rarely cites Hegel by name – preferring to direct his criticism at the “System,” thus encompassing the Hegelians among his contemporaries56 – we should also bear in mind that the passages in which Pascal mentions Descartes by name are few and far between, so much so that “on the surface of it,”57 he does not appear to include Descartes in his philosophical survey. And yet, once he has dispensed with the vicissitudes of the pagan philosophies, it is the Cartesian system which provides his point of departure. A point of departure which rapidly becomes the focal point of Pascal’s critique. A point of departure from which he is keen to escape, freeing himself from the ambiguous double relationship which Vincent Carraud defines as “destitution/subversion.”58 Ultimately, Pascal does very clearly distance himself from his near contemporary. In Brunschvicg’s words, “between Descartes and Pascal the contrast is total.”59 Particularly when it comes to questions of theology, Pascal and Descartes are worlds apart: although there is no reason to suggest that Descartes was an insincere Christian, he certainly appeared to view God as a hidden force. For Descartes, God was the author of “the geometric truths and the order of the elements.”60 A definition which could never satisfy Pascal: in his view the Christian God had no place in the visible realm, and those who suggested otherwise were perpetuating a tradition inherited from “the pagans and Epicureans,” a category in which Pascal provisionally counted Descartes. Pascal is concerned with the Incarnation of God and the Redemption of sins, while Descartes simply seeks a method to demonstrate that the sinner is above all acting in ignorance. “This is what Pascal would never forgive in Descartes,” agrees Jean Brun; “the rationalist determined to advance without fear or trembling forgets the tragic side of man’s suffering, fails to understand that reason

 Laf. 83, Br. 327.  “Philosophy is not a merely academic pursuit but a therapeutic practice that employs critique both for diagnosis and as a corrective exercise (…) Philosophers are more than conceptual technicians” (p. 4–5). E. MOONEY, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard: A Philosophical Engagement, p. 4–5. 56  H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 683. 57  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 112. 58  Ibid., 285–286. 59  M. LE GUERN, Nature et liberté, 33 (quoted p. 12). 60  Laf. 449, Br. 556. 54 55

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will never have the power to cure us of the powerful delusions of wily imagination.”61 In this view Descartes is an inept doctor administering reason as remedy, despite its inability to lead mankind to salvation. The misunderstanding reaches its apogee in the person of Jesus Christ, who cannot possibly be corralled into a three-term dialectic. It is worth quoting Hélène Politis’ analysis of this key point at length: “While both [Hegel and Kierkegaard] do indeed emphasise the importance of the Incarnation, Kierkegaard considers this historical moment to be beyond the bounds of ternary dialectic: his dialectic remains resolutely dichotomous, dual, comprised of contrasting opposites. Existence, as he postulates it, is technically only possible in the paradoxical (and therefore necessarily beyond understanding) union of finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, the present moment and eternity.”62 Kierkegaard’s dialectic is of a different nature, which Ricoeur defines as “psychological”63 in contrast to logical dialectics, reminding us that it operates primarily on the subjective, human level, with no process of elevation of perfection. It implies a paradoxical preservation of the opposite forces which brooks no mediation, resists all attempts at totalisation of the real. The scepticism of both authors with regard to philosophy is not aimed at all philosophical schools indiscriminately. If nothing else, Kierkegaard’s admiring references to Pascal demonstrate that he did not regard all philosophers with the same disdain. Whether we choose to define them as antiphilosophers – in the minor sense, as proposed by Jacques Colette,64 or the major sense as per Badiou – or more modestly as sceptical philosophers, as suggested by Carraud,65 there can be no denying that both positioned themselves as stern critics of dogmatic philosophy of all stripes, and firm opponents of all their doctrinaire standard-bearers. This is another example of the good use of bad things, a recurring theme in Pascal’s writings on everything from pastimes to economics and politics, but primarily pertaining to philosophy where it assumes essential importance. When Badiou evokes the abominable, disgusting nature of philosophy, its “criminal” character in the eyes of antiphilosophers, he is not exaggerating: in Pascal’s view, most philosophy did tend towards the sordid. Kierkegaard can sometimes be found deploying a similar lexicon when describing philosophy, decrying its habit of “shedding its skin with each step it takes, whereby the more foolish followers creep in.”66 The “philosophers” in his firing line are primarily those (numerous) thinkers who allow themselves to be taken in by the latest philosophical fashions; ready-to-wear philosophy is just so much dead skin. We must therefore resist the temptation to “creep into” such fleeting shelters, where intellectualism holds sway. For it is above all the frantic intellectualism of

 J. BRUN, La philosophie de Pascal, 29.  H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 1153. 63  P. RICOEUR, Kierkegaard et le Mal, 295. 64  J. COLETTE, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie, 200. 65  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 29. 66  II A 11, Vol 1: 95 / 3251. 61 62

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objectivist philosophies, characteristic of those whom Badiou defines as “philosophers” (Descartes and Hegel being two famous examples), which is under scrutiny here. The intoxicating diversions of indecipherable reasoning and abstraction with total disregard for positive reality, the reality which Kierkegaard once briefly hoped to find in Schelling’s lectures.

A Popular Way of Thinking But the philosopher is not a frequent straw man in Pascal’s arguments, a place more often occupied by the figure of the “libertine,” or, to be more precise, the free thinker. “A libertine is somebody who needs to be torn away from philosophy and guided toward the path of true thought,” explains Badiou, “namely Pascal’s vision of Christianity.”67 For Pascal, the atheist nihilist was a far more telling symptom of the age he lived in than the contemporary casuists and pragmatic deists. This figure also occupies a central role in Kierkegaard’s thought, in the guise of the “pagan,” a being forever dissatisfied with his lack of self-knowledge.68 The pagan laments this partial and incomplete self-knowledge, and seeks vengeance. Pascal might say that he is ignorant of his own condition, which one must know in order to know God. Without this fundamental understanding, nothing and nobody can turn an atheist into a believer. The blindness of atheists to the issue of God is thus a blindness about their own being; in order to be oneself, one must necessarily know one’s position before God. Pascal writes that those who are aware of their misery without knowing God are in a state of despair, they have literally lost hope. The despair of man without God derives precisely from his ignorance of his own state, and appearances can often be deceiving. Ultimately, it matters little if a life characterised by spiritual numbness is “intense or merely vegetative,”69 to borrow Kierkegaard’s turn of phrase, because as Pascal has it: “take away diversion and you shall see them dried up with weariness. They fell their nothingness without knowing it.”70 Spiritual numbness, or lack of self-knowledge, is still capable of recognising the nothingness, the void at its heart. The intensive activity of those who would live in diversion does not prevent them from being in a state of constituent despair. Are Kierkegaard and Pascal united by a will to proclaim the advent of man, and by extension the existence of God? Not at all. Both thinkers treat such views, espoused by deists in particular, with intense suspicion. Atheists are defined by their renunciation of God, and deists by their exaltation of a “natural” God. Both

 A.  BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 2013, 84. See also A.  BADIOU, Being and Event, 1988, 202. 68  Christian Discourses, 15: 40 / XVII: 44. 69  The Sickness Unto Death, 16: 202 / XIX: 45. 70  Laf. 36, Br. 164. 67

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positions  – denying God or simply affirming his existence  – are equally flawed. Pascal even considers deism to be a non-position, to the extent that there can be no half-­measures between all and nothing, between the total denial of God and the affirmation of the God of the Old and New Testaments. By eschewing the Christian God, deism errs closer to atheism than Christianity. True Christianity requires us to choose one of the two radical options on offer: the absolute, over the absurd. In that respect, deism is a false possibility. It is interesting to note that atheist philosophers are a recurring presence in the works of both Pascal and Kierkegaard. Because this position “shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree,”71 but also for the light it casts on those who are not professed atheists. Applying Pascal’s principle that “those who seem most opposed to the glory of religion may well be a useful example for others,”72 atheism shines fresh light upon Christianity. Christianity must thus pass through the stage of defining what it is not, before affirming what it is. Christians pass through the camp of their opponents before glimpsing the possibility of another truth. As such, they know how to speak the language of their adversaries. In his pseudonymous works Kierkegaard assumes a variety of roles, demonstrating his ability to inhabit the viewpoint of his detractors. As for Pascal, in an instructive passage of the La vie de Monsieur Pascal, his sister Gilberte Périer recalls that whenever “he found himself in discussion with atheists, he would never launch immediately into an argument, nor begin by setting out his principles. To begin with he would seek to ascertain whether they faithfully sought the truth, and would then proceed accordingly, helping them to find the light if they did not yet know it.”73 An anecdote which makes it clear that Pascal did not exclusively frequent like-minded friends from Port-Royal, but that he also debated all sorts of opponents, seeking first to determine how much bad faith he could detect in their arguments before he began to expound his own. It may strike us as strange to think of Pascal being “curious” about atheism, seeking it out with a certain assiduity, interest, appetite even. At the very least, he was keen to confront it. He seems to have approached atheism as an opportunity for investigation, a chance to discover and establish the truth: to his mind the atheist position was so strange and incomprehensible that there must necessarily have been some sort of supernatural force at work to explain such peculiar blindness. In Pascal’s opinion, giving atheism a hearing served to strengthen his own positions: “All possible objections on both sides simply run up against one another, and never against religion.”74 Unbeknownst to them, atheists are religion’s best defence, the unwitting assailants of their own position. Pascal’s approach is not to combat them directly, but rather to bring them face to face with their own

 Laf. 157, Br. 225.  Laf. 427, Br. 194. 73  “... if indeed they sought it sincerely, or else to encourage them to seek it as their most pressing occupation, before attempting to instruct them, if they wished his instruction to be of use.” M. PERIER, La vie de Monsieur Pascal, 25. 74  Laf. 441, Br. 201. 71 72

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reasoning in order to demonstrate, for their own benefit and that of the other side, the weakness, or even the inanity, of their position. In his own way, Kierkegaard too attempts to put himself in the shoes of the “pagans”: “If I were a pagan,” he muses, “I would say that some mocking divinity must have given mankind the gift of language, in order to enjoy the spectacle of man misusing this deceptive tool.”75 On occasion he also comes up with polemical strategies designed to do more damage to their own positions, for example when he sketches the bases of an indirect repudiation of orthodox Christianity such as Feuerbach, one of his greatest critics, might have deployed. By unequivocally declaring his denial of Christianity, and brutally attacking the Christian revelation, Feuerbach prevented his own critique from attaining the level of impact it perhaps deserved, given its capacity to upset the orthodoxy.76 If Pascal shows a degree of consideration for atheists, Kierkegaard appears to hold them in higher esteem, displaying a degree of affinity with these adversaries in spite of their fundamental differences. Like Pascal, he gives them a hearing and takes a keen interest in their positions and reasoning. He also frequently displays a certain proximity with a number of atheist philosophers, particularly Schopenhauer, of whom he remarks that his turns of phrase are so similar to his own style that he sometimes forgets their origin.77 He has no time for unfair, summary condemnations of paganism, particularly in its Hellenic form, frequently expressing his admiration for its “eternal youthfulness.”78 Commentators often seek to point out similarities between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche,79 despite the fact that the latter would appear to be the archetypal antiphilosopher, a thinker whose entire approach is founded on the absolute negation of God and everything associated with him. There is certainly nothing in Nietzsche which directly advances our understanding of his relations with Kierkegaard,80 but we might nevertheless advance the hypothesis that, in Kierkegaard’s view, Nietzsche’s most famous proposition could have meant nothing more than the death of the “idea of God,”81 which is to say the demise of an idol created by the philosopher himself. Nietzsche is the anti-Christian antiphilosopher par excellence, one of the reasons why he has been so frequently compared and studied in parallel with Pascal.82 For the latter, an atheist is first and foremost somebody who is incapable of comprehending the infinite and thus refuses to give it a name. An atheist is also somebody  XI2 A 139, Vol 5: 254 / §89.  The book on Adler, 12: 85–86 / XXIV: 45. 77  XI2 A 59, Vol 5: 215, §3886. 78  Fear and Trembling, Edition Aubier, 84–85. 79  W. LOWRIE, Kierkegaard, 1962, 12. 80  Yet we do know, thanks to a letter addressed to Brandès, that Nietzsche was keen to study “Kierkegaard’s psychological problem,” a “resolution” which his illness precluded him from fulfilling. 81  Christian Discourses, 15: 61 / XXIV: 45. 82  A good example being Geneviève Leveillé-Mourin’s short study, Le langage chrétien, antichrétien de la transcendance: Pascal-Nietzsche. 75 76

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who considers himself to be an eminently reasonable being; surely this is the best explanation for the frequent use of the term reason, in the original sense of the word defined above, in arguments against disbelief, that force which blinds those who refuse to believe because they are sure that reason is on their side. But if Pascal makes use of such reason it is not to demonstrate the existence of God, a task for which it is entirely powerless, but rather to prove the inanity of the opposing position based on this single principle. Such principles do a disservice to those who, because and on account of them, deny God. While it is perfectly possible to believe against reason, one cannot be an atheist against reason; paradoxically, it is those who acknowledge the impotence of reason, accepting the limitations of its value and “strength,” who are the best exponents of “critical” reason in its highest form, that which assigns a central role to the reasons of the heart in a spirit of existential reengagement. On a more general level, for both Kierkegaard and Pascal, a free-thinker is somebody who has taken a wrong turn on the path to understanding Christianity and the Christian God. “Let them at least learn what is the religion they attack, before attacking it,”83 wrote Pascal, in the very first maxim of the original 1670 edition, imposing an immediate limit on the scope of their judgements. Kierkegaard was equally quick to minimise the importance of attacks from the outside which would seek to bring down Christianity: “They attack Christianity and yet they do not know it, and that is precisely why they are so harmless.”84 And yet Kierkegaard never departed from the polite esteem described above; free thinkers were respectable in so far as they offered a legitimate criticism of that which was questionable in contemporary Christianity. Because the latter, in his view, had become “invention, poetry,” “doing away with the imitation of Christ,” and nurturing “the illusion that we are all Christian because we live in a Christian country full of Christian parishes.” But when it comes to the heart of the matter, namely the Christianity of the New Testament, Kierkegaard is immovable: Feuerbach does nothing more than criticize Christians who are too attached to their worldly ways, whose lives are not far removed from those of deists who believe in an abstract, impersonal God. Never does he get close to casting doubt upon the truth of the Christ. “Let them say what they like about deism,”85 as Pascal might have put it. In short, criticism levelled at Christians should under no circumstances be confused with criticism of Christianity itself. “Free thinkers say: if only we didn’t have so many pastors with their Christianity / And the Christian objects: if only we didn’t have these pastors with their Christianity… which make it impossible.”86 Free thinkers are scolded for their inconsequentiality, which leads them to believe that abolishing the consequences of faith (the institution, the priests, the sacraments etc.) would somehow get rid of its causes. So when “Feuerbach, champion of health as a

 Laf. 427, Br. 194.  Book on Adler, 12: 85–86 / XIV: 45. 85  Laf. 449, Br. 556. 86  XI1 A 332, Vol 5: 130 / §555. 83 84

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principle, says that religious existence (and particularly the Christian life) is a matter of continual suffering,”87 he is not mistaken: atheism does indeed show a certain strength of mind. But when he attempts to invoke the life of Pascal as evidence, and “sufficient” evidence at that, he betrays the weaknesses of his reasoning and the rashness of his judgements, since, Kierkegaard adds, “Pascal says precisely the same thing: suffering is the Christian’s natural state (as robust health is the natural state of carnal man).”88 But in order to comprehend the content of the Christian message, the free thinker bases his impressions on the lives of the Christians he sees, noting their fickleness and hypocrisy; the free thinker thus believes that he can discredit the Christian life by criticising the lives of specific Christians, while in reality it is the authentically Christian life itself which imposes the obligation of penitence. Must we therefore conclude that free thinkers’ “mockery betrays something more than they realise?”89 For both Pascal and Kierkegaard, the position adopted by atheists, free thinkers, libertines, pagans and other reprobates90 is rendered invalid by the example of authentic Christians. On the one hand, atheists live with the constant threat that religion might prove to be true; on the other hand, their blindness to God has much in common with the blindness of those “who do not seek.”91 Because what is often so striking about atheists is their indifference in matters of faith, hence Pascal’s contention that “it takes all of the charity of the religion which they despise, in order not to despise them.”92 They actively seek to achieve this state of indolence, detachment, insouciance, a feigned lack of spiritual anxiety. This tyranny of popular opinion, this irreligious doxa, owes much to the self-satisfied character of those whom Kierkegaard also defines as “free thinkers.”93 So while it is only right to pity those atheists who seek the light, rather than insult them and dissuade them from one day finding their way to faith, it is nonetheless important to “inveigh against those who make a boast of it.”94 Pascal himself takes aim at such insolent atheists, criticising their sense of judgement and its proximity to popular prejudice: “Atheists. What reason have they for saying that we cannot rise from the dead? What is more difficult, to be born or to rise again; that what has never been should be, or that what has been should be again? Is it more difficult to come into existence than to return to it? Habit makes the one appear easy to us; want of habit makes the other impossible. A popular way of thinking!95

 Stages on Life’s Way, Guilty?, Not Guilty?, Vol 9: 423 / Vol XI: 460.  Ibid. 89  X2 A 73, Vol 3: 221–222 / §345. 90  Laf. 418, Br. 233. 91  Laf. 163, Br. 200. 92  Laf. 427, Br.194. 93  Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 6: 350/351 / V: 387 . 94  Laf. 156, Br. 190. 95  Laf. 882, Br. 222. 87 88

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Antiphilosophical Writing and Singularity Challenging the conceptual constructions of philosophy in favour of the writer’s intimate personal experience: this is perhaps the most straightforward manner of defining the category of antiphilosophy as Alain Badiou understands it. Antiphilosophers such as Pascal and Kierkegaard are writers as much as they are philosophers, if not more so. But there is no denying that the grandeur of the antiphilosophers’ literary style owes much to their chosen subject matter, dispensing with arid systems and concepts in favour of human singularity, lived experience and intimate existence, confronted with the essential questions of meaning. This distinction is perhaps a little exaggerated, since few philosophers truly set out to construct systems entirely divorced from lived experience. Nor is it possible to construct a genuine literary oeuvre without a certain theoretical substructure. Nevertheless, Badiou’s judgement does seem to ring true when we analyse the specific literary form of antiphilosophy, as well as the determination of its specific object, the singular-­individual, which we analyse in greater detail hereafter. First let us turn our attention to the antiphilosophical writing of Kierkegaard and Pascal: do they share a specific relationship to writing? Kierkegaard certainly appears to project himself into his writing in a visceral manner which is absent from Pascal’s work, whose output, despite his more comprehensive register, is far smaller in quantitative terms. But what immediately strikes one when comparing their respective writings is their curiously similar deployment of pseudonyms. Multiple guises are plentiful in Kierkegaard’s work (Constantin Constantius, Johannes Climacus, Anti-Climacus...), defended and commented upon at length. But pseudonyms are also present, albeit less methodically, throughout virtually all of Pascal’s work, from his treatise on roulette (signed Amos Dettonville) to the Provincial Letters (Louis de Montalte, Mons Altus – Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand). Pascal rarely signed his works with his own name. The Pensées are, of course, an exception in that the author himself did not live long enough to oversee their publication. But do the two authors use pseudonyms in the same manner? With reference to André Clair’s illuminating work on this subject, caution is advisable.96 Nevertheless, as Clair makes clear, the very least we can say is that their approaches are significant in their own right. In both oeuvres we can detect a subtle interplay between portrait and mask, between direct and indirect communication. By adopting different anagrams such as Salmon de Tultie, Pascal offers a series of possible combinations. Kierkegaard, meanwhile, adopts the persona of different authors whose identities correspond to different stages of existence, constructing a philosophy with different points of entry. These imaginary characters are also endowed with a certain subjectivity, the capacity to deliver ideas in the first person singular. Each character is merely another facet of the author, making use of this “freedom which has no limit

96

 A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 518.

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other than the psychological logic of the (personified) idea”97 in order to connect with readers. Pascal and Kierkegaard are responsible for the pseudonyms they create in the “civil” and literary senses, but they must not be confused with these characters. They seem to share a certain distaste for the status of ‘author’: “‘my book,’ ‘my commentary,’ ‘my story’ etc. They resemble middle-class people who have a house of their own and are forever saying ‘my house.’”98 notes Pascal sardonically. For Kierkegaard, being an author “ought to be an extraordinary position in life, a position outside the dialectics of common morality (‘public role’ and all that goes along with it, earning a living and all that entails).”99 Yet he readily admits that this is far from the case in reality. Adopting pseudonyms is a way of freeing their writing of temporal constraints, but the presence of a “grammatically extant” person also serves to offset the abstraction of their discourse with a sense of personal affirmation. Not the affirmation of the author himself, who remain at a distance, but that of his pseudonymous avatar who shields the author with what André Clair rightly describes as a “precarious subjectivity, a subjectivity which can only realise itself by first accepting that it is neither fundamental nor sufficient.”100 This is, after all, an exercise in dissimulation. But our authors’ discrimination is best understood as an artifice which reveals more than it hides, or rather feigns to hide behind a ruse which the reader is invited to recognise and see past. This game of masks is in keeping with what we might describe as the theatrical side of their writings. Perhaps most obvious in Pascal’s Provincial Letters, as well as some of the Pensées (the famous wager is presented in the form of a dialogue, for example), it can also be found in many instances, in both implicit and explicit form, throughout Kierkegaard’s written works. The formal innovations he introduced to the philosophical discourse were in fact revolutionary, making use of real, melodramatic situations which amounted to genuine “scenes,” including this memorable vignette cited by Deleuze: “The story in the The Sickness Unto Death of the bourgeois family man who reads his newspaper at the breakfast table, then all of a sudden throws himself out of the window screaming ‘Give me the possible, or I’ll suffocate!’”101 Putting philosophy into words, making constant use of narrative form and dramatic context, was indicative of a new and radically different approach to the business of philosophy.  Postscript, 11: 302 / XII: 625.  Laf. 1000, Br. 43. 99  VII A 104, Vol 2: 19–20 / §5891. 100  A. CLAIR, Ethique et Humanisme, 324–326. 101  Deleuze adds that: “In Stages on Life’s Way we have the story of the accountant who goes mad for one hour each day, and hopes for a law which would capitalise and fix resemblance: one day he went to a brothel, but had no memory of what happened there. “It’s the possibility that drives you mad…” In Fear and Trembling we have the tale of ‘Agnes and the Merman’, a vignette of which Kierkegaard offers multiple versions. There are many other examples we might cite. But modern readers are perhaps capable of putting a name to each of these unusual passages: in each case we are faced with a sort of theatrical scene, or at least a synopsis, a format not previously seen in philosophy and theology.” G. DELEUZE, L’image-mouvement, 163–164. 97 98

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Another point worthy of comparative analysis is their respective uses of fragmentary forms, where every sentence is engaged in a quest for maximum intensity. “A work which is totally finished no longer bears any relation to the person of its author,” writes Kierkegaard, “[whereas] the fragmented, discontinuous form of posthumously-published papers always requires us to imagine the personality of their author.”102 This passage serves as a compelling argument for the importance of his own journals and papers, which survive in fragmented form and whose post-­ mortem publication he envisaged103. In these succinct notes we find a seemingly unending wealth of profound thoughts, expressed with a sense of vitality and poetry which necessarily invites comparisons with Pascal. In this respect, working notes are every bit as significant as what ends up on the page. Readers must construct their own bridges to reach the shores evoked by the author. The extra effort required of readers of posthumous fragments thus allows them to enter into a more intimate relationship with their author. Kierkegaard also described his Postscript as non-­ definitive. It is thus hard to agree with Harald Høffding when he suggests that – having first observed that Pascal’s work has not reached us in definitive form, and that all we have are a mass of notes snatched from the jaws of suffering and illness – “there is no reason to believe that these qualities would have been lost in the finished version.”104 They may not have lost any of their profundity or vitality, but it seems inevitable that if Pascal’s fragmentary notes had undergone the process of “reckoning,” of being shaped into a finished form, they would have lost much of what makes them so revelatory about the personality of their author as well as the subject he set out to address. About his approach to philosophy, in short. This incomplete, fragmentary, discontinuous writing style is a format which chimes with the anti-systematic and anti-dogmatic facets of both Pascal and Kierkegaard’s thought. What unites them in this respect is their fascination with the singularity of existence and its contingency, existential intimacy, itself a fragmentary and ephemeral phenomenon. This is a subject dear to both thinkers, as Jacques Colette remarks when comparing this pensée “I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there… now rather than then. Who has put me here?” (Laf. 68, Br. 205) with a passage from the letter dated 11th October in Repetition: “Where am I? What does that mean: the world? What does this word signify? ... Who am I? How did I come to be in this world? How did I get involved in this great undertaking they call reality?... Where is the Manager? I’d like a word with him.”105 What Pascal and Kierkegaard both note is that man, stranded between nothing and everything, is incomprehensible to himself, all the more so since his own hypocrisy and dissimulation hinders the exploration of his own mysteries. Even if we were to unlock the mystery of man, we would then have to identify his second

 Either/Or, 3: 144–145 / III: 152–153.   The “tacit philosophical content” of the Papers should not be overlooked. See R. PURKARTHOFER, Suppose I would die tomorrow. 104  H. HØFFDING, Pascal et Kierkegaard, 223. 105  J. COLETTE, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie, 106–107. 102 103

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nature, that which exists in opposition to the first. “Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm […] We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.”106 Sceptics lose their ­scepticism, while humble characters are shorn of their natural modesty. Great men are not always great (nor are the little people devoid of grandeur, as per the hierarchy of the underlying democracy discussed heretofore). As for philosophers, Pascal and Kierkegaard agree that generally speaking, and with the exception of St. Augustine, they have failed to sufficiently appreciate the fundamental dichotomy of man. On one side sit those fixated with man’s shortcomings, on the other side those who champion his dominion over the world. But what of man’s essential duality? Pascal talks of two natures: “Instinct and reason, marks of two natures;”107 but also of two states: “As these two states are open, it is impossible for you not to recognise them.”108 The duality of man encompasses all possible dichotomies. In the spirit of reciprocity, man’s second nature is a response to his primary nature: “Such is the state in which men now find themselves. There remains to them some feeble instinct of the happiness of their former state; and they are plunged in the evils of their blindness and their lust, which have become their second nature.”109 Man is a broken unity riven with competing, incompatible temperaments, something insufficiently understood by philosophers who “did not prescribe feelings suitable to the two states / They inspired feelings of pure greatness, and that is not man’s state / They inspired feelings of pure littleness, and that is not man’s state.”110 Philosophers thus show themselves to be incapable of comprehending the multi-dimensional nature of the human character, its ontological dualism. Man’s state, or supposed state, is a dual, double-edged situation. This dual capacity (grandeur/misery) is man’s essential element, his substrate, his constituent principle. Pascal is always quick to denounce philosophical positions espousing the unicity of the thinking subject. Kierkegaard also defends the importance of equivocation, insisting that “man is aware of both his grandeur and his pettiness.”111 Kierkegaard’s equivocal nature is perfectly encapsulated in his adoption of Janus as a symbol, invoked in the Papers on the grounds that the god’s two faces express opposite and contrasting emotions. These two facets are diametrically opposed, and the truth of the man from which they originate lies somewhere in the middle, in that interstitial no man’s land which the great treatises of systematic philosophy never fail to overlook. But which is nonetheless the primary purpose of our authors’ adoption of pseudonyms and fragmentary expression, as if to free themselves of all

 Laf. 655, Br. 377.  Laf.112. 108  Laf. 149, Br. 430. 109  Laf. 149, Br. 430. 110  Laf. 398, Br. 525. 111  I A 68, Vol 1: 40–41 / §5099. 106 107

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equivocation by creating such authentically ambiguous characters as Salomon de Tultie or Vigilius Haufniensis. Man is a being lost in the infinite wilds of reality, filled with anxiety by his ignorance of his own situation. As Pascal puts it, man is seeking his place in the world without ever finding it. It is as if he were lost in some incomprehensible land. Defined by ignorance of the whys and wherefores of human life, a state of affairs incomprehensible to all and deeply worrying for each of us, Pascal’s despair is almost but not quite synonymous with Kierkegaard’s terror, enshrouded by “impenetrable” shadows. If he can never hope to understand his place in the universe, can man at least understand himself? Once again Pascal and Kierkegaard are in agreement as to mankind’s fundamental impenetrability and inaccessibility, as expressed in the latter’s heartfelt lament that “there is nothing so unfathomable as the heart of man!”112 It is worth recalling what Kierkegaard took away from the Romantic movement, namely a unique experience of interiority and personal materiality, or subjectivity, while rejecting its circumstantial denial of sin and regretting the absence of a proper sense of guilt. In his words, “there is really only one single quality – individuality. It is the crux of everything. Moreover our understanding of ourselves is always qualitative, whereas our understanding of others remains quantitative. That is the work of individuality.”113 Our relationship to ourselves is different in nature from our relationships with others. Those two relationships are not commensurate. This quality is the only one of its kind, and is not the same when I engage with others as it is when I engage with myself; it is individuality and belongs exclusively to “the individual.”114 We might also adopt André Clair’s term “the singular” with regard to its relation to itself. But why is the relationship which binds us to ourselves so crucial? Because man is singular, since he has been formed in the image of the creator: “The human race has this singularity, precisely because each of us was created in the image of God.”115 The singular thus counts for more than the species (even if Badiou is right to argue that antiphilosophers can be considered “democrats at heart”).116 All of

 Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 16: 377. See also IV C 1.  V A 53, Vol 1: 323 / §1986. 114  With regard to the use of the term “Individual,” subsequently translated by André Clair as “singular,” P.H. Tisseau offered his own explanation in the form of a lengthy Translator’s note: “‘Den Enkelte.’ Commentators for whom I have the utmost respect, including Messrs. Delacroix and Jean Wahl (Etudes kierkegaardiennes, 270), have translated this term as “Unique”. But the word seems to me to be too negative, in its usual sense, to be applied to the species and to Christianity. I have thus opted to continue translating it as “the Individual.” Because ‘den Enkelte’ is man having achieved unity of the self on the religious plane. Each and every one of us can and should strive for this full realisation of the self, which means that it cannot be “Unique” (in the common sense of that word). But it also by becoming ‘den Enkelte’ that man discovers his fellow man, i.e. becomes truly connected to humanity: to be “Unique” would be a serious contradiction of Christian specificity.” Published in T. BOHLIN, Søren Kierkegaard: L’Homme et l’Oeuvre, 150/151. 115  X2 A 426, Vol 3: 335 / §1614. 116  “Antiphilosophers are not interested in statutes, qualifications, contracts. Debate, freedom of opinion, respect for others, suffrage: all nonsense. However, everybody is totally equal in terms of 112 113

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which naturally leads us to an idea close to Pascal’s heart, namely his dismay at observing in his own social milieu that specialisation and professionalism were gaining ground at the expense of the honest man (singular) who knows a little about a lot rather than a lot about a little, a condition he considers as the “lesser evil.”117 In this respect it is tempting to draw a parallel between the bourgeois “unilateral specialist” bemoaned by Pascal and the individual adopting the “profession of” teacher, journalist, pastor etc. as described by Kierkegaard, often in withering terms. “If Pascal so frequently cites individuals”, André Clair argues, “it is because he considers them as examples: like Solomon and Job as models of suffering.”118 In this respect the Interview with Monsieur de Sacy is particularly instructive, structured as it is around a series of exemplary individuals: Epictetus, Montaigne and Augustine are used to illustrate the three possible forms of ethical life. “On this subject Kierkegaard clearly owes a debt to Pascal.119 What made Pascal so important to Kierkegaard was not so much his reputation as a thinker, but rather his position as singular-individual, an individual-exception capable of withstanding the “tyrannical worldliness which would have us all the same.”120He was an authentically Christian antiphilosopher and a sincerely antiphilosophical Christian, demonstrating that the only merit of philosophy is to participate in its own self-sabotage.

Adam Forma Futuri The dualist anthropology sketched out by Pascal and Kierkegaard, this “incomprehensible monster” devoured by its own contradictions, views original sin as the point of origin of a “duplicity” which defines us totally. The fact that « man »121 is born in sin is proof positive that all schools of philosophy are steeped in error. As the only authority to proclaim this fact, Christianity is the sole religion founded in truth. Because other religions neglect this fundamental truth, they are false. In Kierkegaard’s

the possibility of becoming a subject of the Absolute. In this respect their equality is radical and unconditional.” BADIOU, A. Métaphysique du bonheur réel, 37. 117  “He came to feel that the model of the honest man held up as an example at court was still a lesser evil than the unilateral specialists – competent yet blinkered – whom he was already beginning to encounter among the bourgeoisie, and whose dominance would continue to grow over the coming centuries.” L. GOLDMAN, Le Dieu Caché, 236. 118  Laf. 403, Br. 174. 119  A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 519. 120  VIII A 369, Vol 2: 163 / §2599. 121  To use a word that keeps coming up in the writings of Pascal and Kierkegaard to evoke the human race.

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concise phrase, “the sole fact which makes Christianity the absolute religion is its definition of man as sinner.”122 “Adam forma futuri (...) If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not come, there had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the creation would have been represented as accomplished at one single time,”123 writes Pascal. In his view the fall of Adam, which only makes sense with reference to the life of Christ, is the foundational act of the human race. For humanity as a whole there is a before and an after Adam, the transition from a primitive state to a new condition symbolised by sin. Since Adam man has not been the same; his destiny has changed and he must redeem himself. Original sin was not a sin against man but for him, in order that he might be saved.124 Adam’s original sin is the defining act which makes salvation possible. As perverse as this may seem to human ideas of justice, this state of affairs reflects the existence of a justice which is highly incomprehensible but indisputably superior, i.e. divine justice. The justice of God is a challenge to the humility of men, who must choose between their own sense of justice and a submission to God which requires them to repudiate this part of themselves. As Pascal puts it, the only true innocence is that of God, not man. For Kierkegaard, a pagan is somebody who does not know the nature of sin. Pagans, in the sense of man in his natural state, are unaware “of what sin means.”125 But in that natural state man is unaware of the nature of sin, hence the need for a revelation. It is for this reason that non-believers are wrong to assume that sin, where sin is present, resides in the lack of merit. In Kierkegaard’s view sin is confined exclusively to the religious plane, and must not be confused with a simple question of morality. Not only is sin impervious to all philosophical speculation, it exists at a level above morality, the religious level. The state of the sinner is an individual condition. It is, in Paul Ricoeur’s definition, his “position.”126 In the Concept of Anxiety, which deals with this problem specifically, sin is described as a reality which transcends the ethical sphere and which “positions” man in relation to creation. Without reducing sin to a single form, all forms of sin are alike in that they pertain to the individual and not a community of persons, even the community of the Christian faith. Or as Sartre puts it, “the universality of sin is contained in the singularity of choice.”127 By disobeying the instructions of God, Adam cut the cord which connected man and creator and took it upon himself to pass down to future generations that feeling of anxiety in the face of sin. This first transgression thus dealt a fatal blow to man’s original innocence, but it also destroyed the possibility than man might one day be saved: there was no longer any direct communication between the Creator and his  V A 16, Vol 1: 314 / §46.  Laf. 590, Br.656. 124  “Jesus is in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, where he lost himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, where He saved himself and the whole human race.” Laf. 919, Br. 553. 125  Sickness Unto Death, 16: 250 / XIX: 96. 126  P. RICOEUR, Kierkegaard et le Mal, 301. 127  J.P SARTRE, Kierkegaard vivant, 59. 122 123

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creation. In this respect the advent of the Son of Man can be interpreted as the renewal of this connection, saving man from death and evil, an opportunity decided and granted by God and God alone. Pascal too viewed the coming of Christ as the advent of a new alliance to replace the old one, restoring the possibility of healing and remission. The life eternal, the temporal connection between the nature of man and that of God, is once again a possibility for those who accept the necessity of a relationship with Christ which places man before God. For Kierkegaard, Adam the original sinner makes sense when seen in the context of the coming of Christ. While man had been irredeemably lost since the fall of Adam, with the coming of Jesus he is reconciled with God; to be precise, the possibility of a reconciliation is available to him once again. Hence why original sin, “foolishness to men,” in Pascal’s words, is “admitted to be such.”128 There is no need to take issue with the lack of evidence for this postulate, since extravagance is its defining characteristic. Pascal opines that the truth of original sin cannot be entirely comprehended by reason because it exists in contradiction to such exercises, it is fundamentally against reason, to borrow an expression used by Kierkegaard on numerous occasions. Indeed, it is precisely the human experience of sin which reveals to us the existence of two states: before and after sin. Hence Pascal’s insistence that man is not to be considered as an individual subject, but that his unified exterior in fact conceals multiple “states.” Philippe Sellier traces the provenance of this notion to Pascal’s reading of Cornelius Jansen’s (Jansenius) Augustinus, and in turn to the thinking of the Bishop of Hippo himself. In fact it is here, in Sellier’s view, that the “Augustinian density” 129 of Pascal’s thought is most clearly visible, equating the experience of sin with the experience of a profound inner contradiction. Pascal also compares the wisdom of men to the wisdom of God, admitting that the gulf between them is as wide as that between human and divine justice. Original sin looms large over the wisdom of men, but it nonetheless remains the defining element which makes our very nature comprehensible. It outstrips human reason to such an extent that it escapes recognition by reason. Reason “recoils when faced with it,” in Pascal’s words, as if our corrupted reason refuses to recognise a wisdom superior to its own. As if reason were the first of our faculties to be affected by the abasement caused by original sin. Because it is the first to protest, reason is in fact the first human power to be perverted. Original sin is an irreparable blow, a violation of nature’s most noble properties, the blade which cut our original purity into the two discrete halves which embody the terrific separation between our original nature (pre-Adam) and our second nature (post-Adam). But is there not something cruel and indecent about visiting the sins of a man on future generations? Is there not something inside us, something more than reason alone, which rankles at such iniquity? This doctrine may well elicit indignation, but the fact remains that for Pascal and Kierkegaard it is by accepting the terms of this mystery that we can finally answer the question of who we are. We can only truly achieve understanding by accepting the enigma. Without it, “we are 128 129

 Laf. 695, Br. 445.  P. SELLIER, Pascal et Saint-Augustin, p. 238.

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incomprehensible to ourselves,” since “man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man.” 130 To put it another way, without this mystery, however alien it may be to our knowledge and intellectual faculties, man cannot hope to understand himself. The distance which separates this mystery from man’s comprehension is far smaller than the gulf separating man from himself if he should choose to ignore its existence. Pascal does not deny that the mystery of sin is an “offence” to reason, in fact he proclaims it clearly and accepts the consequences of this confrontation: what human beings truly need is not reassurance about their reason, but a better understanding of the most formative event in their creation. For what is truly at stake here is the profound essence of humanity, whose genesis our two authors locate at that enigmatic moment of Adam’s sudden sin. In the eyes of Christian antiphilosophy, what should “offend” us is not what goes against our reason, but rather that which gives meaning to the duality of our condition. The duplicity of man made its appearance in the world suddenly, when the first man faltered, when God truly created us. Let us now try to define the effects of the nature of that sin: the fact that each of us is a sinner and conscious of it. Vigilius Haufniensis – a pseudonym which appears only one time and then disappears for ever from Kierkegaard’s oeuvre - argues that Christians are wrong to believe that paganism was naturally conducive to sin, for the simple reason that only with the advent of Christianity does sin become a manifest reality. Nonetheless, “paganism does something akin to stretching out time, without ever arriving at a profound awareness of sin; this attitude itself is sinful.”131 He is keen to highlight the extent to which sin is connected to Christianity, i.e. to the figure of Christ himself, and how sin is never so widespread in the world as when it is seemingly absent, or more precisely when a person is unaware of his or her sin. In this respect sinning is akin to refusing to acknowledge one’s true state. Between the first act of insubordination, Adam’s sin, and the advent of Christianity, humans had no choice but to live in sin because they were not conscious of this condition. What Kierkegaard seems to abhor is not so much sin itself, but the “half-sinners, who retain some love for virtue.” The true distinction is between those who feel guilty and those who consider themselves innocent, or not guilty. There are only two types of men, writes Pascal: “just men who consider themselves sinners, and sinners who believe themselves to be just.”132 What counts here is a sense of awareness, with preference going to those who are unaware of their own merits, possessed of a superior form of clairvoyance. Here again we can detect the influence of familiar Augustinian themes, particularly concupiscence133. Neither Kierkegaard nor Pascal ever offers a direct explanation of sin; they prefer to address it from the angle of its inevitable repercussions and corollary effects.

 Laf. 131, Br. 434.  The Concept of Anxiety, 7: 193 / VIII: 93–94. 132  Laf. 562, Br. 534. 133  Cf. P. SELLIER, Pascal et Saint Augustin, p. 189. 130 131

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Pascal thus talks of the “consequences and results of our sins, which are dreadful,”134 or the “effects of our sins,” as in this passage where he draws an analogy between “the peoples” and the Jesuits: “These are the effects of the sins of the peoples and of the Jesuits. The great have wished to be flattered. The Jesuits have wished to be loved by the great. They have all been worthy to be abandoned to the spirit of lying, the one party to deceive, the others to be deceived. They have been avaricious, ambitious, voluptuous.”135 They do not seek to prove the existence of sin, but consider it to be one of the most concrete experiences of human existence. It is the experience of man’s separation from God, which is never felt more strongly than in the act of sinning, the sense of the “self” in sin. As Paul Ricoeur has it, sin is “existence itself in a state of dereliction.”136 We might thus advance the hypothesis that the test of sin is a proof of religion, as well as the interiority of man who draws strength from his responsibility before God. As a necessary condition for the existence of a moral life, sin is nonetheless a force to be combatted: nothing is as inimical to our two authors as that sense of absolution offered by the ecclesiastical institutions, both Catholic and Protestant. Man is worthy of himself when he resists the temptation to sin, and never more worthy than when he acknowledges himself to be a sinner. A man committing a sin does not suffer anywhere near as much as a man who knows that he is a sinner; and yet this is also his reward, because what at first weighs him down will one day lift him up. Moving on from this sustained dissection of philosophical reason and its defenders, it is time to look in greater detail at the development of Christian antiphilosophy, expanding upon the initial definition offered heretofore. This time our point of departure is a more profound denaturation of philosophy, a moment which becomes an archi-philosophical act, akin to the wager for Pascal or choice for Kierkegaard, that is to say an act which belongs in the category of faith. This extension of the antiphilosophical charge against philosophy, the impending downgrading of philosophy, was intended to clear the way for the emergence of a new act which will be explored in the fourth chapter of this work. But for now, let us consider how the displacement and resolution of a philosophical problem leads Pascal and Kierkegaard to formulate an antiphilosophy of singularity, which also serves as a “philosophy founded upon choice and the wager.”137  Laf. 690, Br. 506.  Laf. 973, Br. 919. 136  P. RICOEUR, Kierkegaard et le Mal, 301 137  BADIOU, A. Métaphysique du bonheur réel, 28. 134 135

Chapter 3

“Risk Is truth”

“Who has put me here?” (Laf. 68, Br. 205) Pascal, Pensées.

Abstract  Real philosophy does not consist in endless discussion of theoretical devices but in deciding, and taking sides. The necessary conditions which make this act possible, discussed in this chapter, are the wager and faith. The latter is a phenomenon which defies rational powers, precisely because reason cannot say anything about it, since faith exists in the realm of the act. Pascal and Kierkegaard share a definition of faith close to a form of dialectical torment in which sensitivity, will and intelligence combine in an assault on scepticism and indecision. As such, the believer who bases her view on metaphysical evidence is no more advanced than the non-believer who justifies her view by refusing the same evidence. It is on the side of self-denial, of becoming what one is not or not becoming what one is, that the suffering glory of the Christian soul and sentiment lies. Keywords  Abraham · Faith · Wager · Proof · Choice · Act · Solitude

Denaturing The order of an act depends first and foremost on establishing the necessary conditions for expanding beyond the confines of philosophy. In the works of Pascal and Kierkegaard, this order is derived primarily from the concepts of alternatives and the wager.1 The real choice, in Deleuze’s words, “is that which consists of choosing one’s choice, the choice which is supposed to restore everything to us. It will allow us to rediscover everything, in the spirit of sacrifice, at the instant of sacrifice or even before the sacrifice occurs.”2 Philosophy is nothing more than a theatre for  BADIOU, A. Nietzsche, 155.  As quoted in the following passage: “Returning to Abraham, with whom we opened this reflection upon faith, we might also turn once again to Gilles Deleuze and his assertion that ‘in philosophy 1 2

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7_3

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superfluous debate where anything goes, where doubt drives discussions and exchanges, where “opposing truths and falsehoods cancel each other out.”3 For anybody seeking one’s direction within existence, philosophy can never offer genuine satisfaction; the antiphilosophical stance of Pascal and Kierkegaard is never more vital than “when everything depends upon it.”4This is no longer a simple question of philosophy; it is the only question that matters. True philosophy, we might say, is of a different nature because it is not interested in interminable discussions of theoretical positions. It is concerned with actions, decisions. True philosophy begins with a genuine action. What this action entails we shall explore in greater detail later on, but it is essentially the act of converting. But the necessary condition which makes this act possible, its determining factor, is the wager. “Because the wager is a rational argument, it proposes a calculated act which is clearly not the act of conversion in and of itself, [but] which establishes the conditions for it. We can clearly identify the correlation of the act and its location within the space delimited by the proposed wager.”5 The wager is an argument deployed in response to the incommensurability of the finite and the infinite, and our incapacity to know God, “neither what he is, nor if he exists.”6 Does this choice mean that man must make the leap into the unknown, partaking in a wager in which his own destiny hangs in the balance? This would certainly appear to be the case. Pascal situates this problem in relation to time and eternity, while Kierkegaard speaks of “the incommensurability of a historic truth and an eternal decision.”7 In his view the wager for or against Christianity is proportional to the interest we take in the question of immortality, upon which depends our whole way of living and our approach to existence.

Betting for or Against In the absence of a primary truth, Pascal proposes a primary dilemma which consists of seeing our deeds and thoughts in a new light, depending on whether or not we believe in the possibility of eternal reward and its opposite. As he puts it, we must choose between these two possibilities because, without any choice in the as in cinema, in Pascal as in Bresson, in Kierkegaard as in Dreyer, the real choice, that which consists of choosing one’s choice, is supposed to restore everything to us. It will allow us to rediscover everything, in the spirit of sacrifice, at the instant of sacrifice or even before the sacrifice occurs. As Kierkegaard put it: true choice means that when you abandon a fiancée, she is restored to you by the same token; in sacrificing his son, Abraham has his son restored to him.’” G. DELEUZE, L’image-mouvement, 164. 3  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 110–111 4  Laf. 150, Br. 226. 5  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 222. 6  Laf. 695, Br. 445. 7  Postscript, 10 : 93 / XII : 98.

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matter, “we are already embarked.”8 Betting on God means wagering a finite stake, this earthly life, on an infinite prize. Pascal brings the full weight of philosophy to bear on this alternative, the dilemma of whether to accept or refute the existence of a moral authority. He contends that wagering on God is the only option in our best interests since, despite the meagre temporal (and thus limited) sacrifices which are part and parcel of this choice, it is the only one whose realisation would deliver infinite gains, in the form of eternal salvation. If we do not bet on the immortality of the soul, we are effectively betting against it; by betting against it, we run the risk of eternal damnation. So we must either wager or decline to wager; there is no third option. Ultimately, we must either win or lose. The wager is inescapable. And those who would bet against, were they to win, would gain nothing more than a few derisory pleasures. But lose the wager, and you lose everything. Instead of attempting to prove the existence of God by analysing the evidence at our disposal, Pascal undertakes to demonstrate the urgent obligation to bet for or against his existence, the requirement to choose a side. It is important to bear in mind that the dialectical device employed by Pascal is not intended to be a strictly logical argument. It is a manoeuvre designed to force us into thinking about our own destiny in a radically new and original way. This is not a purely scientific wager; instead we find ourselves faced with an “existential” wager which is not a one-off gamble, but rather an engagement which is constantly renewed with each new action we take. Nonetheless, Pascal contends that if the wager is a losing one, nothing is truly lost. More important is the fact that, if I win, I win everything and more than I could hope for. I win eternal life, in return for staking my eminently finite life. “The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing,”9 he writes, once again highlighting the incommensurability of the finite and the infinite. But in order that the two might achieve an understanding of one another, become intertwined, to achieve what Vincent Carraud calls a “false commensuration” or “pseudo-commensuration,”10 Pascal uses the tactic of the wager. A gamble of faith. I should make it clear that in using the term “tactic,” my aim is not to depict Pascal as a philosopher of gambling, nor to suggest that his philosophy is simply a question of method. Pascal is far more than a clever strategist or master tactician; the wager argument is essentially just a gambit designed to stir up doubt in the minds of “free thinkers.” In Kierkegaard’s work too we find the question of staking one’s life on the truth of Christianity, making it one’s primary preoccupation. Building on the concept of an existential wager as formulated above, since it truly is a question of putting one’s life on the line, Kierkegaard adds his own definition of the notion of risk: “risk is truth, the vital source of that enthusiasm which gives meaning and vigour to human life and social interactions. Probability is the sworn enemy of this ardour, a spell used by carnal man to stall for time and put off the eternal, a phantasmagoria to

 Laf. 418, Br. 233.  Laf. 418, Br. 233. 10  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 440–441. 8 9

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frustrate God, oneself and humanity as a whole.”11 For Kierkegaard this is the position of those who eschew risk-taking, preferring “probability,” the primary cause of imbalance in social relations and an insult to divine authority. He concludes that risk is a duty we owe to truth itself, and a determining factor in equality. This choice before God, which each of us must make, is what makes all men equal. Adopting a position of indifference or detachment is thus a fundamental affront to our relationship with the infinite. “So ready is he, in his infinite love, to embrace human beings, that he has written us love letters in his own words, he has asked for our hand and called out to us: come, come! And now he waits to see if there is not one at least one amongst us ready to take a risk. / Absolutely every one of us is capable of taking that risk.” Indeed the greatest risk of all would be to refuse to play, or to pretend, because the commitment envisaged here must necessarily be profound, stamped with the seal of sincerity and loyalty. Kierkegaard continues: “be assured that with quite a different certainty from when a doctor, rung up in the night, leaps from his bed, in the very second that a man really takes a risk for God’s sake, he is there, he is immediately present, he who is infinite love.”12 Risk surpasses all else, risk can achieve anything. Compared with eternity, earthly pleasures last but an instant; what Kierkegaard fears most is not that he will one day regret not taking enough risks during this finite life, but rather that he will find himself faced with an eternity in which to regret failing to risk that finite life completely. Eternal reflection on a fleeting moment of pleasure is the penalty awaiting anybody who would seek to shirk the obligation of risk. Of course there is always the possibility that one might choose the wrong risk; it is possible to take a “false risk” in good faith, placing hope in God.13 But in such circumstances the honesty of the risk-taker would place him above those who fail to risk at all. The ingenuousness of anybody prepared to take the wager, even if the choice is wrong, trumps the self-confidence of he who runs the risk of not taking a risk. In the Papirer Kierkegaard writes ironically of a gambler who refuses to place a wager unless there is no risk that he will lose his stake, and so follows the majority opinion in the hope of minimizing the possibility of failure. But risk, by its very definition, offers no prior certainties. That is the nature of risk. Risk goes hand in hand with uncertainty; the only thing we can be sure of is our fundamental desire to live. But the desire for eternity, the immortality of the soul to which we aspire, can only be achieved by taking a risk during our earthly life. That risk is necessarily personal: when our spiritual life is at stake there is no team effort, no sense in calculating risk in relation to others. That many “others” have previously decided not to take the risk does nothing to improve the prospects of those tempted to eternally replicate that error. The choice is one to be made by the conscience of the individual, not via a probabilistic calculation based on the experience of others. Kierkegaard makes a very clear distinction between those who recognise this alternative,

 Eighteen Upbuiling Discourses, 6: 346–347 / V: 382.  XI2 A 51, Vol. 5: 209/210 / §3099. 13  X5 A 41, Vol 4: 388/389 / §4940. 11 12

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whatever option they choose, and those who pretend to not understand their own position. Kierkegaard uses a characteristically cutting analogy to characterise the latter group, likening them to people who have nothing against swimming as long as they don’t have to get into the water.

Stupidification From a philosophical standpoint, the eternal question regarding Christianity is the challenge of achieving a satisfactory compromise between faith and reason. On rare occasions, Pascal demonstrates slightly more consideration for reason than Kierkegaard. “The most reasonable man in the world can easily believe (against reason), and all his intelligence only becomes an obstacle to faith to the extent that he also has the advantage of knowing what it means to believe against reason.”14 Kierkegaard appears to warn us of the improbability of achieving a harmonious balance between these two forces. Believing with reason is not really believing at all, “since he who believes in such a manner thinks of it as an action like another, like taking a wife, or tilling a field, or herding cattle, things which are in no way dependent upon faith, since faith is constantly focused on God’s grace, exists in a constant state of mortal danger, in that collision of the infinite and the finite which poses a threat to both.”15 Believing against reason, against all the reasons to believe: such is Kierkegaard’s vision of faith. But this vision also entails accepting the fact that reason is not on your side, refusing the constant temptation of religion to bring reason on board. “Speculators are spared this martyrdom,” he admits.16 Believing for good reasons is like allowing oneself to be persuaded of something of which, deep down, one is already convinced. It is a regression, a withering of faith. Justifying one’s belief in God with the principles of reason (reasonable believers, who may also be philosophers) and not believing in God because it is against reason (philosophers who renounce God but believe in reason) are two equally reprehensible positions. To be reborn in true faith, to throw oneself into faith without necessarily knowing where it will lead, we must not only eschew the calculations of reason, dans un “ world of problem solving-strategies”17, but also follow the example of those who believe in this manner: “Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. even this will naturally make you believe, and dull your intelligence.”18 We must therefore dull our intelligence. Not sacrifice intelligence in general, which philosophy nonetheless does in matters of religion, but dull our own intelligence. Repress our intellect and

 Postscript, 11: 248 / XII: 566.  Postscript, 10: 216 / XI: 233. 16  Ibid., 10: 216 / XI : 234. 17  A. HANNAY, G. MARINO. Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, 14. 18  Laf. 418, Br. 233. 14 15

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restrict our faculties of reason. This seems to correspond almost perfectly to what Kierkegaard calls reduplication, his proposed reform of the struggle between the individual and reason (i.e. against oneself) in the quest for true faith. What could be more difficult for an extremely reasonable individual than to “stupidify” oneself to such an extent? What could be more repulsive than this faith which requires the individual to disregard his own sense of logic and reason? And yet, such are the conditions of the act of faith which I am attempting to define. Nevertheless, this act is not simply a pure denial of reason. It requires the support of reason to grasp that which surpasses understanding, that which must remain incomprehensible. We should not forget that, while Kierkegaard did truly believe that reason was of no direct use to the Christian faith, he nevertheless spent his whole life thinking about faith, making use of his capacities for philosophical reasoning to do so. Ultimately, dulling one’s intelligence in this manner can only be accomplished with the help of reason, with intellectual forces capable of acknowledging the inconceivable, forces lucid enough about their own limits and shortcomings in comparison with belief in its pure state. “Christian believers make use of their reason,” Kierkegaard reflects. “They respect the ordinary human condition (…) when it comes to Christianity they believe against reason, and yet here again they have recourse to reason.”19 If he truly believed that reason was of no use at all to Christian faith, then spending his entire life thinking about the question of belief would have been a very serious contradiction in Kierkegaard’s mode of existence, founded as it was upon making his life consistent with his work. Ultimately, neither Kierkegaard nor Pascal truly champions the proverbial “coalman’s faith.” They are united in the idea that faith only hovers into view on humanity’s spiritual horizon when our powers of finite reflection are totally weakened, and have bowed down before the inconceivable. First-level reason, which occupies the time of virtually all philosophers and scientists, is not discarded but simply consigned to a lower rank. It must accept that rational comprehension of the laws of nature “abolishes the act of believing.”20 And yet this reason, or speculative thought in general, can only truly transcend itself by accepting that there are an infinity of things beyond its grasp. There is perhaps a comparison to be drawn here with the “psychological state of the modern religious man” as described by Hannah Arendt: a man “who combats his own faith with the doubt elicited by reason, and combats his own reason with the doubt elicited by reason, and combats his own reason with the doubt instilled by a faith founded on historically-proven events, only to seek respite from this extremely trying process by simply accepting the ‘absurdity of the conditions for man’s existence in general, and his faith in particular.’”21 This dialectic would surely be familiar to Kierkegaard, who never defined himself as having faith, and who held faith to

 Postscript, 11: 249 / XII : 568.  XII A 225, Vol 3: 264/265 / §1559. 21  H. ARENDT, Marx, Kierkegaard et Nietzsche, 133. 19 20

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be beyond the attacks of reason because of its immediacy which defies all understanding. This immediacy which escapes direct understanding is embodied first and foremost in the act of prayer. “Save my soul from that reflection which would seek to explore that which we are not supposed to understand,” he appeals to God in his Upbuilding Discourses. “Chase from my thoughts those subtle arguments which treacherously snatch away that which is best and leave me with what is worst. Allow me to do what I did so easily and naturally as a child: believe without understanding.”22 In this context, believing without understanding means understanding that belief does not belong on the same plane as understanding, or speculative or philosophical intelligence. Believing is an act. Staking out his position in opposition to all forms of objectivist theory, Kierkegaard once again asserts the supremacy of the act of belief over all forms of science and knowledge. This is one of the central tenets of antiphilosophy: what Kierkegaard proposes is not a new system of thought, but a total break with such systems.

Faith Which Believes in God It is, in Vincent Delecroix’s words, “about becoming a Christian or, to put it another way, thinking about and ‘understanding’ faith.”23 For Christian antiphilosophers, analysing the concept of faith is a special form of examination. One must be sure to study faith from an angle which illuminates its difference and dissonance with other concepts, particularly philosophical concepts. It is the link which connects the human and divine spheres, and as such it cannot be said to truly belong to either man or God. It exists in its own distinct category, neither strictly philosophical nor entirely religious, but instead somewhere on the border between these two latitudes. But both of our antiphilosophers were well aware of the difficulties associated with the very existence of faith, its dialectical nature. They were no strangers to the difficulties it posed for them as philosophers, nor those created by their condition as Christians. They were not deaf to the crescendo of dissenting voices against them. Nor did they seek refuge behind the comforting façade of a coherent, “beneficent” or accessible faith. Making his own contribution to a tradition constructed over centuries by countless theologians and Christian philosophers, Kierkegaard proposes as analysis of the concept of faith which begins with a study of “movement in faith” as manifested in the ‘Father’ of monotheism, Abraham. Although his positions on faith became more complex as his œuvre expanded and evolved (cf. religiosity ‘B’ in the Postscript), Kierkegaard often returned to this image of the father of faith using his own free will to sacrifice his most precious possession, thus setting himself on a trajectory which transcends the ‘rational’ sphere to enter into an infinite relationship with the infinite. Faith is a movement which contravenes the forces

22 23

 Three Upbuilding Discourses, 6: 249/250 / V: 273.  V. DELECROIX, Singulière philosophie, Essai sur Kierkegaard, p. 24.

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of temporality. To be more precise, faith is “an anticipation of the eternal which unites all moments and closes the divisions of existence.”24 It is manifestation of an existential relation to eternity, a suspensive movement which opens up a pathway between morality and religion, a path which Abraham was the first to take. Because the example of Abraham represents a movement from the general to the specific (“Thou must obey”), the existing, the personal. The “concept of faith,” Kierkegaard explains, “resides in this personal relationship between the personality of the God and that of the believer as a living being.”25 Faith is not an abstract connection to the divine force, it is an intimate and incomparable relationship which binds the person of God to the person of the believer, subject to the latter’s adhesion to the former’s requirements. For Pascal, it is “incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.”26 Reason must bow down before facts which have no need of reason to exist. Reason alone cannot comprehend the reason of things. In Pascal’s view, the force needed to supplement reason is faith. He thus dismisses reason in matters of faith. As a believer in superior reason, Pascal reminds us that faith does not require the permission of reason to exist. But is it really wise to discard that capacity which enables us to distinguish between true and false, infallible and probable, probable and inconceivable? Is it not in fact possible to achieve a greater understanding of God with the help of reason? Faith must stem from somewhere other than reason, and Pascal uses the term “heart” to refer to this source. “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”27 And it is in the heart that the act of belief originates, because God is attentive to the heart, not to philosophical reasoning nor to abstract, speculative reason. Faith exceeds the boundaries of simple reason, which cannot “feel” God. And of course the presence of God is felt in the heart. This is no vague intuition, not romantic sentiment, but something akin to a mixture of interiority, individuality and thoroughly human sensitivity. Pascal evokes this possible alliance of heart and reason in the following terms: “Reason would never submit, if it did not judge that there are some occasions on which it ought to submit. It is then right for it to submit, when it judges that it ought to submit.”28 Pascal is clear that reason may find within itself the reasons for submitting. Reason reflects upon itself and confesses, logically perhaps, its own inaptitude. It orchestrates its own downfall, managing its own renunciation in order to surpass its innate limitations. Rather than a “dramatic tension,” heart and reason are bound together in a form of dialectic, an uninterrupted struggle between the two. Pascal does not suggest that intelligent people should force themselves to no longer use reason, but rather that they should use it dialectically so as to open up the possibility of faith. We thus find ourselves in the realm of the supra-rational, helping the

 VII A 139, Vol 2: 41–42 / §1347.  XI1 A 237, Vol 5: 99 / §180. 26  Laf. 109, Br. 230. 27  Laf. 382, Br. 277. 28  Laf. 174, Br. 270. 24 25

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individual to silence his/her reasoning capacities and take the leap of faith. But does this necessarily mean that the chasm separating reason from faith (in terms of reason surpassing itself and reason being surpassed by the heart) cannot be spanned? Are reason and faith still separated by a paradoxical space wherein reason is not welcome? Such a space could be accurately described as absurd, forcing us to choose between wildly conflicting positions on either side of the gulf: on the one hand simple reason, and on the other hand faith via the abandonment of reason, the latter incapable of crossing this gap, this frontier where voluntary “stupidification” serves as passport. The defining characteristic of this transreason is its faith in the absurd: “Credo quia absurdum.”29 “Faith presupposes a completed movement ‘in favour of the absurd,’ which is to say a renunciation of all the intellectual and moral securities which provide man in the ethical stage with some sort of comfort,” writes Georges Gusdorf. “The man of faith goes further, to the point of no return; he is like a high-­ wire walker, or a walker on water, advancing over the briny depths, having lost all confidence in the laws of gravity, all confidence in himself.”30 Correct use of this transreason requires a sort of abandon, a renunciation (“no return”), or risk (“high-­ wire walker”), a total disregard for the laws of abstract reason. Kierkegaard uses the term ‘absurd’ with reference to faith, specifying that it corresponds to a nurturing of absurdity as a form of passion for the infinite.31 This is noticeably a category which defies rational powers, which is why reason has no sway over it and it instead belongs to the category of action. There are no particular “skills,” to use a term employed by Kierkegaard elsewhere, conducive to the analysis of this phenomenon, except an acute sense of paradox. Faith demands an attentive exploration of this sense, which exists beyond the sphere of knowledge, beyond the sphere of human calculation32. Knowledge wants a direct understanding of man and his destiny, which existence disavows. The absurd is the only approach which allows us to get to grips with our paradoxical existential situation, our dual condition. As Pascal might have put it, humans are a middle ground between nothing and everything, and this middle ground resists comprehension through intelligence; essentially, Kierkegaard’s invocation of the absurd would have appealed to him. Both authors share a definition of faith which resembles a form of dialectical torment in which sensitivity, will and intelligence are all caught up in the assault upon scepticism and indecision. Objective uncertainty and conflicting internal convictions all play a role in this faith, locked in a perpetual dialectic movement. What becomes clear here is the vital importance of the will, the voluntary submission to faith; faith is first and foremost an exercise in the will to obey. “Pascal,” declares Kierkegaard, pointing out their similar views on this matter, “tells us that

 R. GUARDINI, Pascal ou le drame de la conscience chrétienne, 166.  G. GUSDORF, Kierkegaard – Philosophe de tous les temps, 88. 31  Postscript, X : 199 / XII : 214. 32  J. DAVENPORT, Love and the discipline of philosophy,, 210. 29 30

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the difficulty of believing stems from the difficulty of obeying.”33 Reason too is defined by will; the will to disobey. Kierkegaard is at pains to make it clear that faith is not simply a matter of making correct use of reason. It is the correct use of the freedom which exists strictly within the confines of the will, freely granted, to obey God. Herein lies the difference between believing God and believing in God. What exactly is this difference? “J.P Mynster undeniably believes in God,” responds B.H Vergotte, “he undeniably believes that there is a God. But does that amount to faith? The author of the Philosophical Fragments does not think so: ‘For him (Mynster), believing that there is a God is something that anybody can do, because you can call any old thing God.’ Believing God is far more difficult, it is an ‘absolute difference’ which ‘brooks no dominance.’”34 Faith as Kierkegaard would have it does not hide behind “any old thing,” it belongs to the God of the Old and New Testament, scandal for the Jews and madness for the pagans, as in Pascal where it is “first and foremost the allegiance of the soul to the truths contained in the Holy Scripture.”35 This faith has no need of evidence, which “never proves anything much.”36 One can only “prove” up to a certain point. Anything in need of proof is only ever half-proven: proof can never be a definitive argument when it comes to the question of the existence of God. Kierkegaard elaborates further: “‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God’ (Psalms 14, 1; 53, 1) but he who says in his heart and unto others: ‘Hold on and I’ll prove it to you,” what an exceptionally wise man he is!”37 But if reason can be persuaded, the same cannot be said of the heart. At the very least, the reasons liable to win over the heart are not the same as those which appeal to reason. Reason can reflect upon things which the heart refuses to believe, while the heart may believe things that reason rejects. Anyone who would wish to prove the existence of God without considering who is on hand to receive and hear this proof runs the risk of having their “case” ignored. Moreover the type of proof in which Christians believe, Pascal explains, can only be embraced by those who already share these convictions; in short, the only people likely to be persuaded by evidence are those who already convinced. Only a believer will believe the evidence, and “those whom we see to be Christians without the knowledge of the prophets and proofs, nevertheless judge of their religion as well as those who have that knowledge.”38 Ultimately, proof is of little use in that it does nothing for atheists, and is only really accepted those who have no real need of it. Conviction needs no reasons, since reasons are incapable of inspiring conviction. The burden of proof on faith is thus infinitely reduced: “endeavour, then, to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions,” is Pascal’s advice to those agnostics

 VII A 151, Vol 2: 53 / §3103.  HB. VERGOTE, Sens et répétition, 152. 35  E. BOUTROUX, Pascal, 177. 36  Philosophical fragments, 7: 42 / VII: 43. 37  Ibid. 38  Laf. 382, Br. 287. 33 34

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and atheists who, and not without good reason, would nonetheless like to believe. “You wish to attain faith and do not know the way; you wish to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions.”39 Placing one’s faith in God is a matter of feeling and not of reasons, however good they may be. Faith is a “leap,” a wager which fundamentally separates all ideas of proof from the feeling of adhesion to the principle of God. Proof is for men, we might say, while feeling is on God’s side: proof will always be vain, because the distance between God and man is infinite. As well as demonstrating the futility of proof in general, Pascal is particularly dismissive of metaphysical proofs. When he talks of a necessary, eternal and infinite being, we are clearly in the realm of testimony and not metaphysical proof. Or as he puts it: “Preface. – The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression; and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment that they see such demonstration; but an hour afterwards they fear they have been mistaken.”40 This pensée evokes the problem of achieving a proper understanding of God by means of a metaphysical approach. But it is not just God who cannot be attained through metaphysical reasoning; men are, by and large, incapable of sustaining such reasoning, or incapable of remembering it subsequently. In some respects, to borrow Vincent Carraud’s expression, metaphysical proofs are “inhuman.”41 These proofs, in spite of their demonstrative, rigorous appearance, approach God as a subject for philosophical speculation, a sure-fire way to completely misunderstand him. These objections do not relate to metaphysics as a whole, but simply to the application of metaphysical principles in a domain where they are not germane. Metaphysics cannot hope to grasp a question which is necessarily beyond its reach. Metaphysical proofs make reference to God, but this God evaporates instantly if the proofs are not backed up with faith. The God of metaphysical proof is an impersonal God. Any believer who does not come to him through faith only really believes in metaphysics. But metaphysics adds nothing (nor does it take anything away) for those who already have faith. In this respect, proof is a damning force for those who do not have faith. Pascal’s legacy looms large when Kierkegaard proposes the following alternative: “Either he exists, and we cannot prove it (no more than I can prove the existence of a person; at best I can gather testimony, but then I am already working on the assumption that they exist); – or else God does not exist, which cannot be proven either.”42 Either we presuppose God’s existence, which those who place proof before belief are not prepared to do, or else the non-existence of God is clearly established by those who categorically refuse to believe in him. But under no circumstances can belief by default be the subject of a demonstration proving the accuracy of the latter position:

 Laf. 418, Br. 233.  Laf. 190, Br. 543. 41  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 378. 42  V A 7, Vol 1: 312 / §1334. 39 40

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in both cases, the demonstration is unconvincing. This leaves us with two possible interpretations of metaphysical proofs: on the one hand, we may look to them for illumination on what to believe and what not to believe. But if we do so we find ourselves confronted with nothing but “darkness and shadows.”43 On the other hand, we may work on the assumption that these proofs are preaching to the converted, and treat them as a form of “testimony” in the sense that Kierkegaard assigns to this term. We can only “show the truth” in this affirmative mode, we cannot hope to demonstrate it. “Proving” the existence or non-existence of God (one position necessarily disproving the other) is a task far beyond our capabilities. Believers who base their belief on metaphysical proofs are no better off than non-believers who base their position on their rejection of the very same proofs. Furthermore, justifications founded upon historical precedent are also to be rejected. Partly because each passing century, by dressing up the truth in new garments, has further corrupted the essential truth of Christianity. But also, and above all, because the arsenal of historically-amassed proof is incompatible with the vocation of faith. As Pierre Magnard puts it, “Pascal knew very well that ‘converting’ and ‘convincing’ are very different things.”44Kierkegaard, meanwhile, rages against the hypocrisy of suggesting that the longevity of Christianity is a gauge of authenticity, as if age and continuity could prove its veracity: “The evidence for Christianity built up over the past 1800 years is the most deceptive of all,” he proclaims. “The truth of Christianity does not need to be proved […] The life of Christ has nothing to do with history, it does not enter into history thanks to so much nonsense, but remains apart from it as the eternal sign against which each generation must be judged.”45 Historical proof extends, rather than shortens, the distance between God and us. By relying too heavily on such evidence we actually run the risk of annihilating the very thing we intend to defend and corroborate. But if all evidence has its limitations, how can we believe God with no limits? Do we not need some reasons to believe, in order for there to be believers at all? For both Kierkegaard and Pascal, good reasons to believe are never enough. Belief cannot be founded upon reasons for or against believing. Pascal’s goal is never to “persuade the spirit” using mathematical or metaphysical proofs, but rather to find “moral” proofs which “dispose the heart to belief,” an ambition clearly identified by Etienne Périer, Pascal’s eldest nephew, in the first edition of 1670.46 The proofs to which Pascal truly clung bore little resemblance to those habitually used in devotional works. Ultimately, only an atheist would seek to prove something in which he does not believe. If the prophecies contained in the Gospel are there to “distance us from belief,” then surely the absence of evidence is what “proves,” or at least permits, belief. At the other extreme, an excess of proof would put all men in the same position: all ready to believe, all equally bereft of faith.

 Laf. 781, Br. 242.  P. MAGNARD, Nature et histoire dans l’apologétique de Pascal, 316. 45  IX A 59, Vol 2 : 254 / §322. 46  See V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 351.

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Alone Against the World, Alone Before God Faith thus depends on a subjective disposition. The importance and seriousness of this question reside in the fact that it is asked of me alone, confronted with myself in my solitude and suffering, as we shall see later on. Faith cannot be acquired second-­hand, it does not depend on any objective historical knowledge. It cannot be justified by the experience of others who went before us. “The strongest emphasis one can place on oneself, on the self, on the fact that ‘this is my business,’ is the requirement of faith,” Kierkegaard explains. Faith is a celebration of divine glory and prestige, phenomena which are incomprehensible and thus considered to be “objects of faith.” Faith is the judgement of an individual who recognises a spiritual reality independent of his/her own which cannot be surpassed. For Kierkegaard, it is the individual who must bear the burden of the battle described above. In faith, the individual is neither inactive nor impotent. But the choice of faith, which cannot be shared, is constantly under threat from the fear of losing oneself. Pascal shares a similar vision: “Superstition and lust. Scruples, evil desires, evil fear; fear, not such as comes from a belief in God, but such as comes from a doubt whether He exists or not. True fear comes from faith; false fear comes from doubt. True fear is joined to hope, because it is born of faith, and because men hope in the God in whom they believe. False fear is joined to despair, because men fear the God in whom they have no belief. The former fear to lose him; the latter fear to find him.”47 The analogy of the swimmer who refuses to enter the water neatly encapsulates the situation in which Kierkegaard hopes to find his readers: on the threshold of a new existence, a “leap.” Ready to renounce the present and “take the plunge” to reach the other side. Consider the here and now to be a provisional plane of our existence, such is Kierkegaard’s advice. We must not seek to reconcile both sides, but to be fully committed to one or the other. We must choose for ourselves, alone, our spiritual destination. On life’s path we must choose the stage at which we wish to make our stand. The apogee of life is that point where we stake our claim not progressively but radically, accepting the risks involved in not choosing, in a spiritual sense, another locus of existence. Knowing that both lived alone, there is a clear proximity between the Kierkegaardian and Pascalian visions of the solitary life which cannot go unremarked. Not interested in founding any sort of party or school, both thinkers were at pains to never represent anything other than themselves. The state of solitude was a fundamental feature of the lifestyle adopted by the Augustinians at Port-Royal, to such an extent that they were often referred to as the “solitary servants of Christ.” This state of solitude was essential to the spiritual quest at the heart of Jansenism. Pascal also explicitly defends his independence in the seventeenth Provincial Letter, explaining that he has no need to justify the fact that he is “not from Port-Royal,” because he is “alone.”48 Pascal wholeheartedly adopted the Jansenist culture of 47 48

 Br. 262.  Les Provinciales, 17th Letter, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 454.

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s­ olitude, ultimately distancing himself even from those whom he considered to be the most faithful representatives of Christ. “We shall die alone,” he writes in the Pensées, “We should therefore act as if we were alone.”49 Solitude was a solid foundation upon which the Christian personality could be constructed. “The French expression seul à seul is very apt to describe the feeling of solitude or the fact of being absolutely alone,” Kierkegaard writes, adding that he “came across this expression in Reuchlin, Pascal Leben, in a letter from Jacqueline (Pascal’s youngest sister) to her father.”50 To be seul à seul, for Kierkegaard, meant to be at once isolated from others and cut off from the world in order to better understand it, and better understand oneself. As much a matter of self-reflection as self-­ expression, solitude is a condition of reflexive movement and a resolution taken by the individual in relation to him/herself. A solitary person is like a ‘defendant’ in isolation, with solitude as the penalty inflicted by society on these ‘criminals’ rejected by their peers. In Stages on Life’s Way, Frater Taciturnus remarks upon the anguish of feeling cut off from the society of one’s fellow man. Even if Kierkegaard would ultimately take pride in the various (and often self-imposed) periods of exile from polite society which he experienced in his lifetime – such as during the Corsair affair or following his break with Regine Olsen51 – he does not seem to have suffered all that much from this isolation. He celebrated the solitary life in spite of the criticism it drew from his contemporaries, because it offered the possibility of standing before God. The philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, in many ways a beacon of what a Christian philosopher could be in the middle of the last century, argued that “Pascal, ‘father of dialectics and the modern existential conscience,’ would have been the greatest exponent of personalism if Jansenism had not set him on a path to the haughty, solitary religion which would later be adopted by Kierkegaard.”52 It was not lost upon the founder of Personalism that both Kierkegaard and Pascal considered the state of solitude to be the goal to which philosophers should aspire, like Socrates, in the same way that Christians should aspire to follow Jesus. The position adopted by Pascal and Kierkegaard was actually, as we shall see later on, a critique of the idea that strength in numbers should be considered a fundamental value. In Pascal’s words: “I am alone against thirty thousand. You can protect the court; protect deception; let me protect the truth. It is all my strength. [...] But I possess the truth, and we shall see who prevails.”53 This declaration betrays a clear sense of defiance in the face of opponents, however numerous they may be. He adds  Laf. 151, Br. 211.  X3 A 630, 3111. See also A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 521. 51  The Corsair affair of 1846 saw Kierkergaard come into conflict with a Danish satirical magazine, which took to mocking his public persona. Kierkegaard responded on several fronts, and the experience prompted much personal reflection (see in particular Volume XIII of the Princeton edition of his Writings). 52  E.  MOUNIER, Le Personnalisme, quoted in Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, H. POLITIS, 82. 53  Laf. 960, Br. 921.

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e­ lsewhere that “Those who do not love the truth take as a pretext that it is disputed, and that a multitude deny it,”54 prefiguring Kierkegaard’s refusal to “make the habitual concessions to numbers.”55 The individual has greater worth than the species, contrary to Hegel’s assertion that humans are an animal species, thus placing the general above the individual and forgetting that man is made in the image of God.56 “Such is the public; nobody considers the human question of whether an opinion is true in and of itself; what most occupies their attention is to know how many people share this opinion,”57 Kierkegaard writes elsewhere, acutely aware that “truth is useful to those to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes them disliked.”58 Consensus is always the middle road, whereas truth cannot be true to a certain extent. The only real truth is that which stands in opposition to the public, to the “idlers,” to the majority, to general opinion. This is what Kierkegaard calls edifying truth, a truth which allows for the edification of the individual, and the internalisation by that “unique” being of the truth of Christianity. Being alone, taking the solitary road, allows us to be sure that “truth and sincerity” are on our side. For Kierkegaard, being alone is the only admissible posture before God. The word of God enshrined in the Bible is to be received alone, in silence. He even suggests that solitude can be fundamentally defined in relation to God, not in relation to oneself: “when somebody withdraws from the world (in the external sense), but without communing with God, which is to say keeping the world present in his thoughts, then he is not solitary: he is a hermit, but without the solitude.”59 Better still, he assures us that “like the very opposite of a hospital doctor who flits from one bed to the next and only has five minutes for each patient,”60 God addresses the solitary believer in the most personal, and thus most sublime, manner imaginable. Kierkegaard does not neglect to remind us that Christ was alone when he faced the devil’s temptations. As such solitude, that form of infinite self-­reflection, whether within the world or outside it, always requires God’s help, since it is an essential requirement for morality, “and we rarely achieve anything much, either good or bad, if we have never known solitude.”61

 Laf. 176, Br. 261.  H. B. VERGOTE, Sens et répétition, volume 1, 113. 56  Kierkegaard elaborates: “The human race has this singularity – precisely because each of us was created in the image of God – that the ‘individual’ is superior to the ‘species.’ I readily admit that this idea can be taken in vain and used to horrible ends. But it is the essence of Christianity. And it is exactly here that the battle must be waged.” X2 A 426, Vol 3: 335 / §1614. 57  The Moment, 19 : 205 / XXIII: 209. 58  Laf. 978, Br. 100. Kierkegaard is not surprised by this response: “Will I be regarded with suspicion? I knew as much from reading the New Testament.” Twenty-one articles from Faedrelandet, 19: 26 / XXIII: 25. 59  VIII A 210, Vol 2: 136 / §2000. 60  IX A 116, Vol 2: 267–268 / §1371. 61  Ibid. 54 55

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In this respect the drama of Christianity is played out not on the usual stage of the ecclesiastical institution and its procedures, strikingly described by Badiou as the “flexible capacity for institutional preservation within a city in turmoil,” but instead at the level of its “subjective power of attraction”62 over believers, and perhaps even more so over non-believers, the prime targets of Pascal’s antiphilosophical action. In these conditions Kierkegaard’s redefinition of what it means to be Christian, which he defined as his personal task, is essentially a reminder that a Christian must be an individual who, having surpassed the stages of ethics and aesthetics, acts alone before God.63 A rare phenomenon, he notes. What marks out a true Christian is not the propensity to define oneself as such, nor to simply be Christian by birth or tradition or by living in Christendom; it is penitence. That is the fundamental requirement. Kierkegaard welcomes the difficulty inherent in this demand, for “what good does it do to keep up the illusion that we are all Christians?” It does, of course, pose a serious obstacle to the recruitment of those whom Kierkegaard ironically refers to as “followers,”64acutely aware of how difficult it is, particularly for “cultivated”65 minds, to accept this status. It is important to bear in mind that Kierkegaard never actually defines himself as a Christian, since this notion has never signified an ideal condition, but rather an ideal of what a condition could be, an absolute, a “preoccupation before the ideal.”66 Pascal also sees Christians as operating, if not quite in a distinct sphere, at least within a determined order, that of charity and grace, itself an improvement on the inferior order of matter and that of thought and its limitations. He too insists: “I say there are few true Christians, even as regards faith.”67 The reason for this can be found in Kierkegaard’s final polemical texts, when he declares that “the difference between a genius and a Christian is that the genius is nature’s extraordinary; no human being can make himself/herself into one. A Christian is freedom’s extraordinary or, more precisely, freedom’ ordinary; except that this is found extraordinarily rarely, yet it is what every one of us should be.”68 Pascal is as concerned as Kierkegaard to avoid awarding the title of Christians to those who do not sincerely merit it. And yet rare are those who deserve the accolade, since spiritual freedom is unusual and scandalous. In all religions there are two types of human beings, carnal and spiritual. The former are more visible and more numerous, the latter more discreet and harder to identify. Those who believe in God through superstition alone are no more “true Christians” than those who believe in nothing.69 The status of

 A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 202.  Fear and trembling, Aubier, 52–53. 64  X1 A 406, Vol 3: 122 / §6415. 65  Postscript, 11: 285 / XII: 606. 66  X2 A 399, Vol 3: 323. 67  Laf. 179, Br. 256. 68  The Moment, 19: 177 / XXIII: 180. 69  Laf. 179, Br. 256. 62 63

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being a Christian loses its affirmative force if everybody is assumed to be one, an assumption Kierkegaard frequently attacks.70 If it were true, anybody who has been christened would be under no requirement to become Christian, to show courage in their devotion to truth. They would not have to prove the sincerity of their belief – an obligation as important to Kierkegaard as it was to Pascal – but simply keep faith with their baptism.71 Both were very clear about their position on such matters: we are not born Christian, we must become Christian. Or rather strive to become, so strenuous are the efforts required and so heavy the burden of the Christian condition for our human frames. If it is easy to be a Christian in the common sense, it is all the more difficult to become a Christian in the sense intended by our two thinkers, and the outcome of that process of becoming is not pre-determined. It is worth recalling that Kierkegaard, like Pascal72, ultimately sought to escape the sense of subordination to species, type, generality. Kierkegaard’s critique of the collective and communal operated as much on the political as the religious level, whence he sought to banish “companionship.” Pascal’s critique is clearly more nuanced, but it also extends to the sphere of friendship, where disloyalty is not as rare as generally assumed.

Suffering as Natural State As we pursue our enquiries, let us now attempt to cast light upon a final aspect of the potential advent of a new form of action in philosophy and Christianity, as evoked by Christian antiphilosophy: the fact of being alone. Alone before the truth of Christianity. This truth is the Christian’s most precious asset, and if it is challenged then the believer must be ready to fight for it; not in the pursuit of any “terrestrial goal,”73 but simply for the sake of the fight. In Christianity the battle is always more important than the victory, in a spirit of service. The combat for Christian truth is the direct opposite of the state of apathy which characterises those who give little consideration to such matters, occasionally defined by Kierkegaard as “idlers.” “The idler, who spends his days peacefully or else rushes about from morning till night without ever suffering for the truth, has no real needs; he imagines that he does, or pays to be convinced that he does.”74 But striving for truth  Ironically, Kierkegaard writes that “one thing that everybody knows about themselves for sure: that they are Christian.” X2 A 401, Vol 3: 323–324 / 4555. 71  H.  HØFFDING, Pascal et Kierkegaard, p.  245. Pascal uses the term sincerity in the 12th Provincial Letter. 72  “But he (Pascal) did not agree, telling us that our duty was not to the general but to the particular.” M. PERIER, La vie de Monsieur Pascal, 27. 73  IX A 326, Vol 2: 335 / §4856. 74  For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, 18: 122 / XXI: 69. 70

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necessarily involves struggle. Suffering for that truth is a pre-requisite, a natural obligation. We must be prepared to fight in its name, against ourselves, against our own anxieties and fears, against prejudice and illusion, and especially against “what people generally consider to be true,”75 not least philosophers. The battle is made all the more arduous by the fact that the “idlers,” who have their own opinion of truth, can rely on “strength in number.”76 Both authors are clear as to the reason why there are few true Christians: for the Christian, “suffering is a natural state.”77 In his relationship with God, man must necessarily suffer78. This suffering is specific, and not to be confused with suffering in the familiar sense (there is no denying that ‘ordinary’ suffering exists too)79. It is, in fact, man’s most noble interior action. Truly Christian suffering is the “essential expression of existential pathos” and a “sign of the relationship between a living being and the absolute telos,”80 the death of the strictly immediate character of human life. This break with the immediate sphere in order to realise the eternal within the temporal sphere requires an effort of self-effacement. Pascal readily acknowledges the sense of “trouble” which arises in the relationship to God, preventing the enjoyment of worldly pleasures and giving rise to a feeling which is the opposite of well-being.81 The relationship to God engenders cruel torments which Kierkegaard is quick to distinguish from the ordinary suffering of the human condition, physical as well as ‘moral’, as endured by those of a scientific or speculative disposition. He insists upon these differences, describing the profound torment endured by the individual in this “mediocre, lamentable, sinful, wicked and impious”82 world where truth is condemned to suffer. The suffering of he who would expose the truth, Christian suffering, is a form of catharsis,83 a guarantee of the truth of the revelation. In Kierkegaard’s definition, only a Christian is capable of experiencing this type of suffering. The Christianity of the New Testament is not about happy truth or “good news,” it is truth in the face of persecution. Indeed the persecution of this truth is the sign of its  L. SHESTOV, La nuit de Gethsémani, p. 9.  “Tumult/Authority. – So far from making it a rule to believe a thing because you have heard it, you ought to believe nothing without putting yourself into the position as if you had never heard it.” Laf. 504, Br.260. 77  Quoted by R. JOLIVET, Aux sources de l’existentialisme chrétien : Kierkegaard, 193. It is worth noting that this mention of the ‘Christian’s natural state’ is actually a saying attributed to Pascal by his sister Gilberte. 78  Sherdan Hough explains : “Life, as Kierkegaard readily avers, is suffering : the comportment of faith does not change that reality. What does matter is how a person inhabits her suffering. Objectively, one suffers : subjectively, the faithful person dwells within the lived practices of James : ‘every gift is good, every gift is perfect’”. S. HOUGH, Kierkegaard’s Dancing Tax Collector : Faith, Finitude, and Silence, 141–142. 79  See W. CARSON, Kierkegaard’s critique of Eudaimonism: A reassessment. 80  Postscript, 11: 211 / XII: 525. 81  Sur la conversion du pécheur, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 290. 82  The Moment, 19: 283 / XXIII: 321. 83  L. SHESTOV, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, 282. 75 76

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resistance to worldly considerations, and thus the surest manifestation of its authenticity and sincerity. A sincerity which owes less to the content of the message itself than to the persecution of its preacher, the consequence of the act. Kierkegaard notes that it is he/she who suffered most who proclaimed God to be a God of love, followed by the apostles whose lives also ended in suffering and martyrdom. The conceptual, rational universality imagined by Hegel seems very far away indeed.84 Kierkegaard’s position is in fact much closer to the Pascalian notion of sickness, and far removed from the philosophy of health as championed by the Stoics. Kierkegaard revels in pointing out the most notorious inconsistency in the positions adopted by the latter, who simultaneously defended suicide and believed in the possibility of taking pleasure in this world.85 But he is equally dismissive of the “confused” Rousseau, mocking the disparity between a philosophy dedicated to limiting the scope of suffering in this world, and the extreme fragility which was surely his most prominent psychological characteristic. Kierkegaard refuted the idea of a natural suffering other than that which consisted of being an instrument of God, and therein finding fortune and happiness. There is no enjoyment to be extracted from suffering, but there is a “beatitude” specific to the its Christian form. This is also what makes this suffering ambiguous and difficult to comprehend. Kierkegaard uses terms such as ‘equivocation’, ‘ambivalence’ and ‘division,’ “since we cannot all complain in unison about this suffering if it signifies joy… and we cannot hope to be understood when we talk of beatitude or of suffering, because the one is permanently subsumed in the other, and we can only directly comprehend things with a single meaning.” He acknowledges the difficulty inherent to justifying this light burden, “even when the suffering is overwhelming,” as well as the essential incomprehensibility of this paradox which he nonetheless supports, transcending the need to make ourselves understood to others.86 As for Pascal, is it possible to be so indifferent to the suffering which he himself endured? As Lucien Jerphagnon reminds us, Pascal’s health was famously fragile, and “[Pascal] himself admits, that since the age of eighteen he had not passed a single day free of pain.”87 Here again we must remember that the suffering in question is a strictly Christian suffering, fundamentally different from ordinary pain. Kierkegaard held that physical suffering, as troublesome as it might be, could never be overwhelming. In this respect Pascal’s belt of nails was not an instrument of suffering, but first and foremost a weapon in the struggle against himself. It was therefore a beneficial tool, since health  – even more so than success and worldly esteem – poses a serious risk to anybody who does not wish to forget God. In good health, what need have we of God?88 In this regard it is remarkable to find  Although we may also admit of a more contemporary reading of Hegel, detecting in his works a constant effort to describe human suffering in a bid to comprehend the universal. 85  “Making health the highest principle is a principle worthy of beasts,” sneers Kierkegaard. V B 148,38, quoted by A. CLAIR in Kierkegaard, Penser le singulier, 146. 86  Ibid., 229 87  L. JERPHAGNON, Pascal et la souffrance, Les Editions ouvrières, 18. 88  Ibid., 180–181 84

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Kierkegaard, well acquainted since childhood with suffering and melancholy, asserting that that this suffering is nothing compared with that demanded of the true Christian. For “it is not given us to become Christians for so little.”89 Pascal is at pains to render an account of his suffering in spiritual terms, and in that respect his position is comparable to that subsequently staked out by Kierkegaard when he suggests that the only way for us to unite ourselves with Christ is to relive his suffering. It is the Jesus who suffered, the Jesus who was abandoned by his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, who reminds us that suffering is also a way of uniting ouselves eternally with God. The root of this suffering is the painful contradiction between the Christian life as it should be lived and the life of the Christian as it actually plays out in this world. This secret suffering, hidden beneath a veil of modesty, embodies the demanding nature of the relationship to God, the via crucis facing Christians. Anti-Climacus offers a striking expression of this dialectic of Christian suffering: “Christianity demands self-denial: renounce yourself – and suffer for that choice.”90 In this self-renunciation, the act of becoming something else or refusing to become one’s self, lies the suffering glory of the Christian soul and spirit. The greater the pain endured in its pursuit, the more boundless the self-­ abnegation becomes, and the more resounding the glory of this suffering. In Pascal’s view, and this was certainly one of his most important criticisms of the Order, the spiritual life led by the Jesuits contained a terrible dishonesty as to what the true Christian life should resemble. The various unconscionable compromises which these soldiers of Christ urged upon their followers were pure lies when compared with the genuinely Christian position. In his judgement, the casuistic discourse of the Jesuit fathers was a soothing fiction impudently obscuring the essential necessity of reflecting upon Christ’s suffering in the garden of Gethsemane. But can we truly comprehend Kierkegaard’s remarks on the topic of suffering without the correct context of their relationship to time? Suffering is a lesson in eternity, making obedience in faith the highest goal of life and eschewing the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, limited to a single instant which later defies remembering. The secret of suffering lies in its “traceability,” its mnemonic potential, “since no memory brings as much happiness as the memory of suffering overcome with God, and nothing lends greater happiness to memories.”91 “Temporality” is what eternity transcends, and “suffering in this world,” is what determines each individual’s ability to obtain this temporal transcendence. “Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth,” as Pascal put it in his Mémorial. Such suffering can only represent a danger if it actually exists. What allows us to transcend temporality is the fact that suffering “overcome” creates “happier memories.” What we really need to fear is the propagation of the satisfactions of worldly life.

 Practice in Christianity, 17: 125 / XX: 136.  Ibid., 17: 188 / XX: 213. 91  Christian Discourses, 14: 98 / XVII: 104. 89 90

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All of which casts new light on the following declaration from Nietzsche describing Pascal as ‘the most noble victim of Christ’92. “I can only approve of those who seek with lamentation writes Pascal.”93 Lamentation is a sign of suffering, and as such an essential prerequisite of the quest for truth. Suffering is the path of truth, just as Kierkegaard holds that the most difficult path is the path to salvation. Those who search without suffering have taken a wrong turn, and the results they attain cannot be praiseworthy under any circumstances, since the whole enterprise was compromised from the outset.

92 93

 Ecce Homo, II, 3, 243.  Laf. 405, Br. 421.

Chapter 4

“Hear God”

There is but one possible answer: it is by escaping the phenomenological structures of the world that Christ is able to speak to us as he does. Henry, I Am the Truth, 84.

Abstract  The third dimension of the antiphilosophy of Christianity radicalises its opposition to the sterile certainties of philosophy. The disruptive agenda of antiphilosophy can in fact be expressed in five statements: first Statement: “The external is of no use without the internal”; second Statement: “You have deposed the pope... and put ‘the public’ on the throne”; third Statement: “Forget the world and everything except God”; fourth Statement: “Deus absconditus”; fifth Statement: “Deny, if you will, that Christianity is a paradox!” At the heart of Kierkegaard’s work lies the idea that the alternative is not about terms to be chosen, but about ways of life for the one who chooses. Pascal’s wager offers a similar perspective: the alternative of the mind is between the mode of existence of the one who ‘wagers’ that God exists, and the mode of existence of the one who wagers for non-existence or who does not want to bet. Choice as a spiritual determination has no other object than itself: I choose to choose, and by the same token I exclude any choice made in the mode of not having a choice. By choosing a mode of existence like any other, by becoming aware of its irrevocable orientation, there are then choices of existence and lifestyles that I can no longer make, especially philosophical ones, which it is now impossible for me to choose. Keywords  Church · Hidden god · Eternity · Faith · Interior/exterior · Paradox · Subversion

The third dimension of antiphilosophy is the act itself, the antiphilosophical act. This act manifests itself as a staunch opposition to philosophical discourse, dismissing its pretentions to truth. True philosophy lies not in the realm of discourse but in the realm of action, of the act whose specific context and transcendental character we have just established. This new alternative to the arrogance and disdain of philosophy is an original act, a permanent break with the limitations of reason and the

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7_4

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philosophical experience itself. This renunciation of the philosophy of philosophers was intended to be radical, proposing a mode of thought and action which highlights the limitations of traditional philosophical reflection. What, then, was the motivating force behind this new, antiphilosophical experiment? For both Pascal and Kierkegaard it was not so much the irreligion of their fellow philosophers as the incapacity of philosophy to satisfactorily resolve questions of the human condition and its darker aspects. To the question “Who will sort out this mess?” Pascal responds “it is beyond the ken of dogmatism and scepticism, and all human philosophy.” He later adds an injunction which serves as a definitive repudiation of philosophical incredulity: “Hear God.”1 The Christian God fills up the hearts of all who let him in. But as we read Gilberte Périer’s La Vie de Monsieur Pascal, it is occasionally tempting to doubt the destructive intentions of Pascalian antiphilosophy. As she puts it: “at all times and in all things the truth was his sole object, never finding satisfaction in anything but knowledge of the truth.”2 Pascal himself asserts that “truth is the first rule and ultimate end of things.”3 And it is precisely through this search, this quest, that he plans, if not to actually attain absolute truth, then at least to give meaning to his action. The action in question does not merely involve his intellect, which we might qualify as just a small part of his being; it subsumes him entirely. Truth is the path, it consists largely of the actions we undertake in its name, of our capacity of action, rather than any absolute understanding (which would necessarily be compromised by our predisposition to failure). It is in fact an authentic quest, personally undertaken by the individual: “what good is it to me if a truth appears, naked and cold, not caring if I should recognise it or not, more conducive to a shiver of anguish than a sense of trust?” Kierkegaard asks rhetorically. Truth is eminently subjective: only if it is received by the individual can it be considered true. Truth only exists to the individual, truth can only be derived from existence. Jean Brun correctly points out that this distinction between subjective and objective truth is one which Pascal makes presciently.4 Pascal’s opinion of objective truth is well known, and he is under no illusion as to its capacities: “Here is not the country of truth. She wanders unknown amongst men.”5 Neither science nor philosophy is in a position to end this wandering, for “God has covered her with a veil.”6 It thus becomes more difficult to remain within the confines of philosophy, which is incapable of retaining its independence and sovereignty with respect to the divine voice which defines the point of truth. This  Laf. 131, Br. 434.  Quoted in A. FOREST, Pascal ou l’intériorité révélante, 9. 3  Laf. 974, Br. 949. 4  “Pascal thus distinguished, well before Kierkegaard, between what we would now call ‘objective truths’ and ‘subjective truths’; which is to say those which belong to the sphere of scientific knowledge, and those which belong to the sphere of existence.” J. BRUN, La philosophie de Pascal, 78–79. 5  Laf. 840, Br. 843. 6  Laf. 840, Br. 843. 1 2

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point is accessible only by an unprecedented act: “conversion,”7 belief, that singular term in the lexicon of antiphilosophy which marks the definitive break with all philosophical systems. The disruptive agenda of antiphilosophy can in fact be expressed in five statements: First Statement: “The external is of no use without the internal” Second Statement: “You have deposed the pope... and put ‘the public’ on the throne” Third Statement: “Forget the world and everything except God” Fourth Statement: “Deus absconditus” Fifth Statement: “Deny, if you will, that Christianity is a paradox” In this chapter I shall endeavour to illustrate the significance of these proposals and explore their nuances.

 irst Statement: “The External Is of No Use Without F the Internal” Both Pascal and Kierkegaard contemplated taking holy orders at least once in their lives, before ultimately renouncing the idea. Both thinkers became ever more critical of the ecclesiastical authorities as their lives went on. They were united in their determination to keep Christianity separate from outward things. In this respect, their individual relationships with the institutional Church track the trajectories of their increasing separation from the “visible” authorities. Of course Pascal also declared that “The history of the church ought properly to be called the history of truth.”8 This famous maxim suggests a strong sense of attachment to the Catholic institution, but Pascal’s position was more nuanced or even ambivalent. On the one hand, he insists that we cannot “fail to recognise the church”9 if we love God with all our hearts, for it is “inseparable from Jesus Christ,”10 while on the other hand he adds that “if she [the Church] absolves or binds without God, she is no longer the church,”11 as if hinting at its shortcomings. The delicate balance of the Church is upset by extrinsic forces (the world outside the Church) and intrinsic factors (the world of the Church itself). But in both cases, as we shall see, the imbalance originates in the outside world. One such intrinsic factor was the rise of the Jesuits, who wielded considerable influence within the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century – a state of affairs constantly bemoaned by Pascal. His long-running opposition to the Society of Jesus was not unlike Kierkegaard’s campaign against the Danish Church. The weapons  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 222.  Laf. 776, Br. 858. 9  Laf. 881, Br. 850. 10  5th letter to Roannez, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 268. 11  Laf. 604, Br. 870. 7 8

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used (polemical writings) were comparable, but above all the motivations for their attacks were identical: the Jesuit discourse spreading through the Catholic Church and the teachings of the Church of Denmark were not consistent with the word of the New Testament. They were simply diluting, weakening and softening the message of Christ, preventing their fellow men from appreciating the full misery of their situation. Both thinkers set out to expose ambiguities, inconsistencies and immobilism, observing the state of corruption generally encountered in the secularised Church. In Pascal’s view, the Catholic Church was incapable of recognising the error of its ways. This applied to the Church’s leader as much as its members: “The Pope hates and fears the learned, who do not submit to him at will.”12 Meanwhile those who upset the peace within the Church, and are excommunicated for their troubles, might well prove to be the source of its salvation.13 Hence Pascal’s conviction that the influence of Jansenius could have a beneficial impact on Catholic theology, a position masterfully defended in the Provincial Letters. It is better to follow God than to follow man, and better to make enemies of men than to make an enemy of God. He therefore showed no hesitation in continuously attacking the Jesuits. In several passages in his Papers, Kierkegaard expresses his affinity with Pascal. In one telling instance he cites the Provincial Letters: “Pascal is right to say that having people who oppose your efforts to highlight moral corruption clearly shows that those same people are indifferent to truth and determined not to budge from that position. If somebody raises the alarm about some rotten meat or a city infected with plague, there will always be somebody ready to interpret the warning as a personal slight.”14 He agrees with Pascal that Jesus’ message has been waylaid by the Jesuits, as when, reading Reuchlin, he notes that Escobar describes the confessor as the “penitent’s advocate.”15 If this were true, the priest hearing confession would simply tell sinners what they want to hear; but that is precisely the opposite of his role. The confessor-as-judge has somehow been transformed into an advocate-­ corruptor of the Church, all while projecting an image of saintliness. Kierkegaard thus denounces the moral decline engendered by the Jesuits’ influence over the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century, just as he repudiates the embourgeoisement of the Danish Church. What Kierkegaard would not stand for  Laf. 667, Br. 873.  Saint Athanasius, for example. Laf. 598, Br. 868. 14  X3 A 634. Kierkegaard is clearly thinking of the following passage from the 11th letter: 12 13

“Strange zeal, indeed, which gets angry at those that censure public faults, and not at those that commit them! […] If these persons were in danger of being assassinated, would they be offended if one warned them of the ambush that had been laid for them […] Do they get irritated when one tells them not to eat a certain meat, because it is poisoned, or not to enter such a city, because it has the plague? [...] their indifference to truth leads them not only to take no share in its defence, but even to scorn the efforts made to combat falsehood.” Provincial Letters, Letter XI. 15  X3 A 632, Vol 4: 174 / §3113.

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was what Karl Jaspers calls the “conflation” of the Church with the world.16 It is important to bear in mind that the National Church of Denmark is affiliated with the state, acting as a sort of ministry of spiritual affairs. The Church is thus necessarily in harmony with the world, since it is connected to its hierarchical structures, it cannot possibly hope to renounce worldly powers, since it is dependent upon them. A large proportion of the Church’s budget was covered by the Danish state; Mynster was in fact an excellent administrator, in the manner of a business manager. This homogeneity was anathema to Kierkegaard and his dichotomous vision of religion in the world: on the one side, established order, on the other side, Christianity. And not the sort of Christendom which actually prevailed in contemporary Denmark, embodied in a state church caught somewhere in the middle of this contradiction. In authentic Christianity, the sacraments alone are no substitute for a genuine love for God. “It is not absolution only which remits sins by the sacrament of penance, but contrition.”17 From a Christian standpoint, it is better to show contrition without the sacraments than to be baptised without true penitence. The fundamental identity of a Christian is not defined by the sacraments, but by his penitence. The question of the sacraments – whether they be the “hundred easy devotional practices” recommended by. Father P. Barry or the “mark of predetermination” of Father Binet18 – while certainly worth a “look,” in Pascal’s mildly ironic phrase, will always be less important than the essential question of religion, and will never be sufficient to overcome sin. Pardon can only be granted to those capable of repentance, whether or not they have been confirmed or married in the Church, or any Church for that matter. The ceremonial protocol is as nothing compared to what lies within the hearts of each worshipper. All the more so since access to these ritual blandishments is open to all: it is entirely possible to be baptised or receive the last rites without comprehending the implications of these actions. In fact it was practically impossible to escape the Christian sacraments in so-called Christian countries, these rites having become compulsory requirements thanks to the pressure exerted by the Church authorities. Although the language Kierkegaard uses is often voluntarily unpolished, both he and Pascal offer an equally radical critique of contemporary religious practices. Both are concerned with the same deception. Of course, and this has not been lost on the many commentators who have compared these two thinkers in the past, one accepted the last rites in the days leading up to his death while the other categorically refused them, a difference which we would be foolhardy to overlook. Discussing these conflicting attitudes, André Clair notes that “While Pascal objected to a certain approach to the sacraments and outward practices (which he considered to be self-satisfied and apologetic), Kierkegaard repudiated these practices  “He states his desire with a clarity which is entirely unequivocal: ‘loyalty above all.’ He was not fighting on behalf of the Christianity of the New Testament against the Church, but rather to prevent their conflation.” K. JASPERS, Kierkegaard vivant, 86. 17  Laf. 713, Br. 923. 18  Provincial Letters, Ninth Letter. 16

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wholesale.”19 But it seems that Pascal’s critique is no less implacable, and although he may have refused to be ministered to before his death, Kierkegaard never stopped attending church and practicing the religious rites in his lifetime. What he objected to – after much deliberation on his death bed, as recorded in his final conversation with Emil Boesen – was not so much the fact of receiving the last rites from a man but the idea of admitting defeat in his battle against the Lutheran order which dominated the contemporary Danish National Church. He had ceased to believe in the authority of that church many years previously, and refused to consider it as the worldly representative of the God who died on the cross for us. What Kierkegaard objected to was not the sacrament, but the hypocrisy underpinning the practice of that sacrament. There is a tension here between, on the one hand, a radical rejection of the contemporary Church, which in Kierkegaard’s view was best defined as “a society of men who, with the help of a few sacraments, have found a way to shirk the obligation to love God,”20 and on the other hand a refusal to call for open revolution and an infinite respect for the Church in spite of the criticisms levelled against it. How can we explain such a contradiction? The fact of the matter is that there were two Churches, not Catholic and Protestant, but instead a “triumphant Church” and a “militant Church.”21 On one side was the Church triumphant in the outward world, and on the other the heroic Church whose courage ensured triumph over this world. The triumphant Church wins only worldly reward, losing God in the process. The heroic Church, recognised as such by Pascal too, is the Church of struggle, the Church whose only victory is in the battle with the world, a battle whose existence constitutes the Church’s triumph. Its cause is greater than the outward world, which it scorns. The grandeur of this Church lies in its capacity to transcend the misery of man, to love God and hate the world. Hence the following pensée, which seems like a paradox but is not: “The true religion must teach greatness and misery; must lead to the esteem and contempt of self, to love and to hate.”22 We must scorn that part of ourselves which refuses God, and love only that part which tends to him: such is the duty of the Church. To serve God, without enslaving man and women. Does this go some way to helping us understand the importance of interiority? The issue is fundamental. In Kierkegaard’s view, the interiorisation of the Christian faith is a defining element of that faith, a principled stand against the criticisms of the Jews, Greeks and speculative thinkers who consider it an absurd folly. Pascal holds a similar position: works and wealth are of no use if they are not backed up by a movement which reflects the internal depths of their author and owner. The external is of no use without the internal: “Deuteronomy. 30. 6: ‘And the Lord thy God  A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 515.  XI1 A 556, Vol 5: 178–179 / §5047. 21  The triumphant Church and established Christendom are a lie, the greatest misfortune to befall the Church; they are her ruin and at the same time her punishment, things brought about through her own fault.” Practice in Christianity, 17: 205 / XX: 232. 22  Laf. 450, Br. 494. 19 20

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will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart.’ / The uncircumcised in heart shall be judged./ Jeremiah 9. 26: God will judge ‘these nations [that] are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.’ / The external is of no use without the internal.”23 What transpires from this ontological distinction between interior and exterior, inward and outward, is a statement of reforming intent which postulates a radical separation between intangible spiritual power and tangible temporal power. In short, a total separation of Church and state. Kierkegaard addresses this topic in an article published in Faedrelandet in 1851, in response to Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach’s insinuation that Kierkegaard wished to see the emancipation of the Church. Kierkegaard’s dismissal of this idea is unequivocal: “I have never concerned myself with the question of Church and State – that is far beyond my capacities.”24 What interested Kierkegaard was not the Church as an institution, nor even its supposed relationship with the state. None of this had any bearing on interiority. What he did contest was the conflation of the two, and the call for further reforms in the Reformed Church. He was no revolutionary when it came to ecclesiastical institutions; what interested him was reforming the mind. It mattered little whether or not the state decided to co-opt the Church; what really mattered was that the Church should be devoted to the interiorisation of Christianity, something which can only come from a personal decision, not a political one.25 For Kierkegaard Christianity is subjective, sole guarantor of the believer’s interiorisation. “Knowing a confession of faith by heart,” he contends in the Postscript “is paganism, because Christianity is interiority.”26 Which means that Christianity cannot be reduced to a simple doctrine, an object of “quantitative” knowledge like any other, or even a neutral form of information. On the contrary, Christianity is an experience which must necessarily be borne within believers. What is at stake here is not a question of heritage, which is of no importance, but of the moral destination of an individual whose life hangs in the balance between guilt and resolution. For Kierkegaard there is no value of more absolute importance for mankind than interiority, a position echoed in Pascal’s famous maxim that “It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.”27 It is within the self that truth is revealed to the heart, for it is here that God’s gaze is trained. As Jean Guitton remarks, this represents a rejection of the theocentric vision of the universe championed by scholastic thinkers and other medieval philosophers.28 “God regards only the inward;” Pascal tells us, and “God absolves as soon as He sees penitence in the heart.”29  Laf. 453, Br. 610.  Late writings, 17: 255. 25  “As an individual, I have addressed myself to ‘the Individual,’ enjoining him to internalise Christianity.” 17: 255. 26  Ibid. 27  Laf. 689, Br. 64. 28  J. GUITTON, Pascal et Leibniz, 182. 29  Laf. 923, Br. 905. 23 24

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My aim in this chapter is to attempt to identify this correspondence which begins inwardly and brings out the “fundamental” and “absolute” truths which interiority can reveal to us. The crux of this matter is an encounter which cannot be taken for granted. God reveals himself indirectly, by means invisible to the exterior world. Objectively, God is invisible to man and that is why man cannot hope to connect with God without using his interior faculties. Utilised with effort and suffering, these faculties can allow us to see God stripped of dissimulation (effort to overcome the adversity of exteriority and suffering in order to discover interiority, which itself is hidden). A direct relationship to God obtained without interiority is idolatry. The veil which hides God from some of us is pierced by others: the difference between these two relationships to God depends upon what Jean Mesnard defines as the “interior attitude of the individual.30Like Kierkegaard, Pascal rejected the temptations of objectivity and its false ignorance of individual experience, opting instead for the revelation of the absolute ideal by conversion of the heart, imbued with the tension of interiority. Here is a definition of truth,” Kierkegaard offers, “objective uncertainty, sustained by the passionate appropriation of interiority, is the truth, the highest truth there can be for a living being. At the point of bifurcation (a point which it is objectively impossible to define precisely, corresponding to subjectivity), objective knowledge is left hanging.”31 In this crucial passage, objectivity is depicted as powerless in the face of the individual’s decision. Its uncertainty stems from the wavering, random opposition of subjectivity which, for a living being, is necessarily the truth. But should this incursion into the interior life be totally taken out of our relationship to others? How much room remains for it in this space of inward exploration? Is there still a connection to the world, if the individual learns more about her/himself every day? Pascal’s response is unequivocally in the affirmative: “When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. And thus this benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides that such community of intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.”32 This is the interiorisation of the true fruits of a “community of intelligence” that each participant can feel within themselves. This result is not achieved by a discourse, but stems instead from a profound feeling within the person hearing it: “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered.”33 People definitively persuade themselves of their beliefs not because of persuasive rhetoric, but when conviction and belief take root within themselves. Which is why Pascal and Kierkegaard were so implacably opposed to the idea of “changing others” as an ambition. Both felt that their message was addressed to what we might call the

 J. MESNARD, Pascal, 69.  Postscript, 10: 189–190 / XII: 203. 32  Laf. 652, Br. 14. 33  Laf. 737, Br. 10.. 30 31

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“interior person” of others, the part which belongs entirely to them and is accessible only to them, “for they would warn, not instruct.”34 As a matter of simple principle, Kierkegaard and Pascal could never have disciples; this would require the “exteriorisation” of recognition of their Master status. This would compromise the interiority of the disciple, hence the refusal of both thinkers to be considered authorities by anybody. Confronting Hegel’s affirmation of the reality of the interior and exterior, Kierkegaard maintains that the interior cannot be reduced to the level of the exterior. The interior can never be fully expressed, because a part of it is shameful and another ineffable. Kierkegaard, a self-proclaimed Janus bifrons, devoted a good part of his life to protecting the privacy of his personal life, what he describes as the “background of my life,”35 and particularly those closest to him (his mother and father, his brother Christian and his fiancée Regine). Our relations with others should not be a matter of acting upon them, but rather of allowing them to act within themselves, without the harmful, domineering intransigence of a preceptor. Ultimately, the spiritual quest of the individual finds its triumph in the interiority of the individual who is searching. The further inward it goes, the closer this quest gets to God. The further it travels from the grandeur of the world, the greater its chances of discovering its self. Me and I are not to be confused,36 and the Cartesian “I” becomes a Pascalian “Me” whose singularity and existence are objects of love. For it is God himself who defines what is love, not the man in whose heart this love has been kindled, nor the world which misunderstands it. God and the World have different ideas of love, as Kierkegaard explains in Works of Love. As such, the self-love which sullies the relations between the world, God and mankind can surely be no good. Between God’s definition of love, which is true love, and the world’s definition of love, which is true “self-love” (a term corresponding to Pascal’s amour-propre, as Tisseau points out in his French translation of Kierkegaard), there is a difference of both source and legitimacy. Only God’s definition of love is correct. Man’s definition of love, “self-love,” is simply the unwarranted elevation of the practice of nurturing the love of one’s own image with the help of others, themselves engaged in a constant quest for recognition. In Pascal’s view, self-love is first and foremost a form of hypocrisy, of self-­ deception, a risible trait of worldliness which hampers all decisions and risk-taking. “He who hates not in himself his self-love, and that instinct which leads him to make himself God, is indeed blinded. Who does not see that there is nothing so opposed to justice and truth? [...] It is, then, a manifest injustice which is innate in us, of which we cannot get rid, and of which we must get rid.”37 There is thus a clear problem of incompatibility between this “self-love” which leads us to confuse God with ourselves, and our true selves with what we believe ourselves to be. This corrupted, altered self-image has its roots in sin. Man seeks another self, which he

 Laf. 298, Br. 283.  Quoted by D. BREZIS, Figures et concepts dans l’œuvre de Kierkegaard, Vol. 1, 110. 36  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 322–323. 37  Laf. 617, Br. 492. 34 35

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believes he has found in his own image, and it is precisely this image which he then venerates and confuses with the divine image. The Other whom man seeks in his own distorted image is in fact the image of a God whom he “blindly” rejects. The object of self-love, this illegitimate love of one’s own image, thus appropriates for itself the closest semblance of love, and as a result is “detestable.”38 Kierkegaard held this form of love in similarly low esteem, declaring – in a paragraph entitled Hating yourself which seems highly likely to have been directly connected to his reading of Pascal – “Do you have a habit which you yourself dislike, but which you cannot convince yourself to resolve and quit: try this. If thus far you have hidden your habit from others, change your approach and force yourself to reveal it… This is an example of acting out of hatred for oneself.”39 What Kierkegaard proposes here is a method for achieving what Pascal recommends in the passage quoted above: ridding ourselves of that which prevents us from abandoning ourselves. People, these creatures who hide from themselves and misunderstand themselves, tend to be incapable of discarding certain “habits” which even they “dislike.” They are all the more attached to these habits because they are hidden, which makes them difficult to discard. Which is why Kierkegaard recommends a course of action similar to that proposed by Pascal: hating oneself. What does this mean exactly? Should we scorn man’s humanity outright? Kierkegaard’s intention is more to defend the Pascalian idea that we should detest our instinct and natural dispositions which lead us to love ourselves too much. Since man hides from himself the reality which constitutes his essence, he should detest that which is detestable in his character, including his tendency to consider himself the centre of the universe. This is not a matter of hating oneself entirely, but hating that part of oneself which tends towards egocentrism and forgetting that God is the true centre of all things. Self-love is dangerous and vain, when it corresponds to the enslaving form of self-love and not the attitude toward the self fashioned by God, capable of finding in its own interiority the strength to act upon itself, capable of constructing its own singularity and putting God in his right place. Kierkegaard discusses the so-called ‘self-love’ which the world at large erroneously confuses with God’s demands of us: “Has any man ever been more fiercely accused of self-love than he who strictly observed God’s demands and, true to these demands, loved his fellow men without fail, in spite of their incomprehension and persecution?”40 If self-love cannot be avoided altogether it can at least be put to good use, namely working towards its transformation41, its diminution, its weakening, its demise. What he ultimately suggests is that the death of the self, consistent with a “partial” self-hatred, is the only way to truly know oneself as a singular individuality.

 Laf. 271, Br. 545.  XI2 A 313, Vol 5: 332 / §1820. 40  Works of Love, 14: 112 / XVI: 122. 41  See S. WALSH, The dear Self: Self-Love, Redoubling, and Self-Denial. 38 39

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 econd Statement: “You Have Deposed the Pope... and Set S ‘the Public’ on the Throne” Coming from Catholic and Protestant traditions respectively, we know that Pascal and Kierkegaard held religious positions which are difficult to square with one another. And yet one clear parallel emerges in the way that both men entered into conflict with their own religion, to the extent that we can declare without hesitation that Kierkegaard was not anti-Catholic, no more so than Pascal, who has been described as “closer to Leibniz, a German Protestant, than to Bossuet,”42, was anti-Protestant. So let us attempt to define in greater detail the stance of opposition, distance and resistance which they adopted within their respective religions, in contrast to their more open attitude towards the form of Christianity to which they did not belong. For a long time, many commentators considered Kierkegaard to be a real Lutheran. There is no denying that he was born into the Lutheran faith, but can we really go as far as to hold him up as an example of a “good” Lutheran? That would surely be too much of a stretch. Kierkegaard acknowledged his intellectual debt to Luther on numerous occasions, but was equally keen to emphasise his differences with a thinker he described as “confused.”43 He occasionally refers to Luther as a “political hero,”44 arguing that his “partial” victory over the Pope puts him “on a par with reforms to the fire service and other trivialities.”45 Because the true reform would demand blood, sweat and tears, it would set about making the slippery slope of existence even steeper. True reformers are unbowed by adversity, provoking the hatred of their adversaries to the point of inevitable martyrdom. They also have no true friends, and Luther had far too many. Worse still, Luther was not tortured to death, the only end for true reformers in Kierkegaard’s opinion. “Oh Luther!” He exclaims, “You do have an awful lot to answer for. The more I look at it, the clearer it becomes that you deposed the pope… and set ‘the public’ on the throne.”46 For Kierkegaard, Luther was a consenting victim of the demon politics. Lutheranism mixes up religion and politics wholesale, with little distinction between the two. “Open your ears, Pope!” sounded to Kierkegaard like a political slogan imbued with “almost nauseating” worldly overtones.47 Luther seemed somehow unaware that true reform was to be sought in the impenetrable silence of interiority, by definition allergic to all forms of institutionalization (one of the defining characteristics of antiphilosophical action).48 Since Luther’s discourse is addressed to the  J. GUITTON, Pascal, textes du tricentenaire, 295.  XI A 154, Vol 3: 65 / §2481. 44  X3 A 234, Vol 4: 77 / §2524. 45  IX A 326, Vol 2: 335 / §4856. 46  XI1 A 108, Vol 5: 45 / §2548. 47  X1 A 154, Vol 3: 65 / §2481. 48  “Does action suspend all language-dependent protocols? Is action essentially silent, as it was for Wittgenstein, Pascal (“joy, tears of joy”), and indeed the whole antiphilosophical tradition?” A.BADIOU, Lacan, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 99–100. 42 43

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world, he in turn is “absorbed” by the world.49 The idea of salvation through faith rather than through good works thus remains misunderstood, and the result of this confusion is the opposite of the desired effect: for Kierkegaard, this nebulous theory serves only to unite the world’s mediocre minds in approval. It simply acts as justification for those who, without any effort to interiorise Christianity, take at face value Luther’s assertion that good works do not bring us any closer to salvation. Ultimately, what Kierkegaard most objects to is not so much Luther’s concept of life as the way this concept has been interpreted from a worldly perspective. Herein lies the crux of his critique of Luther: that he paved the way for this worldly exploitation. As for Luther’s original concept, Kierkegaard notes how few people have the strength to abide by it,50 which surely goes a long way to explaining the erroneous interpretations to which it has been subjected, interpretations for which Martin Luther himself can only be held partly responsible.51 What emerges from Kierkegaard’s comparative analysis of Protestantism and Catholicism? Is the former declared the clear victor? Not necessarily. Without entirely pardoning the papacy for being more concerned with politics than serving God, Kierkegaard certainly does not treat Catholicism with the same implacable severity which he reserves for Protestantism, although he does often appear to put both religions on the same level. He explains that religion can be considered independent of politics to the extent that it extends beyond national borders, considering the example of the Danish Church. Kierkegaard acknowledges that in this respect Catholicism, with its ambition of embracing the whole world, is an idea which “transcends the national and speaks to humanity in its entirety.”52 While criticising Protestantism, particularly in Denmark, as being inextricably linked with worldliness, he absolves Catholicism of this fault as it is “from a Christian perspective, a little less devoid of ideas and spirit. Catholicism has a certain intelligence, an idea of Christian ideality which sets no stock by the things of this world.”53. He has no qualms about celebrating the Virgin Mary: “Yes! Praise be to her! (...) Blessed was she to be able to say, without hesitating even for an instant: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord.’” (Luke I, 38)54 He even has conciliatory words for the cult of the saints: “in a certain sense Catholicism is right to venerate the saints; a saint is clearly superior to someone who would prefer an easy life of sensual satisfaction, by virtue of someone else’s sacrifice.”55 There is a uniquely Catholic form of zeal in the desire to live an exemplary life, to take the saints as one’s model and, in the process, to  “It didn’t take long for worldly forces to realise: ‘By gosh! This man could be very useful’” X3 A 217, Vol 4: 73 / §2521. 50  II A 223, Vol 1: 129 / §1976. 51  “Oh Luther, never has anybody been so poorly used by his followers as you, and all to do the exact opposite of what you intended!” X5 A 139, Vol 4: 430 / §1923. 52  X3 A 676, Vol 4: 182 / §2727. 53  XI2 A 123, Vol 5: 243 / §4814. 54  XI1 A 40, Vol 5: 26 / §2674. 55  XI1 A 358, Vol 5: 135 / §83. 49

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adopt the “fanatical temerity”56 which is specific to Catholicism and which Kierkegaard considers to be consistent with the Christian duty to follow the example of Jesus. In his opinion Protestantism lacks this sense of enthusiasm and intrepid spirit, preferring to admit defeat in advance, despairingly acknowledging that the task is beyond them. Protestants assert that they have no obligation to imitate Jesus, but still invoke his example to seek (and find) recognition for a certain form of humility. A travesty of humility which is actually a thoroughly contemptible vanity. Kierkegaard seems to view the two conflicting strands of Western Christianity as being engaged in a race to the bottom, with the “reformed” religion easily keeping pace with its rival. He cites as an example the emphasis placed on the appropriation of the New Testament by each Christian, without the need to interpose a priest or exegete between the believer and the Holy Scriptures. The Lutherans took great pride in this practice, which in Kierkegaard’s view served only to “prevent us from being influenced by the word of God.”57 Is this enough to consider Kierkegaard a Catholic unaware of his own Catholicism, as H. Roos was moved to declare in 1955?58 Once again, the answer can only be no. Kierkegaard was unequivocal in his rejection of the Catholic Church as an institution: “For this reason, joining the Catholic Church would be an irresponsible act and I would not take the risk, despite what one might expect in this age which has completely forgotten what Christianity is, and where even those among us who are best informed are mere apprentices.”59 Deep down, what most interested Kierkegaard was the relationship between Catholicism and Protestantism, a relationship he compared to that between “a building and a scaffold”60 on account of their essential interdependence. Protestantism was arrogant enough to seek to take the place of Catholicism, to eschew the role of “corrective” in favour of becoming a “regulating” force. But by this token Protestantism only exists in opposition to a principle which it rejects. If it were to become that principle, it would automatically become inauthentic and dishonest. Protestantism is only comprehensible, only makes sense, as long as it continues to act as a counterweight to Catholicism. Luther was not the founder of a new religion, he was the Copernicus to Catholicism’s Ptolemy.61 For Kierkegaard, enlightenment was to be sought in the comparison of the two, in confronting the truths of the one with the truths of the other and vice versa, leading to

 X5 A 139, Vol 4: 430 / §1923.  X4 A 428, Vol 4: 294 / §2890. 58  H. Roos is not the only commentator to have speculated as to Kierkegaard’s relationship with Catholicism. Walter Lowrie notes that many authors have sought to depict Kierkegaard as straying beyond the confines of Lutheranism and into Catholic territory, including Theodor Haecker “who typifies a certain type of commentator contending that Søren Kierkegaard had glimpsed a potential path from Lutheranism to Catholicism.” W. LOWRIE, Kierkegaard, volume 1, 6. 59  Articles from Faedrelandet, 19: 43 / XXIII: 41. 60  XI2 A 305, Vol 5: 322 / §3617. 61  II A 289, Vol 1: 139 / §2458. 56 57

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the realisation that truth is unique, that the correct definition of Christianity cannot be exclusively “regulatory” nor “corrective,” but some combination of the two. As for Pascal, determined Catholic though he was, he nevertheless veered close to Protestantism on certain major theological issues. His association with Jansenism had much to do with it, particularly his conviction that the Bible should be more widely published and personally appropriated by all believers. Like Luther, Pascal insists upon both the misery and corruption of human beings in the state of sin and the unattainability of God as perfect, sovereign deity, immeasurably superior to any sense of benevolence in the humanist sense of the term. Pascal’s theology was every bit as Christocentric as that of the German theologian.62 Jesus Christ is the source of salvation, by the grace of God. As Lev Shestov remarks, Pascal and Luther were equally obsessed with the quest for this source. Might we thus suggest that Pascal’s premature death prevented him from finally closing the gap between his position and “the Huguenots who exclude unity?”63 It seems highly unlikely. On the contrary, Pascal is best defined as a man who pushed constantly against his own boundaries and limitations, in a manner which was original but never strayed beyond the aegis of the Church. In comparing these two thinkers, there is precious little which recalls the “famous debate between a Catholic and a Protestant who end up mutually convincing one another, so the Catholic becomes Protestant and the Protestant turns Catholic,”64 that old chestnut whereby the debate is never resolved because the two adversaries switch sides by adopting each other’s arguments. And yet, in order to be entirely sure, it would perhaps be judicious to speak of Catholicisms (if we accept that, at the very least, Jesuitism and Jansenism represent two divergent strands) and Protestantisms. We might, for example, take a more forensic interest in the Protestant tendencies apparent in Pascal’s Jansenism, and his differences of opinion with his fellow associates of Port Royal. But that is not the object of this particular study. Indeed what I am most keen to examine is the contrarianism displayed by both Pascal and Kierkegaard in taking the side of a denomination to which they did not belong. A shared quality which serves to remind us that Kierkegaard and Pascal are best understood as opposing forces.65 All of which nonetheless leaves one fundamental question unanswered: did these robust critics of their respective churches intend to found their own alternatives? Certainly not. Kierkegaard had absolutely no intention of sweeping aside the National Church, he merely aspired to offer a corrective counterpoint to the established order of things: “My task has been to act as a corrective to the established order, not to come up with new ways of toppling or overturning it. If I had started out with a general overview, and had Mynster not existed, I would have had to  H.  MICHON, L’ordre du cœur  - Philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal, 193. 63  Br. 874. 64  The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, 2: 55 / II: 56. 65  H.  MICHON, L’ordre du cœur- Philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal, 208. 62

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invent somebody to represent the established order and lend him my full support.”66 At no point does he give the impression that he intends to found a new institution or join an existing religious institution. As far as he is concerned, Kierkegaard’s mission is to call out the hypocrisy of the Church sophists who proclaim themselves the privileged custodians of truths, and not to invent a whole new institutional framework. Just as Pascal resisted full affiliation with the Jansenists, Kierkegaard refused to be associated with the Pietists and seemed to be aware of the risk that his position would be misinterpreted.67 What both thinkers opposed was the sense of worldly calculation which had crept into the Church. This criticism of the institutional pillars of Christendom focused on two main issues: the Church’s failure to critically engage with worldly powers, and the manner in which the clergy exercised their religion. In Pascal’s opinion, Christianity had no business acting as a source of comfort and consolation for those seeking solace in this life. Kierkegaard was of the same opinion, believing that Christianity actually served to make men and women more inconsolable than before. Both describe a few self-declared Christians, such as the kindly Jesuit featured in the Provincial Letters, who represent this adulterated, watered down version of Christianity, “laying down maxims which, while they cannot be said to violate the truth, are so gentle that one would need be a very truculent person indeed to take issue with them. The grand project of our Society, for the good of religion, is never to repulse anybody whatsoever, and so avoid driving people to despair.”68 In the process the generous Jesuit describes the precise opposite of the author’s own convictions, who maintained that Christianity should be presented for what it really was: not a philosophy designed to please everybody, but an invitation to desperation, discouragement, ruin. Christianity is not supposed to be comforting or calming, clearly “defining […] itself as the scorn of the world.”69 A repugnance for the unwitting coalition of “the sort of people who come to terms with the world […] make use of their abilities, pile up money, accomplish great things,” such was Kierkegaard’s definition of Christianity.70 As a radical counterpoint to “compliance with the world” 71 and the spirit of the age, Christianity rejects both the Romantic fascination with Stoic pride and the idealist speculation of Libertine cynicism. Seeking to stoke this repugnance, Kierkegaard reminds his readers that “never have the Eternal or the Holy Scriptures taught man to strive for  X3 A 565, Vol 4: 153 / §6693.  “A slippery expression which will perhaps be chalked up to my cause. They accuse me of seeking to promote Pietism, a petty and wavering abstinence in the face of indifferent circumstances. No thank you. I have never given the slightest indication of desiring anything of the sort. My goal is to spur people on to become ethical characters, witnesses of truth, willing to suffer for her sake and renounce worldly calculations.” X3 A 556, Vol 4: 150 / 3319. 68  Provincial Letters, Sixth letter, 394. 69  Ibid. 70  The Sickness Unto Death, 14: 192 / XIX: 35. 71  Laf. 644, Br. 910. 66 67

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advancement in the world; on the contrary, Scripture exhorts us to avoid venturing too far into the world, to remain untainted by it if possible.”72 Indeed our first mistake is to neglect the ever-growing disparity between Christianity and the world, forgetting the requirements of the former and embracing the mores of the latter. For Kierkegaard there can be no half measures: embracing one inevitably requires you to detach yourself from the other.73 It is striking to observe that, for both writers, the rejection of worldliness came after a brief spell of personal experimentation. We know a little about Pascal’s “worldly” period, which lasted from 1642 until his dramatic conversion in 1654, from various contemporary sources: we know, for example, that Méré boasted of having helped the young mathematician to overcome his naïve ignorance of the rules and formalities of polite conversation. Pascal soon became at ease in such circles, taking part in “social life, with all its bantering frivolities and fondness for gambling,”74 and indeed “enjoyed my success.”75 He may even have intended to marry. This possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, indeed it seems likely that he nurtured designs of this nature with regard to Charlotte de Roannez for a certain time. As for the prospect of taking up some professional position, he avoided this temptation too. The very least we can say is that these social experiences laid the foundations for the extreme acuity with which he would later analyse human nature and foibles. Provincial in manners and style, instilled into him by his Auvergne-­ born father, Pascal came to acquire a superior aesthetic sensibility and a less “theoretical” understanding of people than that which characterised his early years, totally dedicated as they were to the study of abstract sciences. He even began to relativize the importance of the pure sciences, declaring himself willing to pardon polite society’s ignorance of such matters, and noting that the image they give of the human condition is scarcely more accurate. Pascal came to realise that excessive devotion to the abstract sciences yielded a more confused image of human nature than paying little attention to such things. He noted that studying one’s fellow man is of more use to honest folk than the study of mathematical reasoning, which distracts them from the reality of their situation. Up until the death of his father in 1838, Kierkegaard lived a largely distracted existence amid the polite society of Copenhagen. As a student has was something of a bon vivant and aesthete, a dilettante with a taste for lively discussion – he was a brilliant and feared debater – but there was something within him, the same something which ultimately doomed his engagement to Regine Olsen, which seemed intrinsically incompatible with this social, worldly life. His natural inclination was to flee all forms of collective life, and he never took on any public responsibilities – although, like Pascal, for a time he believed that he would be obliged to do so. He  Works of Love, 14: 241 / XVI: 261.  As Pascal puts it: “One thought alone occupies us; we cannot think of two things at the same time. This is lucky for us according to the world, not according to God.” Laf. 523, Br. 145. 74  J. BRUN, La philosophie de Pascal, 23. 75  P. DELBET, Le caractère de Pascal, 224. 72 73

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was aware that an essential part of himself was not at home in this worldly life, he was “hiding his soul,” to borrow Torsten Bohlin’s phrase. Bohlin cites the famous passage in the Papers where Kierkegaard opens up with vibrant, unnerving honesty: “I have just now come from a party where I was the life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away—yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit—and wanted to shoot myself.” 76 What strikes me here, and once again offers a point of comparison with Pascal’s experience, is that Kierkegaard had a certain talent for social interaction, that he had succeeded in convincing the Danish gentry that he was one of their own. For both Pascal and Kierkegaard, rejecting the world came after a period of transition. The decision was in no way forced upon them by a lack of eloquence or social skills: it was a choice made all the more difficult and strong-willed by the fact that other alternatives were clearly available. Their respective critiques of contemporary Christian practice were also largely directed at those who embodied it: the Jesuits for Pascal, and the Danish National Church for Kierkegaard. The latter was never particularly interested in issues pertaining to the practical organisation of ecclesiastical structures. He never called outright for their elimination, but remained firmly convinced that, under the pretext of guiding and nurturing the relationship between God and believer, the clergy actually acted as an obstacle to that relationship.77 In his view the power enjoyed by the clergy was proof positive that they are failing to emulate the life of Jesus, a path maligned by secular society. The torments suffered by the Church were supposed to be a mark of truth, sealing the adhesion and attachment of its members to the path shown them by the Christ who died on the cross. But this was plainly not true of the Danish National Church and, worse still, none of his contemporaries seemed willing to acknowledge the flagrant gulf between ideal and reality. While Kierkegaard placed interiority above all else, the Church was happy to settle for exteriority by increasing the number of priests, rather than concentrating on improving the quality of prayer and encouraging the interiorisation of Christ’s message. Nothing could be more contrary to the founding spirit of Christianity than its status as an official religion: officialising Christianity is tantamount to destroying it. Secular Christendom is a far greater danger to Christianity than “heresy” itself.78 Christendom has every interest in prolonging its contempt for reality as long as possible, since by persisting in this error it protects its own financial well-being, its “comfortable earner with regular promotions.”79 Paid by the government and dependent upon it for career advancement, Danish pastors were vassals of the state through their own self-interest. How could they begin to teach the importance of  Quoted in Søren Kierkegaard: L’Homme et l’œuvre, T. BOHLIN, 24/25.  “In the days when there were no priests but all Christians were brothers, God was a much more immanent reality than in later ages when there were priests, many priests, a powerful clergy (...)” XI2 A 51, Vol 5: 209–210 / §3099. 78  XI1 A 68, Vol 5: 35 / §3172. 79  XI1 A 187, Vol 5: 76 / §2725. 76 77

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suffering, when they themselves enjoyed the benefits of a respected position in the world? They had no choice but to serve two masters at once. Worse still, they had sold out their God for their own material gain, for medals and ribbons, daring to consider themselves masters of Christianity while capitulating entirely on the existential level. This usurpation is their rampart against the severity of Christianity. Their posture of institutional authority is harmful to all who seek to experience the full extent of that severe truth, since it gives a misleading impression of what it means to be a Christian: not a respected member of the community and benevolent father figure, but a penitent mocked and ridiculed by all and sundry. Kierkegaard’s criticism of the clergy became increasingly cutting and insistent, culminating with the publication of The Moment. Consider the following example from the 10th issue: “But one thing I adjure thee, for the sake of God in heaven and all that is holy: shun the priests, shun them, those abominable men whose livelihood it is to prevent thee from so much as becoming aware of what Christianity is, and who thereby would transform thee, befuddled by mumbo jumbo and optical illusions, into what they understand by a true Christian, a paid member of the State Church, or the National Church, or whatever they prefer to call it. Shun them. But take heed to pay them willingly and promptly what money they should have. With those whom one despises, one on no account should have disputes over money.”80 This intransigence would stay with him for the rest of his life, and Emil Boesen reports that Kierkegaard refused to receive the visit of any clergyman while on his death bed. Whether or not this should be interpreted as a personal vendetta against the pastors of the Danish National Church is hard to say. Kierkegaard’s ire seems to be directed not primarily at such feeble individuals, but at the hierarchy in general, and particularly at Mynster, from whom he hoped to see a mea culpa which never arrived. As harsh as Kierkegaard may be on the Danish pastors of his age, Pascal is almost as severe with the members of the Jesuit Order, those “wretches who have obliged me to speak of the basis of religion”81 and their pernicious influence over the Church. The motivation for his attacks is precisely the same as that which inspired Kierkegaard: to drive from the Church those responsible for contaminating it with the spirit and mores of the temporal world. Pascal sets out his position in unequivocal terms in the text entitled Comparison Between Christians of Early Times and Those of To-Day: “They were not received [into the Church] then until after having abjured their past life, until after having renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil. […] they quit, they renounced, they abjured this world in which they had received their first birth, to devote themselves entirely to the Church in which they received as it were their second birth, and thus they conceived a terrible difference between the two. / Whilst they now find themselves almost at the same time in

80 81

 The Moment, 19: 306 / XXIII: 346–347.  Laf. 862, Br. 883.

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both.”82 Blame for this state of affairs can clearly not be set at the door of those outside the Church, but should instead be assigned to those who have devoted their lives to it, i.e. the clergy. It is their fault that this deterioration of manners, this “worldliness of the spirit had seeped into the Church itself.” Originally conceived as a place of second birth, where believers were reborn as themselves and detached from the temporal world, the Church has lost its way: Christians are now born in the Church and die in the Church, no longer clearly distinguishable from its closest enemy. Both parties appear to have laid down their weapons, combining their forces and their ideas: the “terrible difference” has been transformed into a respectable similarity. Sacraments and worldly pleasures are now indistinguishable, forming a single, odious enterprise.

 hird Statement: “Forget the World and Everything T Except God” Where other thinkers seek to appease or reassure, Kierkegaard and Pascal do quite the opposite. They never cease to put us on guard, to ruthlessly challenge sources of solace, to attack conciliatory positions and to torment even the hardiest of readers. Kierkegaard admiringly referred to Pascal as the author of the “truest words ever spoken about Christendom.”83 In a fragment found in the Papers, under the title The Sacraments, he explicitly references this “terrifying genius” in a discussion of the misuse of sacramental practices, which he considered to be symptomatic of the Church’s depraved condition: “Through baptism people become - objectively - the people of God, and, in the bargain, by infant baptism - - precisely as people become the people of God through circumcision. / So people have completely abolished the imitation of Christ. The sacrament is something objective, and every earnest person must feel the need of something objective.”84 The objective celebration of the sacraments had taken precedence over the interiorisation of their meaning, indispensable for anybody seeking to follow the way of Christ. These ritualised devotions now promised a chance of obtaining Christianity’s most precious reward – eternal life – at no cost. Christendom holds that respect for the sacraments which mark the key

 Pascal continues: “(...) and the same moment that brings us forth into the world makes us acknowledged by the Church, so that the reason supervening, no longer makes a difference between these two opposite worlds. It is developed in both together. Men frequent the Sacraments, and enjoy the pleasures of the world; and thus whilst formerly they saw an essential difference between the two, they see them now confounded and blended together, so that they can no longer discriminate between them.” He expresses a similar idea in Pensée Laf. 923, Br. 905. Comparison Between Christians of Early Times and Those of Today, L’Intégrale, Seuil, p. 360. 83  XII A 556, Vol 5: 178–179 / 84  Ibid. 82

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steps in life is the major requirement expected of Christians, with everything else apparently to be considered as a bonus. But should Christianity, for honesty’s sake, be presented in a “highly severe” manner?85 To wrong-foot those who only believe for reassurance about themselves, and set them apart from those who don’t believe because they are afraid to see themselves for what they truly are. Christianity demands that we lose ourselves in order to be saved. The only consolation on offer is the knowledge that we are on the path to the great beyond, i.e. headed for communion with God. What solace there is in Christianity comes not from its affinity with the world, as per the model offered by ordinary Christendom, but the hope inspired by this very severity and intransigence with its direct opposite. What Christianity must renounce is the hypocrisy of the situation endured by those who hide their true selves from themselves, adrift in the false drama of the human condition. The true Christian life requires us to confront head-on our powerlessness, our weaknesses, our mortality. The secular world should expect nothing of Christianity, just as Christianity should expect nothing from the world. That which pleases God must necessarily displease man, and vice versa. Erroneously attributing one of Pascal’s maxims to his sister Jacqueline, a mistake arising from his reading of Reuchlin’s study of Port-Royal in German, Kierkegaard concurs that an act is always dangerous, even if consistent with God, if it is pleasing to men. Only acts which displease men but please God are capable of maintaining us in a state of total “wakefulness.” Ultimately, Christendom can never hope to comprehend Christianity because the former is the gravedigger of the latter. Kierkegaard held that the best definition of Christendom was that proposed by Pascal: a gathering of men who are more concerned with the sacraments than with the duty to love God, precisely the sort of complacency that Jesus came into the world to sweep away.86 “‘Christendom’ finds itself in an abyss of sophistry — far, far worse than when the Sophists flourished in Greece,”87 Kierkegaard argues in the 10th issue of The Moment, on account of the false definition of Christianity brandished as protection against those who so-called Christians hope will never notice. The “legions of priests and maudlin Christians… treat this human-numerical factor as the criterion of what truth is, what Christianity is.”88 The very pastors who ought to be the champions of Christianity are in fact the first to seek refuge behind the indecently worldly and futile ramparts of Christendom. Their duty is to ceaselessly recall the demands of Christianity, and yet they live in a state of submission and poverty of spirit, compliant with the spirit of the temporal world, the very spirit Christianity is supposed to oppose. Christianity is about combat, severity, commitment, while Christendom trades in concession, permission, compromise. For Kierkegaard, Christendom is irredeemable. It poses a greater risk than even the worst kind of heresy, particularly when it

 XII A 160, Vol 3: 248 / §1259.  X1 2 A 327, §3124. 87  The Moment, 19: 301 / XXIII: 341. 88  Ibid. 85 86

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seeks to be “socially correct” and reproduce “the cordial verbiage of family life.”89 Nothing does more to distract men from Christianity than the pleasures of the world, rendering them indifferent to religion. But true religion is not so gentle with us, “true religion teaches us our duties; our weaknesses, pride, and lust; and the remedies, humility and mortification.”90 Worldly life is a trap filled with false appearances, hypocrisy and diversion, incapable of providing true happiness: “Diversion. – If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was diverted, like the Saints and God. Yes; but is it not to be happy to have a faculty of being amused by diversion? No; for that comes from elsewhere and from without, and thus is dependent, and therefore subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs.”91 The world, which diverts us, reduces our personal freedom by making us dependent and indebted. The extrinsic factors of worldly life are no basis for happiness, since the world is by definition disloyal and vice-ridden, peopled with individuals united in their desire to conceal from themselves the reality of their miserable condition, and the imminence of death. Worldly people forget their true state. They join forces to stave off the feelings of “nothingness, forlornness, insufficiency, dependence, weakness, emptiness.”92 Strength in numbers gives them a sense of importance: the emptiness is filled with the thrum of excess. The world’s powers of diversion owe much to its strength in numbers, its guiding principle, a faith in numerical advantage which absolves of personal responsibility. Therein lies the perversity of the world: founded upon the false promise of numerical strength, the world gets confused between that which is important and that which is not. Diversion, for its adherents in the world, is a matter of utmost importance. For both Kierkegaard and Pascal, this can only be a mistake, an illusion, a source of confusion. The vanities of life in society lead us into a state of aimless wandering between individual morality and the amorality of the world. Pascal’s concept of diversion also partly presages the Kierkegaardian concept of anxiety: beneath this desire for constant distraction, this breathless quest for incessant occupation, lies the desire to be somebody so as to better obscure who we really are: “What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves?”93  XI2 A 152, Vol 5: 257–258 / §2575.  Laf. 216, Br. 493. Badiou also notes the Pauline influence here: “Paul adheres firmly to the discourse of militant weakness. Declaration has no strength beyond that which it declares, and lays no claim to persuasion by means of the prestige of prophecy, miraculous exception or ineffable interior revelation.” A. BADIOU. Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, 65. 91  Laf. 132, Br. 170. 92  Laf. 622, Br. 131. 93  Laf. 136, Br. 139. There is a passage in the Papers which bears a clear resemblance to Pascal’s argument: “What soothes people is to be able to say: ‘I’m an advisor to the chancellery, a knight of Dannebrog, member of the Commission, town councillor, president of a club.’ On a more profound level, all of this is simply diversion.” XI1 A 284, Vol 5: 115–116 / 200. 89 90

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Professional distractions prevent us from contemplating and seeing ourselves for what we are. The world, particularly the professional world, thus stands in opposition to what Hélène Politis describes as the “interior dialectic in relation to ideality,”94 and the discipline this entails. Essentially, diversion distracts the gaze which we should be directing at our own selves. Sparing us all the uncomfortable realisation of the reality of our condition, the world continues to extend its power. As Pierre Bourdieu puts it, “In the quest for reasons to justify our existence, what he [Pascal] calls ‘the world’ or ‘society’ is the only power capable of competing with the call of God.”95 As well as being hazardous for us all as humans, diversion is a serious danger to the Christian in particular.96 While Christianity preaches the destruction of the world, the world is every bit as concerned with eradicating Christianity. Men of the world make use of a strategy predicated upon presenting the world as something it is not, i.e. Christianity itself, and subsequently attacking Christianity for not being Christian enough. The world makes use of its dominant position to substitute Christendom for Christianity, retaining only those elements of the latter which are compatible with its goals. This worldly discourse is deceptive and dangerous because it uses the truth as a smokescreen: only by renouncing the world can we become true Christians in the sense defined by the doctrine of Christ. Shunning the world, Pascal and Kierkegaard assure us, must be a priority for Christians, while remaining within it is the goal of worldly conformism. Ultimately, we must choose between society and God. The world, meanwhile, does not see things in such stark terms. The forces of the secular world “are naturally inclined to religion, but a gentle version.”97 But God presents us with a much more radical choice, naturally rejecting the hypocrisy of the world, as well as hypocrisy in religion. Indeed, there is nothing more irreligious than religion when it becomes confused and conflated with the world. For Kierkegaard, religion becomes compromised by its proximity with the world as soon as Christianity becomes acceptable to the world, when the latter accepts religion as one of its own. For Pascal, the Company of Jesus was the most flagrant embodiment of this particular form of irreligion: “The Jesuit seemed to be confounded more with the passage from Aristotle, I thought, than that from St. Augustine,” reads one episode in Pascal’s Provincial Letters, “but while he was thinking of a reply a messenger came to inform him that the Maréchale de... and the Marquise de... requested his attendance upon them. So taking a hasty leave of us, he said: ‘I shall speak about it to our fathers. They will find an answer to it, I assure you; we have some fine minds among us.’”98 Pascal’s Jesuit father is shown to be more concerned with his worldly position than with the pertinence of the theologico-philosophical theses expounded by the eminent members of his order. There is a dynamic of homogeneity at work here,

 H. POLITIS, Kierkegaard et « l’exigence du temps », 96.  P. BOURDIEU, Méditations pascaliennes, 282 96  Laf. 764, Br. 11. 97  Laf. 991, Br. 952. 98  Provincial Letters, Letter IV, p. 386–387. 94 95

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a coalescence of views between the Company of Jesus and the worldly society to which the order ultimately belongs. Kierkegaard insists upon the importance of “heterogeneity with the world,” for all who would seek to follow the path of true Christianity, that which places the ideal of the Christian life on a superior plane to that occupied by the vain imperatives of life in this temporal world.99 Pascal frequently cites the Jesuits as an example of religious forces incapable of distinguishing between Christianity and Christendom, between the truth of God and the truth of the world: “The Jesuits wanted to fuse God and the world, but in doing so only earned the contempt of God and of the world.”100 Kierkegaard was in full agreement, but conceded that the Jesuits’ moral laxity applies only to others and not to themselves.101 In this manner they derive an air of superiority from their abstinence and frugal life, while also absolving of all guilt those who are not capable of following suit. The bad manners of the world have rubbed off on the Jesuit sense of morality, prioritising the power of influence above all other considerations, even considerations of a religious order. The morals of the world have seeped into Jesuitism, so much so that the ways of the world now underpin their hypocritical, sneaky moralism. By preaching in this manner, the Jesuits are sure to win over to religion all those worldly souls inclined to live in a comfortable, cowardly manner. But for Pascal (“Jesus Christ says, ‘Woe unto you when men shall speak well of you!’”102) and Kierkegaard (“Christianity has no need of the sort of honour and consideration received in this lifetime”103), Christianity cannot help but meet with disapproval from the secular world, since it follows the example of the New Testament to remind man that the time of reckoning is nigh. We cannot wager on God without first renouncing worldly calculations; we cannot hope to win without staking our respectability and putting ourselves on the line. The leap which Christianity demands is all the more improbable since the obstacle, the “gulf” to be overcome is humanly impassable; nothing is as hard to abjure as the affection and esteem of our fellow man.”104

 XI1 A 68, Vol 5: 35 / §3172.  Laf. 989, Br. 935. 101  X3 A 632, Vol 4: 174 / §3113. 102  Provincial Letters, 14th Letter, 439. 103  Christian Discourses, Vol. 15 / XVII. 104  “The gulf which Christianity establishes between itself and the world (compared with Judaism) is even deeper, as evidenced by Christ’s words (“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”) - even more so than the words of the Eternal to man at the time of his creation (“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother”), and as a result the bond is more thoroughly interior.” II A 376, Vol 1: 152 / §445. 99

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Fourth Statement: Deus absconditus If God is revealed to us all, how is it possible that he has been forgotten by so many? Because God respects our liberty. He reveals himself to some among us, but does not show himself. If God were to show himself directly then mankind would be destroyed, since his infinity would reduce our finitude to nothing: “humanity naturally has nothing comparable to this majesty.”105 If God were to show his face, his glory would shatter the human dimension into smithereens; it is precisely because God wants man to express his own glory that he remains hidden from view, creating opportunities to not be seen (in Kierkegaard’s words he “is far from being conspicuous.”) It is also an expression of his glory: God could easily crush man, but declines to do so. “In Christianity,” Kierkegaard concludes, “everybody knows that God cannot show himself in this manner.”106 But if we cannot “see” God, how can we “believe” him? How can we be sure that “his invisibility is his omnipresence?”107 Kierkegaard offers a surprising response: “If God wants to reveal himself in human form and grant a direct relation by, for instance, assuming the form of a man twelve feet tall, then our experimental party-­ goer and champion popinjay will be sure to notice. But, when God does not want to deceive, the fact that there is nothing at all remarkable about his form is just what the spiritual relation in truth requires, so that the party-goer has to say, ‘There is not the slightest thing to see’?”108 There are therefore two very different types of revelation: one is stripped of all mystery, like the omnipresence of a police agent, we might say; the other is not directly recognisable, and contains within it a mystery which does not hold man back, affording him freedom of action. Kierkegaard contends that revelation is not designed to oblige or constrain, but merely to enlighten. This is the form of revelation practiced by God in the Bible: human beings are never placed directly in the presence of God, as this would make him an idol. God leaves open the possibility that they will not recognise him, not in order to promote falsehood but rather to maintain the possibility of error which is the sine qua non of truth. This paradoxical relationship between God and his own representation is explored further in Kierkegaard’s Papers: the more that the phenomenon, the appearance expresses the impossibility of the presence of God, the closer he is; on the other hand, the more the phenomenon or appearance expresses the proximity of God, the further away he is. […] This is what happens with Jesus Christ.109 The greater God’s invisibility, the more present God is to those who recognise him. But how does He who hides from view make his presence felt? By indirect communication, which is the very essence of revelation, God addresses each and every one of us in the hidden realm of interiority110.

 XI1 A 51, Vol 5: 208 / §3099.  Postscript, trad. Hannay (2009), Cambridge, 205. 107  Ibid. 108  Ibid. p. 206 109  XI2 A 51, Vol 5: 208 / §3099. 110  As explained by Sherdan Hough, “as we might expect, the ‘inwardness’ that constitutes the individual will not be available for public consumption”.S. HOUGH, Kierkegaard’s Dancing Tax Collector: Faith, Finitude, and Silence, p. 21. 105 106

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In a passage in the Papers which bears the highly Pascalian title Hidden God (Deus absconditus),111 Kierkegaard reminds us that Christ came into the world incognito, and that this total abnegation is paradoxically divine. Such self-sacrifice is beyond the capacities of man: who can claim to be strong enough to keep up this indirect communication112 by taking on, in real life or on the stage, the attributes of a different character? Nobody except actors, whose role-playing is easily understood. Actors do not suffer from the sort of incomprehension endured by one of Kierkegaard’s characters: “I told somebody that there was always something ironic about me – and what happened next? We had a mutual understanding, I had opened myself up. But when I then began to support my character, he seemed confused. At that instant all direct communication was interrupted, my character, my vision, my lines all became so many question marks. He exclaimed: ‘But all that is irony.’ Naturally he was expecting me to answer with a yes or no, i.e. to engage in direct communication. But once I have taken on a character, I force myself to remain faithful to it. So it was impossible for him to know whether or not I was being ironic – and indeed I was.”113 Going incognito thus precludes recognition, and yet there is nothing more human than the desire to be recognised. While God has overcome this hurdle, man is having far more trouble. Pascal addresses this issue in a pensée which has been widely cited and analysed: “That God has willed to hide himself. – If there were only one religion, God would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case if there were no martyrs but in our religion. / God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason of it is not instructive. Our religion does all this: Vere tu es Deus absconditus (Isaiah, 45; 15)”114. God is not hidden, he has willed himself into this condition. It is not God’s will to be recognised by all so that there is one single religion, one possible form of belief. This provides Pascal with a counter-argument to all those religions which claim that God appears before our eyes: if this were true, there would be but one form of religion and not the multitude we know, since the divine truth would appear beyond dispute, in all its splendour. The divine veil is a discreet veil, whose only

 Laf. 242, Br. 585.  On the subject of this indirect approach to communication, attributed to Kierkegaard, Kodalle draws an interesting parallel with Pascal’s Mémorial: “One will recall the Mémorial of Pascal, who wrote down a dated testimony of his conversion and sewed it into the lining of his frock. This act is highly significant: the existential center of the individual remains a mystery, kept intentionally from the inquisitive looks of others. Making it communicable would jeopardize the possibility of the absolute individuality of the other, who has the task of finding his own unique path. There is nothing here that can serve as a model. Pascal is certainly the most apt of the refusal to make the center of one’s existence the material of a narrative that can be imparted, and Kierkegaard with his “theory of indirect communication” has said the final word on the matter”. K.  KODALLE, The utilitarian self and the “useless” passion of faith”, 402. See also: G. DESLANDES, Indirect Communication and Business Ethics: A Kierkegaardian Approach. 113  IX A 151, Vol 2: 275–276 / §1753. 114  Laf. 242, Br. 585. 111 112

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intention is to honour our liberty and not to threaten or isolate us, nor to yoke us in our intrinsic solitude. God opens himself to the interiority of us, so that we might open themselves to him. It is because God remains hidden than each of us is able to say “I am no longer alone.” Because if God were to reveal himself directly, there would be nothing left but God, absolutely alone and unique. The finite is as nothing before the infinite. Kierkegaard knew that his own position chimed with that advanced by Pascal. He acknowledges as much in a significant passage of the Papers, a paragraph which suggests that his familiarity with Pascal’s work extended far beyond the major works: “Pascal writes in a letter to Mademoiselle de Roannez (following the miraculous recovery of the young Périer, his nephew, at Port-Royal): ‘God manifests himself only to the few, he emerges rarely from the secrecy of Nature. He remained concealed beneath this veil up until the Incarnation, and afterward concealed himself even more by covering himself with humanity. For he was more recognisable as long as he was invisible. But now he has chosen to reside in the strangest and most obscure secret of all, that of the Eucharist.’ Here we can detect the same dialectic identified by Johannes Climacus: a revelation, the fact that a revelation has occurred, is defined by its opposite, by the fact that mystery exists. God reveals himself… we know this because he is in hiding. So nothing direct.”115 By concealing himself in the human form, God is totally hidden. Pascal appears to suggest that God had never been so well hidden as when he entered that human frame. He also notes that this dissimulation is extended beyond the human form of Jesus through the sacrament of the Eucharist, where God is present in the form of what John the Divine calls a “hidden manna.”116 Christians can never hope to know God, but must instead strive to recognise him in those things from which he is at once absent and eternally present. Because the manifestation of God is paradoxical: he is absent from visible things, but only to more fully penetrate with his splendour the invisible world, the realm of interiority. He effectively uses his absence from the visible world to conceal his presence in the invisible world, with overwhelming results for those still able to distinguish his presence.

 ifth Statement: “Deny, If You Will, That Christianity F Is a Paradox!” A number of commentators, particularly André Clair, have demonstrated the central importance of the concept of paradox to Kierkegaard’s antiphilosophical enterprise. In a long fragment of the Papers in which he compares and contrasts the severity of Judaism with that of Christianity, concluding with an exhortation to the reader which serves as my fifth Statement, he draws upon his knowledge of Pascal to support the hypothesis that, in spite of appearances, the God of Love is more severe than the God 115 116

 X3 A 626, Vol 4: 173 / §3110.  Pascal cites this passage of the Revelation (2;17) in his letter to Roannez.

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of the Law of the Old Testament: “There is a paradox at work here, as when Pascal says that the God has become more obscure since the revelation; that the revealed God is more incomprehensible than the non-revealed God. Similarly, the God of Love is stricter than the God of the Law.”117 Kierkegaard was well aware that the Jewish religion was far more rigid and demanding than the Christian religion in some respects, but he argues that the little demanded of Christians is in fact much harder than the demands placed on observant Jews. The demands of Christianity are heavier than those of Judaism because the latter requires the total devotion of that which constitutes a man’s identity, what Kierkegaard defines as “spirit.” At the same time, Kierkegaard constantly reminds us that while God’s severity may appear abominable from a purely human perspective, it needs to be understood as analogous to the tough love of a father for his son. For Kierkegaard God is love, so much so that the two notions, God and love, are indistinguishable. On this point, Bohlin118 notes that the other words attached to God are all adjectives, with love the only noun. Kierkegaard contends that this paradox embodies the fundamental truth of Christianity itself, expressing the eternal within the temporal. This paradox can only be understood with reference to the future, an essential promise which transcends time and universal history. Christianity yokes the present to the future, it is a religion which consigns irreligion to the distant past.119 The full splendour of Christianity, which aims to be an “examination where cheating is permitted,”120 cannot be interpreted as an element of a culture or civilisation, and certainly not of science. It is not a question like any other. But it does concern us one and all: Pascal emphasises our equality before this paradox, but Kierkegaard extends it to Christianity as a whole, which is the religion of equality among all men. This represents a clear break with the philosophical tradition, always keen to introduce notions such as “talent” or “genius” which, in the religious domain, are simply meaningless. In Kierkegaard’s view this is nothing more than an indirect way of undermining the profound equality of all men and women in the sphere of faith. Christianity speaks to all, and represents the ultimate challenge for each and every one of us. For only those who seek no merit, no glory, no particular goal in this temporal world are able to attain the essential truth of Christianity. No particular philosophical skill is required. This absolute egalitarianism, this radical democracy, was what philosophers most abhorred, according to our two authors. In this respect, Christianity represented a philosophical scandal. The scandalous nature of Christianity was sealed by Christ’s presence in the world: the idea of God “disguising himself in the person of Jesus Christ,” that is to say in a specific human form, “is the very definition of scandal,” Kierkegaard contends in Practice in Christianity.121 “To admit of scandal and

 XII A 299, Vol 5: 122 / §3098.  T. BOHLIN, Søren Kierkegaard: L’Homme et l’œuvre, 1941, 36. 119  VIII A 305, Vol 2: 154 / §1639. 120  The Moment, 19: 313. 121  Practice in Christianity, 17: 72 / XX: 76. 117 118

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not be scandalised by it, that is the basis of Christianity,122 explains Pascal. Nothing could be more scandalous than that which stands in opposition to reason, as we have already seen. And if Jesus Christ is to be considered the symbol of this scandal, is it any surprise that he was also opposed to reason? Could the scandal itself be a rational proof of the existence of God? Might we suggest that the fact his person and nature are opposed to all rational reality is a proof of Christ’s divinity? To answer these questions in the affirmative would be to dodge the real issue: the object of this scandal belongs not to the realm of reason, but to the realm of faith. Kierkegaard returns to the debate over the definition of the word ‘proof’ in a Christian context: it is not supposed to be an infallible demonstration, nor an argument which cannot fail to convince in the manner of a mathematical proof, nor even a reassuring justification, as is so often the case with the discourse of preachers. It should always be the manifestation of a choice, a wager.123 So Christianity is scandalous. Nothing is more conducive to scandal, whereas Christendom holds almost entirely the opposite position. The priests “pull off the trick”124 of living off something which does not exist. They seek to make Christianity seem probable, a goal which obliges them to camouflage and misrepresent it all together. They invoke the secular character of Christendom in an attempt to explain its strangeness in the most reassuring manner possible: “Whatever else may be said, it must be admitted that the Christian religion has something astonishing in it. Some will say, ‘This is because you were born in it.’”125 Pascal writes, not without irony. Just because it is an integral part of our customs, should religion appear to be any less incredible? Pascal finds such arguments highly misleading. There is a gulf between belief and disbelief which custom alone cannot bridge. And yet, Christendom continues to insist that the path which leads to Christianity can only pass via the ways of the world. It cannot comprehend Christianity for what it truly is, an object of scandal. “Submission is the use of reason in which consists true Christianity.”126 Using reason to accept the possibility of scandal, “the only way of waking the sleeper,”127 subjecting one’s reason to the veritable scandal that is Christianity. Being the humble man-God, God incarnate in a specific human envelope, Jesus Christ is the manifest sign of this sense of scandal. The tree of the cross stands forever as a counterpoint to the science of men and their inevitable “common sense.” The inconceivability of the cross towers above all human penetration: it is a shock which pulls us out of the habits of this world, enjoining us to humility and penitence. Nor should Christians be offended by scandal; this should not be taken as an insult to our intelligence, not as candour disguised as gravity, but rather as a form of refusal to submit to the spirit of the world which takes issue with this scandal. All of which goes to prove that the

 Laf. 284, Br.605.  X3 A 383, Vol 4: 112 / §3016. 124  Quoted in Sens et répétition, H.B VERGOTE, Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, volume 1, 92. 125  Laf. 817, Br. 615. 126  Laf. 167, Br. 269. 127  Works of Love, 14: 184 / XVI: 200. 122 123

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world, which is the opposite of the truth, is incapable of coming to terms with a phenomenon which necessarily exceeds its boundaries. Christianity is full of paradoxes: it is the wisdom of God and the folly of men. The crucifixion symbolises the triumph of life through death, Jesus Christ is at once fully human and entirely divine etc. But Pascal accepts the necessity of paradox, and derives from it a manner of comprehending the world and the human condition. Complaining about this penchant for paradox would be tantamount to desecrating the food for thought with which he presents us. Because paradox is something that we can all experience for ourselves. This equality before paradox is an element of human nature: on the only occasion on which Pascal actually employs the word paradox, it is used to describe man’s own understanding of himself (“Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself,”)128 a question of such central importance in the whole Pascalian system. I feel it would be germane to conclude this fourth chapter with a reminder of the important insight proposed by Gilles Deleuze in The Movement Image. His analysis of the Pascalo-Kierkegaardien wager echoes many of the points explored in this chapter: “A fascinating idea was developed from Pascal to Kierkegaard: the alternative is not between terms but between the modes of existence of the one who chooses. There are choices that can only be made on condition that one persuades oneself that one has no choice. […] This is all that Pascal’s wager says: the alternation of terms is indeed the affirmation of the existence of God, its negation, and its suspension (doubt, uncertainty); but the spiritual alternative is elsewhere, it is between the mode of existence of he who ‘wagers’ that God exists and the mode of existence of he who wagers for non-existence or who does not want to wager. According to Pascal, only the first is conscious that it is a matter of choosing; the others are only able to make their choice on the condition of not knowing what it relates to. In short, choice as spiritual determination has no other object than itself: I choose to choose, and by that I exclude all choice made on the mode of not having choice. This is also the essential point of what Kierkegaard call ‘alternative’ and Sartre ‘choice’, in the atheist version which he puts forward.”129 What Deleuze rightly notes here is that the essential difference between the person who wagers and the person who refuses lies not in the choice made by one and not the other, but in the mode of existence of the person who chooses the existence of God compared with the mode of existence of the person who remains ignorant of the fact that they too must choose. The alternative of the “spirit” is between a first position which does not choose to choose out of choice, but precisely because there is no choice but to choose, and a second position which does not choose because it denies the necessity of making a choice. By choosing one mode of existence over another, by accepting its irrevocability, I accept that there are life choices which are no longer open to me, ways of life (particularly in philosophical terms) which it will no longer be possible to adopt.

128 129

 Laf. 131, Br. 434.  G. DELEUZE, Cinema 1: The Movement Image, trad. Tomlinson & Habberjam, 114.

Chapter 5

Contemporary Connections

People generally travel around the world to see rivers and mountains, new stars, flamboyant birds, freakish fish, ludicrous breeds of humanity. They abandon themselves to the brutish stupor that gawks at existence and think they have seen something. This does not interest me. However, if I knew where such a knight of faith lived, I would travel on foot to him, for this miracle concerns me absolutely. I would not leave him for an instant. Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard.

Abstract  Pascal and Kierkegaard do not claim any theological authority whatsoever. They produced fragmentary texts aimed less at promising or convincing than at underlining a paradoxical “perhaps,” the scandalous possibility of the impossible. Only a “maybe” that does not calculate can overcome a bet that atheists believe is a losing one. This prompts me to reflect upon the Pascalian-Kierkegaardian axis in the light of the critical positions defended by Alain Badiou towards the antiphilosophers, and to consider the potential points of comparison between their positions and those proffered by the advocates of weak theology, notably John Caputo and Gianni Vattimo. Finally, I highlight the pre-eminence of life over Being among antiphilosophers. As a matter of fact, no other contemporary has invested this opposition as much as Michel Henry, the author of a phenomenology of life who very quickly recognised the Kierkegaardian ontology as fundamental to a more intense understanding of Christ’s words: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. There is a direct relationship between truth and life, because truth is the only reason to live effectively: it is not an object of thought, still less an objectifiable quality. Honesty, sincerity, “loyalty,” as Kierkegaard might say, does not consist in a hypothetical “will to power,” but in the will to be the universal-singular. Keywords  John D. Caputo · Christian event · Immanence · Michel Henry · Gianni Vattimo · Phenomenology of life · Weak theology

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7_5

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The Christian Event Harnessing the energy of antiphilosophy to embark upon a profound exploration of Christianity, Pascal and Kierkegaard both simultaneously believe in the importance of analysing faith on the one hand, and a merciless critique of philosophy on the other. Both seek to identify that moment where the impossible occurs, where time enters into eternity. In their view, it is knowing Jesus Christ which makes this moment possible. Pascal summarises this position neatly when he writes that: “The knowledge of God without that of man’s misery causes pride. The knowledge of man’s misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in him we find both God and our misery.”1 Without first studying Jesus Christ, God in human form, any study of man will be incomprehensible. Kierkegaard concurs, insisting upon the importance of “Christ’s activity. Christ’s nature was imparted through that activity, Christ’s relation to God, human nature, man’s situation conditioned by Christ’s activity (which is really the main thing). All the rest would then be regarded as mere introduction.”2 Man can only understand himself as man because of the precedent set by God-as-man. Acknowledging the coming of Christ into this world, and accepting it as they key moment in human history: such is the nature of the “event,” the very meaning of life and our existence in the world. The truth of the acts performed and the words spoken by Jesus Christ is a recurring subject of analysis throughout the published and posthumous works of both thinkers. Their familiarity with the New Testament is total, and their faith in its authority boundless. Neither sought to develop what we might describe as a systemic, doctrinaire “soteriology” or “Christology,” but there was undoubtedly a Christological inflection to their respective meditations. “Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery; with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery; in him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair.”3 Clearly, Pascal fully accepted Christ as Alpha and Omega. Nonetheless, in order to evoke the grandeur of Christ as understood by Pascal and Kierkegaard, we must first bear in mind his lowliness in the world. “Pascal says, in his Pensées, that it would be ridiculous to be shocked by Christ’s humility, as if that humility was of the same kind as the Majesty which he reveals.”4 Kierkegaard reminds us. The social and political condition of Christ makes it abundantly clear  Laf. 192, Br. 527.  I A 27, Vol 1: 22 / §412. 3  Laf. 189, Br. 546. 4  Pascal’s actual words are: “Of thirty-three years, he lives thirty without appearing. For three years he passes as an impostor; the priests and the chief people reject him; his friends and his nearest relatives despise him. Finally, he dies, betrayed by one of his own disciples, denied by another, and abandoned by all. What part, then, has he in this renown? Never had man so much renown; never had man more ignominy. All that renown has served only for us, to render us capable of recognising him; and he had none of it for himself.” Laf. 499, Br. 792. 1 2

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that his essential superiority is not social or political in nature. The idea which Christ embodies is far removed from the grace and favour of social and political life, and it therefore makes perfect sense that he maintained the greatest possible distance from such affairs. Christ was nothing on a social level, he represented no worldly power because he was not of this world. On this subject, Kierkegaard addresses and adds to one of Pascal’s maxims without contradicting the original: “it would perhaps be better to say that it would be comical, ridiculous in fact, if Christ were to come in all his glory.” Or as Pascal has it: “It is most absurd to take offence at the lowliness of Jesus Christ, as if his lowliness were in the same order as the greatness which he came to manifest.” (Br. 793) Perhaps the most immediately striking thing about the example of Jesus Christ is the minimalism of his condition, as well as the cruelty to which he was subjected. Christ in his lifetime was nothing, precisely because that is the essence of his teaching regarding the political sphere: be nothing, be nobody. This image of the maligned, suffering, spurned Christ, rejected by the vox populi, is one which always haunted Kierkegaard. It is also worlds away from the representation of Christ as “great hero” generally presented by theologians.5 From his earliest writings through to the very end of his career, Kierkegaard constantly railed against the pernicious invention of modern theology which consisted of transforming Christ, symbol of the scandal of Christianity, into a “friend to children, like good old Uncle Frank, a kindly old boy, or a professor from the department of good works.”6 Jesus’ disinterested attitude still has the power to surprise, so at odds is his behaviour with the spirit of the world, where “renown”7 consists of courting the admiration of others, not being humiliated by them. By spending “30 years without appearing,” Christ proves that he is “the most complete expression of the spirit of contradiction which exists in all men […] He literally combines the most extreme misery and the most supreme grandeur.”8 This remark by Emile Boutroux neatly expresses the transvaluation of values that the life of Jesus, son of a carpenter, invites us to imagine. Jesus Christ is totally human, in fact he is the most humble of humans. He is also totally divine, his is the greatest grandeur, great beyond all comprehension. Is he the greatest of the prophets? Certainly not. His “renown” consists of embodying this maximal, divine grandeur in the smallest, humblest human frame, adopting the form of an “obscure, poor, defenceless worker” (Boutroux again). What we are faced with here is a grandeur of a new order. Pascal illustrates his theory with reference to Archimedes, considered solely as an inventor and not as a man of noble standing, indicating that his princely status was of no use to him in the arena of geometry. Similarly, the impact of Jesus can only be appreciated to its full value by considering it in the context of the order to which it belongs. Christ’s impact has nothing to do with the scientific order, and that is why, unlike Archimedes, he did not “shine forth.”9  VIII A 303, Vol 2: 154 / §1837.  Quoted by G. WIDMER, Kierkegaard et le Christ, 275. 7  Laf. 499, Br. 792. 8  E. BOUTOUX, Pascal, 183. 9  Laf. 308, Br. 793. 5 6

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The Christianity of Jesus Christ thus defined is, as Badious suggests, an “ultra-­ one event,” 10 a figure of the universal absolute which breaks with Greek prophecies and Jewish predictions, cancelling out their particularities. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross marks a definitive break with the idea that God could be reduced to a subject of scientific investigation or philosophical speculation. He is a miracle, a historical anomaly which sweeps away all existing laws and social structures, transforming anthropology into Christology,11 placing this “pure event”12 at the heart of the whole structure, the epicentre of the belief and the faith to which Christians pledge their allegiance. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ represent the transformative event through which we are granted the possibility of access to both God and ourselves. Christian antiphilosophy is always fundamentally driven by the sacralisation of this moment of disruption, this extraordinary moment which nobody could have seen coming, and which imbued all things and beings with a new meaning and a new direction. The Christian event is not contained within the events which occurred during the life of Jesus; it is the change which occurred when these events took their place in history. What happened at the time these events occurred is essentially the birth of a new order of truth, a new manner of connecting the temporal and the eternal. Earlier on in this book I defined this moment as an act, an act of faith, made possible by grace. The death of Christ marks the definitive end point of the old world, with all its routines and customs. This event-one is the necessary condition for the creation of a new world and the destruction of the old one, the Platonic world of the objective ideal whose power was spent. Turning once more to the philosophical apparatus proposed by Alain Badiou, it may come as some surprise that he openly expresses his admiration for antiphilosophers affiliated with Christianity (of whom Pascal and Kierkergaard are “high-­ calibre” examples),13 whom he considers as “violent, superb” enemies. Badiou makes no secret of the fact that his personal background, as the grandson of four schoolteachers, instilled in him a certain “desire to crush nefarious clericalism”14 and Christian preaching, to consign it to the dustbin of history along with the rest of the “old world.”15 And yet, at times he cannot conceal his admiration for these two authors who do not consider deliberative reflection to be the only means of attaining the Absolute, trusting instead in the “pure evental force of faith,”16drawing from it their conclusions on the meaning of the existential choices we face. For Badiou, Pascal’s genius lay at least partly in his recognition that science “would end up ruining the demonstrative or rational edifice that the medieval Fathers had elaborated as

 A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 1988, 200.  P. MAGNARD, Nature et histoire dans l’apologétique de Pascal, 375. 12  A. BADIOU, A. Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, 59. 13  A. BADIOU, L’antiphilosophie de Wittgenstein, 24. 14  A. BADIOU, Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, 1. 15  A. BADIOU, Nietzsche L’antiphilosophie 1, 74. 16  A.BADIOU, Being and Event, 214 10 11

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the architecture of belief. He illuminated the paradox that at the very moment in which science finally legislated upon nature via demonstration, the Christian God could only remain at the centre of subjective experience if it belonged to an entirely different logic, if the ‘proofs of the existence of God’ were abandoned.”17 Pascal thus conceived of a space, a space intimately associated with the antiphilosophical act, in which philosophy is repudiated. In Badiou’s view this represents an “about-­ turn”18 for the antiphilosophers, who find themselves obliged to resort to the structures of philosophical argument, they who were fain to break entirely with the structures of philosophical questioning. But can we really assert with such certainty that Pascal and Kierkegaard favoured a clean break with the very structures of philosophical reasoning? If not, how can we really determine who, among the philosophers or the antiphilosophers, are the “bitter sacrificers of the concept” of whom Badiou speaks?19 Might we not instead view the whole antiphilosophical project simply as a quest for a more “authentic”20 and less restrictive vision of philosophy? Kierkegaard’s unpublished response to an article by Icelandic philosopher Magnus Eiríksson21 is particularly informative in this respect. It provides, at least to a certain extent, a corrective to the concept of antiphilosophy proposed by Badiou, demonstrating that the antiphilosophers’ break with the philosophical tradition was first and foremost a consequence of the philosophers’ incapacity to fully appreciate the importance of the Christian becoming. The absurdity of faith, as evoked by both Johannes de Silencio and Climacus, is not absurd in the commonplace sense of that term. The absurdity in question, which might even be considered the antiphilosophical act par excellence, is that of the believer who makes full use of her/his faculties, particularly the faculty of understanding, to come to terms with the fact that her/his faith exceeds and defies understanding. Absurdity is not to be confused with “nonsense,” it is in fact quite the opposite: “When I believe, then assuredly neither faith not the content of faith is absurd. Oh no, no” writes Kierkegaard. “But I understand very well that for the person who does not believe, faith and the content of faith are absurd, and I also understand that as soon as I myself am not in the faith, am weak, when doubt perhaps begins to stir, then faith and the content of faith gradually begin to become absurd for me.”22 In other words, the meaning of the absurd, as Badiou uses that term in relation to Kierkegaard, applies to those without faith. Where faith is involved, a separation occurs between those who believe and those who do not, and the meaning of “absurd” is not quite the same. There are no grounds to assert that the absurd runs counter to reason, since it is in fact reason’s “negative determinant.” This

 A.BADIOU, Being and Event, 214.  A. BADIOU, Lacan L’antiphilosophie 3, 221. 19  A. BADIOU, A. Happiness, p. 73 20  A. BADIOU, L’antiphilosophie de Wittgenstein, 20. 21  Who appears as Theophilus Nicolaus in X6, B68–82, §6598–6601. 22  §6598. 17 18

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determinant allows for the exploration and interpretation of all of the myriad possibilities of the “human area,” giving “faith a double-sided or twofold character that is ‘more penetrating and dialectical and informed’ than the view of faith as a higher form of rationality offered by Theophilus Nicolaus as a corrective to Johannes de Silencio’s presentation of faith as being acquired by virtue of the absurd.”23 In short, Badiou clearly understood that for Saint Paul, and thus for Pascal and Kierkegaard as Augustinians, reality becomes a lost cause when it is subjugated to thought. He also perceived the emergence of a new subject, “another subjective path than the one already known to us, what Paul calls the subjective way of the flesh,” considering this to be “the only question, which no protocol of knowledge can settle.”24 But what appears to escape Badiou, and this has been picked up by commentators such as Phelps Hollis25 and Žižek,26 is the extent to which his own philosophical position betrays the “violent and superb” influence of antiphilosophy. Concluding the chapter dedicated to Pascal in Being and Event, Badiou opines that “what I admire more than anything in Pascal is the effort, amidst difficult circumstances, to go against the flow, not in the reactive sense of the term, but in order to invent the modern forms of an ancient conviction, rather than follow the way of the world, and adopt the portable scepticism that every transitional epoch resuscitates for the usage of those souls too weak to hold that there is not historical speed which is incompatible with the calm willingness to change the world and to universalize its form.”27 For Badiou, as for Pascal and Kierkegaard, one does not simply do something because one has decided upon that course of action, but because one believes in it. The least we can say is that this is a matter deserving of further exploration, and perhaps deconstruction, examining the overlap between Badiou’s philosophy and the antiphilosophical tradition, particularly Christian antiphilosophy, in order to rethink and redefine their respective boundaries. For present purposes, might it suffice to consider Christian antiphilosophy as a theology of the event, as John Caputo would have it? Pascal and Kierkegaard both vigorously denounced all confessional theologies, those systems designed to provide balm for the heart by arrogantly diluting the Christian message. But Kierkegaard in particular demonstrates a determination to be a poet of religion and nothing else, to claim no form of authority whatsoever,28 to offer his readers what Caputo himself defines as a form of theopoetics with no “specific content” as explains Klaus Kodalle, “but rather a certain form of intensity of individual self-becoming whose

 S. WALSH, Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence, 59.  A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 60. 25  P. HOLLIS, Alain Badiou. Between Theology and Anti-theology. 26  See O’Neill Burns Michael, Kierkegaard and the Matter of Philosophy – A fractured Dialectic, 27  A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 222. 28  “My ‘category,’ is ‘without authority’” insists Delecroix, in Singulière Philosophie – Essai sur Kierkegaard, 27. 23 24

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spiritual enthusiasm is revealed precisely by the unconditionality of the ethical commitment that on pragmatic grounds would be wholly inexplicable”.29 Indeed, neither thinker laid claim to any absolute theological authority whatsoever. In fact, as we have already seen, both composed fragmentary texts which when considered together form a constellation of original linguistic devices, less concerned with promising or convincing than they are with highlighting a paradoxical “perhaps,” the scandalous possibility of the impossible. Pascal frequently reminds his readers that this world is frail and precarious, and yet we pretend not to think about it. Only an uncalculating “perhaps” is capable of winning a wager which atheists believe to be doomed from the outset. In the work of Kierkegaard – which has now become the most fertile field of contemporary research in continental religious philosophy, just as its author was formerly considered the “father of existentialism” – this perhaps takes the form not of self-doubt, but doubt of the anti-Christian contrarian who “should not accuse me of being too narrow-minded to see the opposite, since within myself the opposite has the most devoted of advocates.”30 We must therefore hope to believe, to borrow the title of a book in which Gianni Vattimo explains that this expression also means “to wager in the sense intended by Pascal, hoping to win while having no reassurance”31 All in the name of overcoming the aporia of reason, to go where nobody else has dared venture in the absence of proof. Elsewhere, in the purest Pascalo-Kierkegaardian style, Vattimo thanks Jesus Christ (“Thank God that I’m an atheist”)32 for saving him from the God of philosophers (Pascal), that all-knowing and supremely powerful God, while still maintaining that he is an atheist, acknowledging that he is even more capable of atheism, or scepticism, than the atheists themselves (Kierkegaard). From this perspective, the theopoetics of Pascal and Kierkegaard have a certain affinity with weak ontology in terms of their ironic style, as well as the polemical manner in which they engage with the “strong” theological claims of the established Churches, the embodiment of institutional Christendom. Never does either Pascal or Kierkegaard claim to speak in the name of truth, on behalf of a clearly-defined ontological totality or ‘super-being’, other than the words of the crucified Christ himself, in all his powerlessness, weakness and belittlement. The death of God, this self-­ death, is the event of grace which opened the possibility of belief, an act which requires divine grace because we lack the necessary strength.

 K. KODALLE, “The utilitarian self and the “useless” passion of faith”, 41 (see §4224).  X2 A 61, Vol 3: 218 / §6500. 31  G.  VATTIMO, Belief, 93. Then Vattimo explains (on page 87): “One might also reflect that Pascal’s wager, the idea that the experience of faith takes the form of a leap into paradox, is a characteristically modern idea that belongs, broadly speaking, in the epoch of ‘triumphalistic’ reason. Pascal was also (…) the contemporary of Descartes. And it was no accident that the idea of the Christian faith as characterized by paradox was taken up by Kierkegaard, the contemporary of Hegel, in another - perhaps the last – high point of modern philosophical rationalism.” 32  Cf. A prayer for silence in VATTIMO, G. and J. CAPUTO, After the Death of God, p. 92 . 29 30

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Towards a “Weak Antitheology”? As Kodalle explains, “the new Kierkegaardian way of thinking and the freedom that comes from it leave the traditional view of God behind, that is, God as an omnipotent being ruling in the mode of domination”33. Indeed, God calls out to us, and gives us the strength to respond. Only the words of God can be said to “exist,” since God himself has decided to remain hidden. The name of God exists only in the response which we are capable of making; our strength derives from this act, from the manner in which we heeds God’s call, responding to the event which constitutes his act of supplication. The central concern of any antiphilosophy of Christianity must therefore be radically situated in the domain of trust rather than belief. Because, after all, anybody who believes something, wherever they may be or whatever they may be doing, anybody who accepts evidence, including the sort of proof turned out by laboratories, is a believer. Such is the scope of ‘weak theology’ as formulated by Caputo and Vattimo: not to set beliefs against one another, but to give trust a chance. Their credo is “I believe that I believe,” which means trusting in the act of believing, since belief is never a certainty. If we fail to appreciate this nuance between belief and trust, we run the risk of falling into the familiar opposition between Christian philosophies and anti-­ Christian philosophies from which both Kierkegaard and Pascal sought to escape. This would be akin, says Caputo, to affirming or denying the possibility that such a Being could exist, thus “reintroducing metaphysics, an atheist metaphysics launched like a counter-attack against metaphysical theology, in the manner typical of the new atheists.”34 There is therefore nothing to indicate that such a Being exists, the classic expression of strong theology; instead it all comes back to a certain form of doubt which we touched upon at the outset of this investigation (cf. Arendt). It is a doubt which can be overcome, but only through trust and faith, the “pure event-­ driven force of faith.”35 Contemplating such comparisons nonetheless requires us to consider a little more closely the intellectual background of Caputo and his avowed fascination with Kierkegaard, whom he considers an innovative stylist first and foremost, citing his use of irony and humour “in the service of a deadly serious and age-old religious project that would change the direction of western philosophy and theology after him.”36 Caputo acknowledges Kierkegaard as the greatest literary inspiration on his own career as an author (placing particular emphasis on the influence of his pseudonymous works): “Kierkegaard is the most consistent influence on me. From the time I was eighteen years old, when I first discovered him, Kierkegaard has been my hero. Unbroken. All the time I was studying Saint Thomas, and, later on, Heidegger  K. KODALLE, The utilitarian self and the “useless” passion of faith”, 400.  J. CAPUTO, The Audacity of God, prolégomènes à une théologie faible, 326. See also The insistence of God: A theology of perhaps (especially Part. 2 Chap. 7). 35  A. BADIOU, Being and Event, 1988, 201. 36  J. CAPUTO, How to read Kierkegaard, p. 17. 33 34

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and then Derrida – at no matter what point in my life – Kierkegaard has always been my hero as a writer. What I try to cultivate, what I have learned from both Derrida and Kierkegaard, in this power of laughing through your tears, which distinguishes both from Heidegger.”37 But it was also Kierkegaard, and particularly his interpretation of the phenomenon of Christianity, who inspired Caputo to distance himself from the major philosophical systems of thought. For Kierkegaard, Christianity was a deeply personal matter, not a topic of literary discussion. This attitude was typical of Kierkegaard and his understanding of the love of truth, supposed by definition to inform his philosophical endeavours. Somewhat curiously – although at this level of analysis perhaps we should not be overly surprised by the expression – Caputo suggests that this makes the Dane “something of an anti-philosophical philosopher, writing a philosophy that brushes against the grain of philosophy.”38 Continuing in the same vein, and in a fashion reminiscent of Victor Cousin’s analyses of Pascal,39 Caputo characterises the pseudonymous works as “an elaborate form of scepticism,”40with a decidedly Socratic influence. This leads him to remark that Kierkegaard, along with Nietzsche (both separated from the objects of their respective passions; Christian for the former, pagan for the latter), was one of the two major figures of the nineteenth century who would determine the direction of continental philosophy in the following century, with Foucault and Deleuze as heirs to Kierkegaard and Levinas and Derrida as heirs to Nietzsche. The reference to Derrida may come as a surprise in this context, since Caputo was well aware of their divergent views on religious matters, but he nonetheless insisted that they converged on the most essential point: the locus of action, as defined by Badiou, the examination of situations which are fundamentally undecidable, and by extension the conditions which make authentic choice possible. Here again there are clear points of comparison between Kierkegaard and Caputo: weakness, in the Pauline sense, is a constant presence in the work of both thinkers. The term crops up regularly in Caputo, generally credited with defining the notion of weak theology, but also in Kierkergaard (and Pascal, as we have seen), who indeed offers constant reminders of his own weakness, particularly with regard to his (voluntary) lack of “authority” in his “professional” life, since he was neither pastor nor professor. Kierkegaard never affirmed the existence of God as such, a point on which he and Caputo agree: “There is nothing to say – certainly not I – that such a being does not exist, or could not exist. I do not oppose the affirmations of strong theology, which postulates the existence of such a being, with a powerful denial. I welcome them with “incredulity” (Lyotard), a term chosen with care, on account of their phenomenological implausibility.”41

 J. CAPUTO. G. VATTIMO, After the death of God, 138.  J. CAPUTO, How to read Kierkegaard, 17. 39  V. COUSIN, Du scepticisme de Pascal. 40  J. CAPUTO, How to read Kierkegaard, 54. 41  J. CAPUTO. The Audacity of God, 326. 37 38

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Nevertheless, the affinities between Christian antiphilosophy and weak theology risk running aground on at least two points: the first concerns the firm opposition expressed by both Pascal and Kierkegaard to theology on the same grounds as philosophy, to the extent that their work could be considered antitheological. Indeed the discourse proposed by Pascal and Kierkegaard is no more theological than it is philosophical. In this respect it is a form of antitheology, firm in the belief that there can be no progress in the domain of theology. Only God can talk accurately about God. Only the scriptures can convey an image consistent with his being. For we humans, speaking accurately about God is only possible with the help of scripture, which renders him accessible to our comprehension and expression. Scripture is the miracle whereby the absolute Other renders himself accessible to the human mind. All discourse about God is vain, as soon as it strays beyond the boundaries of God’s discourse about himself as contained in the Holy Book. There is no room for originality in Christian doctrine: “Pascal had absolutely no intention of proposing new ideas or specific theories,” asserts André Gounelle.42 They are all to be found in the words revealed and entrusted to us by God, as established by Saint Paul, “never seeking to persuade with the prestige of prophetic calculation, miraculous exception or ineffable interior revelation,”43 but simply via the declarative act itself, by the effective and concrete enunciation of a Word which comes from a more distant, higher place. This is the sort of call to belief imagined by weak theology. The second point of contention between Christian antiphilosophy and weak theology concerns the contrast between the apologetic discourse of Pascal and the opposition to all forms of totalising discourse which is one of the key tenets of weak theology. Lest we forget, Pascal had set out to write an apology for the Christian religion, and as such could potentially be seen as the founder of a certain strain of Christian metaphysical theology. Ultimately, the issue of proof is central to Pascal’s thought. There is general agreement among the primary sources that he had intended to include the term ‘proof” in the title of his masterwork, but even in its unfinished state the theme is woven into the very fabric of the Pensées. As such it is understandable that so many Christian philosophers have considered Pascal to be an apologist for the Christian religion, a widely-held opinion which has hampered the recognition of Pascal as a fully-fledged philosopher. I feel that this second point of contention merits further investigation, since the issue and role of Christian apologetics in Pascal’s vision of Christianity are still hotly debated. It is also worth noting that “the method employed by Pascal [apologetics] was anathema to Kierkegaard. He considered it his duty to highlight the difficulties, to demonstrate that Christianity is contrary to reason, that we must suffer to attain it and that no ‘proof’ can facilitate its acceptance.”44 The latter quotation comes from the comparative analysis published by Fuglsand-Damgaard, as far back as 1930. But was Pascal really such a firm believer in the strength of his “proof?”

 A. GOUNELLE, La Bible selon Pascal, 52.  A. BADIOU, A. Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, 65. 44  H. FUGLSANG-DAMGAARD, Pascal & Kierkegaard, 259. 42 43

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What of his stated desire to subjugate reason to the heart, and his theory that suffering was the natural state of the true Christian? There is every reason to question the extent of Pascal’s true interest in “proof.” In doing so, it is worth taking a closer look at what Kierkegaard himself might have thought of this apologetic approach. What Kierkegaard most abhorred in apologetics was the meek tone and false promises, which amounted to a form of deception as to the reality of the Christian life. The truth alone is good enough and needs no defending, neither from atheism nor from itself. Kierkegaard aims to be totally frank with his readers, making no effort to conceal the virtually insurmountable obstacles which litter the path of Christianity. Certain forms of proof are in fact challenges since, paradoxically, it is actually the absence and unattainability of God which serve as an indicator of his presence.45 Kierkegaard’s constant attacks against religious apologists make him something of an imposing figure, rabidly opposed to all attempts at rational justification. But in various passages of the Papers, Kierkegaard makes clear that he does not take issue with Pascal anywhere near as much as he does with those apologists among his contemporaries, particularly the foremost representative of the Danish National Church, J.P.  Mynster. Of course there is that telling passage, not included in the abridged French translation of the Papers, where Kierkegaard proposed to give a fair and “fine” expression of Mynster’s thought based on an extract from Pascal’s Pensées.46 But this appears to be less an exercise in distancing himself from Pascal than in making abundantly clear his opposition to Mynster. In the passage in question he exaggerates certain Pascalian positions for the purpose of caricaturing the opinions of the Bishop of Copenhagen, declaring that the success of a religion depends upon its ability to present itself in a seductive, attractive manner. This polemical extract, aimed explicitly at Mynster, gives a very incomplete picture of Kierkegaard’s opinion on Pascalian apologetics. His actual views were much more nuanced, as Kierkegaard was well aware that Pascal did not truly believe that one individual could lead another into faith. His goal was to confront disbelievers with their misery. He made use of this perspective to simultaneously send a message to those believers who believe for reasons far too ‘reasonable”, or because the “maxims” fed to them are the fruit of an apologetic endeavour fundamentally at odds with the reality of the Christian faith. Pascal does not set out to offer positive justification for belief; his art is one of abasement, aimed both at believers and non-believers, with the goal of showing them their true state, the extent of their pride, and forcing them to acknowledge that admitting the possibility of faith is no more reasonable than accepting it. The subtleties of faith are beyond reason:47while reason naturally favours the immediate, the criterion of proof, the Lord is more interested in the heart, since “God himself inclines us to believe.”48

 H. BOUCHILLOUX, Apologétique et raison dans les Pensées de Pascal, 216.  X3 A 642 / §3119. 47  Laf. 418, Br. 233. 48  Laf. 382, Br. 287. 45 46

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But neither thinker can reasonably be accused of seeking to make their religion “loveable,” considering such apologetics to be useless and vain. This much is abundantly clear from the passage of the Papirer entitled Clarification of Christianity in which Kierkegaard vigorously criticises all apologetic endeavours of this nature: “consider all the difficulties inherent to Christianity, which free thinkers seize upon and apologetics seeks to defend, and you will see that all this fuss is merely a false alarm. God put them there (although they also derive from the necessity of his nature and the asymmetry between the two qualities God and humans) to ensure that he can only ever be an object of faith.”49 Apologetics underplays the importance and implications of the requirement of faith. In this crucial fragment Kierkegaard actually takes issue with a certain type of apologetics, which has precious little to do with the apologetics advanced by Pascal. Indeed, his critique of the desire for immediate understanding is a position shared by Pascal: “If there is a God, he is infinitely incomprehensible (...) This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to him. / Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason?”50 Pascal’s works are addressed as a matter of priority at those who “have no light.”51 Apologetics in the Pascalian sense is not a fortress in which Christians are invited to savour the words of God; it is a chapel open to all those who seek and are ready to suffer for the truth. This is a far remove from the type of apologetics so vividly denounced by Kierkegaard. Pascal adopts a Pauline definition of apologetics, aiming to instruct his readers without compromise. In this respect he certainly satisfies Kierkegaard’s demand that the talents of apologists should be devoted to “terrifying men,”52making them aware of their shortcomings and essential destitution. Should we thus agree with André Clair that Pascal presents an “apologetic project which remains within the tradition of mystical and doctrinal exegesis,” while Kierkegaard simply “refuses all forms of apologetics?”53 In my opinion Clair’s representation is one-sided, since there is nothing in the work of either philosopher – in spite of their acute shared understanding of human nature and our tendency to believe only that which suits us – to suggest that they succumbed to the temptation of telling people what they wanted to hear. There is, however, a clear invitation to make the decisive step, to convert to the demands of the Idea. Both Pascal and

 He continues: That is why Christianity is a paradox, why there are contradictions in the Scriptures etc. / But our reasoning always wants to explain everything in terms of direct relations, i.e. doing away with faith. It wants things which are directly knowable, it wants to see perfect consistency with Scripture at all times: those are its conditions for believing in Christianity, believing that the Bible is the Word of God. To put it another way, it refuses to believe […] / Apologetics is just as stupid as free thought as it always considers Christianity from a false perspective.” X4 A 422, Vol 4: 292 / §1144. 50  Laf. 418, Br. 233. 51  Laf. 244, Br. 228. 52  Christian Discourses, 15: 166 / XVII: 175. 53  A. CLAIR, Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal, 522. 49

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Kierkegaard are less concerned with persuading their readers, since divine truths are above the forces of nature, than they are with convincing us to wager everything and accept the idea that we can never be certain about the result.54 In doing so they invoke the art of acceptance, wagering on trust in a word which reveals the existence of God and in which we might eventually be able to believe, addressing themselves first and foremost to a human will which they know to be weak; not so much to convert people to Christianity as to awaken the Christian side of their conscience. In short, to put some Christianity back into the Church. All of which amounts to quite the opposite of an apologetic discourse in the usual sense of the term: the concept of “believing God” implies a certain extravagance intended to deter deists. It also serves to repel all those who consider reason sufficient to grasp the superior considerations of the spiritual life. It may only be “tentatively that Pascal admits that the Christian discourse is one of weakness, madness and nothingness,”55as Alain Badiou explains in his essay on St. Paul (cf. 2 Corinthians 12; 10 “for when I am weak, then am I strong”), but he admits it nonetheless. There is one human strength which Pascal decries more than all others, and that is the power of reason, particularly when it becomes incapable of recognising its own limitations. In this context Pascal invokes the order of charity, whereas Kierkegaard talks in terms of the religious stage. Pascal’s famous Mémorial (My God, will you leave me?) insists upon the weakness of man, the exhaustion of his forces. “The last proceeding of reason,” argues Kierkegaard, loosely quoting Pascal (Br. 268 and Br. 267), “is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it; It is feeble indeed if it does not know this.”56 We are nothing but weakness if we do not succeed in consigning the power of reason to its correct place. At root, the two authors do not define the human tragedy in terms derived from the same gnoseology, but rather through a shared praxis. In their view man is like a reed, “the feeblest thing in nature,”57 folding and threatening to snap at every turn. Kierkegaard expresses this weakness in particularly striking terms: “Behold, this man whom nature has endowed with the most admirable talents, to whom she has granted power, wisdom, spiritual strength, an intrepid heart, unwavering will power, and yet look! Why does he sometimes tremble in the deepest reaches of his being, this man once capable of making the whole world tremble? Why does he sometimes turn pale in his secret heart, this man who dominated all through his wisdom? Why does his spirit sometimes fail him, this man who cast his impervious gaze over all that lay before him? How could he not tremble with fright in the quiet hours, or fall to pieces in idle moments – when he realises that one can possess power without

 “I do not speak here of divine truths, which I shall take care not to comprise under the art of persuasion, because they are infinitely superior to nature: God alone can place them in the soul and in such a way as it pleases him.” On the Geometric Spirit and the Art of Persuasion, L’intégrale, Seuil, 355. 55  A. BADIOU, A. Saint-Paul, la fondation de l’universalisme, p. 60. 56  X3 A 609, Vol 4: 166 / §3109. 57  Laf. 200, Br. 347. 54

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knowing its purpose!”58 The conqueror of external enemies, “fortune’s favourite,” loses his composure when faced with the enemy within, against whom his weapons are powerless. What, then, can we say about the ultimate relationship, that between humans and God? Could we potentially, partially introduce Caputo’s concept of the “weakness of God” into the Pascalo-Kierkegaardian system (with reference to Vattimo’s kenosis), forging a sort of postmodern apologetics? For Pascal, the relation to God can be broken down into two phases: one to acknowledge the absolute superiority of God, the other to remind us that God took on human form to elevate human beings to a level where such a relationship would be possible. Kierkegaard, meanwhile, talks in terms of a “major”59 and a “minor”60 proposition, which correspond in some respects to the Pascalian definition of such a relationship. We must dare to “relate to God like a child,” (the minor proposition) even if it is “God who gives everything” (the major proposition). The major proposition is not so-called to call more attention to it than the other, but simply to make clear that it comes first, not during or after the minor proposition. It is major because it comes first, not because it is more important than the other. The minor proposition is in fact that which restores a certain strength to humanity, urging us to behave as friends, almost as equals, before God. If God alone had all the strength, he would not have permitted us to do anything for ourselves. While the major proposition may seem thoroughly obvious in the Christian context, it is not sufficient on its own. The minor proposition needs to be reaffirmed forcefully, as it plays a decisive role in our vital force and the emergence of a moral conscience. “In short, if we would say that man is too insignificant to deserve communion with God, then we must be very great indeed to judge of such things,”61 Kierkegaard concludes, in another passage of the Papers which is essentially a verbatim quotation of Pascal (Br. 511). The limit of divine prescience corresponds to this respect for human freedom, which means that God in fact has a double prescience: one is predictive, forming opinions on future events derived from past events; the other is hypothetical, dependent upon man’s freedom of choice. “We must therefore acknowledge,” notes Jean Wahl, “a certain ignorance of God. A squared circle cannot be an object of divine power. The bad intentions of evil men are not desired by God. So just as we might say that there are things which God cannot desire, we must say – and it is here that the theory becomes more audacious  – that there are things which God cannot  Three Upbuilding Discourses, 6: 87 / V: 90–91. However, according to Sylvia Walsh, this “weakness is really strength. When Christians are reviled or put to death by other humans and they submit to such treatment out of the weakness of perfect obedience to God, it cannot harm the eternally. Before other humans they will appear to be weak, but before God and in God they are made strong in weakness. Conversely, the stronger persons become in a worldly sense, the weaker God is in them and the weaker they really are in themselves, for “to be without God is to be without strength; to be strong without God is therefore to be strong – without strength.” S. WALSH, Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence, 124. 59  XI A 59, Vol 3: 36/37 / §1383. 60  Ibid. 61  X3 A 639, Vol 4: 175 / §3116. 58

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know.”62 This is precisely the challenge which John Caputo has set himself: to demonstrate, in a thoroughly Pauline spirit, that God is not all-powerful. In fact his strength is limited to his word: a remarkable disruptive force, a major upheaval in the question for meaning, but not a force endowed with any “means of counter-­ attack.”63 The signs of God’s power are less obvious than the scandal of his weakness, the weakness of God incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ. Christ’s death on the cross marks the culmination of this radical weakness, voluntarily stripped of the power to fight back, to oblige, or even to impose respect. We might conclude  – without claiming to offer more than an initial analysis aimed at shining new light on the relations, affinities and genealogical connections between the four authors cited here – that what unites these thinkers is their descriptive and interpretative discourse with regard to religiosity, thus embodying a “philosophy vulnerable to religion,” representing a threat to religious discourse by exposing it to the “resources of philosophical critique,” while simultaneously occupying “the space between them.”64 Nevertheless, attempts to introduce the concept of “weak theology” into the Pascalo-Kierkegaardian framework are only partially successful, in spite of the numerous, strong points of concordance, on account of what Caputo calls the hermeneutics of suspicion surrounding Christianity, although he himself eschews this term. This also marks a point of contention in his fruitful exchanges with Vattimo. Caputo takes issue not with the latter’s metaphysical concept of Kenosis (to which he is entirely sympathetic), nor even his hermeneutics of charity, but instead takes him to task for his nihilism and lack of hermeneutic radicality. He feels that Vattimo is still wedded to too “strong” a vision of Christianity, whereas Caputo’s more prudent position is to be “more interested in Yeshua than in Christianity.”65 It may thus be Vattimo who bears the closest “family resemblance” to Pascal and Kierkegaard. On the one hand because Vattimo thanks God for his atheism, leaving him unburdened by the “philosopher’s faith,” or rather of faith in the “God of the philosophers,” a very Pascalian manner of thinking. But also, on the other hand, because Vattimo claims to have broken free of the dynamics of power, of what Kierkegaard might call worldliness. Speaking as a former Member of the European Parliament, Vattimo asserts that: “when you get into power, it is not because you have conquered the power, but because the power has conquered you.”66 Finally, we can detect another form or radicalisation in Vattimo’s thought, specifically his tendency to view morality solely in terms of the new laws of charity derived from the highest theological virtue: love. In this view the injunction, or duty, to love is enough to sweep away all of the preciousness, sophistry and falsehoods of traditional ethics. The whole of Christ’s teaching could thus be boiled down to an effort to prise humans away from worldly things, under the banner of love.  J. WAHL, Jules Lequier, Les classiques de la liberté, 79.  J. CAPUTO, The Audacity of God, prolégomènes à une théologie faible, 322. 64  J. CAPUTO. G. VATTIMO. After the Death of God, 141. 65  J. CAPUTO. The insistence of God, 27. 66  J. CAPUTO. G. VATTIMO. After the Death of God, p. 113 62 63

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Recharging Immanence “Antiphilosophy” declares Alain Badiou, “is that which applies the terms ‘life’ and ‘becoming’ to ‘there is’.”67 The opposition between philosophy and antiphilosophy, between the philosophy of professors and that of writers, between systems of thought and existential testimony, reaches its full philosophical intensity in the context of that other divorce between the primacy of Being and the pre-eminence of Becoming. From this perspective, the antiphilosophy of Christianity comes down on the side of life at the expense of Being. Perhaps no other contemporary author has explored this opposition as thoroughly as Michel Henry, the architect of a phenomenology of life which very rapidly acknowledged the fundamental importance of Kierkegaardian ontology in fully understanding Christ’s aphorism (John 14:6): “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”68 This suggests the existence of a direct relationship between truth and life, since truth is effectively the only reason to live. It is not an object of thought, nor a quality admitting of objectification. Expression of honesty and sincerity, what Kierkegaard would call loyalty, lies not in a hypothetical “will to power,” but rather in the will to embody the universal-singular oneself. The phenomenology of life, as per Michel Henry’s definition, must be understood as the description of a sphere of radical immanence whence emerges a self which is constantly experiencing itself. This tendency for objectivity, this quest for objective truths which both Pascal and Kierkegaard denounced as a failing of modernity, is radicalised in Henry’s proposal. Even when it purports to examine the subjective life, philosophy as a whole cannot help but construe it in objective terms. In the immediacy of this pathos, life experiences itself with no need for an outside world, incapable of escaping itself, unable to get away from its own being. Henry credits Kierkegaard as the inventor of this so-called radical phenomenology, in which the self is locked into a vital cycle from which it cannot escape.69 Contrary to Heidegger’s interpretation, Michel insists that we should approach and appreciate Kierkegaard on the ontological level, and that wishing to rid oneself of one’s self is the very definition of despair. Despair is a longing to discard the self, an impossible desire. Invisibility, immanence, the affective life, and affectivity in and of itself are all characteristics of the structure of Being. This is the fundamental thrust of Henry’s most important work, The Essence of Manifestation. Henry thus reaffirms the primacy of interiority over exteriority so central to Christian antiphilosophy, ontologically consolidating the immanence of Life in each living being as understood by Pascal and Kierkegaard. Christianity, by side-lining intentionality and the primacy of the temporal world, is firmly opposed to all forms of thought which would reduce God to the sum of existence. To express this relationship to the self which determines our access to truth, this pathos, Pascal uses a term as simple as it is ambiguous: heart. According to Jean  A. BADIOU, Nietzsche L’antiphilosophie 1, 141.  M. HENRY, « Discussion sur l’Ontologie de Kierkegaard ». 69  Cf. N. HATEM, « Le secret partagé: Kierkegaard – Michel Henry ». 67 68

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Guitton, Pascal experienced a “sort of inward-facing ecstasy which revealed to him the imponderable, the ineffable, the contradictory, the persuasive, the singular, the unique, the entirety of the human domain which he summed up in the ambiguous term heart, so familiar and yet so incomprehensible.”70 This ecstasy was in fact a combination of multiple elements which defy strict, pure reason, and represent the channels through which God makes himself felt. The heart is that which gives “flesh” (Henry’s preferred term) to a human being, contrary to Cartesian metaphysics which, as Vincent Carraud observes, “ignores the singularity of the individual, the particularity of each person, their haecceity. The cogitatio du cogito, thinking the I means unthinking the me, ‘not thinking of myself in particular.’”71 In an essay entitled Michel Henry: une nostalgie pascalienne, Berlanda demonstrates that between life and the world there is a dynamic not of continuity, but rather of discontinuity. This is the necessary condition for man not becoming a stone, deficient unto others and unto himself, living like an inanimate object devoid of affectivity. “Mud, stone, Pascal’s ‘man without thought,’ would be he who, aiming to break free of everything by first breaking free of himself, striving to attain the all-powerful status of an absolute ‘parametron,’ a universal geometer, refusing to feel and experience the life which anchors his own life, at the peak of his arrogance would become that stone, calculating like a stone, while nothing or nobody would mean anything to him anymore, and he, no longer a true ‘self’, would be nothing or nobody to anybody else.”72 Pascal, invoking the positions of contemporary “libertine” thinkers, expresses his sense of terror at the infinite vistas opened up by the separation between life and the world, a world which stretches out forever with no need of our presence, with no particular concern for humanity. In doing so he affirms his indifference and insouciance with regard to mathematical and astronomical values. Escaping from ourselves will provide no escape from despair and anxiety: on the contrary, Kierkegaard assures us, mistaking subjects for objects is a sure sign of sin. All of which represents a searing attack on pantheism, as well as the idea of a Great Beyond as envisaged by speculative realism.73 The world which is not correlated to the world has nothing to do with some absolute Beyond which humans have suddenly abandoned, the withered world of an object in relation to other objects. In fact it symmetrically represents the world of life and of living interiority, the necessary condition for all possibilities and all forms of creation. As humans we are literally dazzled when we attempt to consider our situation, with no point of departure and no destination. We are ignorant of both our origin and our end, at the mercy of a present which renders us worried and anxious. Our destiny is beyond us, as are the premises on which it is staked. Simply observing the

 J. GUITTON, Pascal, textes du tricentenaire, 300–301.  V. CARRAUD, Pascal et la philosophie, 322–323. 72  T. BERLANDA, Michel Henry: une nostalgie pascalienne, 41. 73  Cf. Q. MEILLASSOUX, Après la finitude. 70 71

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unconceivable, the context in which we find ourselves, is naturally beyond our faculties of observation. We are caught between nothingness and totality, between the limits of our own nature and the indeterminacy of the nature which surrounds us. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard indulges his penchant for analogies taken from life: “We warn the person who stands on a ship rushing ahead with the speed of the storm not to look into the waves, because then he will become dizzy; in the same way the comparison between finitude and infinitude makes a person dizzy.”74 We exist in a state of perpetual imbalance. Ultimately, Pascal’s wish is for human beings to better understand their true condition, quand Kierkegaard makes this an essential condition of our relationship to God. “This struggle is such that the person who loses the eternal loses God and himself, and the person who loses God loses the eternal and himself, and the person who loses himself loses the eternal and God.”75 If we do not wish to lose ourselves we need to embark upon a “recovery,” an effort focused on ourselves. Hence the sort of combat against the self evoked by Kierkegaard, who elsewhere affirms that without this struggle against all or part of ourselves there can be no real reform.76 As Henry has it: “Christianity is not a form of morality, which is always founded on knowledge of the law, or at least a thought. It is a new determination of affective existence.”77 Pascal, meanwhile, suggests that man must return to “his true place,”78 and consider man’s worth in relation to the existing. True knowledge does not lie in “noticing some appearance in the midst of things,” since we are fundamentally incapable of understanding extremes – ancestral objects are a case in point. The fact that there is no reason why anything should remain as it is, that the regularity of nature is uncertain, that man is in no position to comprehend the proportions of competing realities, is surely evidence of the impenetrable secrecy in which we live, caught between nothingness and infinity. Everything is contingent, because everything is in a state of imbalance. This is what prompts Alain Badiou to ask if the wager really is an absolute necessity, since libertines would claim the opposite.79 The answer lies in the very nature of liberty, the problematic implications of being free. Wagering is the definition of a free action. Only man can access this unique experience of freedom, within the

 Works of Love, 14: 170 / XVI: 185.  Two Upbuilding Discourses, 6: 183 / 5: 199. 76  “Any effort which does not devote a quarter, a third, two thirds etc. of its strength to systematically combatting itself is an essentially temporal effort, or in any case absolutely not a reforming effort.” X2 A 560 / 6593. 77  M. HENRY, L’essence de la manifestation, 666. 78  Laf. 400, Br. 427. 79  But… but, why wager? This stubborn question keeps coming back to Pascal. The libertine may well respond: ‘I won’t wager! I don’t want to! I don’t care about your calculations!’ […] In Pascal there is nothing, or nothing more than a paltry philosophical argument suggesting that wagering on God is a better bet than not wagering at all. Very weak!” A. BADIOU, Lacan: Antiphilosophy 3, 222. 74 75

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living self which is required to act. If the self was in some way determined not to choose, then he would be deprived of his freedom. Freedom implies a certain distance from immediacy, an opportunity to choose which Kierkegaard expresses in the following terms: “The enormity of the concession made to man: choice, freedom.”80 This concession comes with immense consequences, since it implies the possibility that man will refuse. In a rarely-cited text entitled Kierkegaard, Pascal du nord, published in the Revue Universelle, Maurice de Gandillac contends that “the true achievement of the Danish philosopher is to have highlighted the value of human decisions, that free choice whereby we affirm our responsibility for our own existence.”81 For Kierkegaard, the choice of freedom is the antithesis of a gratuitous act, it engages the individual in their entirety. By insisting on this responsibility, and on the power we enjoys by being in a position to choose between multiple possibilities, Kierkegaard puts the individual in a position to assume the burden of the resolutions he/she takes. This ability to choose between two hypotheses also implies the legitimisation of a certain mode of existence by the individual exercising their decision-­ making power. The test of freedom is above all a test of faith. Freedom is the power entrusted to us by God so that he may undergo the test of choice. How will we use that freedom? Do we intend to be as God would have us be, or do we prefer to avail ourselves of a freedom which gives us the possibility of being at odds with our “profound sentiments?” The “me” must find its own interior necessity: by definition, freedom means feeling the torment of choice within oneself. It is also the realisation that we cannot escape our individuality. Torn by this internal conflict, human beings are full of agitation, lacking a firm “base” to borrow Pascal’s expression. It is up to the free among us to “freely appropriate that which is given,” 82 not to be absolutely free – absolute freedom belongs to God alone – but in order to attain the relative freedom which allows us to learn about freedom. Freedom is the power entrusted to us by God so that he may undergo the test of choice.83 What matters most is not to be free, but to know what to do with that freedom. This free choice creates the n­ ecessary conditions for the truly Christian act, voluntarily renouncing all to follow the path of Christ. Moreover, in addition to the impossibility of escaping both the self and absolute contingency, we must also face up to the exception of the messiah, the radical event that he represents and that shifts the absolute centre from a point of transcendence onto the plane of immanence. For those that succeed in escaping the “darkness and shadows” recognise the significance of this event in their hearts. This ensures that a reconciliation is possible: not a reconciliation between groups of people, but a reconciliation of people with themselves, a reconciliation which transcends man’s  X2 A 428, Vol 3: 337 / §1261.  M. DE GANDILLAC, Kierkegaard, le Pascal du nord, 375. 82  III A 2, Vol 1: 203 / §3723. 83  “There is one thing that God cannot take away from man, and that is his free will – which is a requirement of Christianity” Christian Discourses, 15: 169/170 / XII: 179. 80 81

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contradictions, his unicity and multiplicity. For both Pascal and Kierkegaard, the world without the power of the cross was a doomed world in which the contradictions of human nature remained irreconcilable. Without Christ’s death on the cross humans loses the connection which binds them to God, and thus loses themselves. Man is a tissue of contradictions; the cross is the place where two natures meet and are united. But there are still certain requirements to be met: the finite must still contain within it a certain aspiration toward the eternal, while the infinite must be capable of relating to the finite in such a manner that a relationship between them is possible. For finitude and infinitude to enter into contact, and for faith to arise as the fruit of this coming together, there needs to be a prior understanding between the two, a means for the finite to accede to the infinite and an arrangement which enables the infinite to infiltrate the finite. The latter requirement is discussed at length in Kierkegaard’s Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, presented as a source of both “fear and happiness.”84 God is always in touch with us because he is everywhere, but that relationship is indirect. Disruption of the direct relationship with God, which is a hallmark of “paganism,”85 marks the beginning of the true relationship. Truth lies in the indirect relationship, that which passes through the channels of interiority and which strip away the falsehoods of nature with its predilection for direct relationships. Ultimately, the only reality pertaining to God cannot be found in abstraction, the realm of theoretical knowledge. It is to be sought inside ourselves, where God must be felt and not deduced from proofs. Deleuze is not wrong to assert that “there are never any criteria other than the tenor of existence, the intensification of life. Pascal and Kierkegaard, who were familiar with infinite movements, and who extracted from the Old Testament new conceptual personae able to stand up to Socrates, were well aware of this. Kierkegaard’s ‘knight of the faith,’ he who makes the leap, or Pascal’s gambler, he who throws the dice, are men of a transcendence or a faith. But they constantly recharge immanence.”86 For both Pascal and Kierkegaard, dilemma and risk represent the arena in which human sovereignty is played out. The wager ultimately proves to be an ethical choice based not on knowledge but on a decision to be made in this life, hic et nunc, bolstered by faith which is not a matter of transcendence but which is “won over to immanence.”87 In other words, the aim of these two idiosyncratic antiphilosophers is to break with representative thought: not to reach a plane of existence devoted to an abstract, hidden higher power, but instead to revel in the “infinite immanent possibilities brought by the one that believes that God exists.”88

 Three Discourses on imagined occasions, 8: 20 / X: 24.  Postscript, 10: 225, XII: 246. 86  G. DELEUZE, F. GUATTARI, F. What is Philosophy?, 1994, 74. 87  A. BOUANICHE, « Faire le mouvement ». Deleuze lecteur de Kierkegaard, 143. 88  G. DELEUZE, F. GUATTARI, F. What is Philosophy?, 1994, 74. 84 85

Conclusion: Post-Jansenist Meditations

The tragedy of the majority of men is by no means that they are weak but that they are too strong – genuinely to be aware of God. Søren Kierkegaard, Papers, §4453

Grace Above All Else Under the joint tutelage of Paul of Tarsus and Augustine of Hippo, whose influence can be felt throughout, the works of Pascal and Kierkegaard return constantly to an issue which preoccupied both authors throughout their lives: how should man go about seeking salvation? Through his deeds and subordination to the revealed Law, or in the refuge of divine grace, a necessary prerequisite for all good actions and thoughts? For both authors, grace is the primary requirement. Without grace we are incapable of understanding our own nature, or comprehending our tasks and duties, or escaping the clutches of despair. In Kierkegaard’s Papers we find this position expressed in striking terms: “grace first and foremost, and always before us.”1 The implication is that grace always acts in advance, as if to shorten the distance between the ordinary Christian and the Christian ideal. Kierkegaard and Pascal thus make a fundamental distinction between grace and the law, a thoroughly Augustinian dichotomy: “The law imposed what it did not give. Grace gives what it imposes,2 writes Pascal. The existential fulfilment of the Law by Christ coincides with the advent of a new grace which supersedes the Law. The imitation of Christ by Christians is not a matter of respecting the law, it is a consequence of grace, since grace always transcends the law. We might also argue that the imitation of Christ is so demanding, so difficult, that it is by nature  X5 A 101, Vol 4: 420 / §1493.  Laf. 824, Br. 522.

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impossible. Hence the necessity of grace, which is above the law and which acts as a crutch to help us mere humans cope with the overwhelming pressure of this imitation. It is grace which opens up the possibility of following the example set by Jesus. It is through and in light of this effect that we are bade to imitate the example of Jesus Christ, not through the medium of religious and/or theological knowledge. “For Augustine as for Pascal,” Philippe Sellier notes, “cold, dry religious knowledge is not derived from the genuine grace of Christ. Such knowledge was also granted to the carnal Jews, and certain pagans.”3 Does this mean that the effects of grace are detached from all contingency? Not at all. Kierkegaard in fact declares that grace plays a clear role in the actions we decide to undertake. “Grace,” he writes, “is usually understood as a dead, once-and-­ for-all decision, rather than as something related to striving, because, to recall a saying of Baader, it is an advance payment.”4 Grace can therefore not be considered a benefit or privilege; it is a down payment to be reimbursed by suffering and fear. Its dynamics are complex, since its salvation extends beyond the sacrifice and expiation implicit in it, strengthening weak resolve and nurturing the stubbornness of man’s heart. This distinction between the grace granted to us and the additional effort required by our condition brings us back to the quintessential Pascalian theme of sufficient and efficacious grace. One supports the other. One constantly accompanies and urges on the fulfilment of the other. This is always the way of things, Kierkegaard appears to suggest: despite the effects of grace, we must force ourselves to preserve and “use it wisely,” remaining attentive at all times, taking to the task assiduously and with total, infinite concentration, as well as making an effort to consolidate it in the long term. This effort itself is an effect of grace, to the extent that the effect of the effort forms part of the effect of grace, being concomitant with it and impossible without it. The crucial factor is the sacrifice itself, the fact of existentially experiencing this reform of the self, and not the more or less mistaken way in which we might interpret the salvation which lies beyond that sacrifice, nor merit or any other justification we might be tempted to apply to this actual, supernatural force. The question of grace is one which continually preoccupied Kierkegaard. He identified it as the principal point of contention between Protestants and Catholics, divided on the issue of whether man can obtain grace through the action of the Holy Spirit or by his own means – Protestants defending the former position, Catholics the latter. Kierkegaard concludes that Protestants and Catholics could see eye to eye if only they were capable of scrupulously comparing their respective positions on this point. As for Pascal, he contends that “there will always be Pelagians, and always Catholics, and always strife; because the first birth makes the one, and the grace of the second birth the other.”5 Pascal uses the Pelagians to stand for all opponents of authentic, Catholic Christians, i.e. those faithful to the doctrine of Saint

 P. SELLIER, Pascal et Saint Augustin, 315.  X2 A 223, Vol 3: 264 / §1474. 5  Laf. 662, Br. 521. 3 4

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Augustine who represent the true defenders of the Catholic faith. The influence of Saint Augustine on Pascal is plain to see, indeed there are no fewer than 15 quotations from Augustine in the brief Interview with M. de Saci. Like the Bishop of Hippo, Pascal affirms that the grace of God surpasses all human facts and actions. True disciples of the Christian religion reject the idea that they are capable of escaping “slavery to the devil” all by themselves.6 In Pascal’s words, our actions are our own only to the extent that we acknowledge “what Saint Augustine tells us, that our actions are ours in respect of the free will which produces them; but that they are also of God, in respect of his grace which enables our free will to produce them. And, as he remarks elsewhere, God enables us to do what is pleasing in his sight, by making us will to do even what we might have been unwilling to do: a Deo factum est ut vellent quod et nolle potuissent.”7 Left to his own devices, man has full control over his actions, the fruits of his free will. But left to depend upon free will alone, his chances of treading the path of charity without the help of God are slim indeed. Without charity, virtue of virtues, fruit of the grace of God, free will cannot be exercised to its full potential because there will always be actions beyond its ken. With thoroughly Pauline reasoning, Pascal urges us to recognise that the inspiration for any charitable action involves a substantial contribution from God. God influences and guides our will, holding it in his care. So, ultimately, the credit for good actions can be attributed to God. Compromised by original sin, our charitable intentions are directed by God. Our merit is merely the merit of God, who grants us the possibility of believing in trust. Even when a man or a woman believes in their heart, the action of God’s grace is the dominant force. God’s influence is preponderant even in faith, because we can never hope to achieve anything without the help of God. It thus falls to God to judge the merit of men in this life, granting grace to those who deserve it most. Pascal highlights the ambiguity of this idea of merit, which is not a property which we can easily claim for ourselves. Such matters remain murky to our mind, we cannot celebrate our own merits since only God has the power to judge. Man’s stubbornness may find recompense through prayer; but here again the merit goes to God, since we cannot “hold our own prayers.”8 Prayer is capable of anything, of course, but it is only granted to those whom God has chosen.9 Prayer may have the power to heal, but that requires us to know how to pray, which is only possible for those chosen by God. He illustrates this understanding of grace when he asserts that “the poor in grace are always sure to obtain that which they request, but never confident of having the possibility of asking.”10 This is tantamount to saying that God

 Laf. 807, Br. 519.  Provincial Letters, Letter 18, 463. 8  Laf. 930, Br. 513. 9  “God is only bound according to his promises. He has promised to grant justice to prayers (Matthew 7; 7), he has never promised prayer only to the children of promise.” Laf. 930, Br. 513. 10  Ecrits sur la grâce, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 335. 6 7

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always answers the prayers of those who know how to pray properly, something which is not given to everybody. Our freedom is therefore restricted and underpins the predetermination of his destiny, and not vice versa. Under no circumstances should the doctrine of predestination be used to let us off the hook; the soul must refuse to be “taken in by the blandishments of theories of predestination.”11 We must necessarily have a role to play in the determination of our life to justify the gratuitousness of grace and the generosity of God. Kierkegaard thus retains at least part of the concept of predestination (“if this singling out is understood selfishly by a Christian, we have the desperate presumption of predestination,”)12 not in our name but in the name of God. Should we thus accuse Kierkegaard and Pascal of the same offence for which Augustine upbraided Pelagius, namely taking away from the grace of God in favour of man’s free will? Do they believe that grace is fundamentally a negation of man’s free will, and that God’s actions on man’s behalf and man’s actions on his own behalf should be understood as two opposing principles? We would be hard pressed to answer either question in the affirmative: while man is theoretically capable of choice, in real life and without grace he will naturally tend towards that which pleases him most. The grace of God alone is capable of converting man to the righteous path, not human will: communion with God is thus made possible, and not by “nature.”13 Communion with God is not a natural occurrence; it can only be achieved with special assistance, a singularly supernatural occurrence. This passion is the object of a grace granted by God alone, and which nature cannot provide. Can we thus conclude that, in Pascal’s thought particularly, grace is detached from all contingency? Not at all: grace is directly connected to Jesus Christ and all the prophets who announced his coming. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all invoked in the Mémorial. This is why the pardoning of sins by man represents the falsification of a power which only God can wield. Self-attribution of grace is not only a travesty of its true meaning; it is also a clumsy way of robbing God of a more fundamental capacity than human freedom.

Addressing Philosophers “One aspect of antiphilosophy  – sometimes overlooked but in my opinion absolutely crucial to the antiphilosophical strategy – is that the antiphilosopher always speaks as if there were no point in addressing philosophers.”14 Pascal and Kierkegaard do not set out to address philosophers, and there is certainly a “strategic” element to

 Either/Or, 4: 209 / III: 232.  Postscript, 11: 262/263 / XII: 582. 13  Laf. 149, Br. 430. 14  A, BADIOU. Lacan Antiphilosophy 3, 83. 11 12

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that choice. But should we thus conclude that neither of them saw “any point” in speaking directly to philosophers? Certainly there is a fundamental opposition in play since, as far as the antiphilosophers are concerned, philosophers make no worthwhile contribution to either philosophy or truth. In this respect, the Pascalian and Kierkegaardian critiques of philosophy amount to far more than a polite counter-­ argument to prevailing philosophical trends, or a relative and fragmentary attempt to point out shortcomings in the great systems of rationalist philosophy. If philosophy aims to “harm stupidity” (a turn of phrase used by Nietzsche and taken up by Deleuze), antiphilosophy sets itself the rather more radical goal of harming philosophical stupidity. And as far as Pascal and Kierkegaard were concerned, this philosophical stupidity was never more apparent than when it turned its attention to Christianity, a truth which it has neither the inclination nor the ability to comprehend philosophically, and which it ends up representing as virtually the direct opposite of what it actually claims to be. This is particularly true of Christian philosophers, with whom Pascal and Kierkegaard would certainly feel less affinity than with anti-Christian antiphilosophers. These Christian philosophers examine Christianity in the light of avowedly Christian thought, without properly examining the relationship between philosophy and Christianity.15 We might thus ask of Descartes and Hegel: are they unknowing opponents of Christianity? Should we concur with the categorical judgements proffered by Pascal and Kierkegaard? Or should we instead locate the source of the conflict not in any opposition to Christianity expressed by Descartes or Hegel, but rather in their failure to understand Christianity in the same terms as Kierkegaard and Pascal? Is Descartes as contrary to the Christianity of Christ as he is to the Christianity of Pascal? It seems unlikely: both Descartes and Hegel surely deserve more generous treatment than they receive at the hands of Pascal and Kierkegaard respectively. Nonetheless, it is clear that the two thinkers share a sort of religious rationalism, or more broadly a religious ‘intellectualism,’ which was anathema to Pascal and Kierkegaard. While Pascal and Kierkegaard may or may not be straightforwardly anti-intellectualist in a general sense, they certainly are when it comes to Christianity.16 In the Papers, Kierkegaard reflects on one of Pascal’s maxims: “To know God only speculatively is not to know him at all.”17 In the specific register of Christianity, both opt for an effort of anti-intellectualist reflexivity (rather than a strictly anti-­ rationalist approach, since their visions of the world clearly cannot do without reason entirely, no more than they can deny the presence of mystery). It is on these same foundations that their antitheologism is constructed, opposing attempts at

 I A 95, Vol 1: 60 / §416.  This does not prevent Pascal, the less anti-intellectual of the pair, from writing that “There is nothing so consistent with reason as this disavowal of reason.” (Laf. 182, Br. 272) On these grounds, Jean Wahl suggests defining him as a “negative intellectualist.” 17  X3 A 640, 3117. “Pascal: To know God only speculatively is not to know him at all.” (Reuchlin, Pascals leben, 243). 15 16

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objectivity in the domain of religious reflection and decrying attempts to defend religion solely on the basis of its rational intelligibility. For it is not on the strictly philosophical plane of truth that Pascal and Kierkegaard make their stand against the prevailing traditions; they are more concerned with the meaning of action, the domain of existential praxis. As André Clair remarks, “Pascal does not completely renounce either Epictetus or Montaigne; both come in for criticism, but this criticism comes from two distinct angles.”18 Philosophical discourse may well be valid in terms of truth, and certainly capable of genuine knowledge, but it is ineffectual because it fails to take into account the situation of its practitioners. This is a practical, not simply speculative, requirement. “Kierkegaard sacrifices philosophy” because it “obscures existence in its entirety,”19 as Maurice Merleau-Ponty astutely points out. Moreover the personality of Christ is not that of an ostentatious divinity, but is revealed only gradually as the believer follows the path of existence, the journey of “becoming-Christian” so dear to Kierkegaard. This divinity is to be found within the existence of the believer, in the life which always precedes thought, as demonstrated forcefully by Michel Henry in his material phenomenology. The life of Jesus Christ is an expression of the radical opposition between existence limited by time and the limitless existence of eternity. It is a manifestation of God in time, our connection or bridge to the eternal: “the doctrine of Christ is infinitely above all the discoveries of time and all times, with the most ancient eternity and an eternity above all systems, even the most modern, even the very latest invention ten thousand years from now; because his doctrine is the truth, in the sense that it represents the way.”20 Christianity thus achieves that which Plato never could: the life and person of Jesus are the incarnation of truth. Jesus Christ embodies the Word of God. He is that which no one else could ever be. The humanisation of the figure of Christ does not amount to a ‘naturalisation’ of God, it is the infinite path towards eternity with which men, even philosophers, are presented. In the Christian event God goes before us, while remaining so far beyond us that grace is required in order for his will to be done. Grace supplants reason as the sole centre of our existential choices. Only grace, as Simone Weil has it, is capable of representing an exception to the weight of the material world. And if grace opens up a place in the heart in the face of reason, a place for that faith which is always in opposition to reason, this is because the difference between knowing God and loving God is still infinitely great. In this context, Arnaud Bouaniche’s analysis of Deleuze seems more pertinent than ever: “The real alternative is not between the different terms available to choose between, but instead between the modes of existence of those doing the choosing (Cinema 1 p. 160). Deleuze thus pits ethics against morality, in the name of those immanent criteria which make it possible to evaluate choices not with reference to transcendent values (Good and Evil) but on the grounds of the mode of existence

 A. CLAIR, Pseudonymie et paradoxe : la pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard, 79/80.  M. MERLEAU-PONTY, Philosophie et non-philosophie depuis Hegel, Textures 8/9, 1974, p88, cité par J. COLETTE, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie, 10. 20  Practice in Christianity, 17: 186 / XX: 210. 18 19

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which they imply. The real ethical question here is: what does that change in this life? Is it empty or full, noble or vulgar, sad or joyous etc.?”21 This passage encapsulates the general ethical orientation of these two antiphilosophers. The true alternative is not between philosophy and non-philosophy, between Good and Evil, between a wager for or against the existence of God, but instead between the mode of existence of him/her who has trust in the word of God and him/her who has no interest in it. It is a question of acts, of life choices, of practical and ethical resolutions which allows us to characterise these antiphilosophers as both existentialists and immanentists. In this respect we can only concur with Deleuze when he writes that “faith breaks through the ceiling of religion.”22 The antiphilosophical philosopher, as I have attempted to demonstrate, exists within this movement, which is above all a gesture, an act.

Tears of Joy An analysis of the concept of faith, that “foreign entity to speculative philosophy” as Lev Shestov puts it,23 moving from reason to mystery via grace, is of central importance to appreciating the antiphilosophical stature of our two authors. In this analysis, two notions prove to be of decisive significance: folly and joy. When he describes folly as a form of supernatural wisdom (one of many meanings attributed to the term throughout the Pensées),24 Pascal echoes Saint Paul’s distinction between the wisdom of man and the wisdom of God. Faith is essentially a Christian folly, a concept of which Erasmus was in some ways the pioneer.25 This does not mean that faith is founded on the folly of other Christians – that would be “unchristian,”26 Kierkegaard assures us – but rather the intimately personal madness of the individual Christian faced with the mystery of Christ and the cross. “Our religion is wise and foolish,” Pascal opines. “Wise, because it is the most learned and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is not all this

 A. BOUANICHE, « Faire le mouvement ». Deleuze lecteur de Kierkegaard, 2014, 141.  Ibid.. 23  L. SHESTOV, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 33. 24  “Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.” Pensées, Non-numbered fragment, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 549. 25  Hélène Politis makes an interesting point regarding Kierkegaard’s familiarity with Erasmus’ thought: “Among his books we find Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly (ktl 478), referenced in Papirer IV A 32 dated to 1843. Kierkegaard also references Erasmus through other sources, including a work by Hamann which references a letter from Erasmus to Zwingli, or the study of Erasmus published by Adolph Müller. Between 1831/1832 and 1851 there are six mentions of Erasmus in the Papirer but only one allusion in the Vaerker, which is to be found in the Concept of Irony.” H. POLITIS, Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, 548. 26  VIII A 566, Vol 2: 210 / §4044. 21 22

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which makes us believe.”27 Faith is more dependent upon folly than upon wisdom; folly is a form of genial foolishness, surpassing wisdom and showing the way to faith. Folly is the true instigator of faith, outstripping all certainties and “overcoming evidence.”28 Was it not folly or madness which drove the father of faith, Abraham? Was that faith not born of the senseless love for God which inhabited him? “We must then put our faith in feeling,” Pascal declares; “otherwise it will be always vacillating.” But what is this feeling, which “acts in a moment, and is always ready to act?”29A form of suffering?30 Of madness? For Pascal, that feeling was joy. But if this were true, would it not be paradoxical to describe suffering as the Christian’s natural condition? How can we now decide that joy is the believer’s dominant sentiment, the force which propels the Christian faith to its rightful place? How do we explain the fact that joy features alongside suffering in the Mémorial? Was Fénelon right after all, when he accused Jansenism of being a philosophy of enjoyment, depicting the Jansenists as engaged in a quest as hedonistic as it was spiritual?31 How, indeed, do we account for the passage of Kierkegaard’s Papers dated 19th May 1838, which constitutes a veritable hymn to the joy of Christianity? The passage reads: “There is an indescribable joy, which burns us all over as mysteriously as the cry of the apostle: ‘Be joyous, I tell you: be joyous!’”32 It is almost as if Christian suffering actually leads to a feeling of profound joy. As Walsh explains, “the experience of joy encourages them in the strife of suffering by providing them with the vision or perspective that will enable them to endure hardship and at the same time to bear it lightly and profit from it. Suffering contains prospects of joy, but joy elicits suffering in turn. Thus theses determinants are dialectically related in a complementary sort of way. But joy can also signify an inward defeat of suffering even as it serves as suffering’s source of perpetuation.”33 In this dialectical movement, wherein each term is important, suffering is ever-­ present, especially since Christians are bade not to attempt to avoid or combat it (particularly through detachment, of the ataraxic kind sought by the Stoics). Because suffering is also the condition which makes joy possible, as well as representing (to borrow once again from the lexicon of material phenomenology) a challenge in its own right. A pathos, certainly, but a form of power first and foremost. A power  Br. 588.  L. SHESTOV, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, p. 33. 29  Laf. 821, Br. 252. 30  Florinda Martins discusses Pascal’s understanding of suffering with reference to Henry: “For Pascal, one of the rare philosophers whom Henry admired, suffering, rather than a form of fragility, is always a power, even if the power is only to suffer oneself. Because suffering oneself requires the ability to combine suffering and ipseity.” F. MARTINS, L’autre : le corps vivant, 71-72. 31  L, THIROUIN, “ Jansénisme et joie de vivre : Quelques réflexions sur la grâce”, 2-7. 32  II A 228, 5324, cited by P.  MESNARD, Le vrai Visage de Kierkegaard, p.  66. See also N. VIALLANEIX, Kierkegaard : l’unique devant Dieu, 29. 33  S. Walsh, Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence, 122. 27 28

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which can be construed, as Grégori Jean argues, as “intersubjectivity in the first person” – i.e. not viewed from the perspective of the person I am, but rooted in the Person that we are. Such is the sense of Henry’s concept of the “mystical body.”34 We might easily accept that Christians’ suffering consoles as much as it crushes, but it also appears to be a source of joy mixed with the sort of pain generally described as sadness, but which for Christians is actually a form of happiness. Because for Christians, suffering is not sad: “Joy, joy, JOY, tears of JOY” exclaimed Pascal in his Mémorial. Pain and pleasure are intimately linked. In emulation of the tribulations of Christ, it is only fair that we should also suffer. Human suffering mimics divine suffering to bring man closer to God. Or in Pascal’s words: “as Tertullian says, it must not be supposed that the Christian’s life is a life of sadness. We forsake pleasures only for others which are greater still. ‘Pray without ceasing’, says St. Paul, ‘in every thing give thanks,’ ‘rejoice evermore.’” (I Thessalonians, 5; 16-18) 35 Although Alain Badiou is certainly not mistaken to suggest that “for the antiphilosophers, great tormented beings as they are, happiness is not made for jovial guys – a certain dose of despair is the condition of real happiness,”36 it is nonetheless important to add that despair is not the real issue here (since despair is not, strictly speaking, a Christian feeling). What is required of the believer in order to achieve genuine happiness is suffering  – not the despair or despondency experienced by libertines, but true Christian suffering which must not be confused with sadness. Most contemporary critics dismissed Kierkegaard as a philosopher of bitterness and despair. They were mistaken: throughout the Papers there are moments which amount to the exact opposite (of bitterness and despair), particularly when discussing Christian joy: “not any particular sort of joy, but the over-spilling cry of the soul, escaping via the mouth and tongue from the very depths of the heart;” “I rejoice in my joy, by, in, with, about, on, around and with my joy.”37 Kierkegaard seems here to be describing joy of a different nature than that procured by things that are simply enjoyable. This is a joy superior to joy, an intense joy which surpass all other feelings, which “wraps us up” in a passion which is superior, transcendent and sacred. While the vision of Christianity defended by Kierkegaard and Pascal certainly has its fair share of severity, it would perhaps be more accurate to describe it as “gentle severity.”38 This nuance is significant in the conflict with Christendom, which feigns to forget the dialectic dynamic of severity and would have its parishioners believe that Christianity is all sweetness and light. This is why “Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable,” and at the same

 G. JEAN, “Présentation de “l’expérience métaphysique d’autrui” à “l’intersubjectivité en première personne”, 62. 35  Lettres aux Roannez, L’Intégrale, Seuil, 269. 36  A. BADIOU, Happiness, 72. 37  II A 228, 5324, quoted by P. MESNARD, Le vrai Visage de Kierkegaard, 66. 38  XIII A 165, Vol 4: 56 / §2873. 34

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time “bids him desire to be like God.”39 No such strangeness is perceptible in the saccharine world of Christendom, dominated by the worldly wisdom shunned by antiphilosophical Christianity. In bringing this study to a close, it is worth returning to the quotation from Michel Henry which forms its epigraph: why indeed should we go to the trouble of writing, or even reading, the latest tome examining the Gospel for answers about salvation, when we know that this book will inevitably be followed by new angles, new “revelations” and new publications on the same topic, without ever glimpsing even the vaguest hint of an answer to the only question that matters? In the architheopoetic sweep of their antiphilosophical Christian writings, Pascal and Kierkegaard invite their readers to avoid worrying too much about the future, to rally their forces for the present moment: “Yet the world is so restless that men scarcely ever think of the present life and of the moment in which they are living,” Pascal declares, “but of that in which they will live. In this manner we are always living in the future, and never in the present. Our Lord has willed that our foresight should not extend beyond the present day.”40 We know little more about our distant origins than we do about our ultimate end: it is therefore less foolish to wager on the present than to hope to pierce the impenetrable secrets of the future. Only the eternal present offers the genuine possibility of a future as God alone would will it. Acknowledgments  The author wants to express his deepest gratitude to Isabelle Alfandary and the Collège International de Philosophie, Valérie Moatti, Pramuan Bunkanwanicha and her fellow faculty members at ESCP, but also Bernard Bourgeois, Gilbert Maixent, Florence Chapuis, Lloys Lewis, Françoise Pieuchot, Henrik Harpsoe for their significant help. He also thanks the reviewers for the value, the benevolence and the accuracy of their comments on earlier versions of this book.

39 40

 Laf. 351, Br.537.  Letters to Roannez, VIII, L’Intégrale, Seuil, p. 270.

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French translations: Søren Kierkegaard. Oeuvres complètes, Editions de l’Orante, Traduction PH Tisseau, Vol 1–20. Søren Kierkegaard. La Reprise, GF Flammarion, translated by Nelly Viallaneix, 1990. Søren Kierkegaard. Crainte et tremblement, Aubier Bibliothèque philosophique, translated by PH Tisseau, third edition, 1984. Søren Kierkegaard. Journal 1834–1846, Vol. 1, translated by Knud Ferlov & Jean-J. Gateau, nrf Gallimard, 1963. Søren Kierkegaard. Journal 1846–1849, Vol. 2, translated by Knud Ferlov & Jean-J. Gateau, nrf Gallimard, 1954. Søren Kierkegaard. Journal 1849–1850, Vol.3, translated by Knud Ferlov & Jean-J. Gateau, nrf Gallimard, 1955. Søren Kierkegaard. Journal 1850–1853, Vol. 4, translated by Knud Ferlov & Jean-J. Gateau, nrf Gallimard, 1957. Søren Kierkegaard. Journal 1854–1855, Vol. 5, translated by Knud Ferlov & Jean-J. Gateau, nrf Gallimard, 1961.

For Pascal: Blaise Pascal. Oeuvres complètes, Coll. L’Intégrale, Editions du Seuil, 1995. Blaise Pascal. Pensées, édition établie par Léon Brunschicg, Editions de Cluny, 1933. Blaise Pascal. Ecrits sur la grâce, Rivages Poche/Petite Bibliothèque, Paris, 2007.

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Index

A Absolute theological authority, 111 Abstraction of existence, 35 Absurd, 61, 109 Acts alone before God, 68 Adam, 48 Adam forma futuri, 47–49 Adam’s sin, 50 Aesthetics, 68 Alain Badiou, 77, 85, 95 antiphilosophy, 2, 42 category of antiphilosophy, 20 category of truth, 16 Christian antiphilosophy, 2 Christianity notion, 17 Christian message, 3 interpretation, 3 Kierkegaard’s conceptuality, 3 Kierkegaard’s ethos, 3 methodology, 21 philosophical apparatus, 108 philosophical discourse, 16 political views, 3 Alpha and Omega, 106 Ambivalence, 71 Anagrams, 42 Ancestral objects, 122 André Clair, 20, 32, 116 André Clair’s work, 42 Anti-Cartesianism, 31 Anti-Christian antiphilosophers, 129 Anti-Christian contrarian, 111 Anti-Christian philosophies, 1, 112

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 G. Deslandes, Antiphilosophy of Christianity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73283-7

Anti-Climacus, 72 Anti-dialectical dialecticians, 11 Anti-intellectualist reflexivity, 129 Antiphilosopher, 2, 24, 29 Antiphilosophical act, 75, 109 Antiphilosophical act par excellence, 109 Antiphilosophical action, 85 Antiphilosophical Christian, 47 Antiphilosophical enterprise, 100 Anti-philosophical philosopher, 113 Antiphilosophical posture, 21 Antiphilosophical strategy, 128 Antiphilosophical tradition, 110 Antiphilosophical writing, 42 Antiphilosophy, 2, 4, 75–77, 120 Anti-Protestant, 85 Antitheology, 114 Anxiety, 95 Apologetics, 116 Apology, 17 a priori assumptions, 19 Archimedes, 107 Archi-philosophical act, 51 Atheism, 38, 111 Atheists, 41 Atheists blindness, 37 Augustinian density, 49 Augustinian themes, 50 Augustinians, 110 Authentically ambiguous characters, 46 Authentic Christianity, 79 Authentic pathos, 30 Authorized judge, 15

141

Index

142 B Background of my life, 83 Beatitude, 71 Becoming, 120 Being and Event, 110 Belief, 32 Believing God, 117 Beneficent, 59 Berlanda, 121 Bloated verbiage, 13 The Book on Adler (Publication), 28 C Cannibalism, 4 Carelessness, 25 Cartesianiam, 33 Cartesian critique, 33 Cartesian metaphysics, 121 Cartesian system, 35 Catharsis, 70 Catholic Church, 77, 78, 87 Catholic institution, 77 Catholicism, 86–88 Catholic theology, 78 Choice, 91, 96, 102, 103 Christendom, 91, 94 Christian, 2 Christian antiphilosophers, 19, 59 Christian antiphilosophy, 20, 51 fact of being alone, 69 journals, 20 philosophical reason, 4 sacralisation, 108 theology, 110 tradition, 2 and weak theology, 114 Christian becoming, 109 Christian believers, 58 Christian condition, 69 Christian countries, 79 Christian doctrine, 114 Christian event, 108 Christian faith, 4, 58 Christianity, 89, 94 antiphilosophical orientation, 2 dissension and division source, 12 eternal question, 57 Pascal’s vision, 114 phenomenon, 113 scandal, 107 tradition theology, 1 vision, 5 Christian life, 41

Christian message, 41 Christian metaphysical theology, 114 Christian mumbo-jumbo, 21 Christian philosophers a priori positions, 9 authentic philosophy, 10 de facto, 11 Enlightment, 10 enthusiasm, 10 human experience, 12 intimate simultaneity, 11 Jacques Colette, 8 Kierkegaard, 7, 8, 10 objective knowledge, 11 Pascal, 8 Pascal’s work, 13 Paul Ricoeur, 11 philosophical perspective, 11 religious authors, 10 single solitary chord, 12 Socrates, 14 Vergote’s formulation, 8 Vergote’s proposal, 10 Christian philosophies, 1, 8, 9, 112 Christian preaching, 108 Christian revelation, 39 Christians, 94 Christian striver, 7 Christian suffering, 71 Christian thinkers, 8 Christological inflection, 106 Christology, 106, 108 Christ’s aphorism, 120 Christ’s humility, 106 Christ’s nature, 106 Church, 79 advocate-corruptor, 78 aegis, 88 authorities, 79 Catholic, 77, 78, 87 conflation, 79 Danish, 77, 86 Danish National, 80, 91, 92 delicate balance, 77 Denmark, 79 depraved condition, 93 duty of, 80 history, 77 hypocrisy, 89 institutional, 77 militant, 80 National, 88, 92 and practicing, 80 secularised, 78

Index separation of, 81 State, 92 triumphant, 80 Clarification of Christianity, 116 Classical antiphilosophers, 2 Classic antiphilosoper, 16 Clericalism, 108 Coalman’s faith, 58 Colette’s analysis, 21 Community of intellect, 82 Community of intelligence, 82 Comparative analysis, 44, 114 Complex scientific/mathematical system, 31 Comprehensiveness, 26 Concept of Anxiety, 48 Concept of faith, 60 Contemporary Christianity, 40 Contemporary Danish Hegelianism embodiment, 16 Contemporary Danish professors, 34 Contemporary “libertine” thinkers, 121 Contemporary philosophy, 14 Continual reference, 14 Conversion, 77, 82, 90 Corsair affair, 66 Critical rationality, 29 Critical reason, 40 D Danish Church, 77, 78, 86 Danish National Church, 80, 91, 92 Danish poet-philosopher, 32 Darkness and shadows, 123 Definitive formula, 5 Derisory science, 26 Descartes, 32 Christian, 35 disavowing philosophy, 32 Hegel, 34 interpretation, 31 and Pascal, 33 Pascal’s critique, 34 philosophical survey, 35 philosophy, 35 salvation, 36 thinker, 32 Desire for eternity, 56 Destitution/subversion, 35 Deus absconditus, 98–100 Diabolical pride, 30, 31 Discontinuous writing style, 44 Discredit, 41 Discursive system, 24

143 Disheartenment, 19 Diversion, 95, 96 Division, 71 Dramatic tension, 60 Dualist anthropology, 47 Duplicity, 47 E Ecclesiastical authorities, 77 Eloquence/social skills, 91 Emile Boutroux, 107 Equivocation, 71 Eternal reflection, 56 Eternal salvation, 55 Eternal youthfulness, 39 Eternity of concepts, 26 The Essence of Manifestation, 120 European Parliament, 119 Excessive zeal, 29 Existence/non-existence of God, 64 Existential wager, 55 Exteriorisation, 83 F Faith, 80, 81, 85, 86, 95, 101, 102 absurd, 61 Believing God, 62 boundaries, 60 burden of proof, 62 concepts, 59 existence, 59 exploration, 61 historically-amassed proof, 64 historically-proven events, 58 internal convictions, 61 intimate/incomparable relationship, 60 judgement, 65 leap, 63 movement, 59 subjective disposition, 65 transreason, 61 true fear, 65 voluntary submission, 61 False commensuration, 55 Falsehoods, 54 False risk, 56 Family resemblance, 119 Fanatical temerity, 87 Fear and Trembling interpretations, 28 Feuerbach, champion of health, 40 Formal traits, 21 Fortune’s favourite, 118

Index

144 Freedom, 123 Freedom’ ordinary, 68 Free-thinkers, 40, 55 Frontiers of reflection, 18 Fully-fledged philosophers, 114 G Genuine individuality, 34 German Protestant, 85 Gethsemane, 72 Gianni Vattimo, 111, 112, 119 God-as-man, 106 God of Love, 100 God of metaphysical proof, 63 God of the Old and New Testament, 62 God of the philosophers, 119 Grace, 125–128 Gravity, 25 H Half-sinners, 50 Hannah Arendt, 58 Happier memories, 72 Harm stupidity, 129 Hear God Deus absconditus, 98–100 external/internal, 77–84 paradox, 100–103 the public on the throne, 85–93 world, 93–97 Heart, 120 Hegel, 83 Hegelian philosophy, 34 Hegelian system, 33, 34 Hegelian tradition, 28, 34 Hegel’s assertion, 67 Hegel’s philosophy, 33 Hegel’s system, 34 Hegel’s systematic view of history, 34 Heidegger’s interpretation, 120 Hélène Politis, 23, 36 Henri Gouhier, 20 Henry’s system, 120 Heraclitus vs. Parmenides, 16 Hidden God, 99, 100 Hidden manna, 100 The history of truth, 77 Holy Scripture, 62 Human freedom, 118 Humanity, 98, 121 Humanity’s spiritual horizon, 58 Human sensitivity, 60 Human singularity, 42

I Icelandic philosopher Magnus Eiríksson, 109 Idea of oneness of spirit, 6 Idlers, 69 Illusion, 12 Immanence, 120, 123 Immediacy, 59 Impatient reactions, 13 Impenetrable, 46 Improbability, 57 Incarnation, 36 Incommensurability, 54 Incredulity, 113 Indirect communication, 98 Individual, animal, plant/human, 26 Individuality, 46 Infinite immanent possibilities, 124 Ingenuousness, 56 Inner kinship, 6 Institutional Christendom, 111 Institutional Church, 77 Institutional preservation, 68 Intellectualism, 129 Intelligence, 11, 57 Interior dialectic in relation to ideality, 96 Interior/exterior, 77–85, 91, 98, 100 Interiorisation, 80–82, 91, 93 Interiority, 80 Internalisation, 15, 67 Internal knowledge orientation, 15 Intoxicated concepts, 26 Invisibility, 120 J Jacques Colette, 44 Jacques Lacan, 16 Jean Brun, 24, 35 Jean Wahl, 5, 20, 31, 118 Jesus Christ, 106, 107, 119 John D. Caputo, 110, 112, 113, 119 K Kierkegaardian ethos, 3 Kierkegaardian research, 3 Kierkegaardiologists, 3 Kierkegaard’s anti-Hegelianism, 31, 32 Kierkegaard’s antiphilosophy, 4, 17 Kierkegaard’s characters, 99 Kierkegaard’s conceptuality, 3 Kierkegaard’s criticism, 5, 18 Kierkegaard’s critique, 32, 69 Kierkegaard’s dialectic, 36 Kierkegaard’s equivocal nature, 45

Index Kierkegaard’s grievances, 30 Kierkegaard’s invocation, 61 Kierkegaard’s irrationality, 28 Kierkegaard’s journals, 7 Kierkegaard’s Pascalian affiliation, 6 Kierkegaard’s philosophy, 20 Kierkegaard’s realism, 5 L Lamentation, 73 Leap, 65 Legitimisation, 123 Lesser evil, 47 Libertine cynicism, 89 Life and death question, 26 The life of Christ, 64 Linguistic form, 27 Love, definition of, 83 Lucien Jerphagnon, 71 Ludwig Wittgenstein, 16 Luther, M., 85, 86 M Mark of predetermination, 79 Masters of Christianity, 92 Material subjectivity, 3 Mathematical reasoning, 90 Metaphysical proofs of God, 63 Michel Henry, 120–122 Militant Church, 80 Mocking, 71 The Moment, 92 Moral, 70 Morality, 97 The Movement Image, 103 Movement in faith, 59 Multiple guises, 42 N Narrow-chested, asthmatic conceptions, 11 National Church, 79, 88, 92 Natural God, 37 Natural theology, 27 Negative determinant, 109 Nietzsche, 39 O Objective truth, 25 Objective uncertainty, 61, 82 Objectivity, 82 Obscurantism, 24

145 Oneness of spirit, 6 Ontological dualism, 45 Opposing truths, 54 Original sin, 49 Otherness, 9 Outright for their elimination, 91 P Paganism, 50 Pagans, 37, 48 The pagans and Epicureans, 35 Paradox, 77, 80, 100–103 Paradoxical perhaps, 111 Parametron, 121 Pascalian apologetics, 115 Pascalian notion of sickness, 71 Pascalian system, 103 Partial ostracism, 15 Pascal, 4, 24 Pascal’s anti-Cartesianism, 31 Pascal’s antiphilosophical action, 68 Pascal’s approach, 38 Pascal’s arguments, 37 Pascal’s assertion, 25 Pascal’s despair, 46 Pascal’s disavowal, 32 Pascal’s distinction, 24 Pascal’s fragmentary notes, 44 Pascal’s maxims, 129 Pascal’s Pensées, 115 Pascal’s philosophy, 7, 33 Pascal’s principle, 38 Pascal’s Provincial Letters, 42, 43 Pascal’s theology, 88 Pascal’s vision of Christianity, 37 Pascal’s writings, 36 Pascal vs. Kierkegaard, 5 Pascalo-Kierkegaardian style, 111 Pascalo-Kierkegaardian system, 118, 119 Paul Ricoeur, 19 Pedants’ gowns, 29 Personal edification, 27 Personalism, 66 Phenomenology of life, 120 Philosopher of gambling, Pascal, 55 Philosophers, 14, 36, 128–131 Philosophical agnosticism, 19 Philosophical arguments, 17 Philosophical Christians, see Christian philosophers Philosophical contemporaries, 27 Philosophical Fragments, 62 Philosophical intelligence, 59 Philosophical language, 25, 27

Index

146 Philosophical operation, 21 Philosophical reasoning, 109 Philosophical reflection, 27, 76 Philosophical scandal, 101 Philosophical systems, 77 Philosophical tradition, 24 Philosophical treatises, 27 Philosophical truth, 16 Philosophy, 26, 75, 76 Philosophy vulnerable to religion, 119 Pierre Bourdieu rephrases, 26 Polemical strategies, 39 Polemical writings, 78 Political hero, 85 Post-Hegelian, 34 Postscript, 34, 44, 59 Practice in Christianity, 101 Praxis, 24, 117 Pride of philosophers, 30 Primary dilemma, 54 Probabilistic calculation, 56 Probability, 56 Problem solving-strategies, 57 Professionalism, 47 Professional philosophers, 29, 30 Proof, 62, 63, 91, 102 Proposition, 118 Protestant, 51 Protestantism, 86–88 Proto-Kierkegaardian, 20 The Provincial Letters (Journal), 13, 65, 78, 79, 89, 96, 97 Proximity, 65 Pseudo-commensuration, 55 Pseudonymous avatar, 43 Pseudonyms, 43 Psychosomatic phenomenon, 31 Pure event, 3, 108 Pure reason, 17 Pyrrhonism, 30 Q Quasi-mathematical structure, 18 R Radical immanence, 120 Radical phenomenology, 120 Realisation, 123 Reason, 62, 75, 82, 87, 96, 99, 102 Reasoning, 29 Recharge immanence, 124

Reconciliation, 123 Recovery, 122 Reductive reason, 28 Reduplication, 28 Reflexive rediscovery, 20 Reform, 126 Religion and philosophy relationships, 11 Religious authors, 10 Revelation, 98 Risk is truth, 55 Romantic movement, 46 S The Sacraments, 93 Scandinavian Pascalian, 20 Sceptical philosophers, 36 Scepticism, 36, 45, 111 Sceptics, 45 Schelling’s lectures, 37 Scientific reason, 17 Scientific wager, 55 Secularisation, 2 Self-abnegation, 72 Self-death, 111 Self-declared Christians, 89 Self-love, 83, 84 Self-reflection, 67 Self-sacrifice, 99 Sense of trouble, 70 Shestov, 24 Shunning the world, 96 The Sickness Unto Death (story), 43 Side-lining intentionality, 120 Single solitary chord, 12 Singular-individual, 3, 42, 47, 84 Singularity, 46, 83, 84 Skills, 61 Sneaky moralism, 97 Social experiences, 90 Social life, 90 Socially correct, 95 Socrates, 14 Socratic influence, 113 Solitude, 66, 100 Sophism, 12 Soteriology, 106 Specialisation, 47 Speculative realism, 121 Speculators, 57 Spirit, 101 Spirit of reciprocity, 45 Spiritual anxiety, 41

Index Spiritual enthusiasm, 111 Spiritual freedom, 68 Spiritual numbness, 37 Stages on Life’s Way, 66 State Church, 92 State of solitude, 65 St. Augustine, 45 Stoicism, 30, 31 Stoic “peace of the soul”, 31 Stupidification, 61 Stupidify, 58 Suffering, 70, 73 Super-being, 111 Superstition, 24, 65 Supreme understanding, 25 Suspensive movement, 60 System, 35 Systematic philosophy, 45 Systematic reason, 29 T Tactic, 55 Tears of joy, 131–134 Temporality, 72 Terrestrial goal, 69 Terrible difference, 92, 93 Terrifying genius, 5 Testimony, 64 Theologico-philosophical theses, 96 Theopoetics, 110 Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, 124 Totalisation of the real, 36 Transreason, 29, 61 Transvaluation, 107

147 Triangular machinery, 20 Triumphant Church, 80 True Christianity, 38 True Christians, 68 True fear, 65 True philosophy, 54 True reformers, 85 Truth and sincerity, 67 U Ultra-one event, 108 Unilateral specialist, 47 Upbuilding Discourses, 59 V Vergote’s formulation philosophical Christian, 8 Vigilius Haufniensis, 50 Vincent Carraud’s expression, 63 Vincent Delecroix, 59 Violent and superb, 110 vox populi, 107 W Wager, 54, 102, 103 Wagering, 122 Weakness of God, 118 Weak theology, 112, 113, 119 Western philosophy and Christianity, 1 Works of Love, 83, 122 World, 93–97 Writing, 27, 35, 42, 43