Volume 1, Tome I: Kierkegaard and the Bible - The Old Testament (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) [1 ed.] 9781409402855, 1409402851

Citation preview

KierKegaard and the BiBle tome i: the old testament

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 1, Tome I

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources is a publication of the søren Kierkegaard research Centre

General Editor Jon stewart Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Editorial Board Katalin nun peter ŠaJda Advisory Board istvÁn CzaKÓ Finn gredal Jensen david d. possen heiKo sChulz

This volume was published with the generous financial support of the danish agency for science, technology and innovation

Kierkegaard and the Bible tome i: the old testament

Edited by lee C. Barrett and Jon stewart

First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2010 lee C. Barrett, Jon stewart and the contributors

lee C. Barrett and Jon stewart have asserted their right under the Copyright, designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Kierkegaard and the Bible. tome 1, the old testament – (Kierkegaard research ; v. 1) 1. Kierkegaard, søren, 1813–1855. 2. Bible–use–history– 19th century. 3. hermeneutics–history–19th century. i. series ii. Barrett, lee C. iii. stewart, Jon 198.9–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kierkegaard and the Bible / lee C. Barrett. p. cm. — (Kierkegaard research: sources, reception, and resources) includes indexes. isBn 978-1-4094-0285-5 (v. 1 : hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Kierkegaard, søren, 1813–1855. 2. Bible—use—history—19th century. 3. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—history—19th century. i. Barrett, lee C. ii. title. B4378.B52B37 2009 220.6092—dc22 2009050212 isBn 9781409402855 (hbk) Cover design by Katalin nun.

Contents List of Contributors Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations PART I

vii ix xiii xv

INDIVIDUAL TEXTS AND FIGURES

adam and eve: human Being and nothingness Timothy Dalrymple

3

abraham: Framing Fear and Trembling Timothy Dalrymple

43

moses: the positive and negative importance of moses in Kierkegaard’s thought Paul Martens

89

david and solomon: models of repentance and evasion of guilt Matthias Engelke

101

Job: Edification against Theodicy Timothy H. Polk

115

psalms: source of images and Contrasts Matthias Engelke

143

ecclesiastes: vanity, grief, and the distinctions of wisdom Will Williams

179

vi

Kierkegaard and the Bible

nebuchadnezzar: the King as image of transformation Matthias Engelke PART II

195

OVERVIEW ARTICLES

Kierkegaard’s rewriting of Biblical narratives: the mirror of the text Iben Damgaard

207

Kierkegaard’s use of the old testament: From literary resource to the word of god Lori Unger Brandt

231

Kierkegaard’s use of the apocrypha: is it “scripture” or “good for reading”? W. Glenn Kirkconnell

253

Index of Persons Index of Subjects

265 271

list of Contributors Lori Unger Brandt, toronto school of theology, 47 Queen’s park Crescent east, toronto, ontario, m5s 2C3, Canada. Timothy Dalrymple, Center on the study of religion, Barker Center, harvard university, Cambridge, ma, 02138, usa. Iben Damgaard, department of systematic theology, aarhus university, tåsingegade 3, 8000, Århus C, denmark. Matthias Engelke, pfarrerhaus, steegerstr. 34, 41334 nettetal-lobberich, germany. W. Glenn Kirkconnell, department of humanities and Foreign languages, p–152, santa Fe College, 3000 nw 83rd st., gainesville, Fl, 32606, usa. Paul Martens, department of religion, Baylor university, one Bear place #97284, waco, tX 76798–7284, usa. Timothy H. Polk, hamline university, Box 132, 1536 hewitt ave, st. paul, mn, 55104, usa. Will Williams, department of religion, Baylor university, one Bear place #97284, waco, tX, 76798–7284, usa.

preface the articles in this volume all explore Kierkegaard’s complex use of the Bible, a use that pervades and sometimes even structures his literature. the authors of these essays use source-critical research and the tools of many different disciplines, ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard’s appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The essays seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced his understanding and employment of scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward it. whenever possible, the authors have sought to document the texts that were influential, either positively or negatively, for Kierkegaard’s reading of the Bible. the authors also pay close attention to Kierkegaard’s actual hermeneutic practice, carefully analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard’s texts enables the authors to elucidate the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to scripture. many of the essays in this volume deal with particular biblical characters, such as abraham and Job, who were important to Kierkegaard, or portions of the Bible that played significant roles in Kierkegaard’s authorship, such as the Psalms, the Pauline epistles, and the crucifixion narratives. Other essays present overviews of various aspects of Kierkegaard’s interpretive practice such as his renarration of biblical stories, his latin translations of the greek new testament, his appropriation of contemporary biblical scholarship, and his approach to the old testament. Because the Christian canon with which he wrestled was and is composed of two different testaments, this volume devotes one tome to the old testament and a second tome to the new testament. the canonically disputed literature of the apocrypha is considered in the tome on the old testament. reading Kierkegaard with an eye to his use of the Bible is essential for making sense of his texts. Kierkegaard was an intensively scripturally shaped writer whose natural idiom was the language of the Bible and who viewed the world through biblical lenses. oddly, this aspect of Kierkegaard’s work has rarely received sustained attention. although a few monographs have been written about Kierkegaard’s use of the Bible,1 this literature seems puny when compared to the vast corpus that 1 see, for example, matthias engelke, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3); peter parkov, Bibelen i Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1983; timothy polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997; Jolita pons,

x

Kierkegaard and the Bible

has been produced dealing with Kierkegaard’s relation to various philosophical and theological traditions. Kierkegaard the philosopher, Kierkegaard the religious thinker, and Kierkegaard the poet are relatively well-known, but Kierkegaard the biblical expositor is still rather obscure. the proper characterization of Kierkegaard’s biblical interpretive practice is surprisingly elusive. Kierkegaard lived during an era that was experiencing a profound upheaval in the way that the Bible was viewed. From the eighteenth century on, various styles of historical and literary criticism of the Bible had been emerging, often with disorienting consequences. these interpretive trajectories implied that the official theologies of the various confessional traditions had often misconstrued the Bible in order to accommodate it to the constraints of doctrinal orthodoxy. when the biblical writings were situated in their original contexts and analyzed with the tools appropriate to analogous types of literature, they were often seen to mean something quite different from the church’s construal of their message. even more radically, literary and philological analyses seemed to reveal that the final forms of the biblical books were actually conglomerates composed of diverse and sometimes discordant sources. Furthermore, the enlightenment’s suspicion of supernaturalism fed a growing skepticism about the veracity of the historical claims made by the biblical texts. all of these factors contributed to a wide-ranging debate about the authorship, the historical accuracy, and the very meaning of the texts. as a result, profound questions were raised about the proper way to use the texts to authorize convictions and values. the Bible’s capacity to guide the lives of believers was rendered problematic. the responses to these new challenges were distributed along an expansive spectrum of hermeneutic options, ranging from the assertion of the biblical texts’ absolute inspiration, authenticity, and accuracy to the suspicion that much of the biblical material was the product of human ideology-construction. various mediating orientations developed, salvaging the authority of the Bible by regarding it as the articulation of particularly potent myths, or as the sublime expression of human religious self-consciousness, or as a human and culturally conditioned witness to god’s self-revelation. Kierkegaard’s writing shows awareness of these issues. From his theological studies and his continuing reading in theological literature he would have been familiar with the prevalent hermeneutic options. however, his response to this debate was curious, for he generally refrained from engaging in the scholarly conversation, and often ignored it. he did not align himself with either the biblical right that advocated for the historical veracity and inspired quality of the texts or with the biblical left that treated the Bible as a fallible expression of human religious experience. nor did he overtly associate himself with any of the mediating positions. in fact, Kierkegaard sometimes warned of the deleterious spiritual consequences of taking any of the interpretive schools too seriously: “all this interpreting and interpreting and scholarly research and new scholarly research that is produced Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004; l. Joseph rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994.

Preface

xi

on the solemn and serious principle that it is in order to understand god’s word properly—look more closely and you will see that it is in order to defend oneself against god’s word.”2 against the background of this contest of interpretive schools with increasingly self-conscious methodological procedures, Kierkegaard’s use of the Bible can seem enigmatic. Consequently, in different ways all of the authors in this volume seek to clarify Kierkegaard’s reasons for finding the terms of the academic debate to be less than edifying. in different ways, all of the authors in this volume also attempt to illumine Kierkegaard’s alternative way of engaging scripture. it is evident that what Kierkegaard did with scripture was intentional and patterned, and was not whimsical or arbitrary. the authors included here seek to clarify more exactly the nature of his interpretive practice that did not quite fit any contemporary mold. The first tome of this volume deals specifically with Kierkegaard’s use of the old testament. this topic presents unique challenges because of the partial marginalization of the old testament in the protestant theology of Kierkegaard’s era. For most northern european protestants of the nineteenth century, the old testament was of secondary importance to the new testament, that part of the canon in which the redemptive grace of god was more clearly revealed. often the old testament was regarded as a compendium of laws that had been superseded by the gospel (although the old testament’s foreshadowings of grace were often noted). By more theologically conservative readers the old testament was treated as a reservoir of Christological typologies whose meaning could only be discerned by reading them in the light of the gospels. with more progressive higher critics the old testament often did not fare any better, for it was often disparaged as an articulation of a religion that was ethnically particularistic, legalistically alienating, ritualistically superstitious, and excessively concerned about this-worldly felicity. moreover, the old testament’s prevalent view of god was declared to be abstract, heteronymously pitting an autocratic deity against a subservient and passive humanity. Kierkegaard was aware of these attitudes toward the old testament. to an extent, he even shared some of them. in his authorship he certainly used the old testament much less frequently than he did the new. he owned very few books expositing the old testament, and never devoted as much attention to hebrew as he did to greek. he is quite clear that for him the center of the canon is Jesus Christ as savior and prototype. however, passages and themes from the old testament do occupy a position of startling importance in his writings. old testament characters such as abraham and Job often play crucial and even decisive roles in his texts. snatches of Old Testament wisdom figure prominently in his edifying literature. The vocabulary and cadences of the psalms saturate his expression of the range of human passions from joy to despair. the essays in this tome seek to elucidate the crucial rhetorical uses to which he put key passages from the old testament, and his reasons for doing so. the new testament generated even more heated and often vitriolic disputes than did the old testament during Kierkegaard’s era, for more seemed to be at stake theologically. the interpretive issues raised by new testament scholars 2

SKS 13, 61 / FSE, 34.

xii

Kierkegaard and the Bible

touched not the periphery but the very core of the Christian religion. the depth of the discrepancies among the four different gospels had been exposed, and various rival theories had been formulated to explain their divergent chronologies and perspectives. doubts were raised about the authorship of some of the allegedly pauline epistles, and the canonicity of the pastoral epistles was questioned. the evident differences between paul and James continued to worry interpreters, as did the obvious uniqueness of the Johannine literature. early attempts were made to situate Jesus in his historical context and to reinterpret his significance through the lenses of the deists, Kant, hegel, schelling, and the romantics. the result was a baffling plethora of reconceptualizations of Jesus, ranging from Jesus the very thisworldly political messiah of Jewish expectations, to Jesus the concrete instantiation of the generalized unity of the divine and the human, to Jesus the exemplar of absolute god-consciousness. the sheer variety of interpretive options tended to undermine the certainty traditionally associated with faith and threatened to defer all religious commitments until the scholarly disputes had been resolved. as with the old testament, Kierkegaard was aware of these developments in new testament scholarship and troubled by them. Because these scholarly projects generated alternative understandings of the significance of Jesus, they impinged directly on his own work. it was crucial for Kierkegaard that Jesus be presented as both the enactment of god’s reconciliation with humanity and as the prototype for humanity to emulate. Consequently, Kierkegaard had to struggle with the proper way persuasively to explicate the significance of Jesus in a situation of decreasing academic consensus about Jesus. he also had to contend with contested interpretations of James and paul, two biblical authors vital for his work. as a result, Kierkegaard ruminated about the proper way to appropriate the new testament and used material from it carefully and deliberately. the authors in the new testament tome seek to clarify different dimensions of Kierkegaard’s interpretive theory and practice as he sought to avoid the twin pitfalls of academic skepticism and passionless biblical traditionalism. Kierkegaard’s unique appropriation of biblical themes is vital for understanding his authorship. it is hoped that this volume will stimulate more research into this relatively neglected aspect of Kierkegaard’s life and literature.

acknowledgements our deep gratitude must be expressed to Katalin nun, whose painstaking bibliographic work, thorough familiarity with the literature, precision, and impeccable editorial judgment vastly contributed to the final value of this volume. We would also like to thank heiko schulz, istván Czakó, and peter Šajda for their useful suggestions for the bibliographies, and Finn gredal Jensen for his careful proofreading. as with the other volumes of this series, this one would not have been possible if it were not for the kind and competent help of nicholas wain, philip hillyer, rachel lynch, and the kind people at ashgate. we must confess our profound appreciation for the staff of the phillip schaff library of lancaster theological seminary who made much of this editorial phase possible. Bryce rich, william marshall, and Chris Beldan deserve particular commendation for their seemingly supernatural abilities to procure elusive and obscure texts and for their patient willingness to help a neophyte explore the mysteries of electronic research. a special thanks must be offered to all of the authors, many of whom allowed their research interests and instincts to be pushed in directions they might not ordinarily have chosen. we are indebted to their willingness to tolerate editorial intrusions and their patience with delays.

list of abbreviations Danish Abbreviations B&A

Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by niels thulstrup, vols. 1-2, Copenhagen: munksgaard 1953–54.

Bl.art.

S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død, udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by rasmus nielsen, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1857.

EP

Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by h.p. Barfod and hermann gottsched, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1869–81.

Pap.

Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. i to Xi–3, ed. by peter andreas heiberg, victor Kuhr and einer torsting, Copenhagen: gyldendalske Boghandel, nordisk Forlag 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. i to Xi–3, by niels thulstrup, vols. Xii to Xiii supplementary volumes, ed. by niels thulstrup, vols. Xiv to Xvi index by niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1968–78.

SKS

Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, K1–K28, ed. by niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, alastair mcKinnon and Finn hauberg mortensen, Copenhagen: gads Forlag 1997ff.

SV1

Samlede Værker, ed. by a.B. drachmann, Johan ludvig heiberg and h.o. lange, vols. i– Xiv, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1901–06. English Abbreviations

AN

Armed Neutrality, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

AR

On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1955.

ASKB

The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by h.p. rohde, Copenhagen: the royal library 1967.

xvi

Kierkegaard and the Bible

BA

The Book on Adler, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

C

The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CA

The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by reidar thomte in collaboration with albert B. anderson, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

CD

Christian Discourses, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CI

The Concept of Irony, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

CIC

The Concept of Irony, trans. with an introduction and notes by lee m. Capel, london: Collins 1966.

COR

The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP1

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP2

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

EO1

Either/Or, part i, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EO2

Either/Or, part ii, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EOP

Either/Or, trans. by alastair hannay, harmondsworth: penguin Books 1992.

EPW

Early Polemical Writings, among others: From the Papers of One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars, trans. by Julia watkin, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

EUD

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

FSE

For Self-Examination, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

List of Abbreviations

xvii

FT

Fear and Trembling, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

FTP

Fear and Trembling, trans. by alastair hannay, harmondsworth: penguin Books 1985.

JC

Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

JFY

Judge for Yourself!, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vols. 1–6, ed. and trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, assisted by gregor malantschuk (vol. 7, index and Composite Collation), Bloomington and london: indiana university press 1967–78.

KAC

Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1944.

KJN

Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by niels Jørgen Cappelørn, alastair hannay, david Kangas, Bruce h. Kirmmse, george pattison, vanessa rumble, and K. Brian söderquist, princeton and oxford: princeton university press 2007ff.

LD

Letters and Documents, trans. by henrik rosenmeier, princeton: princeton university press 1978.

LR

A Literary Review, trans. by alastair hannay, harmondsworth: penguin Books 2001.

M

The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

P

Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by todd w. nichol, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

PC

Practice in Christianity, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1991.

PF

Philosophical Fragments, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

PJ

Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. by alastair hannay, harmondsworth: penguin Books 1996.

xviii

Kierkegaard and the Bible

PLR

Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require, trans. by william mcdonald, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1989.

PLS

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by david F. swenson and walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1941.

PV

The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

PVL

The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an Author, trans. by walter lowrie, new York and london: oxford university press 1939.

R

Repetition, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

SBL

Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

SLW

Stages on Life’s Way, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1988.

SUD

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

SUDP

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by alastair hannay, london and new York: penguin Books 1989.

TA

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1978.

TD

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

UD

Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

WA

Without Authority including The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air, Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

List of Abbreviations

xix

WL

Works of Love, trans. by howard v. hong and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1995.

WS

Writing Sampler, trans. by todd w. nichol, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

part i individual texts and Figures

adam and eve: human Being and nothingness timothy dalrymple

although the Bible in Kierkegaard’s denmark was still the reigning religious authority, the principal collection of stories and teachings that framed human life in a broad vision of meaning and purpose, its explanatory sovereignty had been severely compromised. other sources of insight in the natural and social sciences had already begun to shine their lights on the human creature. the hermeneutic of suspicion that today so permeates the intellectual culture of the west, which regards ancient texts as the quaint literary vestigia of pre-scientific societies, had begun to press its case, and the vivisection of the Jewish and Christian scriptures into so many straining cords was well underway. hobbes and spinoza had long since challenged the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch, and groundbreaking works of biblical criticism were published long before Kierkegaard wrote The Concept of Anxiety in 1844.1 Major figures from Hobbes and Hume to Rousseau and Kant had examined human nature in ways not grounded on genesis. Karl rosenkranz (1805–79) had generated his Psychologie through conceptual distinctions, not gotthold ephraim lessing (1729–81) published the Wolfenbütteler Fragmente, from hermann samuel reimarus’ (1694–1768) manuscript, Apologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes, from 1774 to 1777 in his Zur Geschichte und Literatur. Kierkegaard possessed lessing’s collected works, see Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vols. 1–32, vols. 1–28, Berlin: vossische Buchhandlung 1825–27; vols. 29–32 Berlin and stettin: nicolaische Buchhandlung 1828 (ASKB 1747–1762). Johann gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827) had put out his influential Einleitung in das Alte Testament, vols. 1–5, leipzig: weidmann & reich 1780–83, and wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849) wrote many works Kierkegaard possessed, including his Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833 (ASKB 80) and his Lehrbuch die hebräisch-judischen Archäologie, 3rd ed., leipzig: vogel 1842 (ASKB 872). david Friedrich strauss’ (1808–74) Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, tübingen: osiander 1835–36, was much discussed in the years when Kierkegaard was reaching his intellectual maturity; he possessed strauss’ Fremstilling af den christelige Troeslære i dens historiske Udvikling og i dens Kamp med den moderne Videnskab, vols. 1–2, trans. by hans Brøchner, Copenhagen: h.C. Klein 1842–43 (ASKB 803–804), and works on strauss, such as Franz von Baader’s Über das Leben Jesu, munich: Franz 1836 (ASKB 407), and Julius schaller’s Der historische Christus und die Philosophie. Kritik der Grundidee des Werks das Leben Jesu, von Dr. D.F. Strauss, leipzig: otto wigand 1838 (ASKB 759). see also the reading notes on the latter in SKS 18, 318–37, KK:2 / KJN 2, 292–308. 1

4

Timothy Dalrymple

through reflection on the biblical narrative, and Kierkegaard could have done the same.2 in this environment, under these circumstances, the fact that Kierkegaard should root such fundamental convictions in the soil of eden, that he should write his most psychological work expositing the temptation and Fall of adam, surely tells us something about Kierkegaard and what he sought to communicate. another way to frame the problem is to note that Kierkegaard was a frequent but also a highly selective biblical commentator. some veins of insight are deeply mined, like the binding of isaac, the suffering of Job, paul’s thorn, and Christ’s “abasement,” while the Flood, the exodus, and the birth narratives are scarcely touched. the lilies and birds are evoked in many works, while eucharistic metaphors of bread, blood and water are not. Kierkegaard commented on those portions of the scriptural heritage that helped him communicate what he considered most important. what, then, of the eden stories? how did it serve Kierkegaard’s purposes to employ such a fiercely contested text to set forth his view of human beings in relation to god? this article surveys the history of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the adam stories and views that history synoptically to discern patterns within it. in fair warning, it is a lengthy essay, since adam stands with abraham and Job as the old testament figures Kierkegaard examined most often. Two claims are put forward. First, Kierkegaard’s interpretation of adam is best understood through three theological principles: creatio ex nihilo, felix culpa, and the “second adam” or the new being in Christ. second, in his reading of the eden narrative Kierkegaard is concerned not only with the problems of knowledge and human nature, but also with the problem of evil. The Concept of Anxiety is more than theological anthropology. it is also theodicy. to be precise, it is a distinctly late-modern, psychological version of what leibniz had called theodicy. early references will clarify the three theological principles underlying his vision of adam and of essential human being, yet two works published over the course of six months, an upbuilding discourse on “every good gift” from december 1843 and The Concept of Anxiety from June 1844, advance the argument most strongly. Kierkegaard addresses the nature of spirit and the emergence of sin and suffering through a narrative of fundamental human experience, spanning the interval from the first creation and the first Adam to the second creation and second adam. the individual is created from nothing and given freedom, yet confronts in anxiety the nothing of its freedom and posits itself apart from god in sin. in determining itself as a self, the individual strives to be a self apart from god, effecting a “split” between itself and god, and exchanging truth for untruth, freedom for unfreedom, being for nothingness. Yet the self that will be instructed by suffering and anxiety in its nothingness apart from god will learn to rest in God and receive true being and freedom. The solitary spirit flies from nothing to nothingness, and in that nothingness finds its fullest being in the grace of the selfgiving god. Johann Karl Friedrich rosenkranz, Psychologie, oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, Königsberg: Bornträger 1837 (ASKB 744). the text is cited several times in The Concept of Anxiety, for instance, in SKS 4, 337 / CA, 30. SKS 4, 447–8 / CA, 147–9. 2

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

5

I. Adam in the Early Years (1834–41) Adam is too central a figure in Western philosophical and theological discourse for this article to supply a comprehensive account of the many figures who would have contributed to Kierkegaard’s understanding of him. some of what leibniz, Kant, hegel, and schelling wrote on adam will be examined along the way, yet any exhaustive account would begin with the danes of the golden age, from Kierkegaard’s instructors at the university to the ministers of the churches he attended and various other Copenhagen luminaries,3 including henrik nicolai Clausen (1793–1877), Jakob peter mynster (1775–1854), Johan ludvig heiberg (1791–1860) and hans lassen martensen (1808–84),4 and would proceed to german-language philosophers, theologians and biblical critics, many of whom are referenced in Kierkegaard’s early journal and notebook entries on adam and the Fall: Johann georg hamann (1730–88),5 Franz von Baader (1765–1841),6 Friedrich schleiermacher (1768– 1834),7 anton günther (1783–1863),8 Johann eduard erdmann (1805–92),9 philipp Articles on the following figures can be found in Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries: The Culture of Golden Age Denmark, ed. by Jon stewart, Berlin: walter de gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 10); Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tomes i–iii, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007–8 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 6); also see Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, tomes i–iii, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 7). 4 some of Kierkegaard’s earliest references to the adam story are in his notes on Clausen’s lectures on dogmatics in 1833–34, in SKS 19, 35, not1:6; also see the notes from the 1839–40 lectures, in SKS 19, 83, not1:9. martensen tutored Kierkegaard in schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre in 1834, when Kierkegaard was concerned about the doctrine of predestination, and Kierkegaard attended martensen’s “lectures on speculative dogmatics” in 1837–38. 5 see SKS 17, 209, CC:25 / KJN 1, 200. SKS 18, 32, ee:82 / KJN 2, 27. SKS 18, 311, JJ:511–511.b / KJN 2, 286. hamann helped Kierkegaard develop the category of anxiety through which haufniensis will interpret the Fall. 6 Pap. i C 31 / JP 4, 3990 and SKS 17, 43, aa:22.2 / KJN 1, 35, referring to Franz Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, stuttgart, tübingen: Cotta 1828 [vols. 2–5, münster: theissing 1830–38], see especially vol. 1, pp. 105ff. (ASKB 396). Baader wrote extensively on the problem of original sin; see the laudatory reference in The Concept of Anxiety to Baader and his work on temptation, in SKS 4, 345 / CA, 39. 7 schleiermacher’s “relative predestination” was especially important to Kierkegaard in his student years; see Pap. i a 295 / JP 3, 3547. also Pap. i a 273 / JP 2, 1096 equates Schleiermacher’s “religion” with the “first immediacy” which Kierkegaard will ascribe to the prelapsarian state. schleiermacher is also cited in SKS 17, 41, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35. 8 SKS 17, 42, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35. günther was a Catholic priest and neo-scholastic philosopher who condemned pantheism and sought to establish theistic philosophy on the basis of descartes. Kierkegaard collected a number of his works; see ASKB 520–523, 869– 870, and 1672. 9 SKS 17, 219, dd:8 / JP 3, 3998. Kierkegaard took reading notes in 1837 (SKS 19, 164, not4:41b) on erdmann’s Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie gehalten und auf den Wunsch seiner Zühorer herausgegeben, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1837 (ASKB 479). 3

6

Timothy Dalrymple

marheineke (1780–1846),10 immanuel hermann Fichte (1796–1879),11 Julius müller (1801–78),12 Bruno Bauer (1809–82), and the aforementioned rosenkranz.13 Yet even this would not be sufficient. The positions of Augustine, Luther, and Meister eckhart lie in the background, and in The Concept of Anxiety Kierkegaard refers to numerous sources in historical theology from pelagianism to aquinas to “federal theology” to the augsburg Confession.14 Kierkegaard was immaculately educated, and seems to have made a particular effort to familiarize himself with the wealth of available interpretations on sin, predestination, and freedom. a more focused approach is required. Common though it is to refer to the “story” of adam and eve, there are four distinct stories or story threads Kierkegaard employs: the creation of the human ex nihilo and in the divine image; the naming of the animals; the fashioning of eve; and the temptation and Fall.15 there are also at least four distinct uses to which Kierkegaard puts these threads: the psychological use—a term which referred at the time to something like a phenomenology of the human self in its emergence, development and structure, a self which for Kierkegaard was theologically constructed;16 the epistemological use, concerning the relationship between the knower and the known; the sexual use, concerning the see the relevant portion of Kierkegaard’s notes on marheineke’s lectures, SKS 19, 249–64, not9:1, discussed in the second section of this essay. marheineke was theology professor at the university of Berlin, and had been co-pastor with Friedrich schleiermacher at the holy trinity Church. 11 SKS 17, 41–3, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35–6. Kierkegaard also refers, in his dissertation, to the elder Johann gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) and “evil in the Fichtean sense of the word, apathy and indolence” (SKS 1, 312 / CI, 276). 12 Müller is first cited in Kierkegaard’s Marheineke notes, in SKS 19, 253, not9:1. in 1850 Kierkegaard refers extensively to müller’s Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde, vols. 1–2, 3rd ed., Breslau: Josef max 1849 (ASKB 689–90), although it is possible he had read it before writing The Concept of Anxiety; see Christine axt-piscalar, “Julius müller: parallels in the doctrines of sin and Freedom,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 153–4, note 46. 13 Kierkegaard took notes on rosenkranz’s Encyklopædie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, in SKS 18, 343–52, KK:4 / KJN 2, 314–22, and notes in SKS 17, 219–22, dd:10 / KJN 1, 211–4 on “eine parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” from Bruno Bauer’s Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–32 (ASKB 354–357). also see SKS 17, 213, dd:1 / KJN 1, 205. Kierkegaard made frequent use of Bauer’s Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, and read Bauer’s article, the first section of which concerns the creation narrative: “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” in vol. 3, no. 1, 1837, pp. 125–210. 14 SKS 4, 332–4 / CA, 25–7. 15 these four “threads” are found in gen 1:26–27 and 2:7; 2:18–20; 2:21–25; 3:1–24. the Bible employed in this study is the Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha, oxford: oxford university press 1989. 16 rosenkranz’s Psychologie is subdivided by anthropology, phenomenology and pneumatology. albert anderson describes the “psychology” of Kierkegaard as “a phenomenology that is based on an ontological view of man, the fundamental presupposition 10

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

7

relationship between male and female; and the theodical use, concerning freedom, sin, and suffering. when these are properly differentiated, patterns emerge. the naming of the animals is primarily employed to image the nature of knowledge or truth prior to the irruption of sin, and the fashioning of eve of course expounds sexual difference and erotic love.17 More importantly, the first and fourth threads weave together a narrative of universal human experience. Kierkegaard’s distinctive contribution to the interpretation of adam is in the construction of this narrative—and i will argue the narrative is structured by three theological principles: the creatio ex nihilo (the creation of all things from nothing), felix culpa (the Fall as a “blessed fault,” leading to a greater good), and the second adam (a restored humanity in Christ). Before examining the early references according to these theological principles, the terms themselves must be defined. In telling a narrative structured by these principles, Kierkegaard is drawing on well-established Christian traditions. to begin with the first: the Latin ex nihilo means “out of nothing” and differentiates the Christian creation story from other cosmogonies in which the world is refashioned from preexistent matter or chaos (ex materia) or out of the divine being itself (ex Deo). If God is the absolute free cause of all finite existence, then the finite world is not necessary and eternal but possible and therefore contingent on god’s conservatio, or continuous creative will. since creatures possess no “aseity,” no independent power of being, they depend upon god for their very being. although the basic assertion of creatio ex nihilo is arguably implicit in the hebrew scriptures18 and in the new testament,19 it is openly declared as early as 2 maccabees and developed philosophically and theologically in ancient Jewish and Christian apologists. The of which is the transcendent reality of the individual, whose intuitively discernible character reveals the existence of an eternal component” (CI, p. xiv). 17 Kierkegaard refers to eve rarely in the early journals, and then typically in a derisive tone. For eve and the relations between the sexes, see Pap. i a 140 / JP 3, 3801. SKS 17, 42, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35. SKS 17, 248, dd:84 / KJN 1, 239. SKS 18, 40–1, ee:105 / KJN 2, 35–6. Pap. iii B 41:25 / JP 2, 2589. Also, his first published article, “Another Defense of Woman’s great abilities,” says that eve’s “craving for deeper knowledge” led her to attend the serpent’s “philosophical lectures,” and thus all should receive “the apple of knowledge” from woman (SV1 Xiii, 6, 8 / EPW, 3, 5). “ogsaa et Forsvar for Qvindens høie anlœg” was published in the Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, Interimsblad, 34, december 17, 1834, columns 4–6. For other references among the early writings, see SKS 17, 290, dd:208 / EPW, 117. 18 there are ongoing disputes over the meanings of bara (“to create,” employed throughout the first creation account, Genesis 1:1–2:4a) and asah (“to make,” used in genesis 1:7, 16, 25, 31, 2:3 and 2:4b), and whether either genesis account intends to speak of a creation ex nihilo. see Jon d. levensen, Creation and the Persistence of Evil, princeton: princeton university press 1994. what is important for our sake is that creatio ex nihilo was taken for centuries as a legitimate interpretation of genesis, and that Kierkegaard himself took it to apply not only to the creation in general but also specifically to the human individual. Kierkegaard is aware of the “double account” in gen 1–2 (see SKS 19, 23, not1:6. SKS 18, 372, KK:8 / KJN 2, 340), but makes little of it, and rarely speaks of the forming from dust. 19 outside of gen 1:1–2:4, see gen 5:1–2, 6:6, 9:6; ps 33:6; is 40:26, 42:5, 45:18. in extracanonical sources, see 2 maccabees 7:8 and 4 esdras 4:38. in the new testament: Jn 1:3, rom 4:17, 1 Cor 1:28, Col 1:15–17, heb 1:2, 11:3.

8

Timothy Dalrymple

Shepherd of Hermas in the second century declares that god “created, increased and multiplied that which exists out of that which does not.”20 For tertullian creatio ex nihilo is sufficient proof of God’s power to resurrect the dead; he advises: “Trust therefore that he has brought forth this everything out of nothing, and you will at once know god by trusting that god has so much power.”21 augustine presents the doctrine over against manichaeism, as did the early apologists, in order to defend the unconditioned omnipotence of god and the original goodness of the material world.22 as one of today’s theologians writes, the world “exists as creation, as creatura, as contingent being; its possibility of existence, its particular constitution and its structures are rooted in its permanent ontological dependence on god the Creator. this contingence of the world as creation not only characterizes its being, its ontological status, but also its intelligibility and its created goodness.”23 Felix culpa, or “fortunate fault,” refers to the paradox that adam’s sin, which exiled humankind from the garden and cast the creation into pain and strife, also prepared the way for the incarnation, the demonstration of divine love on the cross, and the redemption of all things. if god is omniscient, it is argued, then presumably god foreknew that adam would defy him, and yet with this foreknowledge permitted adam’s freedom; if god is omnibenevolent, then god should not have permitted the Fall, or indeed created the world, unless god also foreknew that it would lead through salvific history to a greater good. Creatio ex nihilo is indirectly theodical insofar as it posits the goodness of the world,24 yet the felix culpa is directly theodical insofar as it defends god’s permission of sin and expresses the Christian hope that divine love will prevail over evil and deliver the world from sin and suffering. thus the roman liturgy, since at least eleven centuries before Kierkegaard, has celebrated holy saturdays with the Exultet: “O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorum!” or in the words of ambrose of milan in the fourth century, the sin of Adam “has brought more benefit to us than harm”; “felix ruina, quae reparatur in melius.”25 augustine and pope leo i (died 461) agreed, and gregory the great (ca. 540–604) put it thus: Apostolic Fathers: Volume II. Epistle of Barnabas. Papias and Quadratus. The Shepherd of Hermas, trans. by Bart ehrman, Cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press 2003 (Loeb Classical Library), p. 177. For more information, see gerhard may, Creatio Ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Christian Thought, trans. by a. s. worral, edinburgh: t. & t. Clark 1994. 21 tertullian, Treatise on the Resurrection, trans. by ernest evans, london: spCK 1960, p. 31 (11:5–10). 22 see n. Joseph torchia, ‘Creatio ex nihilo’ and the Theology of St. Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond, new York: peter lang 1999 (American University Studies, series vii, Theology of Religion, vol. 205). 23 Christoph schwöbel, “god, Creation and the Christian Community,” in The Doctrine of Creation: Essays in Dogmatics, History and Philosophy, ed. by Colin gunton, edinburgh: t. & t. Clark 2004 [1997], p. 164. 24 See David R. Griffin, “Creation Out of Nothing, Creation Out of Chaos and The problem of evil,” in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, ed. by stephen t. davis, louisville, Kentucky: westminster John Knox press 2001, pp. 108–44. 25 ambrose, De Institutione Virginis, 17, 104; see ps, 39:20. 20

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

9

what greater fault than that by which we all die? and what greater goodness than that by which we are freed from death? and certainly, unless adam had sinned, it would not have behooved our Redeemer to take on our flesh. Almighty God saw beforehand that from that evil because of which men were to die, he would bring about a good which would overcome that evil.…[w]ho of the elect would not willingly endure still worse evils, rather than not have so great a redeemer?26

The same standpoint is found in figures more proximate to Kierkegaard; Calvin comprehended cosmic history as serving the greater glorification of God, and in milton’s Paradise Lost adam surveys (through the prophecy of an archangel) all the suffering that will come in consequence of his deed, along with the surpassing goodness of the salvation of humankind through Christ, and wonders whether he should lament over his sin or rejoice over its consequences.27 Kierkegaard notes erdmann’s deft use of the metaphor when the latter writes that the Fall, seen from the proper perspective, is actually “a forward step,”28 and yet Kierkegaard himself will articulate a much fuller view, in which it is not merely in the overcoming of sin that the fortune of this fault lies, but also in an emergence of spirit that is inseparable from the process in which sin is chosen. there was less need to clarify the doctrine of the second adam in later theologies, since it was plainly impressed on the surface of the epistles of paul, and arguably the gospels. having entered into the condition of adam, Christ returns to the garden (of gethsemane) and passes the test that adam failed. adam grasped for the divine, yet Christ did not consider equality with god something to be grasped, but abased himself unto the cross.29 adam through his arrogant grasping at the fruit of the tree had plunged humankind into sin and suffering, strife, and estrangement; Christ through his humble sacrifice was lifted on “the tree,” a new tree of new life.30 it is easy to see, then, how this inverted parallelism could illuminate adam proleptically in relation to Christ, for adam was “a type of the one who was to come.” whereas “the first man, Adam” was made into a living being yet brought death into the world, “the last adam” or the “second man” is a “life-giving spirit” who breathed out the holy spirit on his apostles.31 Adam, first created, determined the conditions of human being under sin; Christ, uncreated, in becoming human and overcoming sin and death as human made possible a new way of being human before god, so anyone in him “is a new creation.” Christ redeems the world and confers a new being on those who rest in him: “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ,” the “first fruits” of the new life. paul writes, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, gregory, In Primum Regum Expositiones, in Migne Patrologia Latina 79.222. Cited in english in a.o. lovejoy, “milton and the paradox of the Fortunate Fall,” A Journal of English Literature and History, vol. 4, no. 3, 1937, pp. 170–1. 27 see lovejoy, “milton and the paradox of the Fortunate Fall,” pp. 161–4. 28 SKS 17, 219, dd:8 / KJN 1, 211, referring to erdman’s essay, “Über den Begriff des sündenfalls und des Bösen,” in Bruno Bauer’s Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vol. 2, no. 1, 1837, pp. 192ff. see Notebook 4 as well. 29 see phil 2:6. 30 see 1 pet 2:24; acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29. 31 rom 5:18; 1 Cor 15:45–49; Jn 20:22. 26

10

Timothy Dalrymple

we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.” Christ’s suffering is essential to this re-creation. Similarly, the Letter to the Hebrews observes, “It was fitting that god, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”32 Christ was the culmination of the providential history that adam had commenced; Christ vanquished that which had conquered adam; Christ by his act of righteousness not only reversed the effects of adam’s sin, but accomplished a higher reconciliation and communion with god. these theological principles shape Kierkegaard’s understanding of adam, as can be seen even in the early references. Though not universally affirmed in the philosophical discourse of his time (consider spinoza, schelling, and hegel), creatio ex nihilo was established ecclesially. Balle’s catechism declared that god “created heaven and earth out of nothing” (skabte Himmel og Jord af Intet), that humanity is “created after god’s own image,” and that god preserves all created things and governs the affairs of the world33—and Hutterus Redivivus hails “the calling forth of being from not being.”34 likewise the dogmatic theologies of Clausen and marheineke spoke of god’s creating (creatio primitiva, in the Clausen notes) and conserving (creatio continuata) all things out of nothing.35 so it is unsurprising that Kierkegaard should affirm the doctrine. As he writes in 1837, “God’s consciousness of things is their coming into being,” and apart from this divine consciousness all things would “instantly cease to exist.”36 he writes in the margin to an 1838 entry that “god creates out of nothing,” and “creates saints (the communion of saints) out of sinners.”37 there will be much more to say on the creatio ex nihilo in the following. the condition into which humankind is created is illustrated in the second story thread, the naming of the animals. in 1834 Kierkegaard praises the “serene and happy frame of mind the natural scientist must enjoy, as one familiar with the plants and animals who “sees their significance in the whole universe,” and like “Adam

2 Cor 5:17; 1 Cor 15:22–3, 49; heb 2:10. nikolai edinger Balle and C.h. Bastholm, Lærebog i den Evangelisk-christlige Religion, indrettet til Brug i de danske Skoler, Copenhagen: Jens holstrup schultz 1824 [1791] (ASKB 183), 2.1.1 and 2.1.7. (translation mine). 34 Karl hase, Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche. Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studierende, ed. by Karl a. hase, 4th ed., leipzig: Breitkopf und härtel 1839 [1829], § 62 (ASKB 581). 35 see Clausen’s exposition on being skabt i Guds Billede in SKS 19, 23, not1:6, and on creation and preservation in SKS 19, 42, not1:7 / JP 5, 5058. the scholastic distinction between creatio primitiva and creatio continuata is found in the 1839–40 lectures, SKS 19, 79–80, not1:9. Kierkegaard’s notes on marheineke’s lectures have sections on creation out of nothing (Skabelse af Intet) and “on the origin of evil” in SKS 19, 250–2, 256–61, not9:1 / JP 5, 5514. 36 SKS 17, 41, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35. SKS 18, 87, FF:59 / KJN 2, 80. 37 SKS 18, 104, FF:154.a / KJN 2, 96. For more, see matthew Frawley, “the doctrine of Creatio Ex Nihilo in the thought of søren Kierkegaard,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 23, pp. 7–25. 32 33

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

11

of old—all the animals come to him, and he gives them names.”38 so romantic a vision of natural science was not out of place in the golden age, when proponents of Naturphilosophie were many. seven months later, in a letter addressed to a naturalist, but possibly meant for an epistolary novel, those who interpret “nature’s runic inscriptions” are likened to adam giving names; they have transcended the merely empirical to “that archimedean point which is nowhere in the world and from which they have surveyed the whole and seen the details in their proper light.”39 the naming of the animals represents for Kierkegaard a lucid and untroubled relation between adam and the beings he named40—yet Adam finds no name for himself, no way to “make himself intelligible” to others. the metaphor reappears in The Concept of Irony, where Adam “finds no fellowship for himself.”41 adam receives the world transparently, since there was not yet doubt or sin to intervene between the knower and the known; yet he lacked the reflexive self-consciousness that is the condition of authentic relationship. thus the enormity of the “great and deep Fall” and the corruption of the image are rightly mourned,42 yet the “first condition” is not the “ideal condition.”43 the point may seem pedantic, yet it is important to the doctrine of felix culpa, for humankind can only attain a higher condition in the postlapsarian world if the prelapsarian condition was not perfect. this means that the perfection of humankind and its ultimate telos lie on the other side of the garden of eden. Yet it should be noted that the felix culpa does not imply that the power of the divine bends the individual coercively toward the greater good. on the surprisingly rare occasions in which Kierkegaard makes early references to the fourth thread, the tale of the Fall, he rejects any account, such as that of hegel, which construes the Fall as a necessary movement in the dialectic of Pap. i a 31 / JP 3, 2806, an entry dated november 22, 1834; cf. gen 2:19. SKS 17, 20–1, aa:12 / KJN 1, 15–16, dated June 1, 1835. the letter seems addressed to peter wilhelm lund (1801–80), a paleontologist, and relative by marriage, who had gone to Brazil and would carry out pioneering cave excavations. Yet it may have been intended for a volume from a “Faustian doubter.” see the notes in KJN 1, 319, and emanuel hirsch, Kierkegaard-Studien, vols. 1–2, gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1933, vol. 2, pp. 490–2. (reprinted, vaduz, liechtenstein: toposverlag 1978. First published in Studien des apologetischen Seminars in Wernigerode, nos. 29, 31, 32, 36, 1930–33.) Kierkegaard finds three “worthy representatives” of the natural scientist in Copenhagen. one is h.C. Ørsted (1777–1851), whose discovery of electromagnetism in 1820 was perceived as an almost mystical insight into the hidden forces governing the world. Ørsted was a towering figure in the intellectual life of golden age Copenhagen, advancing physics and chemistry, poetry, and a philosophy influenced by Kant and J.G. Fichte. See Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science, ed. by robert m. Brain, robert s. Cohen and ole Knudsen, dordrecht: springer 2007. Kierkegaard also refers to J.w. horneman (1770–1841), and J.F. schouw (1789–1852). 40 SKS 18, 54, ee:152 / KJN 2, 49 speaks of the “anthropomorphism” and yet “objective reality” in the naming of the animals. a note distinguishes the human from the divine act of naming, which is “identical with creation.” SKS 25, 300, nB29:6 / JP 3, 3582 classes the giving of names among the “distinguishing marks of man, according to genesis.” 41 Pap. i a 149 / JP 1, 26. SKS 1, 318 / CI, 283. 42 SKS 18, 12, ee:18 / KJN 2, 7–8, from 1839. 43 SKS 19, 81, not1:9 / JP 1, 36. that he ascribes to this view himself becomes clear in The Concept of Anxiety. 38 39

12

Timothy Dalrymple

absolute history. since Kierkegaard is committed to the freedom of the individual and to the preservation of a place for it in the architecture of providence, it cannot be the inexorable force of necessity that drives adam from the garden, but only the spontaneous leap of freedom.44 For the same reason he rejects the doctrine of predestination as a “thoroughgoing abortion,” since it effectively denies human freedom.45 Difficult though it is for philosophy to comprehend, God “create[d] human beings who are free in relation to himself.”46 So if the Fall will be beneficial in the providence of god, it must be so in a way that maintains human freedom. the divine maieutic must turn the baby in the womb, not coercing but subtly drawing the individual out of a free movement toward the evil and into a free movement toward the good. the greater good of the felix culpa must be found in freedom. the early references also suggest the distinctive way in which Kierkegaard frames the movement of the felix culpa as a movement from nothing to nothing, or from a first to a second creatio ex nihilo. the language of “nothing” will be important later, but even in the early references “nothingness” (Intethed) and “annihilation” (Tilintetgjørelse, a making-into-nothing) are often discussed. this point is all too often missed: when Kierkegaard speaks of nothingness and annihilation, and later of the nothing of freedom, these should be understood in relation to the first nothing, the nothing out of which we are created and preserved.47 thus Kierkegaard writes in the gilleleje journal of perceiving “my nothingness” (min Intethed),48 and declares that the person who surmounts the ironic meaninglessness of life is “elevated” above himself and “sees himself in his nothingness [i sin Intethed], and thereby finds his true elevation.”49 Kierkegaard prays in 1839 that god would “let me really feel my nothingness [ret føle min Intethed],” not to despair but to “feel the greatness of your goodness all the more strongly.”50 later in the year he reports, “now i really feel my annihilation [Jeg føler ret i denne Tid min Tilintetgjørelse],” and his suffering (like that of the blind man in John 9) will serve the purposes of god.51 as these entries suggest, “nothingness” and “annihilation” do not refer to an extirpation of the self, but to its dying to itself and to its striving to be itself apart from god. the language Kierkegaard will be consistent on this point over time, but it is found in 1837, amid notes on and excerpts from adam möhler, Athanasius der Große und die Kirche seiner Zeit, besonders im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus, vols. 1–2, mainz: Florian Kupferberg 1827 (ASKB 635–636), in SKS 18, 355–6, KK:5 / KJN 2, 325. there is much relevant material in Journal KK, a notebook filled with theological notes and commentary. 45 Pap i a 5 / JP 2, 1230. Pap. i a 7 / JP 2, 1231. the entries are dated to august and november 1834. 46 SKS 18, 203, FF:149 / KJN 2, 95. 47 although the language of nothingness is more commonly directed toward the psychological/ontological transformations of the self, it is sometimes addressed toward epistemological concerns. see SKS 17, 27–28, aa:12 / KJN 1, 22, from 1835, and Pap i a 190 / JP 2, 1673, from 1836. 48 SKS 17, 14, aa:6 / KJN 1, 10. the entry is dated July 29, 1835. 49 Pap. ii a 627 / JP 2, 1688, dated June 2, 1837. 50 SKS 18, 28, ee:67 / KJN 2, 24 51 SKS 18, 63, ee:188 / KJN 2, 63. the entry cites Jn 9:3, where the man “was born blind so that god’s works might be revealed in him.” 44

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

13

of nothingness refers to the individual’s utter unworthiness of god and incapability of grasping or comprehending god, and thus the individual’s total dependence upon god for being, goodness and truth. if the “adamic project” is the attempt to grasp at the likeness of god, the “nothingness” of “annihilation” is the shipwreck of the adamic project, the recognition that it has failed and will always fail, since communion with and likeness to god can only be given by god. thus this annihilation is preparatory for the second creation. in later years Kierkegaard is perfectly clear on the matter. “god creates out of nothing,” he writes, “and all God is to use he first turns to nothing.”52 in the early years the same point emerges with nearly equal clarity and force. Kierkegaard speaks of being reduced to confessing that “we ourselves can do nothing at all” as a “necessary” preparation “in order for god to be able to make something out of us, for god always creates from nothing [Gud skaber altid af Intet], and needs neither material nor our self-made wisdom.”53 the individual, created and preserved out of nothing, strove to make itself according to its own will, yet must confess its nothingness in humility before it can be recreated in the new being. in January 1837 he speaks of augustine’s view that there is a first creation, then the Fall into “death and powerlessness,” and then the “new Creation” (ny Skabelse) in which positive freedom is restored.54 or more explicitly, two months later he writes that the “first creation” confers an “immediate consciousness” such as adam enjoyed in the garden, but the “second creation,” “again a creation out of nothing,” brings “immediate consciousness of the second stage.”55 perhaps the most powerful evidence of his early view of annihilation and nothingness is found in a lengthy reflection from 1840 on the “new creation” in Christ.56 the worldly standpoint that “There is Nothing New Under the Sun” is contrasted with the Christian standpoint that “Everything is New in Christ.”57 in the former there is no need for divine intervention, since the capacities of humankind will bring forth ever greater refinements of knowledge and ever higher mediations of the established order. Kierkegaard is responding to sentiments like those of heiberg, who had written in 1838 that hegel had so perfected the art of philosophical SKS 26, 112, nB31:155 / JP 2, 2099. SKS 18, 11, ee:15–15b / KJN 2, 7; ee:15 is dated February 8, 1839. 54 SKS 17, 33, aa:14.2 / KJN 1, 27. 55 SKS 17, 42, aa:22 / KJN 1, 35, dated march 19, 1837. in an appended note Kierkegaard refers to Franz Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1828 [vols. 2–5, münster: theissing 1830–38], vol. 1, pp. 105ff. (ASKB 396), to anton günther, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte speculativer Theologie, vienna: mechitaristen 1832, pp. 114ff. (ASKB 520), and to immanuel hermann Fichte, Die Idee der Persönlichkeit und der individuellen Fortdauer, elberfeld: Büschler 1834 (ASKB 505). 56 rom 6:4; 1 Cor 15:23; 2 Cor 5:17. the Christian language of “rebirth” (Jn 3:3) may lie in the background. 57 SKS 18, 125, hh:2 / KJN 2, 117, emphases original; see 2 Cor 5:17 and eccl 1:9. Journal HH generally served as a sermon draft-book for Kierkegaard, when he was receiving homiletical instruction at the royal pastoral seminary. hh:2 may date from slightly before the instruction began, however. 52 53

14

Timothy Dalrymple

mediation that a “sudden shift” or “leap” of understanding would no longer occur, “but everything new will be produced by the structural development of the existing order of things.”58 the worldly standpoint assumes that, given the powers of volition and rationality, what has been is sufficient for what must come into being, and what has been known is sufficient for what must come to be known. This is the Adamic project in philosophical form, manifested in modernity’s thoroughgoing confidence in a rationally superintended linear progress of culture. For Kierkegaard this project expresses the arrogance and egotism that obscures the need and dissipates the desire for the gracious self-giving of god. in the Christian standpoint, by contrast, the individual is strong precisely in weakness, and the advent of the new is wrought “through the annihilation of the individual.”59 “Two axiomatic thoughts” are affirmed in the Christian view: that “Christianity did not arise in the mind of any human being,” and that nevertheless “since it is given to a human being, it is natural to him; here, too, god is creating.”60 Kierkegaard refers elsewhere in the early writings to the “defectiveness of human cognition” brought about through sin,61 and here he speaks of the need for a re-creation of the capacity to receive the truth of god, a re-creation that occurs in the humility that perceives its need and nothingness apart from god.62 Yet what defines this “new creation” is its relation to Christ. if adam determines the condition of sinful man, Christ sets the conditions of the new being. this will be fully exposited only in later works such as Practice in Christianity, yet the inverse analogy of Christ as the second adam is certainly found in the early writings. Kierkegaard likens “Christ’s appearance in the spiritual world” to “what Creation was in the physical,” the inauguration of a new order and the provision of a new being.63 even as there is a “romantic” tension between adam and eve, as “the two halves of one idea being kept apart by some intervening foreign element,” heiberg was at the time the doyen of the Copenhagen literati and the principal disseminator of hegelian thought into denmark. the quotation is from “en logisk Bemærkning i anledning af h. h. hr. Biskop dr. mynsters afhandling om rationalisme og supranaturalisme, i forrige hefter af dette tidsskrift,” in Tidsskrift for Litteratur og Kritik, vol. 1, 1839, pp. 455–6. as noted in the commentary in KJN 2, 443–5, Kierkegaard likely had in mind the conversation precipitated by Bishop mynster’s treatise on supernaturalism, “rationalisme. supranaturalisme,” in Tidsskrift for Litteratur og Kritik, vol. 1, 1838, pp. 249–68. 59 For a similar point, see SKS 18, 64–5, ee:190 / KJN 2, 59–60, another sermon draft, where the individual will be made “powerless and annihilated” before the “heavenly powers will stir within,” much as the power of god “overshadowed” mary when she humbled herself as a vessel of the divine will. 60 SKS 18, 125–6, hh:2, hh:2.a, hh:3 / KJN 2, 119–20. 61 SKS 17, 13, aa:13 / KJN 1, 26. 62 the treatise to which Kierkegaard was likely responding, by Bishop mynster, and to which heiberg and hans lassen martensen had responded in their own articles, claimed: “just as the first creation could not be a part of any preexisting series and could not have what we call natural continuity…the new creation in Christ, though prepared by divine provisions, is…a new, unmediated infusion of divine life into the human.” see “rationalisme. supranaturalisme,” in Tidsskrift for Litteratur og Kritik, vol. 1, p. 262. 63 SKS 18, 27, ee:63 / KJN 2, 23. 58

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

15

there is the same tension between “man is created, the sinner,” and the incarnation of Christ.64 as god’s creative Logos, Christ is the re-sounding of god’s creative word, Christ is also god’s re-creating in a world “gone so greatly astray.”65 when Kierkegaard comments overtly on paul’s language of the “second adam,” he points toward the view of sin and freedom found in The Concept of Anxiety. in the common understanding of hereditary sin and redemption, Kierkegaard writes, adam and Christ are disanalogous insofar as every person participates necessarily in the condition of adam but individuals participate in Christ freely through a “possibility repeating itself for every single individual.”66 this is a matter of genuine soteriological importance. Freely entering the condition of Christ can only be redemptive if one has freely entered the condition of adam.67 in The Concept of Anxiety vigilius haufniensis will develop a theory of freedom and sin in which each individual participates in adam’s condition not necessarily but freely. that Christ is the second adam does not mean that the character of Christ is miraculously imparted to the individual, but that the individual receives the condition of forgiveness and fellowship with god, and Christ is established as “the norm for the life of the following Christian.” when the grace of god is given, then “this life [of Christ] must necessarily unfold in him who is truly regenerated.”68 the person of faith is not “snatched as though by magic out of his old condition, the ‘body of sin,’” but must “go back the same way he advanced,”69 to expiate his sins and cultivate the likeness of Christ through imitation, encouraged all the while by the knowledge of forgiveness. Kierkegaard will often describe Christ as the way and the truth and the life; in the early works he also calls Christ the likeness of god,70 the mystery of god,71 the fulfillment of the Law and the promise of the gospel,72 “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone,”73 “the goal toward which the believer strives,”74 and the prototype,75 whose act of redemption upon the cross is the culmination of the divine will that first acted in the Creation.76 in summary, scattered across the early journals and papers are numerous references to adam, eden, and the Fall. when these are gathered together and Pap. i a 140 / JP 3, 3801. the “intervening element” between adam and eve is the “multiplicity” and “irony” in adam’s giving names to the animals. also of interest in the adam-Christ relation is SKS 17, 54, aa:55 / KJN 1, 47. 65 SKS 18, 59, ee:171 / KJN 2, 54, an entry dated august 30, 1839. 66 SKS 17, 228–9, dd:27 / KJN 1, 220–1, dated July 11, 1837. Kierkegaard refers to rom 5:13–14. 67 essentially the same point is developed later in relation to doubt, in Pap. iv B 13:21 / JP 1, 777: “in freedom i can only emerge from that into which i have entered in freedom.” 68 Pap. i a 28 / JP 1, 273. this is an early entry, from november 1834. 69 SKS 17, 52, aa:51 / KJN 1, 46. 70 SKS 18, 41, ee:107 / KJN 2, 36. 71 SKS 18, 113, FF:197 / KJN 2, 104. 72 SKS 18, 19, ee:40 / KJN 2, 15. 73 SKS 17, 248, dd:84 / KJN 1, 239. 74 Pap. v B 237 / JP 2, 1835. 75 SKS 19, 216–7, not7:44 / JP 2, 1834. 76 SKS 17, 222, dd:11 / KJN 1, 214; see SKS 22, 177, nB12:63 / JP 2, 1391. 64

16

Timothy Dalrymple

carefully observed, patterns reveal an emerging understanding of the eden narrative and its portrayal of human freedom and sin. though not fully articulated, it presents at least in skeletal form much the same adam as will be found in The Concept of Anxiety. what is most distinctive in Kierkegaard’s reading of adam is the narrative it offers of fundamental human experience. this narrative addresses concerns that are psychological (in Kierkegaard’s sense), epistemological, and theodical. three theological principles give structure to the narrative: the creatio ex nihilo, in which not only creation but the individual itself are brought into being out of nothing, the felix culpa, in which the individual falls into sin and nothingness and the self that strives to be itself apart from god is annihilated, and the second adam, when the individual in its nothingness humbly receives its condition and its telos in Christ. god only creates out of nothing, and the work of the second adam is creation in the world of spirit, the gift of a new being in the immediate consciousness of the second stage.77 II. Adam’s Many Faces (1841–43) the two years following the completion of the dissertation, The Concept of Irony, were rich and formative years for Kierkegaard. Between autumn 1841 and autumn 1843, in addition to composing and publishing Either/Or (and Two Upbuilding Discourses),78 Kierkegaard traveled twice to Berlin, attended lectures at the University of Berlin, deepened his proficiency in the literature of German philosophy and theology, and assembled the materials and insights that would yield the extraordinary series of works presented between october 1843 and august 1844: Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, and the other 16 of what were later gathered together as the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Kierkegaard renewed his acquaintance in this period with four significant figures who shaped his reading of the eden narrative: immanuel Kant, g.w.F. hegel, Friedrich wilhelm Joseph schelling and gottfried wilhelm leibniz. although Kierkegaard’s familiarity with all of these figures predates 1841, to be sure, it will be illuminating to examine them before moving on to the writings of 1843–44. Kant’s initial approach to adam is not dissimilar from Kierkegaard’s. Kant rejects the doctrine of inherited sin as “inept” because it undermines the basis of SKS 18, 205, JJ:203 / KJN 2, 189: “What contemplation of nature is for the first (human) consciousness of god the contemplation of revelation is to the second immediate consciousness of god (consciousness of sin). it is here that the battle is to take place—do not impute to people the likelihood of a revelation, but stop their mouths and put their godconsciousness under the consciousness of sin.” 78 Either/Or was published on February 20 and Two Upbuilding Discourses on may 16, 1843. adam and eve are mentioned on numerous occasions, but not the subject of extensive reflection, in both volumes of Either/Or: SKS 2, 290 / EO1, 286. SKS 2, 453 / EO1, 430. SKS 3, 27 / EO2, 29. SKS 3, 39 / EO2, 40–1. SKS 3, 51 / EO2, 52. SKS 3, 93 / EO2, 92. SKS 3, 269 / EO2, 259. SKS 3, 272 / EO2, 261. SKS 3, 294 / EO2, 282. many of these concern the third thread, and the relation between the sexes. 77

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

17

human freedom and moral responsibility; the primary significance of Adam is rather that “we daily act in the same way.”79 Because adam’s story illumines our own, the philosopher should approach the eden narrative to examine the “inner possibility” of evil acts, or “what must take place within the will if evil is to be performed.”80 in his lectures in Berlin, when he came to the problem of “the loss of that image [of god], or the origin of evil,”81 marheineke refers to Kant and the phrase mutato nomine de te narratur fabula: change the name, of you the tale is told. in fact the words are from horace’s Satires, quoted in Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone82—and they appear in The Concept of Anxiety and Stages on Life’s Way.83 Kant employs the saying when he turns adam’s story into an outward symbolic representation of the internal processes of every individual. although he had once been amenable to leibnizian optimism and its attempt to show the ideal rationality of the universe, the Kant of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone turns the problem of evil into a matter of psychological investigation.84 immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. by theodore m. greene and hoyt h. hudson, new York: harper and row 1960, p. 37. 80 ibid., p. 35. Kierkegaard possessed Kant’s Kritik der Urtheilskraft, 2nd ed., Berlin: F.t. lagarde 1793 (ASKB 594), Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 4th ed., riga: hartknoch 1794 (ASKB 595), and Immanuel Kant’s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–3, halle: in der rengerschen Buchhandlung 1799 (ASKB 1731–1733). 81 SKS 19, 249, not9:1. Kierkegaard attended philipp marheineke’s lectures from october 1841 to February 1842, on “dogmatic theology with special reference to Carl daub’s system.” the lecture notes extend from not9:1 to not10:8–9 (SKS 19, 288–301). Kierkegaard possessed Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft, 2nd ed., Berlin: duncker und humblot 1827 (ASKB 644–645), and Institutiones symbolicae, 3rd ed., Berlin: voss 1830 (ASKB 645), and in 1831–32 he had carefully read the first volume of marheineke’s popular Geschichte der teutschen Reformation, vols. 1–4, Berlin: duncker und humblot 1816–31; see Pap. i C 1 / JP 4, 5052. see heiko schulz, “marheineke: the volatilization of Christian doctrine,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 117–42; and niels thulstrup, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by george J. stengren, princeton: princeton university press 1980, pp. 265–7. Kant is also referenced in the lectures on sanctification and whether his construal of Christ as the personification of the ethical ideal sufficiently accounts for the Kløft between ideality and actuality; see SKS 19, 265, not9:1; SKS 19, 300, not10:9. also, Kant’s view on the “old man” and the “new man” is referenced in Clausen’s earlier lectures, in SKS 19, 57, not1:7.z6; see also SKS 18, 329, KK:2 / KJN 2, 329. 82 Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, p. 37; horace, The Satires, Epistles and Art of Poetry, trans. by John Conington, Charleston, south Carolina: BiblioBazaar 2006, p. 23. 83 SKS 4, 377 / CA, 73. SKS 6, 440–1 / SLW, 478–9. in The Concept of Anxiety haufniensis speaks of a “misunderstood appropriation” of the principle. 84 see Kant’s “on the miscarriage of all philosophical attempts at theodicy,” in Religion and Rational Theology, trans. by allen w. wood and george di giovanni, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1996, pp. 19–37. also see ann loades, Kant and Job’s Comforters, newcastle upon tyne: avero 1985, and Kurt appel, Kants Theodizeekritik: eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Theodizeekonzeption von Leibniz und Kant, Frankfurt: lang 2003. 79

18

Timothy Dalrymple

Kant also prefigures Kierkegaard’s view of the explicability of the first sin. Kant seeks an account of the rational and not the temporal origin of evil, since evil is a determination of freedom and freedom is irreducible to any regime of cause and effect. Whatever internal or external incentives there may be, these only influence the individual insofar as the individual incorporates them into the maxim for determining its actions; no account of preceding conditions can form a sufficient explanation of a free decision, for freedom is “absolute spontaneity.”85 Kant defines evil as a failure of the will (Willkür) to make the moral law (Wille) the maxim of its actions. at the “radical” extreme of wickedness, evil is the deliberate subordination of the moral law to other interests.86 since autonomous freedom is found in the harmony of Wille and Willkür, the descent into evil is a descent into disintegration and the loss of autonomous freedom. as Kant writes elsewhere, “a free will and a will under moral laws are identical.”87 For hegel too the story of the Fall represents the “eternal and necessary history of humanity,” or the “eternal story of human freedom” and its emergence from a “stupefied innocence devoid of consciousness and will.”88 it describes a movement from a unitive prelapsarian state to a divisive postlapsarian one. prior to the Fall adam enjoyed a “natural and immediate harmony” in the garden, where he “knew God as God is” and was “united with God and nature.” The first humans possessed “absolute knowledge” of the world, because they beheld “the very heart of nature as it is.”89 nonetheless eden was not “the right state”90 for humankind. adam’s relation to god was immature, akin to “the easy harmony of childhood.”91 The first sin is a “step into opposition,” a splintering of the world into the differentiations hegelian dialectic requires. this is variously called a “duality,” “schism,” “inward Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, p. 19. on Kant and The Concept of Anxiety, see ronald m. green, “the limits of the ethical in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety and Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone,” in The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 8), p. 74: “both thinkers absolutely repudiate any effort to provide a causal explanation of sin, and both strongly affirm sin’s origination in an inherently ‘inexplicable’ act of human freedom.” 86 Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, pp. 24–5. 87 Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. by lewis white Beck, in Immanuel Kant: Philosophical Writings, ed. by ernst Behler, new York: Continuum 1986, p. 66. 88 g.w.F. hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, The Lectures of 1827, ed. by peter g. hodgson, Berkeley: university of California press 1988, see p. 215 and p. 217. Kierkegaard’s familiarity with hegel would have been deepened and shaped through schelling’s lectures (see Notebook 11, and SBL, 333–412) and those of Karl werder (1806– 93), a hegelian philosopher whose lectures on “logik und metaphysik” in the winter semester of 1841–42 were based on his Logik. Als Commentar und Ergänzung zu Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik, erste abtheilung, Berlin: veit und Comp. 1841 (ASKB 867; no further installments were ever published). see Kierkegaard’s notes in Notebook 9 and Notebook 10. 89 hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 210–11. 90 hegel, Logic, trans. from The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences by william wallace, oxford: Clarendon press 1892, p. 55. 91 hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, p. 210. 85

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

19

breach,” a “primal division,” and a “sundering” between subject and nature”—yet it is also an awakening to “the light of consciousness,” the opening of a “cleavage of freedom” in which the human is free to act over against the natural world.92 the Fall is beneficial then insofar as it awakens self-consciousness and freedom, and provides the conditions for the dialectic of spirit and ultimately for “reconciliation” and a “second harmony” with the world and god.93 Hegel never concealed the theodical interest flowing through his thought, nor that he understood the philosophical task fundamentally as an effort “to comprehend all the ills of the world, including the existence of evil, so that the thinking spirit may be reconciled with the negative aspects of existence” and understand “that world history is nothing more than the plan of providence.” philosophy demonstrates “that the actual world is as it ought to be,” that the real is the rational, and thus “defend[s] reality against its detractors.”94 insofar as hegel asserts “that what has taken place in the world has also done so in conformity with reason,” he affirms “trust in providence, only in another form.”95 indeed one might say that the felix culpa describes the fundamental logic of hegel’s dialectic—yet hegel construes its movement as necessary, and this is the critical point which Kierkegaard rejects. Schelling’s possible influence on Kierkegaard’s reading of Adam is found less in any commentary on the eden narrative than in schelling’s development of the concepts of creation and freedom. that Kierkegaard was disappointed with schelling’s lectures is well known,96 yet in the years following numerous works were published on schelling’s Philosophie der Offenbarung, and Kierkegaard purchased and read carefully the commentaries of marheineke and rosenkranz in 1843,97 and hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 210–17. hegel, Logic, p. 55. the same point is made in Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 213–14 and p. 217. 94 hegel, Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans. by h.B. nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1975, see pp. 42–3 and pp. 66–7. 95 hegel, Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, quoted from susan neiman, Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, princeton: princeton university press 2002, p. vii. 96 see tonny aagaard olesen’s account in “schelling: a historical introduction to Kierkegaard’s schelling,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome i, Philosophy, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 234ff. Kierkegaard possessed Friedrich wilhelm Josef von schelling’s Philosophische Schriften, landshut: philipp Krüll, universitätbuchhandler 1809 (ASKB 763), which included the Treatise on Human Freedom (Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, often called the Freiheitschrift); schelling’s Vorlesungen über die Methode des academischen Studiums, 3rd ed., stuttgart and tübingen: Cotta 1830 (ASKB 764); Cousin’s Über französische und deutsche Philosophie, trans. by h. Becker, stuttgart and tübingen: Cotta 1834 (ASKB 471), for which schelling had written a foreword; Bruno, oder: Über das göttliche und natürliche Princip der Dinge, 2nd ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1842 (ASKB 765); Schellings erste Vorlesung in Berlin, stuttgart and tübingen: Cotta 1841 (ASKB 767); and steffens’ Nachgelassene Schriften, Berlin: schroeder 1846 (ASKB 799), with another foreword from schelling. 97 in november 1841 Kierkegaard purchased rosenkranz’s Kritische Erläuterungen des Hegelschen Systems, Königsberg: Bornträger 1840 (ASKB 745), and read it immediately 92 93

20

Timothy Dalrymple

their impact on the writings of later 1843 and 1844 is evident.98 what Kierkegaard and the later schelling shared was a profound and abiding sense that the world is not as it should be, that ideality and actuality are cut apart in a way that no higher rational standpoint can mend. thus both found idealism, which schelling had formerly championed, to be fatally flawed, and turned in their writings to those shards of experience that could not be assimilated into a rational system. as heidegger writes, “the system is split open by the reality of evil.”99 schelling’s theodical concern is apparent in the Freiheitschrift as well as the 1841–42 lectures, when he strives to understand the emergence of evil in relation to freedom. his doctrine of potencies is too complicated to set forth in full.100 in brief, since nothing precedes or stands apart from god, god must contain in himself the basis for his own being. previous philosophies have failed to account properly for the origin of evil because they have not differentiated god’s being and the ground of god’s being, which is both a part of god and distinguishable from god. at the basis of god’s being and all being is this “dark ground,” a nonbeing of chaos and possibility, longing, and potency. in the act of self-revelation god brings order out of chaos, differentiating forces that formerly were mixed, yet holding in indissoluble unity the dark longing out of the depths and the striving toward the light of reason. as god reveals himself in creative differentiation, humankind is fashioned with this “double principle”: insofar as it emerges from the dark ground it is creaturely, selfwillful, and relatively independent of god; insofar as it seeks the light of reason and self-disclosure it is also spirit. Yet that which is indissoluble in the goodness of god can be separated and set against one another in humanity—and here, in the compresence in human being of “the deepest pit and the highest heaven,” and in the solubility of the two principles, lies the possibility of evil.101 thus there is in humankind both “ardor for the good” and “enthusiasm for evil”; the individual (see Pap. iii B 41.9). in 1843 he purchased marheineke’s Zur Kritik der Schellingschen Offenbarungsphilosophie, Berlin: enslin 1843 (ASKB 647), rosenkranz’s Über Schelling und Hegel: Ein Sendschreiben an Pierre Leroux, Königsberg: Bornträger 1843, and Schelling. Vorlesungen gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, danzig: gerhard 1843 (ASKB 766). 98 see the drafts for Repetition in Pap. iv B 117–8 / R, supplement, p. 310 and p. 322. SKS 4, 337 / CA, 30, note, and CA, 232, notes 17–8. there is dispute on whether Kierkegaard’s familiarity with the Freiheitschrift comes from an earlier reading, a re-reading in 1843, or indirectly through the writings of marheineke and rosenkranz. see olesen, “schelling: a historical introduction to Kierkegaard’s schelling,” pp. 254–8; vincent mcCarthy, “schelling and Kierkegaard on Freedom and Fall,” in The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by robert perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 8), pp. 92–3. For further discussion on Schelling’s influence over Kierkegaard’s understanding of freedom and evil, see david roberts, Kierkegaard’s Analysis of Radical Evil, new York: Continuum 2006, pp. 10–22. 99 martin heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. by Joan stambaugh, athens, ohio: ohio university press 1985, p. 98. 100 in the interest of brevity, i blend together the Freiheitschrift of 1809 and the Philosophie der Offenbarung of 1841–42. 101 F.w.J. schelling, Of Human Freedom, trans. by James gutmann, Chicago: open Court 1936, p. 38.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

21

“contains within him the source of self-impulsion towards good and evil in equal measure,” and determines itself for good or evil.102 Freedom, for schelling as well as for Kant, is not negative freedom from compulsion but positive freedom for the self to be itself, in the “inner necessity which springs from the essence of the active agent itself.” Yet no temporal account of the first sin is possible because evil is a choice that is always already made; we always find ourselves already having chosen evil.103 two points are of special importance for what will follow. First, in his own version of the felix culpa, Schelling affirms that the self-will is roused “only so that an independent basis for the good may be there and so that it may be conquered and penetrated by the good.”104 the capacity for evil is not an imperfection, but essential to what is best in the self. Yet it should be noted, second, that the self evanesces in its will to establish its being independent of god. in the lectures schelling depicts the original condition as one in which adam is “inclosed” by the threefold elohim. this was a “primal relation” in which there was “more than a revelation.”105 the human is “conditioned” life, or possesses itself only insofar as it remains within the three potencies. the spirit perceives its Seyn-Könnende, its being able to be, and it strives for lordship over Being—yet “became mastered by it.”106 like all of creation adam rests upon the Nichts, grounded “solely in the will of god.”107 thus schelling writes in the Freiheitschrift, “the beginning of sin consists in man’s going over from actual being to non-being, from truth to falsehood, from light to darkness, in order himself to become the creative basis and to rule over all things.” the self longs to return to god, yet strives “for himself” and not “in god,” so the harder it strives the more deeply impoverished it becomes. “in evil there is that contradiction which devours and always negates itself, which just while striving to become creature destroys the nexus of creation and, in its ambition to be everything, falls into non-being.”108 Finally, Kierkegaard’s engagement with leibniz in 1842–43 is consistently overlooked, and yet so clarifying for our purposes that it requires at least a brief consideration. scattered references to leibniz in the early journals and papers, and in Either/Or, demonstrate only an elementary and probably second-hand familiarity.109 schelling, Of Human Freedom, p. 48; p. 50. dale e. snow explains, in Schelling and the End of Idealism, albany: state university of new York press 1996, p. 165: “since schelling has made human choice central in the way that he has, his theory of evil is in direct conflict with all those theories which claim either that evil does not truly exist, but is rather an imperfection or deficiency of some kind, or that apparent evil ought to be understood from a hegelian perspective, as a manifestation of the cunning of reason, a necessary episode in a universal world history.” 103 schelling, Of Human Freedom, pp. 66–7. 104 ibid., p. 79. 105 SKS 19, 352, not 11:32 / SBL, 394. 106 SKS 19, 353–4, not11:33 / SBL, 395–6. 107 SKS 19, 343, not11:27 / SBL, 383. 108 schelling, Of Human Freedom, p. 69. 109 SKS 19, 103, not3:6. SKS 19, 139, not4:10. SKS 18, 125, hh:2.a / KJN 2, 119. SKS 3, 28 / EO2, 20. SKS 3, 126 / EO2, 126. SKS 3, 132 / EO2, 133. later Kierkegaard purchased J.C. gottsched’s edition of gottfried wilhelm leibniz’s Theodicee, 5th ed., hanover and leipzig: 102

22

Timothy Dalrymple

Yet in 1842–43, after at least the greater part of Either/Or was complete, Kierkegaard undertook a meticulous study of the Theodicy.110 he found in leibniz much to appreciate and employ, including a talent for fine distinctions.111 Kierkegaard commends leibniz precisely because he addresses the theodical problem, what leibniz calls “the great question of the Free and the necessary, above all in the production and the origin of evil.”112 while hegelians debate endlessly on abstruse, pedantic matters, “The whole conflict between Leibniz and Bayle is very much to the point, and one is astonished if he compares it with controversy in our time, for we have actually gone backward.”113 the Theodicy considers many responses to the problem of evil and many ways in which to understand adam’s Fall, but i will focus on two points. Kierkegaard agrees with leibniz that “the ground of evil is not to be sought in matter but in the ideal nature of creation.”114 since god could not create out of his own being (for god’s being is necessary, and therefore eternal and uncreated), and since nothing else was made, god could only create out of nothing. since “the creature is derived from nothingness” instead of the perfect being of god, it is “imperfect, faulty and corruptible.” the creature is created not sinful but imperfect, originally and necessarily limited, dependent. metaphysical evil, the “original imperfection in the creature,” is a logically and metaphysically necessary corollary of creation. with this limitation, and the gift of human freedom, comes the possibility of moral evil, the free rejection of god, and consequently of physical or natural evil, the suffering which sin brings into the world. For those who rest in receptivity, however, god “gives ever to the creature and produces continually all that in it is positive, good and perfect, every perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights.”115 im verlage der Försterischen erben 1763 (ASKB 619), and leibniz’s Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vol. 1–2, ed. by Johann eduard erdmann, Berlin: [eichler] 1839–40 (ASKB 620). he made use of erdmann’s Versuch einer wissenschaflichen Darstellung der Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, vols. 1–3, leipzig: vogel 1834–52. 110 Kierkegaard completed the editorial preface to Either/Or in november of 1842, and prepared the manuscript for publication in the following months, until it was published on February 20, 1843. the notes on leibniz come in Journal JJ and Notebook 13. JJ:12 is dated november 20, 1842, and comments on leibniz follow in JJ:23–24, 26–30 and 36–3; Notebook 13 is dated december 2, 1842, and references to leibniz are found in entries 5, 6, 8a, 23, 24, 26a, 40, 42, 44 and 47, with the most thorough commentary on the Theodicy in not13:23. see also not12:17. if the reading of leibniz had any effect on Either/Or, it was a very late and likely a minimal one. 111 see ronald grimsley, “Kierkegaard and leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 26, no. 3, 1965, pp. 383ff. 112 leibniz, Theodicy, trans. by e. m. huggard, ed. by austin Farrer, la salle, illinois: open Court 1996, p. 53. SKS 18, 150, JJ:23 / KJN 2, 139. see also SKS 19, 409, not13:44 / JP 2, 1601. 113 SKS 19, 391, not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. 114 SKS 19, 391, not13:23 / JP 3, 2364. see Theodicy, pp. 140–1, § 30: “god is the cause of the material element of evil which lies in the positive, and not of the formal element, which lies in privation.” 115 the quotations in this paragraph are from Theodicy, pp. 135–6, § 20; pp. 140–2, § 30–1.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

23

The second point finds a stark difference between Leibniz and Kierkegaard. Both conceive of the world in a richly teleological manner, and see humankind as a part (not the culmination) of the grand scheme of divine purposes.116 however, Kierkegaard disagrees with leibniz on the relationship between providence and the individual. Confronted with extraordinary suffering, leibniz contends that what leads to suffering in one part of the cosmos may confer a greater benefit upon the whole.117 Kierkegaard responds: one cannot deny that there is a weakness in all the answers leibniz gives Bayle in paragraphs 121, 22, and following; he seeks to avoid difficulty by saying that it is not a question of the individual man but of the whole universe. this is ridiculous, for if there is just one individual man who has valid reason to complain, then the universe does not help. the answer is that even in sin man is greater, more fortunate, than if it [sin] had not appeared, for even the split [Splid] in man has more significance than immediate innocence.118

this might be read as a purpose statement for The Concept of Anxiety. the disagreement with leibniz occurs on two levels. theologically, Kierkegaard suggests that divine providence redeems the life of every individual individually, absurd though this may seem to reason. pedagogically, Kierkegaard suggests that the proper response to Baylean skepticism is not to set forth a grand defense of cosmic history, but to address the subjectivity of each individual, showing how the sufferings of “the split” between the human and the divine can serve the higher purposes of god. in summary, Kierkegaard found in his intellectual environment numerous interpretive options concerning adam’s Fall. Kant construes the narrative as a universal tale of how “we daily act,” and sought an account of the rational possibility of sin in consciousness, since the spontaneity of freedom makes a temporal account impossible. hegel describes the Fall as the production of a self-conscious agent through a movement from a unitive state of childlike harmony with god and nature to a “primal division” over against them. in schelling’s theogony of divine becoming, the self perceives the nothing of possibility and strives for lordship over being but only falls into non-being and untruth. leibniz sees metaphysical evil as a trace within the creature of the nothingness from where it came, yet Kierkegaard’s response to leibniz is equally important. Kierkegaard will attend not to grand cosmic calculations or metahistorical dialectics, but to the “split” in the single individual and how this has “more significance than immediate innocence.” III. Adam in Doubt and Anxiety (1843–44) The culmination of Kierkegaard’s reflection on the figure of Adam is found relatively early in the authorship, in two works published six months apart in 1843–44. the most renowned treatment of adam in the Kierkegaardian oeuvre, The Concept of 116 117 118

SKS 19, 391–2, not 13:23 / JP 1, 40. see leibniz, Theodicy, p. 189, § 119. leibniz, Theodicy, pp. 205–7, § 134. SKS 19, 392, not13:23 / JP 1, 41.

24

Timothy Dalrymple

Anxiety, published in June 1844, is a famously bewildering text.119 a lesser-known commentary on the Fall is found in an upbuilding discourse from december 1843.120 although they offer different insights, and offer them differently, the discourse and Anxiety are fundamentally consonant and mutually enriching works, read most fruitfully when read together. the opening pages of “every good gift and every perfect gift is From above” comprise one of the richest and most remarkable passages in the early authorship. the discourse as a whole interweaves three biblical passages on giving, taking, and the nature of the good: the Fall account, the promise in the epistle of James (cited by leibniz) that “every good gift” descends from the “Father of lights,” and the teaching in matthew 7:11 that the “heavenly Father” gives “good things.” it begins by taking adam’s transgression to represent a fundamental decision that confronts every single individual: whether to receive in humility what the self-giving god graciously and abundantly provides, or distrust the provision and grasp for knowledge, being, or selfhood according to human will and capability. although the discourse explicitly addresses the epistemological relation between the knower and the known, it locates this in the more fundamental relation between the individual and god. when adam seizes the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he effects a rupture between himself and god, and this in turn precipitates a cascading series of separations. thus, as with hegel, the condition before the Fall is described in unitive terms. if not for the transgression, then everything would have remained as it was, so very good, and this witness that god gave creation would have resounded from humankind as an unceasing, blessed repetition. then the security of peace would have prevailed in everything; then the quiet celebration of beauty would have smiled solemnly; then the blessedness of heaven would have enveloped everything; then heaven would not even have been mirrored in earthly life, lest presentiment should rise from the depths of innocence; then no echo would have summoned longing from its secret hiding place, for heaven would be earth and everything would be fulfilled. Then man would have awakened from the deep sleep in which eve came into existence in order once again to become absorbed in joy and glory; then the image of God would have been stamped upon everything in a reflection of glory that would lull everything into the spell of the perfection that moved everything, itself unmoved. then the lamb would have lain down to rest beside the wolf…everything would have been very good.121

The “echo” and “mirror” imply separation and diminution, as the echo and reflection are apart from and lesser than the witness and image from which they arose. in the prelapsarian world there was “truth in everything” and “trustworthiness in everything,” since adam “did indeed give the proper name to everything as it truly is” and the world was “what it seemed to be,” with justice springing “up out of the earth.”122 119 reidar thomte calls The Concept of Anxiety “possibly the most difficult of Kierkegaard’s works,” in CA, xii. 120 there is also a pro forma reference to adam in SKS 5, 223 / EUD, 225. 121 SKS 5, 129–30 / EUD, 125–6. 122 Quotations in this paragraph are from SKS 5, 130 / EUD, 126.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

25

the rupture in the fundament of the divine–human relation rises upward like a crack through many layers, effecting a series of separations. Before the Fall god was freely and immediately given. Kierkegaard writes that “the gift itself offered itself” at the moment and “in such a way that receiving it did not arouse questions about the giver.”123 after the Fall, when adam is separated from god by sin, there is a distance between heaven and earth, between the object or the world as it is (actuality) and the representation or the world as it should be (ideality). the distinction between good and evil is also posited in the Fall, since “this separation was indeed the very fruit of the knowledge.” Finally, one creature is separated from another, and adam is separated from himself. as Kierkegaard writes, after the Fall, “in the garden and in his inner being,” adam grew “afraid of himself” and “afraid of the world around him.”124 although the movement from unitive to divisive language recalls hegel, as Kierkegaard enumerates the consequences of the “split” the turn to the individual— and to the psychological—becomes apparent. A deluge of sufferings flows through the wounded god–human relation, as “the knowledge” adam gained brings “grief along with it”: the pain of want and the dubious happiness of possession, the terror of separation and the difficulty of separation, the disquietude of deliberation and the worry of deliberation, the distress of choice and the decision of choice, the judgment of the law and the condemnation of the law, the possibility of perdition and the anxiety of perdition, the suffering of death and the expectation of death.125

The discourse goes on to address specifically the “grief” of endlessly grasping for the fruit of knowledge—and consuming only the bitter seed of doubt. human knowledge was (and is) seized in the hope of attaining sufficiency apart from God through the powers of human intellection. Yet “the doubt that had come along with the knowledge coiled itself alarmingly around [adam’s] heart,” and “squeezed him in its coils.” adam searches for further knowledge in the hope it will silence doubt’s pain, but in every fruit of knowledge doubt lies hidden like the worm within the apple, waiting in the knowledge to “disquiet” him again. thus doubt compels the individual to “work in the sweat of his brow,” and “sows thorns and thistles” until he is “fettered in distress and contradiction.”126 the suffering of doubt emerges from the brokenness of the god-relation into the fractured self and its relation to the world. like every other part of the human creature, rationality suffers in separation from god, for as long as the knowledge of god is pursued apart from the provision of god there is no escape from the suffering of doubt, since doubt is intrinsic to the relation presupposed and enacted in this human pursuit of the knowledge of god and the good. For Kierkegaard, contra hegel, the eden narrative does present a critique SKS 5, 130 / EUD, 126. SKS 5, 130–1 / EUD, 126–7. 125 SKS 5, 129 / EUD, 125. 126 SKS 5, 131 / EUD, 127. later works will speak further of the paradoxical object of faith. As Climacus explains, the discourses do not employ the “double reflected religious categories in the paradox” (SKS 7, 233 / CUP1, 256). 123 124

26

Timothy Dalrymple

of knowledge, illuminating how each individual becomes further caught in doubt’s endlessly circulating economy.127 the three theological principles described earlier still obtain. the creatio ex nihilo is implied here, and is clear in the general context of the discourses. after the prelude to the eden narrative, “every good gift” narrates the story of an individual for whom the biblical promise of good gifts from the heavenly father takes on different meanings in different existential circumstances, until at last he surrenders the adamic project. where adam trusted himself and doubted god, the individual learns through sufferings to trust god and doubt himself. this is “true doubt.” False doubt claims it has examined the truth of god and found it wanting, yet in fact it only doubts because it has already distrusted the divine provision. the true doubter doubts “his own capacity and competence.” as Kierkegaard writes, “False doubt doubts everything except itself; with the help of faith, the doubt that saves doubts only itself.”128 the individual learns that god is the good and the giver of the good, “the only one who gives in such a way that he gives the condition along with the gift, the only one who in giving already has given.”129 For faith, god’s selfgiving “remains outside all doubt and abides in god,” because faith is this humble receptivity that receives itself from god. thus the “knowledge” of god becomes a matter not of intellection but volition, for if one wills to receive the truth of god one will find it abundantly given in God’s self-revelation. “If you, then, do not want to abide in it, it is because you do not want to abide in god, in whom you nevertheless live, move, and have your being.”130 and for the one who rests transparently in god’s truth, there is no intervening space between the gift, the giver, and the recipient; there is no occasion to question the provenance of the gift. while the given discourse speaks of god as the source of being, others are more explicit about the nothing from which the individual comes. John the Baptist “comprehends his own nothingness,” and Paul’s thorn in the flesh shows that one must be “alarmed radically, unto death and annihilation.”131 in the same way the individual should learn that he is “capable of nothing” and “is nothing at all,” and will find his salvation only in sinking down into his own nothingness, surrendering himself to grace and disgrace. life, under divine direction, casts him out “to be strengthened

127 see the phenomenology of knowledge/doubt in SKS 5, 131 / EUD, 127–8, where knowledge is “something unattainable for which he sighed…a blissfulness that his soul was continually losing…a knowing that made his heart ashamed…a realization that only made him tremble…a consciousness of himself…a consciousness of the whole world,” which “stimulated every one of his capacities…enervated his whole being…overwhelmed him with its abundance…starved him with its emptiness.” the limitation of human rationality is described in SKS 5, 137 / EUD, 134–5, where human thought does not know the way to “the secret hiding place of the good,” since “there is no way to it, but every good and every perfect gift comes down from above.” 128 SKS 5, 140 / EUD, 137. 129 SKS 5, 137 / EUD, 134. 130 SKS 5, 137 / EUD, 134. 131 SKS 5, 152 / EUD, 151. SKS 5, 275 / EUD, 282. SKS 5, 321 / EUD, 331. SKS 5, 333 / EUD, 345.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

27

in this annihilation,” and “this annihilation is his truth.”132 the self-knowledge of nothingness cannot be given by another, but only gained by the self for itself. “even if the whole world united to crush and annihilate the weakest, that he is capable of nothing, he can discover only by himself.” Comprehending this nothingness is “the highest of which a human being is capable,” and yet one is “incapable even of this,” for nothingness is an absolute incapability and dependence on god.133 Yet in this knowledge one becomes “conscious in the deeper sense that god is,”134 for an individual continually conscious of its nothingness cannot undertake the slightest action without god, “without becoming conscious that there is a god,”135 so that “every day and every moment [contains] the desired and irrefragable opportunity to experience that god lives.”136 returning to “every good gift,” the felix culpa functions there as the promise that the condition brought about by adam’s transgression is an advancement, and ultimately the sufferings it inaugurated will find their meaning in providence and redemption. Kierkegaard employs the eden narrative to show, as he wrote in response to Leibniz, than “even the split in man has more significance than immediate innocence.”137 the individual consumes the fruit and ingests the seed of doubt, so the tree of knowledge is planted within him and produces its agonizing burden—yet self-relationality has emerged. adam fears himself, and must choose what he will do with the “corrupted self” he has become. he may choose the “brilliant deception” that he has conquered himself, overcoming his sin, and emerging as a “victorious self” worthy of admiration and esteem. or he can choose “to have little with blessing, to have truth with concern, to suffer instead of exulting over imagined victories.”138 what is important theodically is not the knowledge gained in the fruit, but the anguish of constantly grasping and constantly failing to achieve it, since “through its pain it educates a person, if he is honest enough to want to be educated…out of the multiplicity to seek the one, out of the abundance to seek the one thing needful, as this is plainly and simply offered precisely according to the need for it.”139 to feed doubt with knowledge is to render unto the disease the remedy it requests, for doubt is not defeated by the venturing intellect but by the willingness to learn from the suffering of doubt and thus “die to doubt as the perfect comes” down from above.140 in the discourse’s closing lines, having kept this secret in hand, Kierkegaard switches from matthew 7:11 to the parallel luke 11:13, where the identity of the heavenly Father’s “gift” is disclosed as the holy spirit. “to need the holy spirit is a perfection SKS 5, 302 / EUD, 309. that the individual is “capable of nothing” is reiterated throughout the discourse in SKS 5, 299–315 / EUD, 306–25. that the individual “is nothing” is stated, e.g., in SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 326. the language of sinking into nothingness (SKS 5, 298, 300 / EUD, 305, 307) is familiar from the eckhartian mystical tradition. 133 SKS 5, 302 / EUD, 309. 134 SKS 5, 310 / EUD, 319. 135 SKS 5, 302 / EUD, 309. 136 SKS 5, 312–13 / EUD, 321–3. 137 SKS 19, 392, not13:23 / JP 1, 41. 138 SKS 5, 131 / EUD, 128. 139 SKS 5, 131–2 / EUD, 128–9, emphases added. 140 SKS 5, 138 / EUD, 135. 132

28

Timothy Dalrymple

in a human being,” and in faith one receives what is “implanted within,” the telos of being: god sublimely present, the giver given in the gift.141 it is also clear in other discourses that suffering serves the ultimate purposes of god for those who are willing to learn in humility. suffering turns the spirit inward, cultivates concern for itself and makes it visible to itself as spirit. it is possible in theory to learn one’s nothingness on the day of rejoicing, but ultimately “no one enters the kingdom of heaven without suffering,” without attending “the school of sorrow.”142 the god who grounds human freedom will not now abrogate it, and Kierkegaard (unlike hegel) will not frame in rigid necessity the unfolding of the individual spirit. the individual always retains the freedom to determine what his suffering will mean and whence it will lead.143 neither is there any need to provoke or fabricate suffering, since suffering is not accidental or episodic, but is essential and enduring, emerging essentially from the conditions of fallen temporality. Kierkegaard writes, “every person in all ages does indeed have his struggle and his spiritual trial, his distress, his solitude in which he is tempted, his anxiety and powerlessness,”144 and concludes that the question is not whether one will suffer, but whether one will “be open to life’s schooling” and “allow oneself to be brought up in the school of adversities.”145 one discourse is devoted to youth’s “harmony” with god, the “sorrow of the separation,”146 and the “retreat” through sufferings to god.147 Even Paul suffers the thorn in the flesh, which is “the suffering of separation,” an estrangement in the fallen world that “shuts him out from the eternal” and binds him in the “fragile earthen vessel.”148 this is “the suffering in which the soul battles through to faith,” the “covenant of tears,”149 and the “fellowship of sufferings” with god.”150 the second adam, or the new being, is evident when the discourse returns to the language of eden to describe the satisfaction of the need for god: Before the need awakens in a person, there must first be a great upheaval. All of doubt’s busy deliberation was mankind’s first attempt to find it. However long this continues, it is never finished, and yet it must be finished, ended, that is, broken off, before the single individual can be what the apostle calls a first fruit of creation. That this signifies a new order of things is easy to see…now man is the first, has no intermediary between

SKS 5, 142 / EUD, 139. SKS 5, 29, 321 / EUD, 19, 331. 143 even the early discourses make clear that differing subjectivities will respond differently to identical hardships (see SKS 5, 31 / EUD, 22). “what one sees depends upon how one sees,” for observation is not merely a receiving but also a “discovering” and “bringing forth.” adversities will necessarily come, but “a person’s inner being determines what he discovers and what he hides” (SKS 5, 69–70 / EUD, 59–60). 144 SKS 5, 91 / EUD, 84. 145 SKS 5, 95 / EUD, 88. 146 SKS 5, 243 / EUD, 244. 147 SKS 5, 246 / EUD, 248. 148 SKS 5, 326 / EUD, 337. 149 SKS 5, 320 / EUD, 330. 150 SKS 5, 260 / EUD, 264. 141 142

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

29

god and himself, but has the condition he cannot give himself, inasmuch as it is god’s gift.151

the remainder of the discourse interprets James’ admonitions for “strengthening and maintaining the single individual as a first fruit of creation”152—practical wisdom for the re-created being who does not storm the gates of heaven but receives the self-giving god, the holy spirit, in patience and humility.153 although Christ is not mentioned explicitly here, the allusion to him through the “new creation” and the “first fruits” is clear. Kierkegaard will have more to say in later writings about Christ, the paradoxical object of faith, but here he carves out the space where Christ resides, the ground and criterion for the new being. he writes in the opening discourse of the last set, “wherever god is in truth, there he is always creating,” and “in becoming known by a person he wants to create in him a new human being.”154 similarly, he writes in the last pages of the final discourse that “when it seems to [a person] that he is reduced to nothing at all,” if he resists the temptation to want to be something, then “the image of heaven sinks into [his] nothingness” and he is “illuminated” in likeness to god.” 155 such a person owes everything to god and “providence.” if “every good gift” describes in a homiletical manner the conditions of existence before and after the Fall, The Concept of Anxiety examines the necessary psychological conditions for what dogmatics calls sin. “every good gift” separates the pre- and postlapsarian worlds on a cosmic canvas, while Anxiety observes in minute care the infinitely decisive moment of transition, in which the contest is waged between good and evil and the self is posited in faith or sin. vigilius haufniensis turns his microscopic gaze on the constitution of the human individual, the logic of the spirit and the spontaneous emergence of freedom, the nature of human subjectivity according to which sin is possible. in other words, The Concept of Anxiety is a work of theological psychology. it develops a scripturally informed account of the possibility of human freedom and the misuse of freedom, in order to furnish a clear conceptual basis for the doctrine of the atonement. the following is not concerned with a complete account of The Concept of Anxiety, but with understanding how the text construes the figure of Adam. First it will show how Vigilius differentiates the problems of “the first sin” and “hereditary sin,” and how his reading of the story of the Fall brings forth the concept of anxiety in order to make the first sin and hereditary sin intelligible. It presents the story of adam, and of every individual in every generation, as a story of freedom’s emergence through freedom’s betrayal. Finally, it will show that adam is construed in Anxiety in a manner consistent with the theological principles already explained. the “introduction” to The Concept of Anxiety circumscribes the problem and differentiates the disciplines of thought and the resources, methods, and moods they bring to the discussion of sin. the psychological perspective observes how the human 151 152 153 154 155

SKS 5, 139 / EUD, 136–7. SKS 5, 139 / EUD, 137. SKS 5, 141 / EUD, 139. SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 325. SKS 5, 380 / EUD, 399–400.

30

Timothy Dalrymple

must be constituted in order for sin and hereditary sin to be possible. although it can never explain what springs from the spontaneity of freedom, psychology offers an analysis of the condition of the individual preceding sin, a portrait of the “abiding something [det Blivende] out of which sin constantly arises.”156 vigilius agrees with Kant, then, that freedom cannot be explained by antecedent influences, but forms a caesura in the fabric of causal explanation. when psychology has completed its work, it gives its concept of the self over to dogmatics, faith’s confession of itself, which presupposes sin and comprehends its significance in relation to God.157 then a “second ethics” (ordinary ethics having foundered on sin) steps forward. informed by a “penetrating consciousness” of the “actuality of sin,” the second ethics earnestly gives direction for the life of faith.158 it is important to begin with a clear understanding of the two fundamental problems in The Concept of Anxiety, as these are articulated in the first section of Chapter i. through vigilius Kierkegaard fully displays his theological education, surveying doctrines of hereditary sin proposed over the centuries of Christian tradition, and finds in them a tendency to conflate the problem of hereditary sin with that of “the first sin, Adam’s sin, the fall.”159 these are logically distinct problems; the first concerns the individual’s qualitative transition from innocence to guilt, or how it is possible that adam in the garden should sin, while the second concerns the quantitative accumulation and transmission of sinfulness down the stream of generations, or how it is possible that Adam’s sin and its effects should flow hereditarily to later individuals. Anxiety will illuminate both the transition from innocence to guilt (the first sin) and the transmission of sinfulness (hereditary sin), but it is important to separate the two problems in order to perceive the double-bind they produce. it would appear that adam must be other than human in order to fall into humanity and for his act to be decisive for humanity, yet it would also appear that adam must sin as human in order for his guilt to be heritable among humanity. adam must be simultaneously unique and universal. The first sin requires a higher condition from which to fall, and a nature that entails all humankind; hereditary sin requires a shared condition and a common basis in its lineage. if adam is depicted “fantastically” as “more than the whole race,” as “standing outside the race,” or as a plenipotentiary for the race, then he is other than human and his penalty should not be our inheritance. soaring images of adam in superhuman perfection and miltonic splendor magnify adam’s uniqueness and diminish his universality. only if we are his can we inherit what is his.160 How, then, can one account for the transition of the first sin without making the transmission of hereditary sin nonsensical, and vice versa? Vigilius responds first by defining the relationship: Adam and his sin are quantitatively unique and qualitatively universal: unique insofar as they stand at the SKS 4, 329 / CA, 21. vigilius calls faith “the organ for issues of dogma.” see SKS 4, 324 / CA, 18, note. SKS 4, 327–8 / CA, 19–20. 158 SKS 4, 328 / CA, 20. 159 SKS 4, 332 / CA, 25. 160 SKS 4, 332–3 / CA, 25–6. 156 157

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

31

beginning of the accumulating history of human sinfulness, but universal insofar as they express what is essentially human. that which earlier theologies took to be unique in Adam—that he represents the race—Vigilius takes to be definitive of humanity as such. adam, like every individual, is individuum, infinitely responsible for himself yet transcendently participant in humanity.161 likewise, that which earlier theologies took to be unique in Adam’s sin defines every first sin, for every first sin comprises a “qualitative leap”162 out of innocence into guilt that brings sin “into the world.”163 Thus the two problems can be refined: every “first sin” is a qualitative leap that adds quantitatively to the gathering history of human sinfulness; and “hereditary sin,” at least as psychologically defined, is the effect on human consciousness of the sinners’ history, the passing down of the history of the forms and consequences of human sinfulness and thus the shaping of a “greater or lesser disposition in the particular individual.”164 each individual human qua individual must retain the freedom to remain in innocence or leap into sin and enter the history of sinfulness— and qua human must be informed and influenced by the sinners’ history. Yet how is this possible? the answer is contained in the title of the work: anxiety supplies the middle term for the qualitative transition from innocence to guilt (the problem of the first sin), and for the transmission of sinfulness from one generation to another (the problem of hereditary sin). as vigilius will summarize later, “anxiety means two things: the anxiety in which the individual posits sin by the qualitative leap, and the anxiety that entered in and enters in with sin, and that also, accordingly, enters quantitatively into the world every time an individual posits sin.”165 the emergence of freedom in the qualitative leap is preceded by the emergence of anxiety from the structure of human subjectivity. Yet existence in innocence is characterized by “ignorance” and an absence of the self-relationality of spirit, for spirit is “psychically qualified in immediate unity with his nature condition.”166 as vigilius explains, “man is a synthesis of the psychical and the physical,” and “a synthesis is unthinkable if the two are not united in a third. this third is spirit.”167 spirit is present in innocence, but “as immediate, as dreaming,” neither fully inactive nor fully awake. since there is “nothing against which to strive,” what then can spark the movement of freedom away from innocence, but the no-thing of possibility “dreamily” projected outside the self? anxiety begins with spirit’s obscure apprehension of the possibility of its freedom, the “intimated nothing” of other selves and other worlds which the spirit in innocence cannot properly know or imagine but which it projects like the silhouettes of strangers in the distant gloom.

161 162 163 164 165 166 167

SKS 4, 335–6 / CA, 28–9. SKS 4, 340 / CA, 33. SKS 4, 337 / CA, 31. SKS 4, 344 / CA, 37. SKS 4, 359 / CA, 54. SKS 4, 347 / CA, 41. SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43.

32

Timothy Dalrymple

anxiety is “a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy.”168 the spirit is titillated by the whispered promise of possibility, and terrified of the unknown. the eden narrative illustrates the subtle ways in which anxiety takes root, for when the divine command is delivered anxiety concresces around the specific possibility it is made to imagine. what adam is told not to do, he grows anxiously aware of the possibility of doing, and the divine promise of punishment sets anxiety “closer” by elaborating the image of the existence adam would inhabit if he did what he now dimly perceives he can do. adam perceives not only the possibility of freedom, but the possibility of consequences for his decisions—perceives that he is free, responsible, and imperiled. although his attention fastens on the possibility of sin in fear and in wonder, “innocence is not yet guilty, yet there is anxiety as though it were lost.”169 “Further than this, psychology cannot go,” since psychology can describe the condition of the spirit before the act but no antecedent factors can determine the act of freedom.170 the brilliance of Kierkegaard’s solution is that by offering anxiety as the condition that conditions (but does not determine) the leap, he has constructed a way in which the actions of preceding generations can affect the action of the later individual, for insofar as their actions contribute to the anxiety of the individual they contribute to the condition that conditions (but does not determine) the individual’s action. although each individual begins anew in the inwardness of the god-relation, “Christianity,” vigilius argues, “has never assented to give each particular individual the privilege of starting from the beginning in an external sense.”171 adam came to consciousness in a world where the possibilities of sin were not in evidence prior to the communication of the divine prohibition. individuals in later generations come to consciousness within an “historical nexus,” a world where the possibilities and consequences of transgression are already and increasingly articulated.172 By inheriting human history and culture the later individual inherits more substantial material for anxiety’s reflection. Anxiety is “entangled freedom,” where freedom is not negated by necessity but concerned and conflicted with itself. At “maximum” the potentialities of sin are so encompassing, so pervasive, so overwhelmingly present that the individual succumbs to anxiety in weakness, and thus “anxiety about sin produces sin.”173 when freedom surrenders to anxiety, it falls into sin and becomes guilty. Finally, vigilius’ treatment of sexual difference shows how anxiety is also a misrelation within the self. For all its attention to the cascading distinctions following after the transgression, “every good gift” did not address the sexual distinction. Vigilius speaks briefly of the second and third threads of the Eden narrative, the naming of the animals and the fashioning of eve.174 he is more interested in the 168 169 170 171 172 173 174

SKS 4, 347–8 / CA, 41–2, emphases in the original. SKS 4, 351 / CA, 45. SKS 4, 349–51 / CA, 44–5. SKS 4, 376 / CA, 73. ibid. SKS 4, 377 / CA, 73. SKS 4, 351–2 / CA, 46.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

33

dawning awareness of difference after the Fall, however, and he interprets this to mean that the transgression brought into the world not only sin but also “the sexual difference as a drive.”175 spirit only becomes “actual” when it posits itself as spirit, for the essence of spirit is its transcendent freedom—yet when it posits itself as the synthesis of psychical and physical it must “pervade” the synthesis “differentiatingly.” in positing itself, the spirit, and the human being as mind and body, become actual. in pervading the sensual part of its being, however, the individual posits the sexual. “the moment he becomes man,” the individual “becomes so by becoming animal as well.”176 although sexuality is not sinful originally, anxiety has become so conscious of the possibilities of sexual sin that sexuality has come to “signify” sinfulness for consciousness.177 likewise sensuousness is “constantly degraded”178 to mean sinfulness, and to the degree that woman is “more sensuous”179 she is more profoundly afflicted with anxiety. Finding her being (claims Vigilius) in the more bodily categories of beauty and childbirth, woman inhabits more exclusively the physical aspect of the synthesis—and this opens a “greater scope” for anxiety in the broader “cleft” between the elements of the synthesis.180 adam is rarely discussed in the third and fourth parts of the text, and i will draw back to assess whether this construction of adam follows the contours of creatio ex nihilo, felix culpa, and the Second Adam. To take the first, the difficulty in The Concept of Anxiety is not in locating the nihilo theme but in following its transformations. It first appears as the “nothing” of anxiety, the unactualized possibility that is anxiety’s object. For dreaming innocence this nothing is “projected” outside the self, but after the prohibition awakens “freedom’s possibility,” “the nothing has now entered into adam, and here again it is a nothing—the anxious possibility of being able.”181 the nothing of possibility has become the nothing of freedom, in which the spirit perceives that the projected possibilities emerge from the inward possibility, the being able of freedom. the metaphor of anxiety as “the dizziness of freedom” is instructive. one becomes dizzy not by standing over the abyss, but by letting the gaze fall downward into it; in the same way anxiety is not simply an existing in freedom, but an attending to one’s freedom in fear and fascination. note the spatial shift. in dreaming innocence, spirit perceived the nothing of possibility outside itself, yet now it gazes “down” into the well of freedom and sees no end, no ground. Then in the “weakness” and “selfish” concern of anxiety the individual “succumbs” and “lays hold of finiteness to support itself.” Unable to ground itself in its own being, and doubting the being that is given by the invisible god, spirit takes refuge in what is most tangible and ready to hand. although the individual should have looked beyond the objects to the one who gives them, and should have chosen

175 176 177 178 179 180 181

SKS 4, 380 / CA, 76. SKS 4, 354 / CA, 49. SKS 4, 371 / CA, 67. SKS 4, 363 / CA, 58. SKS 4, 370 / CA, 66. SKS 4, 368–9 / CA, 64–5. SKS 4, 350 / CA, 44.

34

Timothy Dalrymple

to rest in the being given by God, instead it posits itself in the finite and undertakes the manipulation of the finite that constitutes aesthetic existence.182 Adam’s relation to this “nothing” is clarified with attention to the terminological patterns in the works of the summer of 1844. Intethed is used repeatedly and powerfully in Philosophical Fragments183 and the upbuilding discourses of June and august,184 but is absent from The Concept of Anxiety. although it often would have been a more natural word-choice, and although Intet is exceedingly common in the text, Intethed does not appear a single time. vigilius also turns the language of nothing to a different purpose. while the discourses sometimes use Intethed to point to the self’s insignificance and unworthiness before God, they often use Intet to refer to incapability (the individual learns through striving and sufferings that it is “capable of nothing,” Intet formaaer), and therefore dependence upon the selfgiving god. Yet for vigilius Intet refers to capability (adam confronts “a nothing— the anxious possibility of being able,” et Intet, den ængstende Mulighed af at kunne) and freedom.185 There is at least an apparent conflict here: Is “nothing” a being-able or a being-unable? what is the relationship between the Intet of adam and the Intet and Intethed of the discourses? it seems to me that the answer is twofold. First, the nothing of freedom and the nothing of incapability refer to different stages in the self’s journey to itself. the early chapters of Anxiety speak of adam precisely because they are concerned with the early emergence of subjectivity, which occurs only as the individual perceives the nothing of possibility and freedom, but when the discourses speak of the nothing of incapability they refer to a later stage when freedom has found its horizon. Anxiety describes the beginning of the adamic project, the self’s attempt to be itself apart from god, while the discourses refer to the end of that project, when the self has come to the end of itself, and learned it cannot be itself apart from the self-giving god. in fact “nothing” in the latter sense is not entirely lacking in Anxiety. after vigilius has rendered the nothing of freedom in temporal terms—“anxiety is the moment,”186 he explains, and “the moment is non-being under the category of time”187—he proceeds to explain the Christian concept of non-being: greek philosophy and the modern alike maintain that everything turns on bringing nonbeing into being, for to do away with it or to make it vanish seems extremely easy. the Christian view takes the position that non-being is present everywhere as the nothing from which things were created, as semblance and vanity, as sin, as sensuousness

SKS 4, 365 / CA, 61. SKS 4, 221 / PF, 12. SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82. SKS 4, 282 / PF, 82. SKS 4, 284 / PF, 85. 184 see SKS 5, 247 / EUD, 248. SKS 5, 275 / EUD, 282. SKS 5, 298 / EUD, 305. SKS 5, 300 / EUD, 307. SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 325. 185 SKS 4, 350 / CA, 44–5. Compare with the use of Intet, e.g., in SKS 5, 300–4 / EUD, 307–12. see an excellent treatment in george pattison’s Agnosis, new York: palgrave Macmillan 1997, but it and other treatments of the theme in Kierkegaard would have benefited from attention to the differences of Intet, Intethed, and Ikke-Værende. 186 SKS 4, 385 / CA, 81. 187 SKS 4, 385 / CA, 82, note. 182 183

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

35

removed from spirit, as the temporal forgotten by the eternal; consequently, the task is to do away with it in order to bring forth being.188

this is important for our purposes because it associates the “non-being” (IkkeVærende) of “the moment” with the nothing (Intet) out of which things were created, thus explicitly rooting human freedom in the divine freedom of creatio ex nihilo. As Vigilius writes later, “Freedom is infinite and arises out of nothing.”189 it is also important because it aligns non-being and nothing with sin and the artifice or “semblance” of authentic being. vigilius explains that the Christian concept of the human task is “to bring forth being,” to renew a being that is true and free. this is the only way in which “the concept of the atonement” can be understood properly and originally, as an invasion of the ruined world of nonbeing and a re-creation of being from within. in other words, vigilius in his own way renders “nothing” not merely as a being able but also as a failure to be, for the effort to establish being apart from god leads only to the false being of “semblance” and “vanity.” sin, as vigilius writes later, is an “unwarranted actuality,” and the self that posits itself in sin posits itself as something other than what it is: a being dependent upon god.190 The second way to resolve the seeming conflict between the nothing of freedom and the nothing of incapability is to recognize the different concepts of freedom they employ. the narrative of the self’s journey to itself can be told in terms of the exercise, decomposition, and restoration of freedom—and when vigilius writes that “unfreedom makes itself a prisoner,”191 or that “unfreedom wills something” but “in fact it has lost its will,”192 it becomes clear that negative and positive senses of freedom are on the table. Kierkegaard knew these different senses in augustinian terms as liberum arbitrium or freedom of choice, nondetermination by external factors, and libertas or true freedom, the freedom to express and fulfill one’s fundamental identity and purposes.193 the former speaks of having many options, the latter of “the one thing needful,” the action consistent with one’s ownmost nature. For Kierkegaard as for augustine, adam in the garden possesses both negative and positive freedoms, but in the transgression he employs the freedom of choice to betray true freedom, and thus gives himself into the captivity of sin. the later self, after the chastening of the school of sufferings, perceives that its positive freedom has failed, that the self is not free to be itself by itself. then because it is “capable of nothing,” it “is

SKS 4, 385, note. / CA, 83, note. SKS 4, 414–15 / CA, 112. 190 SKS 4, 415 / CA, 113. 191 SKS 4, 425 / CA, 124. 192 SKS 4, 436 / CA, 135. 193 SKS 19, 68–9, not1:8. the Judge contrasts “liberum arbitrium” and “true positive freedom” in SKS 2, 169 / EO2, 174. See Timothy Jackson, “Arminian Edification: Kierkegaard on grace and Free will,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, pp. 235–256. Kierkegaard denies an abstract or indifferent liberum arbitrium (as in SKS 4, 355 / CA, 49 and SKS 4, 414 / CA, 112), not liberum arbitrium as freedom from constraint and a necessary condition for true freedom. 188 189

36

Timothy Dalrymple

nothing,” and its “nothingness” is partly its dependence on god for being, purpose, and redemption. the narrative of adam in genesis, then, the narrative of essential human experience, is permeated with nothing and nothingness. adam commences a journey that arcs from nothing to nothingness, a nothingness in which he can surrender the adamic project and receive in faith the being given him by god. Yet now we come to the felix culpa in the narrative. Between the nothing of freedom and the nothing of incapability are all the sufferings and anxieties of sin. this existence is characterized first by “unfreedom.” As Vigilius writes, “freedom was posited by the very fact that its misuse was posited,”194 and after the Fall unfreedom intensifies as the individual strives even harder to overcome itself by itself. thus vigilius analyzes the “bondage of sin” as an “unfree relation to the evil,” and the demonic as “an unfree relation to the good,”195 and delineates the psycho-somatic and pneumatic ways in which freedom is lost.196 Yet the condition after the Fall is also characterized by “untruth,” a loss of the “transparency” in which adam had enjoyed the garden. this is the decisive question of positive freedom: whether freedom will will the truth about itself. vigilius writes that “the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, will allow it to permeate his whole being, will accept all its consequences,” or instead will conceal or forget or flee from itself, seeking subterfuge in the crowd or in books or in diverting pleasure. in the depths of sin, “untruth is precisely unfreedom,” for the individual rejects the “disclosure” and “transparency” of authenticity.197 thus existence in sin, for Kierkegaard as for schelling, is characterized by unbeing, unfreedom, and untruth. according to the felix culpa principle, of course, the anxieties implied and precipitated in the Fall must be redeemed and made to serve the purposes of divine providence. Consistent with Kierkegaard’s comments on leibniz, vigilius does not construct a historical metanarrative to justify the sufferings of the fallen world, but examines specifically the existence of the single individual. “Every human life is religiously designed,” he declares.198 Yet how does the suffering of anxiety serve the unfolding of the human spirit? the answer is twofold, and again the response to leibniz is illuminating. note what Kierkegaard writes, that “even in sin man is greater, more fortunate,” and “even the split in man has more significance than immediate innocence.”199 although it is arguably implied, the redemption is not mentioned here, or used to justify universal history. rather Kierkegaard declares that “even in sin” humankind is better off, and “even the split” has more significance than innocence. So we can examine the benefits of anxiety in two categories: in sin and in ushering the individual toward faith. SKS 4, 362 / CA, 58. see SKS 4, 421 / CA, 119. in Philosophical Fragments, SKS 4, 224–6 / PF, 16–17, the individual “uses the power of freedom in the service of unfreedom” and “the power of unfreedom grows and makes him a slave of sin.” 196 SKS 4, 437ff. / CA, 136ff. 197 vigilius likens disclosure and transparency (important in The Sickness unto Death) in SKS 4, 428 / CA, 127, note 2. 198 SKS 4, 407 / CA, 105. 199 SKS 19, 392, not13:23 / JP 1, 41. 194 195

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

37

The first benefit of anxiety is in the emergence of selfhood. In the stirrings of anxiety “freedom’s possibility announces itself,” 200 and apart from anxiety there could be no leap from innocence to guilt, from dreaming innocence to the selfpositing spirit. in anxiety the spirit perceives its possibilities, and ultimately anxiety illuminates the subject’s transcendence and freedom, making spirit visible to itself. that is, the possibility of anxiety is a perfection of the human, and apart from this possibility it would not be human but animal. vigilius writes, “Because he is a synthesis, he can be in anxiety; and the more profoundly he is in anxiety, the greater is the man.”201 the mature individual is constantly aware of freedom’s possibility. apart from awakening the self to its possibilities and making it visible to itself as a free being, anxiety is also “educative” toward faith, and this is the second sense in which it functions according to the logic of the felix culpa. this is the subject of Chapter v, and as vigilius explains, “only he who passes through the anxiety of the possible is educated to have no anxiety.”202 the narratival and redemptive elements again are clear, as vigilius calls it “an adventure that every human being must go through—to learn to be anxious in order that he may not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”203 of course this is no simple matter, for once the individual has left innocence then anxiety becomes a “grand inquisitor” with “dreadful torments” in store.204 since the individual is still free to reject the truth, the instruction of anxiety may be rejected and the individual may move toward suicide. or the individual may learn in humility—for divine providence fills existence with purpose and hope—from the possibility that “wanted to teach him” and the anxiety that “wanted to save him.”205 then anxiety is a “serving spirit” that scours out everything worldly, that “consumes all finite ends and discovers their deceptiveness,”206 and that “hand[s] him over to faith.”207 as with the “pain” of doubt in “Every Good Gift,” the proper response to anxiety is not (first) to cease being anxious but to be anxious rightly, to let anxiety be absolutely educative through faith, revealing all the sins and misrelations within the self. then “when the individual through anxiety is educated unto faith, anxiety will eradicate precisely what it brings forth itself.”208 Finally, vigilius says little about the second adam or the new being which the self receives from god. on this subject “every good gift” is more forthcoming, and so one finds that the upbuilding discourse and the pseudonymous work are mutually illuminating, each articulating the portions of the narrative and the perspectives on its meaning for which it is most equipped. Yet vigilius does say that true freedom 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208

SKS 4, 378 / CA, 74. SKS 4, 454 / CA, 155. SKS 4, 456 / CA, 157. SKS 4, 456 / CA, 155. SKS 4, 455 / CA, 155. SKS 4, 457 / CA, 158. SKS 4, 454 / CA, 155. SKS 4, 457 / CA, 158. SKS 4, 458 / CA, 159.

38

Timothy Dalrymple

has a “content.” earlier it was said that the Christian task is to “bring forth being”;209 later vigilius depicts the “task” for freedom as one of “constantly bringing forth truth”210 and letting it “permeate his whole being.”211 Yet to will the self in truth is to will the downfall of the will, or freedom is only freedom when it surrenders the Adamic project of establishing the self independently of God and instead finding and receiving itself in and from god. Kierkegaard expresses this beautifully in a later journal entry: “the very truth of freedom of choice is: there must be no choice, even though there is a choice…if you want to rescue and keep [freedom], there is only one way—in the very same moment unconditionally in full attachment give it back to god and yourself along with it.”212 Yet it is also clear in The Concept of Anxiety that one who has graduated from “the school of possibility” has learned that “one can demand nothing in life and that the terrible, perdition, and annihilation live next door to every man.”213 the ultimate lesson anxiety teaches is to give up anxiety in faith’s rest—to “rest in providence”214 and “rest only in the atonement.”215 having departed from the innocence of the garden and having entered the untruth, unfreedom and nonbeing of sin, anxiety instructs the spirit in the futility of existence apart from god, and the anxiety of freedom is overcome only when freedom has found its ownmost possibility: to receive truth, freedom, and being from god. IV. Conclusion the name of adam, having appeared so often in the pseudonymous and signed works from the dissertation The Concept of Irony in 1841 to The Concept of Anxiety in 1844, afterward virtually disappears. the only other work in which it appears more than twice is Stages on Life’s Way, published in 1845. in all the other writings published or written for publication from 1845 to 1855, the name of adam appears only three times, in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits in 1847 and once in Christian Discourses in 1848. the journals show the same pattern. as the dialectic of the authorship unfolds and its focus turns from general forms of human existence to specifically Christian existence and its strife with the world, the figure of Adam fades from view. even The Sickness unto Death, a later “psychological” work that describes selfhood in terms consistent with The Concept of Anxiety, makes no mention of adam. perhaps in the later authorship, or in the more advanced pseudonymity of Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard felt less need to develop his analysis through specific biblical or historical individuals, as he had done with adam as well as abraham, Job, socrates, and Christ. or perhaps he had simply said all he had to say about adam.

209 210 211 212 213 214 215

SKS 4, 385, note / CA, 83, note. SKS 4, 439 / CA, 138 ibid. SKS 23, 64–6, nB15:93 / JP 2, 1261. SKS 4, 455 / CA, 156. SKS 4, 459 / CA, 161. SKS 4, 461 / CA, 162.

Adam and Eve: Human Being and Nothingness

39

One later comment clarifies the role of the serpent,216 but most of the later journal references merely turn adam’s attempt to hide himself in the garden into a metaphor for the tendency of individuals to conceal themselves in the finite and numerical in order to evade eternal responsibility and the recognition that one stands “outside of god.”217 Yet there is no evidence that Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the eden narrative ever changed substantially or in a manner he felt compelled to explain. Yet a clear image has emerged of the story of Adam and its significance in the early authorship. to review, the eden narrative includes at least four story threads. the naming of the animals is frequently referenced in the early journals, but rarely elsewhere, and is taken to represent a lucid, untroubled relation with god prior to the intervention of sin. the fashioning of eve from adam shows woman’s nature as “derived” from man, and points to the greater senses of sensuousness and anxiety among women. Yet Kierkegaard’s accomplishment is found in the way he interweaves the creation story with the story of the Fall. even in the early references a narrative begins to emerge in which three theological imperatives—creatio ex nihilo, felix culpa, and the second adam—describe the life of adam and of every individual in every generation. Yet Kierkegaard’s commentary on adam culminates in the six-month period from december 1843 to June 1844, when “every good gift” and The Concept of Anxiety present a coherent and mutually-enriching portrait of the conditions and the narrative of human existence. the journey of the self becoming itself is a journey from nothing to nothingness, from the nothing out of which all things are created, to the perception in dreaming innocence of the nothing of possibility and freedom, then (through the qualitative leap) into sin and the sufferings of sin, gradually (through humility) to the self’s comprehension of its own nothingness apart from god, and finally (through faith) to restoration and re-creation. The Schellingian influence is clear, and yet Kierkegaard goes further in the alignment of being with truth and freedom. after the self freely betrays its freedom and rejects the transparency of its previous relation to god and the world, it undertakes the adamic project of striving to be itself apart from god—and fails—and thus gives itself over to unfreedom, untruth, and nonbeing. Yet the sufferings of anxiety are “through faith absolutely educative.” the self that learns from its sufferings and surrenders itself will rest in the atonement and receive its freedom, truth, and being from the self-giving god. Finally, this inquiry began with the question of why Kierkegaard, resident in an intellectual culture that had begun to grow critical of the history and coherence of the biblical texts, and the genesis stories in particular, should exposit the human condition through commentary on the eden narrative. Kierkegaard shows no interest in source-critical problems or in the historical facticity of adam’s transgression. the truth of the story is found in the way it renders fundamental human experience transparent, an experience that is defined not by abstract distinctions or systematic SKS 22, 238, nB12:154 / JP 1, 102. Quoted is SKS 24, 287, nB: 23:169 / JP 3, 3642; see also Pap. vii–1 B 158, 3 / JP 2, 1996. SKS 26, 339–40, nB34:28 / JP 3, 3001; reflecting on concealment less directly are SKS 26, 26, nB31:34 / JP 1, 698, and SKS 22, 378, nB14:57 / JP 4, 4549. adam also illustrates concealment in SKS 8, 228 / UD, 128, and SKS 10, 182 / CD, 170.

216 217

40

Timothy Dalrymple

categories but by a narrative of tensions, conflicts, and transformations. Kierkegaard interpreted adam not merely for epistemological and psychological concerns, but also to construct a theodicy in his own distinctive sense. as he explained in his affirmation of Leibniz, the problem of freedom and evil is the fundamental existential problem. as he explained in his disagreement with leibniz, it is best approached not through a scheme of cosmic justification but through careful attention to individual subjectivity. For every individual in sin the world is “split,” and sufferings flow through the breach—but through this split the self awakens to itself, and through these sufferings the humble self can learn the nothingness in which faith becomes possible. this is the promise of the felix culpa, that god is always creating, and out of nothingness will create again.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Adam and Eve adler, adolph peter, Forsøg til en kort systematisk Fremstilling af Christendommen i dens Logik, Copenhagen: louis Klein 1846, pp. 5–13; pp. 27–8; p. 47 (ASKB u 13). Baader, Franz, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, stuttgart und tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1828 [vols. 2–5, münster: theissing 1830–38], vol. 1, pp. 105ff. (ASKB 396). Bauer, Bruno, “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 3, no. 1, 1837, pp. 125–210 (ASKB 354–357). erdmann, Johann eduard, “Über den Begriff des sündenfalls und des Bösen. ein versuch,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 2, no. 2, 1837, pp. 192–214 (ASKB 354–357). günther, anton, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte spekulativer Theologie. Fragment eines evangelischen Briefwechsels, vienna: wallishausser 1834, pp. 114ff. (ASKB 520). müller, Julius, Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Breslau: Josef max 1849, vol. 2, pp. 410–85 (ASKB 698–690). rosenkranz, Karl, “eine parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836– 38, vol. 2, no. 1, 1837, pp. 1–31 (ASKB 354–357). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, pp. 138–64 (ASKB 80). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Adam and Eve axt-piscalar, Christine, “Julius müller: parallels in the doctrines of sin and Freedom in Kierkegaard and müller,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 143–59. —— Ohnmächtige Freiheit. Studien zum Verhältnis von Subjektivität und Sünde bei August Tholuck, Julius Müller, Sören Kierkegaard und Friedrich Schleiermacher, tübingen: J.C.B. mohr (p. siebeck) 1996, pp. 26–173.

42

Timothy Dalrymple

Barrett, lee, “Kierkegaard’s anxiety and the augustinian doctrine of original sin,” in The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 8), pp. 35–61. Beabout, gregory, Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair, milwaukee, wisconsin: marquette university press 1996, pp. 35–71. Come, arnold, Kierkegard as Theologian: Recovering My Self, mcgill-Queen’s university press: montreal and Kingston 1997, pp. 118–20; pp. 155–9; pp. 167– 8; p. 190; pp. 182–283; p. 292. Ferreira, m. Jamie, Kierkegaard, malden, massachusetts: wiley-Blackwell 2008, pp. 81–5. gouwens, david, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1996, p. 82. green, ronald m., “the limits of the ethical in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety and Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone,” in The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 8), pp. 63–87. grøn, arne, The Concept of Anxiety in Søren Kierkegaard, trans. by Jeanette B.l. Knox, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2008. holm, isak winkel, “angst: adam,” in his Tanken i billedet. Søren Kierkegaards poetik, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1998, pp. 277–304. Jackson, Timothy, “Arminian Edification: Kierkegaard on Grace and Free Will,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by gordon d. marino and alastair hannay, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, pp. 235–56. James, david, and douglas moggach, “Bruno Bauer: Biblical narrative, Freedom and anxiety,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 1–21. mcCarthy, vincent a., “schelling and Kierkegaard on Freedom and Fall,” in The Concept of Anxiety, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1985 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 8), pp. 89–109. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 183; p. 186. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, pp. 80–6. russell, stanley h., “two nineteenth Century theologies of sin—Julius müller and søren Kierkegaard,” Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 40, 1987, pp. 231–48.

abraham: Framing Fear and Trembling timothy dalrymple

although søren Kierkegaard stands among the most creative and idiosyncratic of modern thinkers, he nonetheless occupies a particular location in the intellectual discourse of modernity. recent decades of Kierkegaard scholarship have returned him to Golden Age Copenhagen by exhibiting the finer grains of the world in which he lived and the richer textures of his literary life and influences in nineteenth-century denmark. although Kierkegaard’s works are sui generis, they were not created ex nihilo. if it were ever possible to envision him in a timeless intellectual space, with reference only perhaps to Hegel, this was not because Kierkegaard had few influences, but because he made use of so many that he was fully beholden to none. indeed the array of influences seems especially broad in Kierkegaard’s case, from literature to philosophy and theology, from the Congregation of Brethren to the university of Copenhagen, from churches to theaters and cafés, from late moderns like hegel and schelling to early moderns like pascal and descartes, and from medieval mystical theologians and early church fathers to pietists and reformers. Kierkegaard cast wide the net of an expansive intellect and drew together and reassembled whatever he found useful. The Bible is indisputably Kierkegaard’s principal literary influence, yet its influence is always also more than merely literary. For one trained in dogmatics, exegesis, and homiletics, the Bible is a library unto itself, a collection of authors and books that ground and qualify and interpret one another, and is also a world to be inhabited, a collection of characters and narratives, symbols and ideas within which one interprets one’s experience. thus when Kierkegaard prays to the persons of the trinity in 1839, his language is saturated with scripture. to the holy spirit he prays, “may you too intercede for me with unspeakable sighs, pray for me as abraham prayed for corrupt sodom, if there is just one pure thought, one better feeling in me…you, noble holy spirit, who bring to new birth those who have grown old, renew me too and create a new heart within me.”1 the delicate interweaving of scriptures does not mean the sentiment is fabricated. For one raised in a devoutly Christian home, who spent countless hours in churches and theological lecture halls,

SKS 18, 56, ee:161 / KJN 2, 51, dated august 18, 1839; see rom 8:26, gen 18:23– 33, Jn 3:4, and ps 51:10. since this article traces the evolution of Kierkegaard’s thought on abraham, it will note composition dates when possible. 1

44

Timothy Dalrymple

it is only natural that the deeper exhalations of the soul should be expressed through scriptural symbols. what Kierkegaard believed viscerally, he spoke biblically. None of the biblical figures in the Kierkegaard corpus is depicted more vividly than abraham in Fear and Trembling in 1843. the question governing this inquiry is: what did abraham mean for Kierkegaard? it presents an opportunity and a challenge. Kierkegaard famously predicted in 1849 that Fear and Trembling would assure him an “imperishable name as an author,” and indeed it may be the most widely read and renowned of Kierkegaard’s works, and its account of abraham’s exemplary faith has influenced major philosophical and theological movements.2 if we would get right what Kierkegaard means by faith, then we should get right what he means by abraham in Fear and Trembling—and if we would understand abraham in Fear and Trembling, we should understand what abraham means to Kierkegaard over the course of his life. thus the intention of this article is to place the abraham of Fear and Trembling in a broader and more clarifying frame by telling the story of Kierkegaard’s lifelong engagement with abraham and his attempt to understand through him the nature and perseverance of faith in suffering and trial. Yet since the frame could extend far in every direction—exegetical, historical, biographical, literary—it does not pretend to offer an exhaustive account, but follows in a generally chronological manner the texts which refer to abraham and their contexts in Kierkegaard’s life and in the intellectual cultures of nineteenth-century denmark and germany. it assumes a basic familiarity with Fear and Trembling and the abraham narrative in genesis 11–25, and makes no attempt to chart the vast landscape of secondary literature on Fear and Trembling or take positions in its disputed territories. Each of the following sections addresses a question. First, (I) Can one find a “prologue” to Fear and Trembling in Kierkegaard’s earlier writings? The first section (i. a) examines the sporadic references to abraham in the journals and papers from Kierkegaard’s student years, and finds in them the exegetical groundwork for later interpretations. it also (i. B) measures the distance, and considers how it might be traversed, from the rather mundane view of abraham in a sermon draft in 1840–41 to the strikingly original account in Fear and Trembling in 1843. then, (ii) how might the given “prologue” inform the reading of Fear and Trembling? the second section shows how relatively neglected elements in the text come to the fore, such as suffering, providence, and the love of god. Finally, (iii) how does Kierkegaard view abraham in later years, or why does he contemplate a “new Fear and trembling”? the third section shows that as Kierkegaard grew increasingly critical of modern Christendom he drew a sharper distinction between the suffering exemplified in abraham and authentically Christian suffering.

2

SKS 22, 235, nB12:147 / JP 6, 6491. see the “historical introduction,” FT, p. xxxiv.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

45

I. A Prologue to Abraham A. Approaching Abraham (1833–40)3 Kierkegaard commenced his education at the university of Copenhagen on october 30, 1830, and passed his examinations given by the theological Faculty on July 3, 1840. the references to abraham in this period encompass the breadth of the Abraham narrative; they reflect on Abraham and the ‫[ עקדה‬akedah] through the exegetical lens of the new testament; and they establish two oppositions that will frame the interpretation of abraham in Fear and Trembling and beyond: Christianity and philosophy, and Christianity and Judaism. The fleeting and often cryptic references to Abraham in the early papers give no indication that Kierkegaard had narrowed his attention to the binding of isaac (the Hebrew is ‫[ עקדת יצחק‬akedah or akedat Yitzchak], “binding” or “binding of isaac”).4 they refer to numerous stages in the abraham narrative: genesis 12, where abraham (then called abram) presents his wife as his sister,5 the rescue of lot in genesis 14,6 the intercession for sodom in genesis 18,7 and abraham’s death in genesis 25.8 in the famed “conversion” entry from 1838, Kierkegaard refers to the “land of mamre,” where abraham settled in genesis 13–14, where he was promised isaac in the theophany of genesis 18, and near which he and sarah were buried in genesis 23 and 25.9 in fact, what is noteworthy here is the scarcity of references to the binding of isaac amid references to so many other parts of the abraham cycle. prior to 1839, the only references to the akedah are found in translation exercises. The most potent influence on Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Abraham is the commentary in the new testament. of the four biblical passages most important for our purposes (three on abraham, one on “fear and trembling”), each is referenced prior to this, Kierkegaard was responsible for genesis in his hebrew exam at the Borgerdyd school in 1830. his university courses examined genesis and other parts of the old testament, and of course Kierkegaard would have heard numerous sermons and lessons on the tales of genesis and their interpretation in the new testament. 4 The word ‫“( עקדה‬binding”) is drawn from the verb in 22:9, and is first used to refer to the isaac episode in rabbinic literature in the third or fourth century ad. on ancient interpretations, see the extensive bibliographical notes in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Sacrifice of isaac in Qumran literature,” Biblica, vol. 83, 2002, pp. 211–29. 5 SKS 18, 38, ee:102.a / KJN 2, 34, written on July 3, 1839, when Kierkegaard was preparing for his theological examinations, which included old testament exegesis. see the “Critical account of the text” in KJN 2, 358–62. 6 Pap. ii a 790 / JP 3, 3269. this entry dates from 1838. 7 SKS 18, 56, ee:161 / KJN 2, 51, dated august 16, 1839. see gen 18:23–33. 8 SKS 19, 25, not1:6 refers (without commentary) to abraham’s death in gen 25:8, in a discussion of the Jewish view of the afterlife in the lectures of henrik nicolai Clausen (1793–1877) on dogmatics in 1833. 9 SKS 17, 254–5, dd:113 / KJN 1, 245–6. see gen 13:18, 14:13, 18:1–33, 23:19, and 25:9. as noted in SKS, the danish Bible (Biblia, det er: den Ganske Hellige Skrifts Bøger, Copenhagen: Kongelige vaisenhuses Forlag 1830 (ASKB 7)) refers to Mamre Lund in gen 13 and 18. mamre was known for its oaks, or terebinths, associated with theophanies (gen 12:6–7; Judg 6:11) and later with idolatrous rites (isa 1:29, 57:5; ezek 6:13; hos 4:13). 3

46

Timothy Dalrymple

in the early journals and papers, and will be examined presently as the scriptural backcloth of Kierkegaard’s later account. First is the pauline argument in romans 4. righteousness is required for salvation, according to paul, and yet none are righteous through their own works. instead a “righteousness of god through faith” is revealed in Christ, and “attested by the law and the prophets.”10 since genesis says “abraham believed god, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” paul takes abraham as an exemplar of the righteousness that is by faith.11 as paul writes in romans 4: 17–21, abraham believed in a god: who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations”…he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of sarah’s womb. no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of god, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to god, being fully convinced that god was able to do what he had promised.

Reflecting on this in 1839, Kierkegaard writes that “some have been surprised” that paul would illustrate the faith of abraham not with reference to “the willingness to sacrifice Isaac” but to his belief in the promise of divine provision, which would have seemed impossible.12 however, he continues that “it seems to me to be altogether in keeping with the pauline spirit as a whole and with the syllogistic force of this passage to take the example of sarah’s barrenness.”13 in the akedah abraham was bidden to act, but in the case of the provision of a son “everything was indeed left to god.”14 god alone could bring new life into being in the barrenness of sarah’s womb. still, in the dialectical language of a god who “gives life to the dead” and “calls into existence the things that do not exist,” the exegetical groundwork is being laid for the paradoxical form of abrahamic faith in Fear and Trembling, a faith which likewise will depend on divine provision. In Hebrews 11 this paradoxical language is directed specifically to the akedah. hebrews was among the books of the Bible Kierkegaard translated from greek into

rom 3:21–2. Bible quotations from Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha, new York and oxford: oxford university press 1989. 11 gen 15:6. 12 SKS 18, 121, gg:6 / KJN 2, 113. 13 ibid. later, in the winter semester of 1839–40, Kierkegaard attended the lectures of C.e. scharling on romans, and took extensive notes in latin on Friedrich august tholuck’s (1799–1877) interpretation of the later chapters of romans (SKS 18, 361–71, KK:7 / KJN 2, 330–9), from Friedrich august tholuck, Auslegung des Briefes Pauli an die Römer nebst Auszügen aus den exegetischen Schriften der Kirchenväter und Reformatoren, 3rd revised ed., Berlin: Ferdinand dümmler 1831 [1824] (ASKB 102). see the “Critical account of the text” for KK, KJN 2, 588–90. 14 SKS 18, 121, gg:6 / KJN 2, 113. 10

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

47

latin in 1833–36,15 and abraham is found in various locations within them.16 many terms and emphases that will later appear in Kierkegaard’s writings derive from hebrews 11:8–19:17 By faith abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land…By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and sarah herself was barren— because he considered him faithful who had promised. therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born....By faith abraham, when put to the test, offered up isaac. he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, “it is through isaac that descendants shall be named after you.” he considered the fact that god is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

this applies the paradoxes of abraham’s faith (that he believed god would bring new life from one “as good as dead”) to the akedah—and finds that Abraham must have believed that god would ultimately restore the child of promise, even if this required resurrection. it is nowhere stated in genesis 22, or indeed anywhere else in the Bible that Abraham undertook to sacrifice Isaac with the trust that God could raise him from the dead. Fear and Trembling derives this view, and much of the “eulogy on abraham,” from hebrews 11.18 Kierkegaard translated acts, philippians, Colossians, 1–2 thessalonians and 1–2 timothy, titus, philemon, hebrews, and James 1:1–4:15 from g.C. Knapp’s Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ: Novum Testamentum Graece, vols. 1–2, halle: orphanotroph 1829 (ASKB 14–15), with reference to the vulgate and Bretschneider’s Lexicon manuale graeco-latinum in libros novi Testamenti, vols. 1–2, 2nd ed., leipzig: Barth 1829 [1824] (ASKB 73–74). the translation of hebrews may be from the winter semester of 1835–36, when a review of hebrews was offered by e.v. Kolthoff. see “søren Kierkegaard and his latin translations of the new testament” in KJN 1, 435–41, and Kalle sorainen, “einige Beobachtungen im Bezug auf die lateinischen Übersetzungen søren Kierkegaards aus dem griechischen neuen testament,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9, 1974, pp. 56–74. 16 in the translated books and epistles, abraham appears in acts 3:13 and 3:25 (SKS 17, 148–9, CC:1 / KJN 1, 142–3), heb 6:13–15, 7:1–10, and 11:8–22 (SKS 17, 185–6, CC:10 / KJN 1, 177–8, and SKS 17, 191, CC:10 / KJN 1, 182), and Jas 2:18–24 (SKS 17, 195–6, CC:11 / KJN 1, 186). “descendants of abraham” should appear in heb 2:16 but is replaced with “descendants of david” (semen Davidis). the latter phrase is found in 1 Kings 11:39 and Jer 33:22, but to my knowledge it is not a textual variant for heb 2:16. the Knapp greek edition uses spermatos Abraam. if a mistake of Kierkegaard’s, it may have been occasioned by the use of the Psalms (many ascribed to David) in the first and second chapters of Hebrews, or the reference in heb 1:5 to the covenant with david in 2 sam 7:14. 17 in addition to CC:10, Kierkegaard refers in 1839 to heb 11:11–12 in SKS 18, 45, ee:121 / KJN 2, 41, where he states that he, “in the same situation as sarah,” is “as good as dead” and “past the proper age” for examinations. the term “as good as dead” actually refers to abraham, not sarah, in rom 4:19 and heb 11:12. 18 SKS 4, 113–8 / FT, 17–22. the eulogy employs the hebrews formula (“By faith abraham…”), describes abraham’s departure from his ancestral land to live as a foreigner, and refers to his faith in the promise of progeny and the power of god to return isaac. see 15

48

Timothy Dalrymple

the third and fourth passages advance a starkly different argument. as a student, Kierkegaard translated James 1:1–4:15—and though its discussion of abraham is rarely cited by scholars, it constructs one of the most powerful tensions in Fear and Trembling.19 the pauline argument is inverted; in James 2:20–24 abraham is the exemplar not because of faith alone, but because his faith was “brought to completion” in the “work” of sacrificing Isaac: do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of god. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

when abraham’s faith was reckoned as righteousness in genesis 15:6, according to James, it was implicit that his faith would be completed in works like the offering of isaac. without the “work” of the akedah abraham would not have been “called the friend of God” or “justified.” A similar tension is found in Paul, though not in reference to abraham. philippians 2:12–13, frequently referenced in these years, is the source for the title of Fear and Trembling:20 “therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me…work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is god who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” the imprisoned paul charges the people of the congregation at philippi to work out their salvation with fearful reverence—and yet to trust that the true, inner work is done by god. in the same way in Fear and Trembling abraham sets out at once for Mount Moriah and yet believes in God’s impossible deliverance. The sacrifice will be Abraham’s, and the sacrifice will be God’s. Thus Kierkegaard prays in 1838: “Keep us vigilant at working out our salvation in fear and trembling. But also—when the law speaks loudest…when it thunders from sinai—o! let there also be a soft voice, which whispers to us that we are your children, so that we may cry out with joy: abba, Father.”21 From romans and hebrews Kierkegaard inherited the paradoxical terms of life and death, being and non-being, and from James and philippians the theological tensions of faith and works, obedient action and trust in divine provision. since Kierkegaard was so well-versed in the texts of the new testament, it is not surprising James swetnam, Jesus and Isaac: A Study of the Epistle to the Hebrews in Light of the Aqedah, Chicago: loyola press 1981. 19 SKS 17, 195–6, CC:11 / KJN 1, 186. Kierkegaard often interpreted the epistle of James in his discourses and other writings. he called James his “favorite text” in 1851 (SKS 24, 365, nB24:74 / JP 6, 6769), and in 1855 he described James 1:17–21 as his “first love” and his “only love” (Pap. Xi–3 B 291, 4 / JP 6, 6965). 20 SKS 18, 14, ee:25 / KJN 2, 9, takes “fear and trembling” from phil 2:12. other early references: Pap. i a 174 / JP 1, 420; SKS 17, 273, dd:185 / KJN 1, 264. SKS 18, 23, ee:50 / KJN 2, 19. SKS 18, 53, ee:150 / KJN 2, 48. 21 SKS 17, 273, dd:185 / KJN 1, 264, dated december 28, 1838; rom 8:15. the “thunder” likely refers (as noted in the KJN) to the revelation of god atop mount sinai (e.g., ex 19:16), but i would suggest that the “whisper” alludes to the revelation to elijah atop mount horeb (another name for mount sinai) in 1 Kings 19:12.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

49

that his later account of the akedah should reflect the internal conflicts and contours of interpretation laid down by the first generation of Christian writers and exegetes. Finally, two other early references to abraham should be noted for the tendencies of interpretation that they display. in 1838 he quotes a Jewish curse on a man who raises pigs and teaches his son greek wisdom: Maledictus qui porcum alit et filium suum docet sapientiam græcam.22 (“he is an accursed man who raises a hog and teaches his own son greek wisdom.”) likewise, “Christianity does not want to negotiate with philosophy,” since it “does not want to have the King of sodom say: i have made abraham rich.”23 it is a terse, enigmatic entry. the Jewish curse derives from a civil war in ancient israel in the hasmonean dynasty several generations before Christ. Besieged Jews inside Jerusalem had arranged with those outside the city for animals to be sent over the wall for use in the Temple sacrifices. Then an elder on the outside suggested that the besieged would never surrender until they could no longer carry out the rites; the next time the basket was lowered over the wall, a pig was placed inside it instead.24 the reference to abraham is from genesis 14, in which abraham achieves a military triumph over men who had taken the belongings of the king of sodom. abraham refuses to keep the plunder for himself, lest the credit for his flourishing be accorded to the king rather than to God. There is a threefold parallel, then, between the two parts of the curse, abraham and the king of sodom, and Christianity and philosophy—and what they hold in common is a straining of terms in opposite directions. how Kierkegaard understood the curse is unclear, but his rendering of the latin suggests that it is the conjunction of the terms that is found objectionable,25 the attempted “negotiation” binding them together. Pap. ii a 790 / JP 3, 3269. ibid. 24 ibid.; gen 14:23. it is not clear from where Kierkegaard learned of the curse. the civil war arose between the sons of alexander Jannaeus, aristobulus ii and hyrcanus ii, when their mother left the kingdom to hyrcanus in 67 bc. the story is found in the Babylonian talmud, sotah 49b, with parallels in the palestinian talmud, Berakhot 4:1 (7b), the Babylonian Bava Kamma 82b, and Josephus’ Antiquities Xiv.2.2. see richard lee Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity, new York: routledge 1999, pp. 64–5. 25 the curse could be taken to apply to the man who raises pigs and teaches his son greek wisdom, or to the man who raises pigs and also to the man who teaches greek wisdom. Kierkegaard renders the latin in the conjunctive sense. i have not found this rendering elsewhere, and others suggest the disjunctive. h.F. pfannkuche produces the curse as Maledictus sit, qui porcos alit, maledictus, qui filium suum docet sapientiam graecam (“Cursed be he who raises pigs; cursed be he who teaches his son greek wisdom”), in “Über die palästin. landessprache im zeitalter Christi,” in J.g. eichhorn, Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Literatur, vols. 1–10, leipzig: weidmann 1787–1801, vol. 8, p. 385. (english translation, The Biblical Repository, ed. by edward robinson, andover: Codman press 1831, vol. 1, p. 348.) h.h. milman has Maledictus est, qui alit porcos, et qui docet filium suum sapientiam Graecam (“he is cursed who raises pigs and who teaches his son greek wisdom”), which is not clearly conjunctive or disjunctive, in The Character and Conduct of the Apostles Considered as an Evidence of Christianity, oxford: oxford university press 1827, p. 192. Kierkegaard may have rendered the curse in the way that best suited his purposes; he was no novice in latin. see “søren Kierkegaard and his latin translations of the new testament” in KJN 1, 435–41. 22 23

50

Timothy Dalrymple

likewise Christianity will incur no debt to philosophy lest its glory be diminished because it rests on a strength outside itself. what is important for our purposes is that this entry represents the first time that Kierkegaard construes Abraham according to the opposition of Christianity and philosophy. in Fear and Trembling, Johannes de silentio uses similar contractual metaphors when he envisions “theology sit[ting] all rouged and powdered in the window and courts its favor, offering its charms to philosophy.”26 philosophy “cannot and must not give faith,” but must “know what it offers and take nothing away, least of all trick men out of something by pretending that it is nothing.”27 One finds in Journal EE the beginnings of another approach, interpreting abraham according to the opposition of Judaism and Christianity. Kierkegaard often comments in 1839 on the distinctions between the two. he writes, for instance, that it is “like a motto for Judaism” that god “made a firmament to separate the waters of heaven and earth,” since Judaism constructs a “firm” division between god and humankind.28 In the next entry he differentiates the sacrifices of Abraham and God: “And he who spared Abraham’s firstborn, and only tested the patriarch’s faith, he did not spare his only begotten son.”29 the distinction between Judaism and Christianity is implicit, but it is interesting that abraham is not contrasted to a Christian but to the Christian vision of God. in other words, Kierkegaard does not suggest now that the Christian should go beyond Abraham to imitate the sacrifice of god. this will be Kierkegaard’s later view. “this is the relationship between Judaism and Christianity,” he writes in 1853, adding that in Judaism “it is only a test [en Prøvelse] and abraham keeps isaac,” and “the whole episode remains essentially within this life,” while in Christianity “Isaac is actually sacrificed—but then [there is] eternity.”30 abraham will be used later to dichotomize Jewish and Christian views of suffering faith, then, but in the early papers there is only a hint that he might be understood in the Jewish–Christian division. in summary, in the years preceding his theological examinations the references to abraham in Kierkegaard’s journals and papers are scattered and aphoristic, but not without worth. the exegetical groundwork is laid through an engagement with the whole abraham narrative in genesis and the principal commentaries on it in the new testament. the early references also show the beginnings of two oppositions that will frame Abraham in the later writings. The first opposition, between faith and philosophy, will characterize Kierkegaard’s view of abraham in Fear and Trembling; the second, between the Jewish “test” and the Christian “actual sacrifice,” will characterize the view of Abraham in Kierkegaard’s final years.

26 27 28 29 30

SKS 4, 128–9 / FT, 32–3. ibid. SKS 18, 62, ee:183 / KJN 2, 57. SKS 18, 62, ee:184 / KJN 2, 57, 1839; rom 8:32. SKS 25, 248–9, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

51

B. Approaching the Akedah (1840–43) now we confront a mystery in the story of Kierkegaard’s engagement with abraham. there is no established trajectory emerging from the early references that would allow one to calculate that Kierkegaard’s writing would lead to a major interpretation of the akedah. when at last he does treat it in a draft sermon from 1840–41, in spite of certain commonalities, it is dramatically different conceptually from what will follow in 1843. why are these accounts of the akedah, written so close together, so different? how did Kierkegaard get from the earlier to the later text? Were there new circumstances, insights, or influences on his thought? The first part of this section examines the draft sermon and its formal, conceptual, and thematic continuities and discontinuities with Fear and Trembling, thus measuring the distance Kierkegaard will have to cross in a brief span of time. then it will consider three ways of traversing the distance: a psychological-biographical appeal to Kierkegaard’s changing relationship with regine olsen, a textual-thematic appeal to the development of particular themes in the texts of 1841–43, and an intellectualhistorical appeal to the Danish and German influences upon Kierkegaard. Measuring the distance. having completed his theological examinations, Kierkegaard received homiletical training at the royal pastoral seminary from november 1840 to september 1841, a period in which he also wrote and defended his dissertation on irony and broke his engagement to Regine Olsen. The first extended reflection on the binding of Isaac is found in a sermon draft from this period,31 and it is not insignificant that Kierkegaard’s first interpretation of the akedah is found in a sermon in the midst of his conflicted engagement. The formal similarities between the two accounts might suggest that the sermon draft presents Fear and Trembling in embryo. the draft draws the hearer into a pathos of impassioned encounter (“we are too lukewarm to really feel with abraham, to suffer with him”) and recounts the story as narrative, transporting the hearer to ancient israel to witness the unfolding events. phrases that will resound rhythmically in the lyric of Johannes de silentio are also heard here: abraham arose “early in the morning” to go to mount moriah, where he “split the firewood,” “lit the fire,” and “drew the knife.”32 portions of the draft appear, mutatis mutandis, in Fear and Trembling, the same terms of “tempting” and 31 the sermon drafts of 1840–41 constitute an excellent but underutilized resource in english-language Kierkegaard scholarship, in my view, partly because the hong translations dispersed them across thematically-ordered volumes. the publication of the KJN may help to open the window onto what Kierkegaard in this critical period of his life wrote on biblical and theological themes. since Kierkegaard wrote his dissertation over the summer, the editors of SKS believe the sermon drafts in Journal HH were written in the winter semester; see “Critical account of the text,” KJN 2, 439–42. For other drafts from this period, see SKS 18, 64–9, ee:190–94 / KJN 2, 59–63, and SKS 19, 175–88, not5:1–30. 32 SKS 2, 129–30, hh: 8 / KJN 2, 121–2. these phrases are striking when repeated in the exordium’s variations, but they also appear elsewhere (SKS 4, 117 / FT, 20). though drawn from different parts of the narrative (gen 22:3, 9–10), they are assembled in the journal (“and he split the firewood and he bound Isaac and he lit the fire and he drew the knife”) as in Fear and Trembling (SKS 4, 117 / FT, 21: “He split the firewood, he bound Isaac, he lit the fire, he drew the knife”).

52

Timothy Dalrymple

“testing” (Fristelser and Prøvelser) are employed, and both texts imagine variations of the story in which abraham diverges from faith’s narrow way.33 a careful examination of the two akedah accounts, however, reveals a more complicated picture. the draft may be an example of an early stage in Kierkegaard’s reflection on the story, but it is far from Fear and Trembling. First, the formal likeness is not complete. the language of the draft is less like that of Johannes than that of the upbuilding discourses, with the use of the first-person plural and appeals to “my listener.” the sermon does not use the subterfuge of pseudonymity, of course, and so there is no disavowal of authority or understanding. when Kierkegaard returns to the subject a few years later he does so with a dramatically different authorial apparatus. more decisively, the characteristic conceptual elements of Fear and Trembling are absent. in Johannes’ hands, the akedah is a prism diffracting the ethical and religious, the universal and absolute, and the complacent rationality of the hegelian system and the striving passion of faith. the akedah in the sermon draft is not embedded in dialectical oppositions—and apart from these oppositions there can be no paradox in which abraham transcends the ethical, universal, and rational. indeed, what Johannes perceives as the heart of the paradox is missing from the sermon draft: that abraham believed in the restoration of isaac, in the impossible possibility of god, hope beyond hopelessness, life beyond death.34 so it is not merely that the distinctive terms are absent from the sermon draft; the fundamental concepts that give those terms meaning are not in place. without the belief in the restoration, and without the chasm of oppositions underneath the narrative, there can be no leap of faith, no teleological suspension of the ethical, and no belief “by virtue of the absurd” that what is sacrificed will be restored. the continuities and discontinuities are illustrated by the differences in the imagined variations on the story. while both texts imagine how retellings of the tale would alter the meaning of abrahamic faith, they illustrate different concepts of faith. In the later view, “Abraham was great not because he sacrificed Isaac but because he had faith.”35 thus in each variation in the exordium, abraham “does it, but not in faith.”36 in the variations in the draft sermon, abraham never makes it to the altar to raise the knife.37 that is, Johannes emphasizes the trust of abraham that in the draft Kierkegaard invites the hearer to “imagine” if abraham had anxiously searched for the ram before it was revealed (SKS 2, 130, hh: 8 / KJN 2, 121–2), or if abraham had asked god to leave him and let him “enjoy the consolation of my old age” (SKS 2, 130, hh:9 / KJN 2, 122). although they use the same literary technique of exploring variations of the story, neither one finds a parallel in the four imaginary constructions in the Exordium. 34 when one reads that abraham knew “that nothing was too great for god,” one could see this as abraham’s faith that god would return isaac. in context, the meaning is not that nothing is impossible for God, but that nothing, not even “the weightiest sacrifice,” is too valuable to be sacrificed for God (SKS 18, 129, hh:8 / KJN 2, 121). 35 Pap. iv B 73 / FT, supplement, p. 249. 36 ibid. 37 In the first variation Abraham desperately searches for a ram, and in the second (SKS 18, 130, hh:9 / KJN 2, 122) he argues with god to rescind the requirement. a trace of the second is in Fear and Trembling, as Abraham “did not pray for himself, trying to influence the lord” (SKS 4, 117 / FT, 21); see also Pap. iv B 87:1 / FT, supplement, p. 249. 33

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

53

isaac would be restored, while the sermon emphasizes abraham’s “willingness to face trials,” his “prepared[ness] to make any sacrifice whatsoever for God.”38 For Johannes, the willingness to sacrifice is a movement of resignation, and not faith, unless abraham makes the second movement of believing that isaac will be restored. the sermon may describe resignation, but the second movement is not clearly made or even conceptualized.39 on the thematic level, the relationship between the sermon draft and Fear and Trembling grows still more complicated. Certainly there are marked differences; the themes of ethics and rationality, for instance, are entirely absent from the sermon draft. Concerning the common themes, one might divide them into two classes: themes that are obviously attached to the binding narrative, and themes that seem to express a distinctively Kierkegaardian interpretation. so, one would expect any reasonably skilled and theologically educated homiletics student in the nineteenth century to interpret the akedah in terms of sacrifice and obedience; that the sermon draft and Fear and Trembling both reflect on these themes is unsurprising and unrevealing. there are, however, common themes of the second class, that (arguably) begin to emerge in the sermon draft and are later found in Fear and Trembling, and Kierkegaard’s continued reflection on these themes may have prepared him for the conceptual innovations of the later text. among these themes i wish to emphasize three presently, in order to return to them later. First is the theme of suffering: when Kierkegaard writes that abraham “troubles no one with his suffering”40 and “did not challenge heaven with his laments,”41 especially in the context of the surrounding sermon drafts, it becomes clear that he is reflecting on the expressions of faith in the midst of suffering. second is the theme of providence: the sermon draft repeatedly points to the cheerfulness of abraham’s obedience and his “trust in the future,”42 and the draft immediately following reflects on the importance of faith in providence. the third is the love of God: leaving mount moriah, abraham is assured by “the divine voice from heaven in his heart, proclaiming to him god’s grace and love.”43 in other words, the akedah is often taken as a demonstration of faith, or of a love for god that surpasses all other loves—but rarely as a demonstration of the love of god for abraham. of course, if god is love, then god’s every act is an act of love. Yet it takes someone of Kierkegaard’s dialectical skill to present a story in which a father is asked to slay his son, and only rescued from this torment in the last moment, as a SKS 18, 129, hh:8 / KJN 2, 121–2. one might argue that it must be faith in isaac’s eventual restoration that allows Abraham to go to the sacrifice “cheerfully,” but this interprets the earlier text by the later, and the point presently is to see which concepts are articulated in this text alone. in this text, what differentiates abraham from other fathers who have lost their children is that he was commanded “to do it with his own hands” (SKS 18, 129, hh:8 / KJN 2, 121). this passage survives in Johannes’ account (SKS 4, 117 / FT, 21), but the emphasis in Fear and Trembling is rather on the leap of faith by virtue of the absurd, a concept not developed in the draft sermon. 40 SKS 18, 129, hh:8 / KJN 2, 121. 41 ibid. 42 SKS 18, 130, hh:8 / KJN 2, 122. 43 ibid. 38 39

54

Timothy Dalrymple

manifestation of divine love. Kierkegaard’s further reflection on these themes, I will show, helps bridge the gap between the sermon draft and the later text, and brings underappreciated themes forth in Fear and Trembling. Traversing the distance. given the conceptual distance Kierkegaard had to cross from the mostly ordinary sermon draft in 1840–41 to Fear and Trembling in 1843, what, if anything other than the fertility of his own imagination, might have helped Kierkegaard from the former to the latter? when he returns to the story just a few years later, why is his treatment so different? i will sketch three (potentially complementary) approaches to answering this question. First, one could point to changes in his life circumstances that might make it natural for Kierkegaard in 1843 to find different portions of the narrative compelling. Kierkegaard had become convinced quickly that the engagement was a mistake, but breaking it was a protracted and agonizing affair.44 after he defended his dissertation on september 29, 1841, he returned regine’s ring on october 11. a fortnight later he left Copenhagen and the social wreckage of the broken engagement behind and attended the lectures of schelling and others at the university of Berlin. whether it was the travel, the lectures, or the ceaseless “monologues” of self-torment over the break with regine, the plates within him shifted and loosed springs of creative energy.45 having begun work on Either/Or, Kierkegaard returned to Copenhagen and completed the sprawling two-volume work in november. when Either/Or was published in February 1843, he had already begun work on Two Upbuilding Discourses, and when the latter was published in may he had returned to Berlin. there Kierkegaard began Repetition and Fear and Trembling, and both were completed in Copenhagen over the summer and published with Three Upbuilding Discourses on october 16. thus Kierkegaard’s treatment of the akedah in the sermon draft precedes, and Johannes’ treatment follows, the breaking of the engagement. this adds another layer of complexity to the psychological-biographical interpretations of Fear and Trembling. Since the story of the binding of Isaac first became a subject of extended reflection when Kierkegaard was engaged to Regine, yet he knew he had to break the engagement, the emphasis fell on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. when he returns to the story in 1843, having broken the engagement, the emphasis falls on abraham’s faith in an impossible restoration. the paradoxes of romans 4 and Hebrews 11 become more significant for Kierkegaard as he finds more need to believe in a god who gives hope to the hopeless and life to the dead. two entries show the import of biography. after an absence of two years, the akedah reappears in a journal entry titled “Plot” in the spring of 1843.46 Kierkegaard Kierkegaard proposed on september 10, 1840, and, at least in his retrospective account, “the next day i saw that i had made a mistake.” he “suffered indescribably” as he sought to overcome the Tungsind (depression) that doomed their relationship, and felt a “divine protest” to the fact that their marriage would be “based on an untruth.” there is debate on what Kierkegaard meant with these terms, but it was plainly a “frightfully painful” time for Kierkegaard, and the break was not a clean one. see SKS 19, 433–7, not15:4 / JP 6, 6472. 45 B&A, vol. 1, p. 107 / LD, letter 68, p. 138. the letter is dated February 6, 1842. 46 SKS 18, 166–8, JJ:87 / KJN 2, 154–6, emphasis original. the hongs render Anlæg as “outline” (SKS 18, 164, JJ:79 / JP 5, 5640). the entry is likely from april, before the return to Berlin, since the next one refers to an advertisement from april 10 (sKS 18, 266, JJ:88 / 44

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

55

imagines the first variation in the Exordium: “Let us assume (something neither the old testament nor the Koran reports) that isaac knew the purpose of the journey.”47 in “fatherly love” abraham explains himself and suggests “that as a father he was suffering even more” than his son. isaac protests, and abraham transforms himself and claims to be “an idolater” intent on murder.48 this self-transformation is likened to the weaning of infants by blackening the breast—except abraham must “blacken” his whole self to save isaac’s relationship to god. Kierkegaard adds: “the person who explains this mystery has explained my life.”49 this suggests Kierkegaard had to “blacken” himself entirely to secure the spiritual health of his beloved; if he had explained himself, she would have blamed god for the “command” to end the engagement. In the weeks following this entry Kierkegaard fleshes out the faith in isaac’s return, and he writes on may 17: “had i faith i would have stayed with regine.”50 in 1849 he writes: “Fear and Trembling actually reproduced my own KJN 2, 485). although abraham is absent from the journals, he is found in Kierkegaard’s notes from the lectures of philipp marheineke (1780–1846) in Berlin in 1841 (SKS 19, 272–5, Not9:1). The first refers to Christ’s claim (in Jn 8:58), “Before Abraham was, I am,” and the second to “the god of abraham, isaac and Jacob.” 47 in fact the Koran does show abraham explaining himself, and most muslim teaching has Ishmael and not Isaac as the one taken for the sacrifice. Muslims interpret the Dhabih (the akedah) as a trial for both father and son. so the Koran (37:101–2): “so we gave him tidings of a gentle son. and when (his son) was old enough to walk with him, (abraham) said: o my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must sacrifice thee. So look, what thinkest thou? He said: O my father! Do that which thou art commanded. Allah willing, thou shalt find me of the steadfast.” Kierkegaard’s may have been misled, or may have conducted a less than thorough examination himself. he possessed the Koran in german, Der Koran, trans. and ed. by l. ullmann, Crefeld: J.h. Funcke 1840 (ASKB 603), and may have consulted the most obvious portion (sura 14, “abraham,” pp. 206–11) but been unaware of sura 37. 48 Kierkegaard treats isaac as a child at the time of the journey to mount moriah (see SKS 4, 107 / FT, 10). in Josephus (Antiquities i.13.2), isaac is 25 years old, and in some rabbinic commentary he is 37. The Hebrew ‫ נער‬for “lad” or “young man” (Gen 22:5 and 22:12) is too vague to reveal his age. 49 SKS 18, 168, JJ:87 / KJN 2, 156. Kierkegaard also attaches (SKS 18, 167, JJ:87.a / KJN 2, 154) a variation in which abraham considers the command to be a punishment for past sins. there are Jewish interpretations in which the trial is punishment for the treaty with abimelech (gen 21). this is found, for example, in rabbi samuel ben meir (rashbam), a twelfth-century talmudist. see abraham sagi, “the meaning of the akedah in israeli Culture and Jewish tradition,” Israel Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 1998, pp. 45–60. hasidic interpretation in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (though Kierkegaard probably would not have known this) emphasized Abraham’s “self-nullification,” in which no self-assertion or reflection could intervene on immediate obedience. Jerome Gellman draws a parallel between Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of the ethical and the hasidic notion of “sacred sin” or “sinning at god’s behest,” in Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac, aldershot: ashgate 2003, pp. 73ff. the latter, and shalom spiegel’s The Last Trial, philadelphia: Jewish publication society 1967, are recommended for scholars interested in bringing Kierkegaard into conversation with other religions. 50 SKS 18, 177, JJ:115 / KJN 2, 164. Fear and Trembling appears to have been completed before Kierkegaard discovered in July that regine was engaged. see the historical introduction, FT, xx.

56

Timothy Dalrymple

life.”51 given the intimate nearness of Fear and Trembling to Kierkegaard’s life, then, perhaps the changing circumstances of the relationship to regine elevated different parts of the akedah narrative and prompted new interpretations.52 a second way of traversing the distance from the sermon draft to Fear and Trembling would emphasize the further development in the intervening years of Kierkegaard’s views on the relevant themes. the themes of suffering, providence and divine love unfold in the sermon drafts immediately following the contemplated sermon on the akedah. as Kierkegaard is preparing to break the engagement to regine he composes drafts with titles like: “On the edification which lies in the thought that we are always in the wrong before God,”53 “On Christ’s sacrificial life among us,”54 “God’s tests,”55 and “God’s Fatherly Love.”56 The first, which will develop into the “ultimatum” in Either/Or, is counterintuitive. Kierkegaard seems to imagine a heavenly court scene, in which the individual accuses god for his sufferings, claiming that god was “in the wrong,” that the individual was “forgotten” and “not provided for” in the economy of god.57 if one could truly be “in the right” over against god, then we should “despair of providence,” and “all would be absurdity.”58 One should not be despairing or defiant in the face of suffering, but like Christ should “suffer innocently” and with trust in providence.59 god’s love is demonstrated even in suffering and trials, for god is like “the loving father, who sent his child far away” to grow strong.60 Kierkegaard reiterates: “the reason for the test was love…the reason for the test was love…god’s tests are grounded in love.”61 although the loving father “suffered, and suffered more, than the one he tested,” since it would “not be fatherly love” to spare his beloved son from the suffering in which love is won, he “tested the one he loved most” in “ever more difficult, ever more strenuous tests” in order to assure him of “the love whose possession was his 51 SKS 22, 303, nB13:46 / JP 6, 6491. in the same year he marvels at how “governance broadens and radicalizes whatever concerns me personally,” so the peculiarities of his life and character were “taken over” in order to convey “the infinitely ingenious thought present in the totality of the authorship” (SKS 21, 352, nB10:185 / JP 6, 6388). 52 it is one thing to say that Kierkegaard’s experiences led him to new perspectives on the story of the akedah, and another to say (as i have not) that Kierkegaard constructed Fear and Trembling merely as an elaborate apologia for regine or (less romantically) for Copenhageners who had watched the scandal unfold on the city stage. i do not mean to offer a psycho-biographical reading in the reductive mode. the hamann inscription at the front of Fear and Trembling does suggest that Kierkegaard hoped regine would understand him better through reading the text, but this does not mean that the arguments in the text were anything less than earnest. 53 SKS 18, 130, hh:10 /KJN 2, 122, italics and bold in original. 54 SKS 18, 131, hh:11 / KJN 2, 123. 55 SKS 18, 131–2, hh:12 / KJN 2, 123–4. 56 SKS 18, 134–5, hh:17 / KJN 2, 125–6. 57 SKS 18, 130, hh:10 / KJN 2, 122. 58 ibid. 59 SKS 18, 131, hh:11 / KJN 2, 122 60 SKS 18, 131, hh:11 / KJN 2, 123. 61 ibid.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

57

blessedness.”62 such tests “serve to: (1) educate and shape us [and] (2) establish a deeper communion with god,” and this kind of “upbringing” is a “constant need” in earthly existence.63 through sufferings we learn that we are “capable of nothing without god,” and then the presence and the power of god are given, for god is “powerful in the powerless.”64 the “constant indwelling”65 of the divine is “the aim of our strivings,”66 and no striving or suffering is too great for an absolute purpose.67 Kierkegaard goes on to reflect in the remaining sermon drafts on how to endure sufferings Christianly, with hope in the providence of god, and with faith that divine love is manifest even in and through sufferings. the themes of suffering, providence, and divine love are also developed in the works Kierkegaard published in these years. the dissertation On the Concept of Irony addresses the nihilism of modernity and the isolation of the self from meaning and meaningful community.68 in the First part of Either/Or, three essays develop themes that will appear in Fear and Trembling: “the tragic in ancient drama” examines ancient and modern responses to tragic suffering,69 “silhouettes” concerns the representability of suffering in art,70 and “the unhappiest man” explores the alienated consciousness.71 the Judge in the second part has extensive discussions ibid. SKS 18, 131–2, hh:12 / KJN 2, 123–4. 64 SKS 18, 131, hh:11 / KJN 2, 125. 65 SKS 18, 134, hh:17/ KJN 2, 125. 66 SKS 18, 137, hh:21/ KJN 2, 128. 67 SKS 18, 135, hh:19 / KJN 2, 126. there are later entries on “Our communion with [Christ],” and how Christ “learned from what he suffered” (SKS 18, 141–2, hh:32–4 / KJN 2, 132–2). see also SKS 18, 64–7, ee:190–2 / KJN 2, 59–61. 68 For an interpretation of On the Concept of Irony along these lines, consult K. Brian soderquist, The Isolated Self: Truth and Untruth in Søren Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2007 (Danish Golden Age Studies, vol. 1). 69 in germany at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries there was a flowering of philosophical aesthetics that viewed tragedy not merely as a literary genre but as a phenomenon of philosophical import. the three roommates from tübingen— schelling, hölderlin, and hegel—wrote on aristotle’s Poetics and the attempt through tragedy to comprehend apparently innocent suffering. see peter szondi, “the notion of the tragic in schelling, hölderlin, and hegel,” in On Textual Understanding and Other Essays, trans. by harvey mendelsohn, minneapolis: university of minnesota press 1986. 70 The inner/outer conflict is significant in Either/Or. The first diapsalma imagines inward suffering made into an object of outward beauty (SKS 2, 27 / EO1, 19); Kierkegaard claims this aphorism sets forth “the task of the entire work” (Pap. iv a 216 / JP 5, 5629). the examination of sorrow in “silhouettes” refers to lessing’s Laocoön, and was influenced by the romantics. schelling writes that “pure suffering can never be an object of art, in Philosophy of Art, trans. by douglas w. stott, minneapolis: university of minnesota press 1989, p. 64. For the cultural and intellectual background of this sensibility, see Jay m. Bernstein, Classic and Romantic German Esthetics, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2003, and david e. wellbery, Lessing’s Laocoön: Semiotics and Esthetics in the Age of Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1984. 71 see hegel on the “unhappy consciousness,” in The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. by J.B. Baillie, new York: harper 1967, pp. 251–67. 62 63

58

Timothy Dalrymple

of depression, despair, and the providential love of god.72 in the “ultimatum” the unnamed preacher explains that when a person fears “that he is suffering too much or is being tested beyond his powers,” implicitly he fears “that god’s governance [is] not wisdom” and “god’s heart [is] not love.” Yet by insisting that we are always in the wrong before God, the faithful affirm that God is always in the right, “that God’s love is always greater than our love,” and thus our sufferings are never without purpose, but express divine solicitude.73 Finally, the Two Upbuilding Discourses, published five months before Fear and Trembling, are also relevant. The first concerns persistence in “the expectancy of faith” that “all things must serve for good those who love god”; the second oscillates between one who suffers humbly and one who suffers in defiance or despair “that God is not love.”74 this does not show why Kierkegaard returned to the binding of Isaac, but it shows continued reflection on themes that will prove vital for Fear and Trembling. when Kierkegaard returns to the akedah in 1843, he does so not only with a different authorial strategy but also with a more sophisticated understanding of its themes. a third way to traverse the distance from the sermon draft to Fear and Trembling is through careful attention to Kierkegaard’s shifting locations and increasing familiarity with german intellectual life. to be clear, i do not argue that any of the following provided a decisive impetus for Fear and Trembling, but merely that all together reflect the philosophical and theological context out of which Fear and Trembling emerged. to understand how and why Kierkegaard would write Johannes’ interpretation of abraham, one should understand the other versions of abraham in circulation in the intellectual discourse of the time. others have shown Johannes’ polemic with danish hegelians such as Johan ludvig heiberg (1791–1860), hans lassen martensen (1808–84), and rasmus nielsen (1809–84).75 according to Kant, since it could not be known for certain whether the command had indeed come from God, one could never be justified on this basis in transgressing the clear dictates of moral reason. Kant discusses abraham in several works, and “the ethical” in Fear

see the discussions of depression (SKS 3, 180–4 / EO2, 184–90. SKS 3, 197–8 / EO2, 204–5. SKS 3, 274 / EO2, 289), despair (SKS 3, 186–227 / EO2, 192–238. SKS 3, 257–8 / EO2, 270–1), and the contrast between aesthetic self-indulgence in sorrow (SKS 3, 223–8 / EO2, 232–9) and the person of faith who “does not take god to court but repents” (SKS 3, 227 / EO2, 237). regarding providence, “to believe in a providence without being disturbed by contingency” (SKS 3, 245 / EO2, 257) is very nearly a description of the knight of faith, and the judge believes one should drain the cup of suffering with the knowledge that it is given for one’s “eternal health” (SKS 3, 172 / EO2, 287); also see SKS 3, 22 / EO2, 12–13. SKS 3, 271 / EO2, 286. on the love of god, see SKS 3, 207–8 / EO2, 217–18. SKS 3, 227 / EO2, 237. SKS 3, 232–4 / EO2, 242–5. 73 SKS 3, 331 / EO2, 352. SKS 3, 329 / EO2, 351. SKS 3, 331 / EO2, 353. 74 SKS 5, 28 / EUD, 19, alluding to rom 8:28; SKS 5, 55 / EUD, 47. 75 see Jon stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, new York and Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2003, p. 335: “the use of hegel in Fear and Trembling is only pro forma….the polemic with hegel is used by Kierkegaard merely as a means by which he can criticize heiberg and martensen and publicly disassociate himself from them.” 72

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

59

and Trembling is posed in Kantian (and hegelian) terms.76 the name of abraham also arose in german discussions of the relation of Christianity and Judaism. does Abraham represent faith, or only Jewish faith? Schleiermacher affirmed the Pauline view of abraham as “the prototype of Christian faith,” but also claimed that a radical “leap” is required from Abraham to Christ, who fulfills of the promise implicit in abraham.77 hegel in his early years saw abraham as the “true progenitor” of the Jews, their “unity” and “soul,” “regulating the entire fate” of the nation that issued from him.78 at roughly the same age as Kierkegaard was when he began his authorship in earnest, hegel wrote a series of essays on abraham and drew them together in The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate.79 the narrative is set in the postlapsarian world, where immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. by theodore greene and hoyt hudson, new York: harper torchbooks 1960, p. 175, and The Conflict of the Faculties, trans. by mary J. gregor, lincoln, nebraska: university of nebraska press 1992, pp. 113–21. I find no evidence in the journals or in the text to support Ronald Green’s conjecture that Kant’s “treatment of abraham…may have provided the stimulus for Fear and Trembling,” but Kantian thought does form a part of the backcloth of the work. see ronald green, “‘developing’ Fear and Trembling,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon d. marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 270. see also seung-goo lee, “the antithesis between the religious view of ethics and the rationalistic view of ethics in Fear and Trembling,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 101–26, for a discussion of whether the view of ethics here is Kantian or hegelian (and for a helpful bibliography on pp. 102–3, note 3). 77 Friedrich schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, trans. by h.r. mackintosh and J.s. stewart, edinburgh: t&t Clark 1999, pp. 60–2. Kierkegaard was tutored in The Christian Faith by h.l. martensen beginning in 1834. it might also be noted that Kierkegaard engaged in a careful reading in 1842–43 of g.w. leibniz’s Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil, trans. by e.m. huggard, ed. by austin Farrer, la salle, illinois: open Court 1985 where there are brief references to abraham in the preface (p. 50), § 137 (p. 209), § 164 (pp. 225–6), and §11 of the response to hobbes (pp. 401–2). see SKS 18, 150, JJ:23–4 / KJN 2, 139–40. SKS 18, 151, JJ:26–30 / KJN 2, 140–1. SKS 18, 153, JJ:36–7 / KSN 2, 142–3, and SKS 19, 385, not13:5–6. SKS 19, 386, not13:8a. SKS 19, 390–4, not13:23–4 (especially). SKS 18, 394, not13:26a. SKS 18, 405, not13:40. SKS 18, 404, not13:42. SKS 18, 409, not13:44. SKS 18, 412, not13:47. Kierkegaard possessed the following two works by leibniz: Herrn Gottfried Wilhelms, Freyherrn von Leibnitz, Theodicee, das ist, Versuch von der Güte Gottes, Freyheit des Menschen, und vom Ursprunge des Bösen, 5th revised ed., ed. by Johann Christoph gottsched, hannover and leipzig: im verlage der Försterischen erben 1763 (ASKB 619) and God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann eduard erdmann, Berlin: [eichler] 1839–40 (ASKB 620). 78 g.w.F. hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. by t.m. Knox, philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press 1948, p. 182. 79 some scholars view this as a decisive turning point for hegel. see richard Kroner’s “introduction” to hegel, Early Theological Writings, pp. 8–11. see h. s. harris, Hegel’s Development: Toward the Sunlight, 1770–1801, oxford: Clarendon press 1972, pp. 272–86; mark C. taylor, “Journeys to moriah: hegel vs. Kierkegaard,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 70, nos. 3–4, 1977, pp. 305–26; oliva Blanchette, “the silencing of philosophy,” in Fear 76

60

Timothy Dalrymple

nature in its majestic hostility made “none of the distinctions which love might have made” but “poured savage devastation over everything.”80 it falls to the primeval biblical figures to devise their responses to natural evil, and Abraham, to secure the favor of a deity who will tame nature’s terrors, separates himself from the world in a “spirit of self-maintenance in strict opposition to everything.”81 “it was through god alone that abraham came into a mediate relation with the world,” hegel writes, “the only kind of link with the world possible for him.”82 thus for abraham, cut off from a vital relationship with the world, “love alone was beyond his power.”83 this absence of love—love that is not merely commanded and dutifully enacted but springs from inward pathos, what Kant (disapprovingly) and hegel (approvingly) called “pathological love”—is what hegel considers the decisive failure of Judaism, exemplified in Abraham and the akedah. his love for isaac was “the one love he had,” but in the struggle of the sacrifice he found consolation in “the certainty of the feeling that his love [for isaac] was not so strong as to render him unable to slay his beloved son with his own hand.”84 this abrahamic consciousness is concretized in Mosaic law, which, finding the things of the world “without intrinsic worth and empty, without life,” legislates “a consciousness of one’s annihilation, or deeds in which man expresses his nullity.”85 when god is pure object, and the world accessible only through god, the subject dissolves. reconciliation is found in the spirit of Christianity. god has “placed reconciliation in love and fullness of life,” and “only through love is the might of objectivity broken.”86 although The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate was not published, Kierkegaard may have found some of its claims and concepts in other writings, in lectures or conversations, or as flotsam and jetsam on the intellectual currents circulating through the universities. regardless, it illustrates one way in which german intellectuals sought to understand abraham and his significance in relation to Christianity. Kierkegaard was also familiar with historical-biblical criticism of the abraham story. in 1838 he read Julius schaller’s (1807–68) interpretation of d.F. strauss’ (1808–74) Das Leben Jesu.87 in strauss himself are references to hermann samuel and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 29–65. 80 hegel, Early Theological Writings, p. 182. 81 ibid. 82 ibid. 83 ibid. 84 ibid., pp. 186–7; p. 211. 85 ibid., pp. 206–7. 86 ibid., p. 239; p. 247. For more on abraham and Judaism in hegelian thought, see mark C. taylor, Altarity, Chicago: Chicago university press 1987, pp. 3–33, and robert l. perkins, “abraham’s silence aesthetically Conceived,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 155–76. 87 Kierkegaard read schaller in the summer of 1838. schaller employs a more conservative hegelian frame in his critique of strauss, and Kierkegaard notes the view of self-alienated Judaism: “God is abstract Subject, excluding humanity, and, over against the absolute Lord, the human being is lost in his finitude.—Consciousness and self-consciousness

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

61

Reimarus’ (1694–1768) criticism of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, naturalistic speculations on what abraham believed to be the divine command, and parallels between the births and temptations of Christ and abraham, drawing on early Jewish views that god tested abraham at the bidding of satan, who then tempted abraham all the way to moriah.88 source criticism of the pentateuch was by then well established. schelling, too, notes in his Philosophie der Offenbarung that Elohim commands abraham to slay isaac and Jehovah stays his hand, as though the general heathen concept of the divine requires the sacrifice of a child, and the One god of the hebrews intervenes to save him.89

are incompatible with each other. the absolute is the object of my consciousness…but in this object of my consciousness i do not also know myself…i rather know myself as utterly annihilated in this object of the absolute essence. the consciousness of this division, however, seeks satisfaction by assigning a quite external attribute to god; in the midst of its sorrowing over the yawning gulf that is fixed between God and humanity it seeks to find consolation in its special relation to god, in god making a distinction between egypt and israel, which, however, means attributing to god something that does not correspond to his universal subjectivity” (SKS 18, 324–5, KK:2 / KJN 2, 297). Julius schaller, Der historische Christus und die Philosophie Kritik der Grundidee des Werks: das Leben Jesu von Dr. D.F. Strauss, leipzig: otto wigand 1838 (ASKB 759). 88 d.F. strauss, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, trans. by george eliot, new York: macmillan 1892, p. 45; p. 55; pp. 260–2. much of what Kierkegaard learned of strauss came through schaller and marheinecke’s lectures in Berlin in 1841–42. see george pattison, “d.F. strauss: Kierkegaard and radical demythologization,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 233–57. 89 see Friedrich wilhelm Joseph von schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung, vols. 1–2, darmstadt: wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1974, pp. 122–32. in this view of the akedah the consciousness of the redeeming god Jehovah (a rendering of Yhwh, the name of god revealed in ex 3:13–15) emerges from the conception of a god who would demand child sacrifice. Elohim is taken as the universal concept of god, available even to the heathen, and Jehovah as the unique god revealed to moses. Kierkegaard attended schelling’s 1841–42 lectures on revelation in Berlin, but the relation between the delivered and published lectures is tangled, and it is not clear to me whether Kierkegaard heard schelling’s view of genesis 22. his notes mention “the sole one as Jehovah,” and the “elohim” of the “mosaic creation story” (SKS 19, 349 / SBL, 390; SKS 19, 351 / SBL, 393), but not the akedah. in any case, Kierkegaard was familiar with the differentiations of divine names. in 1837 he refers to Karl Friedrich göschel’s (1784–1861) “der pantheismus und die genesis” (in Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, ed. by Bruno Bauer, vols. 1–3, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38 (ASKB 354–357), vol. 2, pp. 184–91), which depicts Elohim as an undifferentiated term for god (SKS 17, 213, dd:1 / KJN 1, 205), and he associates Jehovah with “concretized monotheism” (SKS 17, 218, dd:7 / KJN 1, 210; cf. SKS 18, 61, ee:179 / KJN 2, 56 and SKS 18, 26, ee:186 / KJN 2, 57). in Fear and Trembling the name “Jehovah” is not used, but later the rescuer of isaac is “Jehovah” in 1851 in SKS 24, 374–5, nB24:89 / JP 3, 3020, and in 1853 in SKS 25, 248–9, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223; also see, from 1854, SKS 26, 323–6, nB34:13 / JP 3, 2624. see tonny aagaard olesen, “schelling: a historical introduction to Kierkegaard’s schelling,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome i, Philosophy, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 229–65.

62

Timothy Dalrymple

one should also note that the early 1840s were awash in anti-Jewish sentiment for political and ideological reasons—left hegelians like ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72), Bruno Bauer (1809–82), and Karl marx (1818–83) saw Judaism as “egoistic materialism clothed in religion”90—and there were discussions in 1842– 43 on whether the akedah should be associated with the child-sacrifice rituals of the surrounding Canaanite religions. pseudo-scholarly works claimed that cannibalism and blood-drinking had been passed down from abraham to modern Jews.91 interpreting abraham as egoistic, murderous, and bloodthirsty permitted the denigration of Judaism and thus the curtailment of Jewish freedoms and powers in modern prussia. the origin of Fear and Trembling may be found ultimately in the extraordinary fertility of Kierkegaard’s imagination—yet he cannot have been unaffected by the versions of abraham available in the intellectual cultures around him. on may 25, with the composition of Fear and Trembling underway, Kierkegaard writes that he had “pumped up a veritable shower bath, and now i have pulled the string and the see robert s. wistrich, “radical antisemitism in France and germany (1840–80),” Modern Judaism, vol. 15, no. 2, 1995, pp. 109–35, see p. 124. schelling, by contrast, was a friend to the Jews over against the left hegelians, see werner J. Cahnman, “schelling and the new thinking of Judaism,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 48, 1981, pp. 1–56. Kierkegaard quotes an excerpt from to Karl Friedrich göschel’s Der Pantheismus und die Genesis, Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38 (ASKB 354–357), vol. 2, pp. 184–91), and Kierkegaard purchased and read through ludwig Feuerbach’s Das Wesen des Christenthums, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: otto wigand 1843 (ASKB 488) (where the “egoism” of Judaism is discussed in the eleventh chapter) in 1844, though he may have been familiar with its claims earlier; the work was published in 1841 and reissued in 1843. see istván Czakó, “Feuerbach: a malicious demon in the service of Christianity,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome i, Philosophy, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 25–47, and david James and douglas moggach, “Bruno Bauer: Biblical narrative, Freedom and anxiety,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 1–21. 91 georg Friedrich daumer (1800–75), Der Feuer- und Molochdienst der alten Hebräer, als urväterlicher, legaler, orthodoxer Cultus der Nation, Brunswick: F. otto 1842; Friedrich wilhelm ghillany (1807–76), Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer, nuremberg: Johann Leonard Schrag 1842; Max Löwengard (d. 1876), a German rabbi influenced by Schelling, offered a defense, in Jehova, nicht Moloch, war der Gott der alten Hebräer: Entgegung auf Ghillanys Werk “Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer,” Berlin: h. schultze 1843. there is a long tradition of interpreting the akedah in light of pagan child-sacrifice. Josephus defended the akedah against the charge that it showed God’s thirst for human sacrifice, and Philo debated those who charged that abraham showed no more courage and devotion than other parents who sacrificed children (Antiquities i.13.4, and De Abrahamo XXXii–XXXvi). some modern scholars contend that the akedah is a trace of an earlier sacrificial practice—see Jon d. levenson’s The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, new haven: Yale university press 1995—but this is quite different from daumer and ghillany, who used the contention to advance the argument that Jews still engaged in child sacrifice, blood-drinking and the like. 90

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

63

ideas are cascading down upon me: healthy, happy, merry, gay, blessed children born with ease and yet all of them with the birthmark of my personality.”92 the mix of metaphors is telling. The ideas flowed down upon him from above, but are distinctly his and distinctly marked as such. Yet Kierkegaard’s abraham did not emerge out of nothing, but in an environment of scholarly and philosophical interpretation. illuminating this context does not obscure the insights and accomplishments of his works, but clarifies them and throws them into sharper relief. When seen amid his traffic in the intellectual discourse of Denmark and Germany, it becomes at once more comprehensible that Kierkegaard should write Fear and Trembling, and more remarkable that he should not interpret genesis 22 according to source-critical methods, not condemn the akedah as a vestige of barbarism, and not frame the story of abraham according to the opposition of Judaism and Christianity. Johannes’ abraham, and Kierkegaard’s abraham thus far in the authorship, is the father of faith for all. II. On Mount Moriah: Suffering Faith and Fatherly Love The article thus far has narrated the story of Kierkegaard’s reflection on Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac as a “prologue” to the major treatment of the akedah in 1843. along the way it has sought to provide resources for scholars who approach Fear and Trembling from various fields and with various interests, and has glanced at the biographical, literary, and intellectual-historical contexts. now the task is different. there is no shortage of commentary on Fear and Trembling, and it is not my intention to make a substantial addition. i will show rather how the “prologue” might inform the reading of Fear and Trembling and bring into the foreground certain themes or parts of the text that are often overlooked. three questions are addressed: (1) what is the purpose of the text, or whose fear and trembling is it? (2) does abraham believe that isaac will die? (3) what is abraham’s faith in? in response to these questions, the three themes drawn out of the sermon drafts will be employed: the suffering of faith, trust in the future (or providence), and the “fatherly love” of god. in each case, understanding the broader history of Kierkegaard’s abraham gives context and clarity to Johannes’ abraham. A. The Purpose of the Text—and Suffering in Faith one might read Fear and Trembling and conclude that abraham as the father of faith cannot suffer the condition the title names. writes one interpreter: “if faith ‘contains doubt as a mastered moment,’ then abraham is not in fear and trembling.”93 Yet B&A, vol. 1, p. 121 / LD, letter 82, p. 154 (dated may 25, 1843). gene Fendt, “whose ‘Fear and Trembling’?” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), p. 180; p. 182. Fendt appears to be thinking of On the Concept of Irony, where irony can be a behersket Moment, which the Capel translation (new York: harper and row 1966) renders “mastered moment” and the hongs’ renders “controlled element.” the phrase is not found in Fear and Trembling, and to my knowledge is never found in 92 93

64

Timothy Dalrymple

this to my mind is a substantial misunderstanding. the intention of the text is made visible in the economic metaphors undergirding the work in the preface, preliminary Expectoration, and Epilogue. The modern age, says the Preface, offers a fire sale “in the world of ideas,” peddling doubt and faith at such bargain rates that they lose their apparent value.94 doubt and faith are presented in parallel because of what they hold in common. “everyone is unwilling to stop with doubting,” and “everyone is unwilling to stop with faith,” as though these are easily obtained and of scant worth.95 Johannes accuses the danish hegelians of hawking counterfeits in the marketplace of ideas with their claims that philosophy has done away with “infinite doubt” by discovering a presuppositionless foundation,96 and that modern culture has surpassed faith and left religion a relic of premodern mythological thinking.97 Johannes calls both doubt and faith a “task for a whole lifetime,” and emphasizes the sufferings each requires.98 authentic doubt is anxious over what it does not know (thus “the sufferings of doubt”),99 and authentic faith is gained through an “anxiety and trembling” that “no man outgrows.”100 anxiety is the awakener of passion, so Kierkegaard’s corpus in reference to doubt. still, i do not object to the use of the phrase, since Kierkegaard does draw parallels between irony and doubt; i object to the interpretation, since a behersket Moment does not eliminate what is mastered, but turns it in upon itself to see the irony of irony or the doubtfulness of doubt, employing irony and doubt in a way that leads to repentance. Fendt equates fear and trembling with doubt, but it is more accurate to say that fear and trembling is an anxiety in the individual in the face of freedom and responsibility before god. anxiety and doubt are related, not identical terms. 94 SKS 4, 101/ FT, 5. 95 SKS 4, 101 / FT, 7. see also SKS 4, 147 / FT, 53. SKS 4, 156, / FT, 63–4. SKS 4, 171 / FT, 80–1. 96 hans lassen martensen is the “speculative monitor” of modern philosophy “who claims to have surpassed doubt (SKS 4, 101 / FT, 5). after a sojourn through the intellectual centers of prussia, martensen gave lectures in 1837 on philosophical trends and presented hegelian thought as grounded on systematic doubt. in an unpublished comedy, Kierkegaard depicts a stand-in for martensen saying, “i repeat, gentlemen, i have gone beyond hegel” (SKS 17, 288, dd:208 / EPW, 114). see Jon stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, pp. 110–1. 97 heiberg, who had lived for years in paris, announced to his countrymen in 1833 that “the educated world” has already understood that “religion belongs to the past, to what has been traversed,” and that modernity bids us forward, and “those who do not go further will fall back.” Johan ludvig heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid, in Prosaiske Skrifter, vols. 1–11, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1861–62, vol. 1, p. 396, and “recension over hr. dr. rothes treenigheds- og Forsoningslære,” in vol. 11, p. 45. see lasse horne Kjældgaard, “ ‘the peak on which abraham stands’: the pregnant moment of søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 63, no. 2, 2002, pp. 303–21. 98 SKS 4, 101 / FT, 7. 99 SKS 4, 196 / FT, 108. in the Two Upbuilding Discourses published before Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard writes: “doubt is a deep and crafty passion, but he whose soul is not gripped by it so inwardly that he becomes speechless is only shamming this passion…doubt is guileful, on secret paths it sneaks around a person, and when faith is expecting victory, doubt whispers that this expectancy is a deception” (SKS 5, 31 / EUD, 23). 100 SKS 4, 103 / FT, 7.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

65

Johannes, in “an age that has crossed out passion in order to serve science,” seeks to cultivate a fearful awareness that one is free before god and individually eternally responsible.101 the economic metaphor is carried forward in the preliminary expectoration, with the adage “only one who works gets bread.”102 This is strictly fulfilled only in the world of spirit, says Johannes, and the “work” is filled with anxiety. When told by obliging ministers in gilded churches, “what is omitted from abraham’s story is the anxiety,” scaling abraham downward and diminishing the strenuous standard he presents.103 properly told, the story illuminates the enormity of the anxieties and sufferings through which faith is won. as “only the one who draws the knife gets Isaac,” so “only the one who was in anxiety finds rest.”104 Fear and Trembling is an appeal for fear and trembling, then, for anxiety and sleeplessness for every single individual—but also for faith that what appears impossible to the anguished soul is possible in divine grace. the epilogue imagines spice merchants hurling their cargoes into the ocean so that the market, which has been saturated with cheap goods, would raise the prices again. When a birth certificate is the only currency required to purchase the lineage of abraham and Christ, what is needed is a raising of the cost. what abraham means for Johannes, then, is that faith is never gained without suffering and sacrifice, without “the distress and the agony of the paradox.”105 that fear and trembling is a species of anxiety before the absolute requirement— and thus that abraham must experience fear and trembling—is clear in other journals and works as well. Kierkegaard writes well before 1843 that fear and trembling is “not finished or completed” for the person of faith due to the continual possibility of “backsliding,”106 and fear and trembling “keeps the Christian life ticking.”107 the Concluding Unscientific Postscript says: “Just as ‘fear and trembling’ is the state of the teleologically suspended person when god tempts him, so also is anxiety the teleologically suspended person’s state of mind in that desperate exemption from fulfilling the ethical.”108 later journals are more direct. the “dialectical suspension” of faith is “continually in fear and trembling and yet never despairs”;109 “the suffering Christian…contends ultimately with god,” and thus endures “sufferings in fear and trembling”;110 and “restlessness and striving and fear and trembling…should obtain for the entire life.”111 in abraham we see the fear and trembling in which all are called to “work toward” salvation, the anxiety that presses out the passion of the individual and prevents faith from growing old and desiccated. since he never possesses a faith he cannot defy, is never hermetically sealed against sin or despair, abraham can 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111

SKS 4, 101–3 / FT, 5–7. SKS 4, 123 / FT, 27. SKS 4, 124 / FT, 28. SKS 4, 123 / FT, 27. SKS 4, 124 / FT, 28. SKS 4, 126 / FT, 31. SKS 4, 158 / FT, 65. Pap. i a 174 / JP 1, 420 (dated June 13, 1836). SKS 18, 14, ee:25 / KJN 2, 9. SKS 7, 244 / CUP1, 269. SKS 20, 382, nB5:30 / JP 1, 255. SKS 22, 64, nB11:113 / JP 1, 974. SKS 23, 347, nB19:27 / JP 1, 77, my emphases.

66

Timothy Dalrymple

never cease the work of faith, which ever strives in fear and trembling. Fear and Trembling reconstructs the tensions, then, of James 2 and philippians 2. it shows that faith is a rare treasure, purchased in the utmost suffering and strife, for one must “work out” one’s salvation “in fear and trembling” even as one trusts simultaneously in the miraculous provision of god. nor is anxiety the only suffering that abraham endures in faith. in the movement of resignation he “drains the deep sadness of life,” “the pain of renouncing everything,” and sacrificing his beloved.112 in the movement of faith he suffers isolation, ridicule, and the “martyrdom of misunderstanding”;113 unlike the tragic hero, whose sufferings are over and vanquished, abraham remains in constant testing and “sleeplessness.”114 he does not lament his sufferings or grandstand against the injustice of heaven, but shows the “humble courage” of faith.115 For Johannes, Abraham is a figure of suffering, a figure through whom he understands what it means to have faith in the midst of suffering. B. What Abraham Believes—Trust in the Future what exactly does abraham expect to happen? according to John lippitt, although abraham is willing to surrender isaac, he expects that god will intervene and not allow him to perform the sacrifice.116 For evidence, lippitt points to Johannes’ contention that even as Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac he had faith that God would not actually require isaac.117 this turns the journey to moriah, however, into an elaborate performance; and since abraham never truly believed he would lose isaac, there can be no true resignation and no faith that what is lost will be restored. here the context of new testament interpretation is illuminating, especially the view in hebrews 11 that abraham believed isaac would be resurrected, if necessary. Johannes must mean that abraham believed god would not ultimately take isaac. god had promised that abraham would become through isaac the father of nations, so abraham trusted that in some way isaac would be saved. this does not mean that abraham believed isaac would not die—in fact Johannes is clear on this point. abraham was “surprised” at god’s intervention. it would also have been possible for isaac to be killed and yet “god could give him a new isaac, could restore to life

SKS 4, 135 / FT, 40. resignation is a shirt “sewn in tears,” and each “must sew it himself” (SKS 4, 140 / FT, 45). 113 SKS 4, 168–71 / FT, 77–80. Cf. the “martyrdom of misunderstanding” (Uforstaaelighedens Martyrium) with the “martyrdom of ridicule” (meest forbittrende Martyrium, det Redicules) in SKS 22, 239, nB12:157 / JP 6, 6493. 114 SKS 4, 169 / FT, 78. 115 SKS 4, 164 / FT, 73. more might be said, especially in light of the discussion of the tragic in german philosophical aesthetics, about the tragic hero and the knight of faith and their differing responses to suffering. 116 John lippitt, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling, london and new York: routledge 2003. 117 ibid., pp. 135–75. 112

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

67

the one sacrificed.”118 This confidence in the power of resurrection is all too often overlooked in the interpretation of Fear and Trembling. Lippitt ascribes a specific expectation to Abraham, but an expectation should not be confused with faith; whatever the means he might have imagined, or whether or not he imagined any means at all, abraham believed in a god whose power is unbounded by death, a god for whom calculations of probability mean nothing. this is what Johannes means by the absurd; as he writes, the person of faith believes “by virtue of the absurd, by virtue of the fact that for God all things are possible.”119 even when “human calculation ceased” and “the understanding” was “convinced of the impossibility, still “in the infinite sense it was possible” for God.120 thus abraham had “trust in the future”; he believed that god would provide what he had promised, for god’s providential power is not circumscribed by death. C. The Subject of Faith—the Love of God it is possible to discuss Fear and Trembling, and comprehend something of the symbolic world of the text and the relationships between its terms, and never consider what abraham’s faith is in. this may be due to the limited horizon of Johannes, who (if taken at his word) does not have faith and therefore can say little of its interior movements. Yet three common models of faith can be quickly rejected. abrahamic faith cannot be mere intellectual propositional assent; abraham is the father of faith not for his confession of a creed, but for a faith that moves in passion beyond the boundary “where thought stops.”121 also, as alastair hannay notes, abrahamic faith cannot be in god’s mere existence.122 the knight of resignation may believe in god’s existence, yet not have faith. nor can faith be merely in an eternal afterlife. abraham believed that isaac would be restored to him in this life. a part of the answer has already been shown above: abraham had faith that all things are possible for god. But can no more be said? did abraham believe in nothing more than a power outstripping other powers, or a single intention of god to give him progeny? hannay writes that abraham’s faith “is not that he believes in god’s existence, but that he believes that god wants to give him back his opportunity to exercise paternal love.”123 Yet why would god desire such a thing? what must be the character of the god in whom abraham trusts? here the draft sermon on the akedah is instructive, with its emphasis on abraham’s assurance of “god’s grace and love,” as well as the following drafts on the “Fatherly love” at work providentially in “god’s tests.” in fact, when Fear and Trembling is properly interpreted, it is clear that Abraham trusts, as Johannes does not, in divine love and its fulfillment in a world of trial and suffering. SKS 4, 130–1 / FT, 35–6. SKS 4, 141 / FT, 46–7, my emphasis. 120 ibid. 121 SKS 4, 147 / FT, 53. 122 alastair hannay, Kierkegaard, london and new York: routledge 1982, p. 74. 123 Ibid., p. 75. Hannay also defines faith as “belief that the projects on which one has set one’s heart are possible even when they prove humanly impossible to carry through” (p. 79). 118 119

68

Timothy Dalrymple

Faith and love are imbricated in the text, and the knights of resignation and faith are differentiated by their loves. The first is Abraham’s “fatherly love” for Isaac.124 Both the knight of faith and the knight of infinite resignation love Isaac with the “whole soul”;125 the ethical requires that the father love the son more than himself, and without such love the surrender of Isaac is not “sacrifice” but murder.126 when the knight of resignation confronts the impossibility of his love’s fulfillment, it “assume[s] a religious character” and is “transfigured” into the love of God.127 he removes his love to eternity, “renouncing” it outwardly in the temporal world.128 in contrast, the knight of faith maintains his love in the face of the impossible and believes in its fulfillment “by virtue of the absurd”; in fact his love is strengthened, for it is grounded and filled with divine love.129 In the first discourse published alongside Fear and Trembling, abraham’s intercession for sodom is held forth as an exemplar of love for the neighbor.130 though it may lead the knight to transgress the ethical, the absolute love of God never siphons off the love of others, but flows into it and makes it an expression of the absolute love.131 For Johannes, it is “this love for isaac that makes his act a sacrifice by its paradoxical contrast to his love for God.”132 the failure of the knight of resignation is no dereliction of love for god. the knights are not differentiated on this point, for the love of god is in both. god “demands absolute love,” and even though Johannes cannot make the second movement of faith, his resignation is an act and expression of his love for god.133 “what i gain in resignation is my eternal consciousness,” and “my eternal consciousness is my love for god.”134 it is for the love of god that he renounces the world, and gains his “eternal consciousness in blessed harmony with [his] love for the eternal being.”135 Furthermore, “i can still save my soul,” Johannes writes, as long as “my concern that i achieve earthly happiness” is surpassed by “concern that my love of god conquer within me.”136 although he never reaches abrahamic faith, the knight of resignation can be “true to his love” of god, just as abraham “remained true to his love” and forgot the “suffering in the love.”137 The other significant love—and theologically the most decisive—is the love of god for the individual. on this the knights are differentiated. the knight of resignation SKS 4, 127 / FT, 31. SKS 4, 166 / FT, 74. 126 SKS 4, 150–1 / FT, 57. 127 SKS 4, 138 / FT, 43. 128 SKS 4, 141 / FT, 46. 129 SKS 4, 130 / FT, 35. 130 SKS 5, 76 / EUD, 66. 131 SKS 4, 165 / FT, 74. the absolute love of god gives the ethical “a completely different expression, a paradoxical expression, such as, for example, that love to god may bring the knight of faith to give his love to the neighbor” (SKS 4, 162 / FT, 70). 132 SKS 4, 165 / FT, 74. 133 SKS 4, 165 / FT, 73. 134 SKS 4, 142–3 / FT, 48. 135 ibid. 136 SKS 4, 143 / FT, 49. 137 SKS 4, 207 / FT, 120. 124 125

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

69

may assent to the proposition that god is love, but this is not faith. Johannes explains his resignation thus: i cannot make the movement of faith…i am convinced that god is love; for me this thought has a primal lyrical validity. when it is present to me, i am unspeakably happy; when it is absent, i long for it more vehemently than the lover for the object of his love. But i do not have faith; this courage i lack. To me God’s love, in both the direct and the converse sense, is incommensurable with the whole of actuality.138

here as elsewhere, Johannes is careful and precise in his language. he is “convinced” by the “thought” that god is love, but he cannot shut his eyes and leap into the absurd. this is the passive language of rational persuasion, not the passional language of faith’s courageous action. Johannes is persuaded of the matter, and joyful when the thought is present, yet his belief has only a “lyrical validity” since he has not determined himself for the belief that god is love. Furthermore, Johannes does not believe that God’s love is fulfilled in the world. In resignation the “thought” or ideality of god’s love is estranged from the “actuality” of the world; the knight of resignation does not believe that god’s love will provide for him in the world, when ordinary rationality declares it impossible. “god is love and continues to be that for me,” he writes, yet “in the world of time god and i cannot talk with each other, we have no language in common.”139 the knight of resignation “loves god without faith,” while the knight of faith “loves god in faith.”140 abrahamic faith is “faith for this life…specifically for this life,”141 for “faith is convinced that god is concerned about the smallest things.”142 even in suffering and trial, abraham has faith that the love of god prevails in the actual world. Furthermore, as one who loves and rests in the love of god, abraham gains the “communion” and “indwelling” that the sermon drafts proclaimed were “the aim of our strivings”143—for abraham, Johannes writes, becomes god’s “friend”144 and “confidant.”145 a glance at Kierkegaard’s contemporaneous writings strengthens the argument that the faith embodied in abraham is a faith in god’s love. an earlier draft of the Exordium considers whether the ordeal would have been more difficult for Abraham if he had brought it on himself through his own sinfulness. Yet “abraham’s ordeal was the most difficult” because “insofar as doubt arose in his soul, it was only about god’s love.”146 punishment, in other words, bears at least a certain logic, and if the akedah were a matter of punishment then abraham could blame himself for transgressing the righteousness of god. in the story as told, however, the seemingly arbitrary and inexplicable nature of the divine command casts the love of god into 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146

SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34, emphases added. SKS 4, 130 / FT, 35. SKS 4, 132 / FT, 37. SKS 4, 116 / FT, 20. SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34. SKS 18, 132, hh:12 / KJN 2, 124. SKS 18, 135, hh:19 / KJN 2, 126. SKS 4, 168 / FT, 77. Pap. iv B 66 / FT, supplement, pp. 246–7.

70

Timothy Dalrymple

doubt. the task for abraham is to believe in god’s love even when it requires him to suffer horribly and without apparent justification—and not only to assent to the “thought” of divine love, but to believe and act in accordance with the belief that god’s love is so commensurable with actuality that isaac will actually be restored and the divine promise fulfilled. In faith the individual holds divine love together with the actual world of sin and suffering. “the important thing,” he writes in a journal, “is to be able to have faith in god with respect to lesser things…to draw god into the actuality of this world.”147 that “all things serve for good those who love God” is affirmed in both of the upbuilding discourses published before Fear and Trembling.148 the discourses published simultaneously with Fear and Trembling— two of which are devoted to love’s overcoming of sin—also make this claim. when “abandoned by everything” else,149 the person of faith believes that god’s love will not abandon him, that “god’s love…loves him in the ordeal.”150 the connection between “testing” and divine love is again explicit: through trials and sufferings the person of faith “learn[s] the most beautiful thing of all, the most blessed—that god love[s] him, because the one god tests he loves.”151 indeed “no favor, no concern, no insult, no spiritual trial, neither things present nor things to come can wrench a person” away from the love of god.152 the discourses pronounce in simpler terms what the draft sermons had articulated, and what Johannes puts in the language of commensurability: that faith rests in the assurance that god’s love is providentially fulfilled and at work in the world of suffering and trial. if this is what abrahamic faith is faith in, then the intention of Fear and Trembling is not to justify morally repugnant behavior, but to underscore the suffering in striving for faith and thus to provoke the single individual to the righteous anxiety of absolute responsibility. it is not enough to rest in the ethical and the rational; the clamor of the crowd in the universal can drown out the divine call to the individual, and the illusion of self-sufficiency can conceal the need for the divine. Fear and Trembling seeks to illuminate the insufficiency of the ethical, rational, and universal, to awaken the anguished conscience for repentance, and to point through repentance to faith in the impossible possibility of redemption. the immediate object of abraham’s faith is the restoration of isaac, but he believes in the restoration because he believes in the character of a loving God and the fulfillment of divine love even in a world of sin and suffering. While Kierkegaard is clear later that Abrahamic faith cannot be specifically in the historical event of Christ (as examined below), insofar as it believes in the love of god in actuality it adumbrates the form of faith in the atonement.153 three journal entries from the weeks in which Kierkegaard was writing Fear and Trembling show the relation between faith and divine love in the atonement. “Certainly god is love,” 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

SKS 18, 181, JJ:124 / KJN 2, 168. SKS 5, 28, / EUD, 19. SKS 5, 51 / EUD, 42 (see rom 8:28). SKS 5, 80 / EUD, 71. SKS 5, 93 / EUD, 87. SKS 5, 103–4 / EUD, 98. SKS 5, 106 / EUD, 101 (see rom 8:38). Pap. X–6 B 68 / JP 6, 6598. Pap. X–6 B 80–1 / JP 1, 11–12.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

71

Kierkegaard writes in one, “but not love to sinners. he is so only in Christ, i.e., the atonement.”154 another states that a person “by repenting” can “remain in a relationship of love to god,” and if this repentance is characterized “at its extremity as suffering” it remains fundamentally a human act and not a resting in god and god’s loving provision.155 “therefore the person who believes in the atonement is greater than the most profoundly repentant person.”156 loving god in repentance, in other words, is distinct from having faith in god’s love in the atonement.157 Johannes is capable of the former, which arises when ethics comes to the end of itself; he lacks the faith for the latter, which has left behind all human effort and calculation to rest in the impossible gift of god. the third journal entry illustrates how Fear and Trembling simultaneously obscures and alludes to the atonement. it reads: “the highest expression that the ethical view of life has is to repent, and i must always repent—but this is precisely the self-contradiction of the ethical through which the paradox of the religious breaks forth, i.e., the atonement, to which faith corresponds.”158 “the paradox of the religious” is not repentance, but the atonement, and faith in the paradox is ultimately faith in the atonement. this entry is taken up in Fear and Trembling, where Johannes notes he has avoided reference to “sin and its reality,” because sin (like faith) lies beyond the “immediate categories” in which he has sought to understand and represent abraham.159 Yet “as soon as sin emerges, ethics founders precisely on repentance, for repentance is the highest ethical expression, but precisely as such it is the deepest ethical self-contradiction.”160 in the transfer from the journal to the pseudonymous text, the atonement has been removed from view. thus Fear and Trembling does not tell the end of the story, does not transport the reader through the suffering of striving for faith to the atonement, but leaves the reader in fear and trembling. The one who repents may find the paradox of the atonement “break[ing] forth” through repentance as divine provision, as gift, as god’s love to sinners in Christ.161 abraham’s hope in the return of isaac was grounded in his faith that the love of God is commensurable with actuality; faith’s final hope is in the atonement.

SKS 18, 176, JJ:112 / KJN 2, 162. SKS 18, 181, JJ:123 / KJN 2, 167–8. 156 ibid. 157 ibid. the SKS notes point to the augsburg Confession and the antecedence of confession to the belief in forgiveness: “[absolution] actually consists of these two parts. the first is true contrition and grief, so that the conscience is indeed terrified when it has confessed the sin. the second is faith…which believes that sins are forgiven through Christ, and which consoles the conscience and frees it of terror. this must be followed by good works….” (Den rette uforandrede Augsburgske Troesbekjendelse med sammes, af Ph. Melanchthon forfattede, Apologie, trans. and ed. by andreas gottlob rudelbach, Copenhagen: wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1825 (ASKB 386)), rendered in KJN 2, 493–4. see Pap. viii–1 a 675 / JP 2, 1216. 158 SKS 18, 179, JJ:119 / KJN 2, 166, my emphasis. Kierkegaard also calls atonement “the most profound expression of repetition,” in Pap. iv, B117, 294 / FT, supplement, p. 313. 159 SKS 4, 188 / FT, 98, note. 160 ibid. 161 SKS 18, 179, JJ:119 / KJN 2, 166. 154 155

Timothy Dalrymple

72

in summary, Fear and Trembling shows striking conceptual innovations. it also shows substantial thematic continuities with ten years of previous references to abraham. the paradoxes of romans 4 and hebrews 11, the tensions of James 2 and philippians 2, and the three themes drawn out of the draft sermons of 1840–41, weave together in Fear and Trembling and its portrayal of abrahamic faith. this article has examined Abraham specifically and not Fear and Trembling as a whole, and there are other themes and many other legitimate interpretations that might have been considered. Yet the biographical, literary, and historical context presented here gives greater intelligibility to Fear and Trembling and what it intends to effect. Johannes de silentio does not treat genesis 22 as a part of a source-critical puzzle, nor an artifact from a culture of child-sacrifice, nor a demonstration of Judaism’s alienated hostility; he does not interrogate the text, but projects the narrative and with it interrogates the reader. abraham is presented as the “guiding star of the anguished,”162 a figure whose compelling alienness, and the horror religiosus of his ordeal, for a society that has commoditized faith and dissolved its value, reveals the cost of faith in strife and suffering.163 For a text on faith, Fear and Trembling is shot through with talk of love. abraham had faith and love, or faith in love, so much faith in the love of god that he surrendered his beloved son and believed that the god of love would restore him. He believed in the fulfillment of divine love even in a world of trial and suffering—and this was the source of his confidence that the promise would be fulfilled. Abraham’s surrender of Isaac and faith in his return reflects on Kierkegaard’s relationship to regine, but also represents the fundamental form of Christian repentance and belief in an atonement that renews all things. III. Departing Mount Moriah: Abraham as a Jew the story of Kierkegaard’s engagement with abraham cannot conclude with Fear and Trembling. I will briefly characterize the comments on Abraham in the journals and published works through the remainder of Kierkegaard’s life and authorial career. then i will consider what is new in the “new Fear and trembling” entries from 1850 to 1853. after 1843 the name of abraham vanishes from the journals until 1848. Fewer years—but many published pages, including 13 upbuilding discourses, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, and Philosophical Fragments—pass before abraham reappears in the published works. Before the “new Fear and trembling” entries, three trends are discernible in the references to Abraham in the journals and works. The first follows the reading established thus far and comprehends Abraham as a figure of suffering and faith, the second shows Kierkegaard’s increasingly scathing critique of then-contemporary Christendom, and the third locates abraham in precisely the Jewish–Christian dichotomy which Kierkegaard has avoided heretofore.

162 163

SKS 4, 117 / FT, 21. SKS 4, 154 / FT, 61.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

73

the association of abraham with faithfulness in suffering is renewed in “a leper’s self-Contemplation” in Stages on Life’s Way.164 the story tells of two lepers, Simon and Manasse, with an elixir that turns the signs of their affliction inward. manasse rushes to avenge himself on the townsfolk by breathing his contagion upon them, while simon will “voluntarily bare my fate, freely suffer necessity,” and remain in exile “to save others.”165 abraham’s name is evoked four times in a brief passage, associating him with divine affliction, with the contrast between inward suffering and external appearance, and with the transformation of personal suffering for the good of others.166 in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript the desire to be “tried in such great sufferings as abraham” is laudable but misconceived, since ethical and religious individuals should understand that suffering need not be sought externally but emerges essentially from the conditions of existence.167 abraham is a vivid, clarifying example of one called to sacrifice, yet all ethical-religious inwardness recapitulates the surrender of isaac in form. each individual is called in self-transformation to surrender finite attachments and then regain the finite through the absolute relation to the absolute—and “the action of inwardness is suffering, because the individual is unable to transform himself.”168 in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, abraham’s departure from his ancestral homeland symbolizes the sufferings of all who become strangers by leaving their comfort behind to follow the call of god.169 in an 1850 journal entry, abraham is “an eternal prototype of the religious man” because he left the land of his ancestors, and “to be an alien, to be in exile, is precisely the characteristic suffering of the religious man.”170 and in For Self-Examination abraham illustrates what it means to “die to” [Afdøe], to “deprive oneself of the dearly desired one, to wound selfishness at the root,” so “the spirit who gives life can come.”171 abraham died to that way of being a self that is not wholly given over to the absolute. his action was a death unto itself, a death to himself, and as isaac was restored to life after death so too was abraham. so SKS 6, 217–19 / SLW, 232–4. given its references to abraham, it is not surprising that “a leper’s self-Contemplation” was conceived as Kierkegaard was writing Fear and Trembling. with it he meant to expel the “dark thoughts and black passions still dwell[ing] within” (SKS 18, 179, JJ:118–118.a / KJN 2, 166). the cries to “Father abraham” and “god of abraham” become Kierkegaard’s pleas to transform his suffering for a higher telos. Stages emerged in a complex process, starting with a story (“Unhappy Love”) first intended to juxtapose “the seducer’s diary” (Pap. iv a 215 / JP 5, 5628). it became “guilty/not guilty” in 1843 (SKS 18, 177–9, JJ:115 / KJN 2, 164–6). this passage seems to have been drafted in 1844 (Pap. v B 126); Stages on Life’s Way appeared on april 30, 1845. 165 SKS 6, 217–19 / SLW, 232–4. 166 SKS 6, 218 / SLW, 234. Jesus visits the home of “simon the leper” in mt 26:6–13 and mk 14:3–9. 167 For references to abraham in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, see SKS 7, 242–4 / CUP1, 267–9. SKS 7, 395 / CUP1, 434–5; in Fear and Trembling, see SKS 7, 238–41 / CUP1, 261–5. 168 SKS 7, 394 / CUP1, 433. 169 SKS 8, 205 / UD, 102. 170 SKS 23, 295, nB18:64 / JP 4, 4650. 171 SKS 13, 101 / FSE, 79. 164

74

Timothy Dalrymple

Abraham long remains a figure of suffering for Kierkegaard, of dying to oneself in the ultimate sacrifice and yet trusting in the God, described in Romans 4, “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” the second trend in the later references is their use in Kierkegaard’s increasingly censorious account of then contemporary Christendom. in his journal in 1848 he complains that everyone who suffers pain or loss is instantly given the mantle of Job, abraham, or Christ in gethsemane—and Christians thus excuse themselves from the frightful voluntary suffering of sacrificing themselves for the sake of the truth. “men want to be Christians,” he writes, “but they do not want to hear what Christianity in truth is,” and they “hate the person who makes it strenuous for them to be Christians.”172 as he writes in 1849, “every person is so eager to be flattered with the fancy that he has suffered something extraordinary” that the quotidian suffering of the bourgeoisie is conflated with that of “religious prototypes” like abraham and paul.173 in Practice in Christianity, written in 1848 and published in 1850, what gave Abraham’s suffering its “infinitely intensified strain” was “the responsibility” of taking isaac’s life himself.174 By removing the voluntary from the religious prototypes, we “consign to total oblivion what is to be understood by authentic Christian suffering,” and make the sufferer of misfortune a “counterpart to abraham.”175 In 1852 Kierkegaard finds this confusion even in the early church, that if a woman “patiently accepts” the loss of a child, then “she ranks with abraham, for in intention she was willing.”176 the concern is not merely that preachers gratify their listeners by likening their lives to the legendary trials of the patriarchs and apostles. it is rather that Christendom has lost its sense of the suffering intrinsic to its own nature. By equating involuntary sufferings with the sufferings of faith, Christians excuse themselves from the voluntary sufferings that faith is called to undertake in the “collision” of its witness with the world. When no actual sacrifice is made for faith, claims of willingness to sacrifice inevitably ring hollow. this leads to the third trend, which comprehends abraham in the distinction between Judaism and Christianity. recall the journal entry from 1839, amid reflections on the relationship between the forms of religion, in which Abraham is “only tested” and his son is “spared,” while God actually sacrificed the Son.177 as shown, numerous prominent intellectuals in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries employed abraham to represent and caricature Jewish legalism and alienation. Kierkegaard, from the draft sermon on the akedah in 1840–41 to Fear and Trembling in 1843 to Stages and Postscript in 1845 and 1846, has framed the SKS 20, 353, nB4:143 / JP 1, 374. SKS 22, 310, nB13:60 / JP 4, 4641. see SKS 22, 352, nB14:15 / JP 1, 1081 for reference to sarah’s suffering. 174 SKS 12, 116 / PC, 108. 175 ibid. 176 SKS 24, 185, nB22:149 / JP 4, 4665, remarking on Chrysostom in august neander, Der Heilige Johannes Chrysostomus und die Kirche, besonders des Orients, in dessen Zeitalter, vols. 1–2, Berlin: F. dümmler 1822. Kierkegaard’s view of Chrysostom in 1851 was generally positive; see SKS 24, 174, nB22:138 / JP 1, 575. SKS 24, 187, nB22:155 / JP 6, 6716. SKS 24, 207, nB23:4 / JP 3, 2757. 177 SKS 18, 62, ee:184 / KJN 2, 57. 172 173

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

75

Abraham narrative in profound conflicts and oppositions—but the opposition of Judaism and Christianity has been conspicuous by its absence. abraham has served as a representative of faith and its suffering. now in the later journals abrahamic and Christian faith will be distinguished in two ways, first in terms of the content of their beliefs and second in terms of the nature of the sufferings each endures. the differentiation of the content of abrahamic and Christian faith is made clear in 1850 when Kierkegaard responded in his journals to a work by magnús eiríksson interpreting Fear and Trembling.178 in an extensive, never-published response, Kierkegaard explains that “abraham is called the father of faith” because “he has the formal qualifications of faith, believing against the understanding.”179 still, Kierkegaard says, “it has never occurred to the Christian Church that abraham’s faith had the content of Christian faith which relates essentially to a later historical event.”180 the absurd in Fear and Trembling and the paradox in Postscript should not be confused; the first concerns the manner in which faith is believed, “the purely personal definition of existential faith,” and Abraham is capable of this; the second concerns what is believed, faith’s “relation to a doctrine.”181 although “abraham’s faith is the formal definition of faith,” it is “clear that the content of his faith cannot be Christian—that Jesus Christ has been in existence.”182 in other words, abraham believes “by virtue of the absurd,” but does not “believe the absurd”; he believes paradoxically, but not the paradox.183 the second distinction between abrahamic and Christian faith concerns the suffering intrinsic to each—and this is made clear in Christian Discourses in 1848 when Kierkegaard contrasts the sufferings of Job with those of the apostles. “the lord took away everything” from Job, but the apostles voluntarily “left everything and followed” Christ.184 Job illustrates “Jewish piety,” which does not require the individual to abandon everything but reconciles the individual to unavoidable loss by preserving the individual’s belief in the love of god. the choice of Job as representative is a significant one, since Abraham would have presented a stronger challenge to Kierkegaard on this point. Abraham is called to sacrifice Isaac voluntarily, and yet this was only a “testing,” and he was not asked for “everything” but “only isaac.”185 voluntariness is the heart of the distinction between Job and the apostles. the differences between abraham and the apostles are two: that abraham was asked for something and not everything, and that he did not actually make the magnús eiríksson (1806–81), as theophilus nicolaus, wrote Er Troen et Paradox og “i Kraft af det Absurde”? et Spørgsmaal foranledigt ved “Frygt og Bæven, af Johannes de silentio,” besvaret ved Hjelp af en Troes-Ridders fortrolige Meddelelser, til fælles Opbyggelse for Jøder, Christne og Muhamedanere af bemeldte Troes-Ridders Broder Theophilus Nicolaus, Copenhagen: Chr. steen & søn 1850 (ASKB 831). see SKS 23, 177–8, nB17:21 / JP 3, 3130. 179 Pap. X–6 B 68 / JP 6, 6598. 180 ibid. 181 Pap. X–6 B 80 / JP 1, 11. 182 Pap. X–6 B 81 / JP 1, 12. 183 Pap. X–6 B 80 / JP 1, 11. 184 SKS 10, 189–90 / CD, 178–9. see SKS 10, 114 / CD, 102–3. 185 SKS 10, 189–90 / CD, 178–9; see mt 19:27. 178

76

Timothy Dalrymple

sacrifice. Yet this means that Abraham cannot stand as the image of Christian faith, and that the sacrifice of Isaac cannot suffice as a symbol of specifically Christian suffering. It is difficult to say whether this represents a new understanding of Christianity for Kierkegaard or an adaptation of his communicative strategy, so that views previously held in abeyance are now expressed directly—or perhaps both. one cannot see Johannes de silentio equivocating that only isaac was on the altar, and it was merely a test. Johannes might have said that Abraham did sacrifice Isaac in the moment he determined to be obedient to the divine order. For the later Kierkegaard, in contrast, the metaphorical power of the akedah is diluted because it is only a momentary test, not a continual suffering in the sacrifice of an entire life for the sake of witness. especially in 1850–51, Kierkegaard’s vision of Christian suffering becomes more radical and insistent. as he writes, “there is no initial stage in which there was suffering, following by a cessation of suffering already in this life, and a present state of pure happiness.”186 this would seem to condemn the abraham story, in which the suffering does, after all, end. “Christianly,” in Kierkegaard’s view, “suffering is the continual constituent in this life; if suffering disappears, this is not perfection but apostasy from the essentially Christian.”187 that the distinction between the two faiths is drawn along these lines is clear in an 1852 entry entitled “Christianity—Judaism.”188 Kierkegaard writes: “abraham draws the knife—then he gets isaac again; it was not carried out in earnest; the highest earnestness was ‘the test,’ but then once again it became the enjoyment of life.”189 New Testament figures like Mary and Paul are not merely tested, however; they surrender everything in actuality. the comparison with mary is intriguing, for she gave her son up in no mere “test.” “the sword did not hang by a horsehair over the virgin mary’s head in order to ‘test’ her to see if she would keep the obedience of faith in the moment—no, it actually did penetrate her heart, stabbed her heart—but then she got a claim upon eternity, which abraham did not get.”190 likewise paul “actually did suffer everything, he actually did come to weep and cry out while the world rejoiced, he actually was crucified—but then he got a claim upon eternity, which abraham did not get.”191 in other words, Judaism and Christianity frame the cosmic drama of existence in a distinctly different manner. Both envision two acts of suffering and restoration. For the Jew, both are encompassed within earthly life, as abraham or Job suffer through the testing and are rewarded for their faithfulness with even greater blessing than before. For the Christian, the first act is an existence of sheer suffering and fills the whole of earthly existence—and the restoration does not begin until eternity. In this way, Kierkegaard believes, Christianity is both “infinitely SKS 23, 348, nB19:27 / JP 1, 77. SKS 23, 348, nB19:27 / JP 1, 77. 188 SKS 25, 32–4, nB26:25 / JP 2, 2222. 189 SKS 25, 32, nB26:25 / JP 2, 2222. 190 ibid. see also the comparison of mary and sarah in SKS 24, 456–7, nB25:30 / JP 3, 2672. Mary was immediately willing to make whatever sacrifice the Spirit required of her; she actually did suffer through her son’s death, and found no recompense or restoration in this life. mary shows what it is “in faith to become nothing, a mere instrument.” 191 SKS 25, 32, nB26:25 / JP 2, 2222. 186 187

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

77

more rigorous” and “infinitely more gentle,” because it requires an existence of “sheer suffering, and dying to the world” and promises communion with god that is infinite and everlasting.192 the old testament notion of a “test” is a “child’s category,” he writes. Christianity is “a matter of being a man, Judaism of being a child.”193 though mild for their time, such terms make us cringe. Kierkegaard evidently believes that the ancient patriarchs held out “no hope of eternity,” and he acknowledges this must have made the pain more acute. Yet when the eternal becomes known to the Christian it requires “the loss of the things of this earth—the eternal does not come without this pain.”194 the Christian’s task is to become spirit, “molded and transformed so that one is consoled solely by eternity,” and “to become spirit is the most agonizing of all the sufferings, even more agonizing than ‘the test.’ ”195 the Christian must “surrender the things of this earth” before he can “receive the consolation of eternity,” but “it is in this suffering that eternity comes into being for me.”196 Kierkegaard has articulated a model of Christian suffering for which abraham cannot be the exemplar, so he is dislodged and relativized as a symbol of Jewish faith, while figures like Paul and mary become Christian exemplars. With these things in mind, we are finally prepared for the entries from 1851 to 1853. two are entitled “Fear and trembling” and two “new Fear and trembling,” and they internally reference each other. the abraham in these entries stands on the margin of insanity. In the second, Isaac is spared and sacrifices the ram, but the crucible of the sacrifice has changed Abraham so he no longer has “common concepts” with humankind.197 With concepts “infinitely opposite at the most crucial points,” he is isolated; “just to have such a relationship with you [god] still sets me at variance with what it is to be man.”198 in the others, abraham takes isaac to the mountain, raises the knife and fails to hear the intervening cry of god. unable “to keep himself in suspenso at the apex of faith,” he thrusts the knife into isaac.199 “Jehovah” explains that he had not really required the death of his son: “you were my friend, and i merely wanted to test your faith!”200 god resurrects isaac, but abraham cannot take joy in him as before. In the fourth, Abraham explains the sacrifice and isaac agrees, so they are not like father and son but like “obedient children before Jehovah.”201 afterward isaac is different, for “by having understood what he had

ibid. SKS 25, 33, nB26:25 / JP 2, 2222. 194 ibid. 195 ibid. 196 ibid. see SKS 25, 348, nB29:90 / JP 2, 2224, from 1854. Judaism serves as Christianity’s point of departure for the early Hegel and Kierkegaard: for Hegel from conflict to unity, for Kierkegaard from “divinely sanctioned optimism” and “sheer promise for this life” to the “unconditional renunciation” of Christian life. 197 SKS 24, 387, nB24:108 / JP 3, 3714. 198 ibid. 199 SKS 24, 458, nB25:34 / JP 6, 6791. 200 SKS 24, 374, nB24:89 / JP 3, 3020. 201 SKS 25, 248, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223. 192 193

78

Timothy Dalrymple

understood on Mount Moriah, that he had been selected by God for the sacrifice, he had in a sense become an old man, just as old as abraham.”202 gregor malantschuk takes these entries to point to Kierkegaard and his father— and to indicate that the relationship to his father, and not to regine, had always been the most proximate referent in the writings on the akedah.203 in 1848 Kierkegaard did call himself “an old man brought up with extraordinary rigor in Christianity,” so malantschuk’s thesis (at least in regard to these later entries) is not unreasonable.204 what it does not explain is why Kierkegaard would return to the akedah in the first place, and why his rendering of the story would now be different. the only explanation given is that Kierkegaard had gained “a more detached view of his relations to his father and Regine and can confide more freely on paper.”205 I find it more illuminating to understand these later retellings of the akedah in light of Kierkegaard’s evolving views on Jewish and Christian concepts of suffering. Between Johannes de silentio in 1843 and the journals in 1851–53, Kierkegaard had developed a different vision of the suffering that Christian existence requires, and a more critical appraisal of what he considered the Jewish view of suffering and restoration in this life. presumably this was why Kierkegaard returned to the subject; earlier he had made abraham an exemplar of religious suffering, but later he considers how the story would be different if a Christian concept of suffering were operative instead. there are two indications that these entries should be interpreted through the contrast between Jewish and Christian views of suffering. The first is the removal of true restoration to eternity. “there is, [god] said, an eternity; soon you will be united eternally with isaac, and you will be in harmony for eternity.”206 This reflects the Christian view of life as sheer and unceasing suffering, and contrasts with Johannes de silentio’s emphasis on faith’s belief in restoration within this life. the second indication is more overt, in Kierkegaard’s conclusion to the final entry: “This is the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. in the Christian view isaac actually is sacrificed—but then eternity. In Judaism it is only a test and Abraham keeps Isaac, but then the whole episode still remains essentially within this life.”207 For the first time in the Kierkegaardian corpus, Jewish and Christian versions of the akedah are overtly contrasted. of course the story may also reflect the way in which Kierkegaard had come to understand his relationship to regine or his father or the world.208 Yet it reflects a significant philosophical change for Kierkegaard, the articulation of a distinctly ibid. gregor malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, trans. by howard v. and edna h. hong, princeton: princeton university press 1971, pp. 237–9. 204 Pap. viii–1 a 663 / JP 2, 1215. 205 malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, pp. 237–9. 206 SKS 25, 248, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223. 207 SKS 25, 248–9, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223. 208 in my own view, Kierkegaard is still considering his relationship to regine, and this is the meaning of abraham’s failure to hear when the voice of “Jehovah” bids him stop. Kierkegaard may have felt he should have had faith and remained with regine, but then “that which concerns eternity would not have become clear” to him (SKS 25, 248, nB28:41 / JP 2, 2223). He had sacrificed Regine, perhaps unnecessarily, and would not be reconciled with 202 203

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

79

“Christian” vision of suffering, according to which an ordinary telling of the akedah falls short. Kierkegaard by 1853, as he prepared for his polemic against the established church, could no longer consider abraham the exemplar of faith and faith’s suffering. in this period he turns to the examples of Christ and the martyrs, who were not “merely” tried but suffered unto death, who were not “only” asked to sacrifice Isaac but actually surrendered everything. What served Johannes’ purposes in 1843 is not sufficient for Kierkegaard’s ten years later. In the end, Johannes’ Abraham should not be conflated with Kierkegaard’s, if only because there is no single thing which can be called Kierkegaard’s abraham, but over the course of his life Kierkegaard presents a complex and evolving understanding of the various abraham narratives. the story of his engagement with Abraham spans 20 years of texts, one of the most difficult and contested pseudonymous works, and scores of passages and references in other writings and journals. there are numerous other ways in which the story might have been told, and parts of the story have not received here the attention they deserve—the reader is invited to consult the bibliography. Yet it is clear that Kierkegaard’s reflections on abraham undergo several transformations. in his student years Kierkegaard engaged the whole of the abraham cycle and the whole biblical witness concerning it. after the akedah became a subject of special interest, in Fear and Trembling and immediately afterward, the principal emphasis shifted from obedient willingness to surrender isaac to paradoxical faith in isaac’s return, and abraham was symbolic of the characteristic suffering of religious consciousness. then, especially in the later authorship and journals, Kierkegaard developed a vision of Christian imitation and suffering according to which abraham could no longer serve as the exemplar. i have sought to show that the broader backcloth of Kierkegaard’s lifelong engagement with Abraham yields a richer and more sharply defined portrait of the abraham of Fear and Trembling. The exegetical context clarifies why Kierkegaard and Johannes interpret abraham in the ways they do, in the paradoxical oppositions of romans and hebrews and the theological and existential tensions of James and philippians. Fear and Trembling may be called biblical not only insofar as it concerns the genesis narrative but insofar as it follows general contours of interpretation set forth by the authors of the new testament. the biographical context shows that Kierkegaard first seriously examined the “binding” narrative in the midst of his anguished engagement with regine, and Fear and Trembling appeared with conceptual differences corresponding to the different circumstances of the broken engagement. Certain themes persisted, however: the suffering of faith, trust in divine provision, and faith’s conviction that god is love and remains love even during times of trial. Finally, the historical context shows the intellectual culture out of which Fear and Trembling emerged, and throws into relief the philosophical and ideological options which Kierkegaard might have chosen but did not. where earlier he had understood abraham according to the distinction of Christianity and philosophy, in later years Kierkegaard dichotomized Jewish and Christian views of suffering and assigned abraham to the former camp. By elevating her until eternity—and yet through his sacrifice he had gained a view of eternity that he then sought to communicate.

80

Timothy Dalrymple

the ideal and the cost of faith, Fear and Trembling sought to draw individuals out of the multiplicity and throw them back upon themselves and their ownmost responsibility before god, to show simultaneously that every bone, muscle and tendon must be strained to the breaking point in the striving for salvation, and that faith believes that god per impossible provides the true sacrifice in love. Later Kierkegaard lamented that the co-optation of abraham was all too common among his contemporaries, the mantle of the epic sufferer too easily assumed—and concluded that a new vision of Christian suffering must be upheld, one in which there is no “after” but the “hereafter,” no return to a life of worldly comfort but a continual return to the cross of Christ and the martyrs.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Abraham Bauer, Bruno, “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 3, no. 1, 1837, pp. 125–210 (ASKB 354–357). gesenius, wilhelm, Lexicon hebraicum & chaldaicum in veteris testamenti libros, leipzig: vogel 1833, p. 11 (ASKB 72). göschel, Karl Friedrich, “der pantheismus und die genesis,” in Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, ed. by Bruno Bauer, vols. 1–3, Berlin: dümmler 1836– 38, vol. 2, pp. 184–91 (ASKB 354–357). günther, anton, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte spekulativer Theologie. Fragment eines evangelischen Briefwechsels, vienna: wallishausser 1834, pp. 114ff. (ASKB 520). olshausen, hermann, Die Briefe Pauli an die Römer und Korinthier, Königsberg: unzer 1837 (ASKB 103), pp. 10–11. rosenkranz, Karl, Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, pp. 136–42 (ASKB 35). tholuck, Friedrich august, Auslegung des Briefes Pauli an die Römer nebst Auszügen aus den exegetischen Schriften der Kirchenväter und Reformatoren, 3rd revised ed., Berlin: Ferdinand dümmler 1831 [1824], pp. 1–51 (ASKB 102). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, p. 180; pp. 191–5 (ASKB 80). winer, georg Benedict, Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: Carl heinrich reclam 1833–38, vol. 1, pp. 12–16 (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Abraham Agacinski, Sylviane, “We Are Not Sublime: Love and Sacrifice, Abraham and ourselves,” in Kierkegaard: A Critical Reader, ed. by Jonathan rée and Jane Chamberlain, oxford: Blackwell 1998, pp. 129–50. Beck, samuel J., “abraham, Kierkegaard: either, or,” The Yale Review, vol. 62, 1972–73, pp. 59–75. Beyrich, Tilmann, “Kann ein Jude Trost finden in Kierkegaards Abraham? Jüdische Kierkegaard lektüren: Buber, Fackenheim, levinas,” Judaica, vol. 57, 2001, pp. 20–40.

82

Timothy Dalrymple

Blanchette, oliva, “the silencing of philosophy,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 29–65. Blanshard, Brand, “Kierkegaard on Faith,” in Exploring Philosophy, ed. by peter a. French, 2nd revised ed., Cambridge, massachusetts: schenkman publishing 1972, pp. 422–34. Boldt, Joachim, “das abrahamsopfer in ‘Furcht un zittern’ als Bild für Kierkegaards glaubensbegriff,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2006, pp. 219–40. Børsand, grete, “abraham. troens ridder. den tragiske helt. en sammenligning,” in her Forbilde og utfordring. En Kierkegaard-studie, oslo: Johan grundt tanum Forlag 1966, pp. 39–53. Bruun, søren Kjær, “‘Betragterens Øie.’ abraham, isak—og Kierkegaard,” Bibliana, vol. 5, no. 2, 2004, pp. 46–50. Butin, gitte wernaa, “abraham—Knight of Faith or Counterfeit? abraham Figures in Kierkegaard, derrida, and Kafka,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 21, 2001, pp. 19–35. Carlson, thomas a., “possibility and passivity in Kierkegaard. the anxieties of don giovanni and abraham,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 62, 1994, pp. 461–81. Chevallier, philippe, “abraham et le commandement de l’amour chez Kierkegaard,” Archives de philosophie, vol. 67, 2004, pp. 321–35. Chryssides, george d., “abraham’s Faith,” Sophia, vol. 12, 1973, pp. 10-16. Colombo, Yoseph, “il dramma di abramo nel tormentato pensiero di Kierkegaard” [abraham’s drama in Kierkegaard’s tormented thought], in Annuario di Studi Ebraici, ed. by elio toaf, 1969, pp. 89–108. —— “il dramma di abramo visto da søren Kierkegaard” [abraham’s drama seen by Kierkegaard], La Rassegna Mensile d’Israele, vol. 3, 1970, pp. 122–39. Come, arnold, Kierkegard as Theologian: Recovering My Self, mcgill-Queen’s university press: montreal and Kingston 1997, pp. 252–5. Conway, daniel, “abraham’s Final word,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by edward F. mooney, Bloomington, indiana: indiana university press 2008, pp. 175–95. Cross, andrew, “Faith as suspension of the ethical in Fear and Trembling,” Inquiry, vol. 46, 2003, pp. 3–28. Czakó, istván, “abramo come paradigma del credente nel libro Timore e tremore di søren Kierkegaard,” Folia Theologica, vol. 8, 1997, pp. 199–226. davenport, John, “Faith as eschatological trust in Fear and Trembling,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by edward F. mooney, Bloomington, indiana: indiana university press 2008, pp. 196–233. david, Claude, “die geschichte abrahams. zu Kafkas auseinandersetzung mit Kierkegaard,” in Bild und Gedanke. Festschrift für Gerhart Baumann zum 60. Geburtstag ed. by günter schnitzler, munich: Fink verlag 1980, pp. 79–90. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), p. 84; p. 101; p. 109; p. 130; p. 159; p. 166; p. 174; p. 260; p. 269.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

83

evans, C. stephen, “Faith as the Telos of mortality: a reading of Fear and Trembling,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 9–28. Fendt, gene, “whose ‘Fear and Trembling’?” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), p. 180; p. 182. Fenves, peter, “Chatter”: Language and History in Kierkegaard, stanford: California: stanford university press 1993, pp. 174–84. Fischburn, J.F., “sören Kierkegaard, exegete,” Interpretation, vol. 39, 1985, 229– 45. French, peter a., “Faith and abraham,” in Exploring Philosophy, ed. by peter a. French, 2nd revised ed., Cambridge, massachusetts: schenkman publishing 1972, pp. 416–21. Friedman, r.z., “looking for abraham. Kierkegaard and the Knight of anxiety,” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 27, 1987, pp. 249–62. gellman, Jerome i., The Fear, the Trembling and the Fire: Kierkegaard and Hasidic Masters on the Binding of Isaac, lanham, maryland et al.: university press of america 1984. —— “Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,” Man World, vol. 3, 1990, pp. 295–304. —— Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac, aldershot: ashgate 2003, pp. 73ff. gordis, r., “the Faith of abraham. a note on Kierkegaard’s ‘teleological suspension of the ethical,’ ” Judaism, vol. 25, 1976, pp. 414–19. gordon, haim, “a Buberian Critique of Kierkegaard’s ‘Fear and trembling.’ implications for leadership and Fighting evil,” Shofar, vol. 15, no. 3, 1997, pp. 86–96. götke, eva tøjner, “abrahams offer,” in Omkredsen. Studenterkredsen i Århus 1942–1992, ed. by søren Jensen, Århus: studenterkredsen i Århus 1992, pp. 145–57. goulet, d.a., “Kierkegaard, aquinas, and the dilemma of abraham,” Thought, vol. 32, 1957, pp. 165–88. gouwens, david, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1996, p. 4; p. 23; 86; pp. 118–19; p. 121; p. 165. green, ronald m., “abraham, isaac, and the Jewish tradition. an ethical reappraisal,” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 10, 1982, pp. 1–21. —— “deciphering Fear and Trembling’s secret message,” Religious Studies, vol. 22, 1986, pp. 95–111. —— “enough is enough! Fear and Trembling is Not about ethics,” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 21, no. 2, 1993, pp. 191–209. —— “ ‘developing’ Fear and Trembling,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 270. greve, wilfried, “abraham in Kierkegaard research,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 21, 2000, pp. 7–18.

84

Timothy Dalrymple

hall, amy laura, Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2002, pp. 51–82. hannay, alastair, Kierkegaard, london, new York: routledge 1982, pp. 74–5. hems, John m., “abraham and Brand,” Philosophy, vol. 39, 1964, pp. 137-44. hofmann, gert, “ ‘abraham ist verloren.’ semiologie des schweigens bei søren Kierkegaard,” Edith Stein Jahrbuch, vol. 4, 1998, pp. 271–80. hösle, vittorio, “Kan abraham reddes? og: Kan søren Kierkegaard reddes? et hegelsk oppgjør med ‘Frygt og Bæven,’ ” Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift, vol. 27, 1992, pp. 1–26. Jacobs, louis, “the Akedah in Jewish thought,” in Kierkegaard’s Fear and trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: university of alabama press 1981, pp. 1–9. James, david and douglas moggach, “Bruno Bauer: Biblical narrative, Freedom and anxiety,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 1–21. Kal, victor, “omwille van izaäk. Kierkegaard en de godsdienstige onverschilligheid van abraham,” in Subliem niemandsland. Opstellen over metafysica, intersubjectiviteit en transcendentie, ed. by wil derkse et al., Best: damon 1996, pp. 44–57. Kjældgaard, lasse horne, “synet af abraham,” in his Mellemhverandre. Tableau og fortælling. Søren Kierkegaards pseudonyme skrifter, hellerup: Forlaget spring 2001, pp. 100–105. —— “ ‘the peak on which abraham stands’: the pregnant moment of søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 63, no. 2, 2002, pp. 303–21. lee, Jung h., “abraham in a different voice. rereading ‘Fear and trembling’ with Care,” Religious Studies, vol. 36, 2000, pp. 377–400. lee, seung-goo, “the antithesis between the religious view of ethics and the rationalistic view of ethics in Fear and Trembling,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 101–26. lerch, david, Isaaks Opferung—christlich gedeutet. Eine auslegungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, tübingen: mohr 1950. Levy-Valensi, E. Amado, “Kierkegaard et Abraham, ou le non-sacrifice d’Isaac,” in Kierkegaard, ed. by Jean Brun, [special number of] Obliques, paris: eurographic 1981, pp. 119–27. lippitt, John, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling, london and new York: routledge 2003. lhote, aude-marie, “on the pertinence of abraham or the paradox of the Forbidden Sacrifice,” Diogenes, vol. 146, 1989, pp. 76–91. mackey, louis, “the view from pisgah: a reading of Fear and Trembling,” in Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Josiah thompson, new York: anchor Books 1972, pp. 394–428. magno, Joseph a., “how ethical is abraham’s ‘suspension of the ethical’?” Faith and Philosophy, vol. 2, no. 1, 1985, pp. 53–65.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

85

marino, gordon and anthony rudd, “abraham and hegel: a reply to stewart,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 20, 1999, pp. 245–50. Mair, Ephraim, ‫ ”פרשת עקדת יצחק במחשבתו הדיאלוגית של מרדכי מרטין בובר‬,‫ אפרים‬,‫מאיר‬ ,‫ דמותו בראי ההגות לדורותיה‬:‫ אברהם אבי המאמינים‬:‫“ בקובץ‬,‫בין קירקגור לחסידות‬ ,2002 ,‫אילן‬-‫ הוצאת אוניברסיטת בר‬:‫ רמת גן‬,‫ יוחנן סילמן‬,‫ חנה כשר‬,‫ משה חלמיש‬:‫ערכו‬ 293 – 281 ’‫עמ‬. [Meir, Ephraim, “Akedah in the Dialogical Thought of Martin Buber: Between Kierkegaard and hassidism,” in Abraham the Father of the Believers, ed. by moshe halamis, hanah Kaser, and Johanan silman, ramat gan: Bar ilan university press 2002, pp. 281–93.] mesnard, pierre, “die gestalt abrahams bei Kierkegaard,” Bibel und Kirche, vol. 7, 1952, pp. 88–95. mooney, edward, F., “understanding abraham: Care, Faith, and the absurd,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: alabama university press 1981, pp. 100–114. —— “abraham and dilemma: Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension revisited,” International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 19, 1986, pp. 23–41. —— Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and trembling, albany, new York: state university of new York press 1991 (SUNY Series in Philosophy). nagy, andrás, “abraham the Communist,” in Kierkegaard—The Self in Society, ed. by george pattison and steven shakespeare, london: macmillan 1998, pp. 196–220. —— “the mount and the abyss. the literary reading of Fear and Trembling,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2002, pp. 227–46. pailin, david a., “abraham and isaac: a hermeneutical problem Before Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university: alabama university press 1981, pp. 10–42. palmer, donald d., “unamuno’s don Quijote and Kierkegaard’s abraham,” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 3, 1969, pp. 295–312. parkov, peter, Bibelen i Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1983, pp. 7–9; pp. 73–4. patterson, david, “abraham and Kierkegaard: a new approach to the Father of Faith,” Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 8, 1980, pp. 8–19. pattison, george, “d. F. strauss: Kierkegaard and radical demythologization,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 233–57. paula, marcio gimenes de, Socratismo e cristianismo em Kierkegaard: o escândalo e a loucura, são paulo: annablume editora 2001, pp. 123–30. pepper, thomas, “abraham: who Can possibly understand him?” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 1996, pp. 211–39. perkins, robert l., “For sanity’s sake: Kant, Kierkegaard, and Father abraham,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: alabama university press 1981, pp. 43-61.

86

Timothy Dalrymple

—— “abraham’s silence aesthetically Conceived,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 155–76. pizzuti, giuseppe m., “esemplarità di abramo. trascendenza e trascendentalità della libertà nell’opera di soeren Kierkegaard e di Karl Barth,” in his Nuovi Studi Kierkegaardiani, potenza: Centro italiano di studi Kierkegaardiani 1989, pp. 23–52. politis, hélène, “stades kierkegaardiens dans la lecture de la Bible: Job, abraham,” in her Kierkegaard, paris: ellipses Édition 2002, pp. 23–30. polk, timothy, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 127; p. 167; pp. 171–3; p. 188. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 72–85. Quinn, philip l., “agamemnon and abraham: the tragic dilemma of Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith,” Journal of Literature and Theology, vol. 4, no. 2, 1990. pp. 181–93. rad, gerhard von, Das Opfer des Abraham, munich: Kaiser 1971. regina, umberto, Kierkegaard, L’arte di esistere, Brescia: editrice morcelliana 2005 (Filosofia, nuova serie, vol. 26), pp. 199–232. rocca, ettore, “if abraham is not a human Being,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2002, pp. 247–58. —— “la parola della fede,” in his Tra estetica e teologia. Studi kierkegaardiani, pisa: edizioni ets 2004 (Philosophica, vol. 12), pp. 87–98. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, pp. 65–71. rosenau, hartmut, die erzählung von abrahams opfer (gen 22) und ihre deutung bei Kant, Kierkegaard und schelling,” Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie, vol. 27, 1985, pp. 251–61. sagi, avi, 1988 ,‫“ עיון‬,‫ ”העקדה – בעיית הציות או בעיית השמיעה בין קירקגור לבובר‬,‫אבי‬, ‫שגיא‬ 248–62 ‘‫עמ‬. [Sagi, Avi, “Kierkegaard and Buber on the Dilemma of Abraham in the ‘Akedah’,” Iyyun, no. 37, 1988, pp. 248–62.] —— “the suspension of the ethical and the religious meaning of ethics in Kierkegaard’s thought,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 32, no. 2, 1992, pp. 83–103. schulz, heiko, “Begjstringens kollisioner. nogle etiske problemer i søren Kierkegaards “Frygt og Bæven,” Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, vol. 3, 1995, pp. 220–36. —— “der grausame gott. Kierkegaards Furcht und Zittern und das dilemma der divine-Command-ethics,” Essener Unikate, vol. 21, 2003, pp. 72–81. seyppel, Joachim h., “religious existence: pascal and Kierkegaard” in his Schwenckfeld, Knight of Faith; A Study in the History of Religion, pennsburg, pennsylvania: schwenckfelder library 1961, pp. 113–45. —— “the Question of abraham, ” in his Schwenckfeld, Knight of Faith: A Study in the History of Religion, pennsburg, pennsylvania: schwenckfelder library 1961, pp. 146–66.

Abraham: Framing Fear and trembling

87

sokel, walter h., “Kleist’s marquise of o., Kierkegaard’s abraham, and musil’s tonka. three stages of the absurd as the touchstone of Faith,” in Festschrift für Bernhard Blume. Aufsätze zur deutschen und europäischen Literatur, ed. by egon schwarz et al., göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht 1967, pp. 323-32. stern, david s., “the Bind of responsibility. Kierkegaard, derrida, and the akedah of isaac,” Philosophy Today, vol. 47, 2003, pp. 34–43. stewart, Jon, “hegel’s view of moral Conscience and Kierkegaard’s interpretation of abraham,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 19, 1999, pp. 58–80. stiltner, Brian, “who Can understand abraham? the relation of god and morality in Kierkegaard and aquinas,” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 21, 1993, pp. 221–45. stolle, Jeffrey, “levinas and the akedah. an alternative to Kierkegaard,” Philosophy Today, vol. 45, 2001, pp. 132–43. strowick, elisabeth, “die doppelbewegung der unendlichkeit,” in her Passagen der Wiederholung. Kierkegaard—Lacan—Freud, stuttgart and weimar: metzler 1999, pp. 151–230. stucki, pierre-andré, “l’histoire d’abraham,” in his Le christianisme et l’histoire d’après Kierkegaard, Basel: verlag für recht und gesellschaft 1963, pp. 158– 62. suances marcos, manuel, Sören Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, madrid: universidad nacional de educación a distanca 1997, vol. 1 (Vida de un filósofo atormentado), pp. 133–40. sutton, agneta, “abraham and mary. models of Faith in Kierkegaard and John paul ii,” One in Christ, vol. 41, 2006, pp. 77–84. taylor, mark C., Altarity, Chicago: Chicago university press 1987, pp. 3–33. —— “Journeys to moriah: hegel vs. Kierkegaard,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 70, nos. 3–4, 1977, pp. 305–26. —— “sounds of silence,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: university of alabama press 1981, pp. 165–87. taylor, mark lloyd, “ordeal and repetition in Kierkegaard’s treatment of abraham and Job,” in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard, ed. by george B. Connell and C. stephen evans, atlantic highlands, new Jersey: humanities press 1992, pp. 33–53. thust, martin, “das vorbild des glaubens, der gehorsam der ausnahme: der ritter abraham,” in his Sören Kierkegaard. Der Dichter des Religiösen. Grundlagen eines Systems der Subjektivität, munich: C.h. Beck 1931, pp. 82–106. Tilliette, Xavier, “Bibel et Philosophie: le sacrifice d’Abraham,” Gregorianum, vol. 77, no. 1, 1996, pp. 133–46. Toeplitz, Karol, “Konflikt Abrahama, próba egzystencjalizacji religii prawa” [abraham’s problem: an attempt to Create an existential religion of law], Gdańskie Zeszyty Humanistyczne (Seria Filozofia), vol. 2, 1966, pp. 29–71. torralba, Francesc, “santo tomás y Kierkegaard ante el dilema abrahámico,” Pensamiento, vol. 50, no. 196, 1994, pp. 75–94.

88

Timothy Dalrymple

tschuggnall, peter, Das Abraham-Opfer als Glaubensparadox. Bibeltheologischer Befund. Literarische Rezeption. Kierkegaards Deutung, Frankfurt am main: peter lang 1990. valone, James J., The Ethics and Existentialism of Kierkegaard: Outlines for a Philosophy of Life, lanham, maryland.: university press of america 1983, pp. 192–202. verhoof, Koos, “het godsvertrouwen van abraham. enkele kanttekeningen bij een analyse van sören Kierkegaard,” De Uil van Minerva, vol. 12, 1995–96, pp. 83–102. viallaneix, nelly, “Kierkegaard: abraham, isaac et le belier,” Revue Catholique Internationale Communio, vol. 10, no. 3, 1985, pp. 79–92. vogel, manfred, “Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of the ethical. some Reflections from Jewish Perspective,” The Georgetown Symposium on Ethics, lanham: university press of america 1984, pp. 19–48. vos, pieter hendrik, “abraham: de dubbele beweging van het geloof,” in his De troost van het ogenblik. Kierkegaard over God en het lijden, Kampen: ten have Baarn 2002, pp. 117–24. watts, michael, “the Key themes of Fear and Trembling,” in his Kierkegaard, oxford: oneworld publications 2003, pp. 97–131. whittaker, John h., “the suspension of the ethical in Fear and Trembling,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 14, 1988, pp. 101–13. wren, david J., “abraham’s silence and the logic of Faith,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: alabama university press 1981, pp. 152-64.

moses: the positive and negative importance of moses in Kierkegaard’s thought paul martens

Moses is arguably the most important figure in the Old Testament, yet he has always stood in abraham’s shadow in the corpus of søren Kierkegaard. this life in the shadows has left the question of moses’ place in Kierkegaard’s corpus relatively undisturbed. he appears very occasionally in the secondary literature alongside generic references to “the law” of the ten Commandments,1 and even less frequently with references to Judaism.2 Yet, there is certainly more to say about moses’ multifaceted role in inflecting and illuminating Kierkegaard’s developing thought. the purpose of this article is to highlight precisely how moses, the very pivotal biblical figure, is important for Kierkegaard in both positive and negative ways. To accomplish this purpose, the first section of this article examines Kierkegaard’s early encounters with the Jewish moses of world-historical importance. the second section traces Kierkegaard’s continued reflection focused on two biblical texts that surface already in the 1830s, and in the process, describes the slow revaluation and humiliation of Kierkegaard’s moses. the third section presents a transformed moses who becomes important again, but in a new vein as a prototype for what it means to be chosen by god. in conclusion, i suggest that there are several formal elements about Kierkegaard’s moses that look very similar both early and late in his life. Yet, despite these formal similarities, there are irreconcilable differences, leading to a late moses that serves as a “faithless” prototype for true Christianity. 1 see, for example, the passing mention of the mosaic law in philip J. Quinn’s “Kierkegaard’s Christian ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon d. marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 373. also, see the reference to moses and the ten Commandments in C. stephen evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations, oxford: oxford university press 2004, p. 310. 2 indicative of the lack of attention to moses by both Kierkegaard and his commentators, Bruce h. Kirmmse can describe Kierkegaard’s understanding of and criticism of Judaism without mentioning moses. see Bruce h. Kirmmse “Kierkegaard, Jews, and Judaism,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 17, 1994, pp. 83–97. and, although moses appears three times in timothy polk’s volume on Kierkegaard’s strategies for reading scripture, none of these elaborates Kierkegaard’s use of moses. see timothy h. polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 128; p. 167; p. 188.

90

Paul Martens

I. The Young Kierkegaard and Moses’ Critical Importance in his early writing, both published and unpublished, Kierkegaard attributes to moses a sort of world-historical importance, or at least an association with worldhistorical events. Although Moses is rarely mentioned, his identification occurs in two ways. First, moses is depicted as one of the world’s greatest reformers; second, Moses is highlighted as the figure intimately linked with the unique characteristics of Judaism, both with respect to the emergence of monotheism and in contrast to islam. in all of these circumstances, however, the canvas under discussion is the history of the world. on February 18, 1836, Kierkegaard (under the pseudonym “B”) published his second newspaper article, “the morning observations in Kjøbenhavnsposten No. 43.”3 in this biting critique of the role that the newspaper was playing in the danish struggle for the freedom of the press, Kierkegaard challenged the assumption that the anonymous authors publishing in the newspaper (and the newspaper itself) should be taken seriously as reforming agents. it is in this context, amidst Kierkegaard’s sarcastic wit, that moses emerges in Kierkegaard’s writings. Kierkegaard asks: where, then, is that energetic, that serious, reforming spirit? is it identical with those anonymous reformers…who have their prototype in that anonymous or rather pseudonymous reformer, the snake of eden? and shall i call with them all the world’s reformers straight from moses, who although he used aaron’s mouth, nevertheless did not stay in the background in order to let him fall victim to pharaoh’s wrath but faithfully met dangers and difficulties—through Luther to an O’Connell—those anonymous reformers who work under the auspices of liunge?4

Although there is no significant discussion of Moses in this context, the assumption is that he is one of the world’s great reformers, much like martin luther (1483–1546) and daniel o’Connell (1775–1847), the famous irish politician. after all, according to the biblical narrative, it is during moses’ leadership that the egypt-bound hebrew slaves are transformed into the socially and religiously organized israelites prepared for the “conquest of Canaan.” and, the critical implication of Kierkegaard’s invocation of moses is that the contemporary contributors to Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post are but mere sinister imitations of the great, actual reformers. interestingly, in his response to “mr. B’s” article, orla lehmann (1810–70), who eventually became a prominent danish statesman, accepts Kierkegaard’s characterization of moses and its polemical intent in its entirety, acknowledging that “i am in agreement with the author in regretting that the work of reform here at home still cannot boast any o’Connell, let alone any luther or moses.”5 Along these same lines, Kierkegaard also briefly noted the greatness of Moses and his clash with actuality, the actuality of nineteenth-century denmark. in /EPW, 6–11. From the Papers of One Still Living (1838), moses again appears, but this time Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post. Interimsblad, no. 76, February 18, 1836 / EPW, 6–11. SV1 Xiii, 14 / EPW, 10. 5 orla lehmann, “reply to mr. ‘B’ of Flyveposten,” Kjøbenhavnsposten, no. 96, march 31, 1836 / EPW, 157. 3 4

Moses: The Positive and Negative Importance of Moses in Kierkegaard’s Thought

91

he is juxtaposed with Joshua.6 in the Journal DD moses is characterized as “our whole, entire poetic vitality,” while Joshua is identified with “reality.”7 speaking of a cycle of short novels by thomasine gyllembourg (1773–1856) that began with En Hverdags-Historie,8 Kierkegaard suggests that the younger generation may come to the conclusion that “it is only the Joshua of our life that enters the promised land and not its moses,” its “mighty, long-since vanished past.”9 as it turns out, Kierkegaard assures the reader that the younger generation is wrong about this, assures the reader that the life-view of the author of En Hverdags-Historie belongs to the individual “who has finished the race and kept the faith.” The essay itself critically reviews Hans Christian Andersen’s work, but the immediate critique is directed more specifically against those “politicians” who, like Joshua, can only exist in actuality when “our life’s poetic dawn dream” is dead,10 when “genius, beauty, art and the whole glorious world” are left behind,11 when the struggles and hardships of the past are forgotten, and when the “graduate-student prose” of politics has taken over.12 taken together, these early evocations of Moses could not be more affirming in their assumptions of his importance, both in representing what is good and also in illuminating how far nineteenth-century denmark fell short of this good. in a second series of remarks, Kierkegaard utilizes moses to identify a particular stage in the world’s religious development, or more accurately, in the development of the world’s religions. in a sense, this series of comments assumes the positive importance of moses, but in another sense, moses begins to recede from focus as merely “one of” a number of world-historical people and events. and, in the process of moses’ recession, one begins to see the emergence of god as the central actor. in fact, in these particular early entries, the basic issue at stake is the relationship between temporality and eternity, and more specifically, whether or how the divine can enter temporality. arguing that the divine can, in fact, enter temporality, Kierkegaard cites the incident of the burning bush, where the spirit of god speaks in a burning bush “which burned without being consumed.”13 Kierkegaard’s attention to islam is rather interesting in this context. on June 3, 1837, he wrote: “no prophet, no historian could come up with a more apt expression for mohammedanism than the one it has given itself in the suspension

SKS 1, 22 / EPW, 66. SKS 17, 240–1, dd:57 / KJN 1, 231–2. 8 see anonymous [thomasine gyllembourg], “en hverdags-historie,” Kjøbenhavns Flyvende Post, nos. 69–76 [pp. 285–8; pp. 289–92; pp. 293–5; pp. 297–300; pp. 301–2; pp. 305–7; pp. 310–12; pp. 313–15], 1828. (reprinted in Samlede Skrifter af Forf. til “En Hverdags-Historie,” Fru Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, vols. 1–12, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1866–67, vol. 1, pp. 161–218.). 9 SKS 1, 22 / EPW, 66. this section of text from “andersen as a novelist” also appears in the supplementary material included at the end of the hong translation of Two Ages. see TA, supplement, p. 125. 10 SKS 17, 240–1, dd:57 / KJN 1, 231–2. 11 SKS 1, 22 / EPW, 66. 12 SKS 1, 23 / EPW, 67. 13 Pap. i a 40 / JP 1, 413. see exodus 3. 6 7

92

Paul Martens

of its sacred tomb between two magnets.”14 Kierkegaard’s intention is to point out that mohammed stands between incarnation (the divine becoming human) and the notion of co-heirs in Christ (humans becoming divine). this position of islam, for Kierkegaard, is merely “abstract monotheism—‘god is one.’ ” having asserted this, he continues: “it is not incarnation (messiah), not merely prophet (like moses)… but Mohammed claimed a specific priority (approximating an incarnation, but, of course, like everything in mohammedanism, stopping halfway).”15 Yet, for all this differentiation between moses and mohammedanism, it should surprise no reader of Kierkegaard that when these two encounter Christianity, suddenly substantial similarities emerge. Foreshadowing the clash between moses and Christ which will be examined in the following section, Kierkegaard is more than willing to link moses with mohammed on the issue of salvation. in contrast to Christianity’s notion of eternal salvation and damnation, both mohammed and moses merely “recognized the temporal in the plan and therefore did not regard it as entering the picture of eternity.”16 later in his corpus, Judaism is severely criticized by Kierkegaard because of its single-minded concern with temporality.17 in this entry from 1834, the critique is neither developed nor acerbic. But, on this matter, the die seems to have been cast very early. these early entries, however, are fairly undeveloped and sporadic. drawing conclusions and trajectories from these alone is, of course, very risky. i have attempted to make some thematic sense of Kierkegaard’s near-hegelian appropriation of moses in his early years, and i suggest that moses is important because he either stands at a critical juncture in history or he is the world-historical instrument that facilitates the development of history. as he matures, continues writing, and increasingly distances himself from his hegelian contemporaries, Kierkegaard’s appraisal of moses dims in this world-historical regard, eventually leading him to elevate moses because of his obedience and willingness to witness to the truth. Before addressing his final position, however, allow me to highlight a series of comments focused on two particular biblical texts that illuminate the transition from the early, positive portrayal of moses in the 1830s to the later, more nuanced picture. SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7 / KJN 1, 210f. ibid. see also SKS 17, 219–22, dd:10 / KJN 1, 211–13. in this journal entry, Kierkegaard essentially sums up what he takes to be the logic of Karl rosenkranz’s “eine parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: drümmler 1836–38, vol. 2, no. 1, 1837, pp. 1–31 (ASKB 354–357). in Kierkegaard’s recounting of the emergence of monotheism, Judaism’s god stands at the forefront and is initially revealed as an omnipotent lawgiver. moses stands in the background as merely the instrument, who is followed by Job—representing “detached individuality”— who stands somewhat in opposition to god, who is in turn followed by the psalms which put things to rest, acknowledging that god is god. again, islam is criticized because it “develops a caricature; god’s omnipotence becomes arbitrariness, and his governance becomes fatalism.” 16 Pap. i a 40 / JP 1, 413. 17 see Kirmmse, “Kierkegaard, Jews, and Judaism,” for a good summary of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Judaism, and its intimate association with his critique of danish Christendom. 14 15

Moses: The Positive and Negative Importance of Moses in Kierkegaard’s Thought

93

II. Transitional Themes: Dead Raised, Bright Faces, and Christianity’s Leniency in luke 16, Jesus’ parable concerning a rich man and lazarus is recorded. in this parable, a rich man and a poor man (lazarus), who had been ignored by the rich man, both die. From the torments of hades, the rich man looks up and sees the poor man being comforted by abraham. the rich man calls for similar relief, yet is refused because of the great impassable chasm separating them. he then begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers so that they do not end up in the same torment. But, abraham responds: “they have moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”18 Not satisfied, the rich man suggests that a man who returned from the dead may be more persuasive than even moses and the prophets had been, to which abraham replies: “if they do not listen to moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”19 on december 2, 1836, Kierkegaard, speaking of luke 16:31, asked: “what is meant by these words [?]”20 he revisits this question later, answering in two ways. First, simply, he uses this text to enliven his critique of assistant professors, suggesting that if these assistant professors are not threatened by Christ’s utterances against the Pharisees—and “pontificating” in general—then it is certain that he should expect his own writing to have very little influence.21 second, and more subtly, Kierkegaard turns to the imagined response of the five brothers. Would they be more terrified by someone raised from the dead than they are of moses? the answer, of course, is affirmative. But, the interesting point here is Kierkegaard’s definition of what such a fear is not. Being terrified is something different from belief; this fear does not have the earnestness of the simple “you shall believe.” Being terrified is not the same thing as appropriate fear and trembling; “neither is it the submissiveness of faith.”22 Yet, does the answer in the negative concerning the one raised from the dead entail a positive assertion about moses? there is ambiguity here, because one might read Kierkegaard as indicating that moses (and the prophets) had faith, had earnestness, and had appropriate fear and trembling. or, at the very least, is Kierkegaard suggesting that reading moses and the prophets is enough to discern the “you shall believe,” the earnest submissiveness of faith? later in the corpus, the “you shall” in its appropriate form is attributed to Christ (see, for example, Works of Love),23 yet, in the earlier texts, Kierkegaard is also nervous about attributing faith to moses. in his only appearance in lk 16:29. lk 16:31. 20 SKS 18, 79, FF:23 / KJN 2, 73. 21 SKS 26, 58, nB31:77 / JP 6, 6897. 22 SKS 20, 350–1, nB4:133 / JP 2, 1122. 23 Works of Love particularly addresses the emphatic “shall” as the entry also indicates in Chapter ii.a, “You Shall love” (SKS 19, 26–48 / WL, 17–43). interestingly, Kierkegaard, in Works of Love, spends considerable time and energy arguing that Christ is the fulfillment of “the law,” and yet never mentions moses once in this connection (SKS 9, 97–141 / WL, 91– 134). the closest Kierkegaard comes to overtly addressing moses in this regard is in Either/ Or, part ii, where Judge william makes a cursory mention of the mosaic law, noting that the Jews understood most of the commandments of the law, but what they did not understand is 18 19

94

Paul Martens

Fear and Trembling, moses is juxtaposed with abraham precisely on this matter of faith. The conclusion is clear: Abraham accepted the fulfillment of the promise in faith; moses, unintentionally sealing his death in the wilderness outside of the promised land, struck the rock with his staff because he did not have such faith.24 we may suspect that Kierkegaard’s lutheran and antinomian roots are enough to force him to withdraw from the positive account of moses intimated earlier. or, perhaps more precisely, we should suspect that Kierkegaard’s prior elevation of moses as a reformer is self-consciously being restricted and redefined. Or, we should suspect that Kierkegaard’s very familiar attention to the internal is emerging along with the inevitable corollary—the critique of the external. and, as Fear and Trembling illustrates, abraham suits this trajectory much better than moses does. aside from luke 16, Kierkegaard also appeals to the gospel of matthew with reference to moses. Kierkegaard’s attention to the “sermon on the mount”25 serves to highlight further his evolving assessment of moses. on July 1839, returning to the issue of whether the divine can engage temporality, Kierkegaard observes that the sermon on the mount evokes the events of mount sinai. the differences, according to Kierkegaard, are that moses had to climb mount sinai to speak to god while Jesus sat at the foot of the mountain, thereby suggesting “the fulfillment of the Law and that this fulfillment of the Law had now been made possible on earth.”26 another mountaintop comparison between moses and Jesus occurs later, and this time moses’ descent from Mount Sinai is compared to Jesus’ transfiguration.27 Kierkegaard does not mention that Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus in the transfiguration narrative,28 but, crediting luther, he goes on to compare their respective “brightnesses.” on one hand, moses had to hide his face because people could not bear to look at his face after his encounter with god;29 on the other hand, the disciples could not only endure Jesus’ brightness, but they “found it infinitely salutary.”30

the “you shall love god with all your heart,” the command that Christianity grasped most of all. see SKS 3, 243 / EO2, 255). 24 num 20:11–12. 25 mt 5–7. 26 SKS 18, 41, ee:107 / KJN 2, 36–7. 27 mt 17:1–13. 28 mt 17:3. 29 ex 34:29–35. 30 SKS 24, 211, nB 23:12 / JP 3, 2533. luther’s sermon that Kierkegaard cites for this observation is the found in a sermon for the twelfth sunday after trinity. see luther, En Christelig Postille, sammendragen af Dr. Morten Luthers Kirke- og Huuspostiller, new danish trans. by Jørgen thisted, Copenhagen: den wahlske Boghandling 1828, pp. 420ff. (ASKB 283). interestingly, the only other explicit link between luther and moses is drawn from another sermon, the Fifth sunday after easter (1849), and not from any of luther’s more famous theological texts. in this case, the text in question is exodus 14:15 and the observation noted by luther (and then Kierkegaard) is that while moses is silent, god asks, “why are you crying out to me?” whether the text warrants the observation or not is a good question, but Kierkegaard then continues, “silence can be that heaven-scaling” (SKS 22, 54, nB11:95 / JP, 4, 3984). see luther, En christelig Postille, p. 322.

Moses: The Positive and Negative Importance of Moses in Kierkegaard’s Thought

95

and, further heightening the salutary uniqueness of Christ in the biblical narrative, Kierkegaard also provides a comparison of moses and peter. as already noted, moses was not allowed into the promised land because he did not follow one of god’s commands.31 peter, on the other hand, denies that he knows Christ three times before Christ’s death.32 Yet, peter “resorts to grace” and becomes an apostle. this gentleness, this “leniency beyond measure” is Kierkegaard’s “greatest disquietude about Christianity,” his great anxiety about the possibility of one taking it in vain.33 and, so we return to a rather familiar refrain in Kierkegaard’s corpus: taking Christianity in vain. Clearly, a brief analysis of the transitional themes in Kierkegaard’s interpretation of moses sketched above demonstrates that Kierkegaard quickly ceased his employment of moses as a reforming prototype of world-historical importance before the close of the 1830s. in its place, a more humbled moses appeared, a moses related to Christ, a moses who was in fact negatively related to Christ. and, with the surpassing of the law, a new worry also appears: not doing enough. the reforming moses was used to criticize those pretending to do something; the humbled moses is criticized because his message is much more rigorous than Christ’s. Yet, Christ’s new gentle and salutary message presents the possible return of the original problem to which moses had been the solution: not doing enough. vaguely foreshadowing this problem, Kierkegaard penned the following prayer in 1839: Father in heaven! teach us to walk in the light of your countenance, and let not our thoughts and deeds be like visitors in your dwelling place who come as strangers from far away, a single meager once, but, like children of the house, let us sense your dwelling with us—for what would it avail us, no matter how splendid such a visit might be; what would it avail us, if our faces shone like that of moses when he had been speaking with the lord; what would it avail us, if like moses we hid our faces from the Jews so as not to reveal how quickly the radiance vanished—? let us never forget that all Christianity is a lifetime’s journey….34

III. The Later Kierkegaard and Moses’ Critical Importance as his corpus progresses, Kierkegaard increasingly voices his concern that Christianity is being taken in vain, and increasingly criticizes his contemporaries for not taking the “life course” of Christianity seriously. nearly everything in Kierkegaard’s intellectual storehouse eventually becomes polemically involved in this critique, and moses is no exception. in short, moses becomes god’s instrument in the later critique, an instrument that is unconditionally obedient. Certainly, there are nuances to this later portrait that i will highlight below, but the unifying theme is absolutely clear: moses is reintroduced as a new kind of reformer, a prototype for a reformed Christianity. 31 32 33 34

Kierkegaard refers to this as a “monstrous severity.” see SKS 20, 247, nB3:2. mt 26:69–75. SKS 23, 321, nB18:97 / JP 3, 3234. SKS 18, 15–16, ee:31 / KJN 2, 11.

96

Paul Martens

To briefly return again to Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai, the focus has now shifted. the brightness of moses’ face has faded from view, and this is not a bad thing, as there is no glory now. earlier, in one of the “upbuilding discourses” of 1843, the fact that moses only saw god’s back intimated the important theological truth that god gives but also takes away.35 But, later, the fact that moses only saw God’s back seems to mean that the one chosen by God (though not specifically Christian) does not know in advance what her actions mean or how they are being used by god. rather, unconditional obedience is all that is required.36 At first glance, Moses’ work looks almost desirable. In Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Kierkegaard remarks that the key to the relationship between moses and god is moses’ fear and wonder over god, or “the wonder’s fear and its blessedness.”37 moreover, in a draft of one of the “upbuilding discourses,” he goes as far as claiming that precisely because moses knew that he was capable of nothing, he was “happy and confident in his trust in God, and in whatever happened he was blessed….”38 these texts certainly presume that moses was capable of nothing on his own,39 yet there is a sense in which these particular earlier texts in Kierkegaard’s corpus paint a portrait of Moses as satisfied, blessed, and even happy to be an obedient servant of god. and, in this vein, even though Kierkegaard acknowledges that moses raises certain objections concerning his suitability for the job,40 he also notes that there must have been an agreement between moses and god, there must have been an implicit humility that acknowledged, like mary, “here i am, the servant of the lord,”41 there must have been a disposition that was willing to say, like samuel, “speak, lord, for your servant is listening.”42 as Kierkegaard’s polemic against his contemporary Christendom sharpened, however, this sense of the blessedness of a common agreement between god and moses fades. a rather stark and simple obedience takes its place. there is no joy, there is no common agreement. moses simply says “no, send someone else.”43 Yet, against his will, moses is led—“educated”—little by little. referring to plato’s Republic, Kierkegaard argues that just as those who should rule must have no desire to rule, “man is used by governance for the very thing he in a certain sense is most disinclined to do. For, governance uses the most sensitive men for almost the cruelest jobs.” 44 and, even though we should probably suspect some autobiographical seepage into the picture, the perfect biblical example evoked is that of moses. if one might want to refuse obedience, Kierkegaard is convinced that god will have his way anyway. Condemning a prevalent lack of imagination concerning the power of the almighty, Kierkegaard restates the matter in an almost threatening tone: 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

SKS 5, 126 / EUD, 121. SKS 23, 212, nB17:68 / JP 4, 4460. SKS 5, 405 / TD, 25. Pap. v B 207, 2 / EUD, supplement, p. 449. see also SKS 5, 303–4 / EUD, 311–12. SKS 10, 308 / CD, 300. see ex 3:11, 4:1, 10. lk 1:38. 1 sam 3:10. Pap. vii B 235, 60 / BA, 248. SKS 21, 169, nB8:55.a / JP 4, 5013. SKS 22, 234–5, nB12:145 / JP 4, 4053. see plato, Republic, 520d.

Moses: The Positive and Negative Importance of Moses in Kierkegaard’s Thought

97

what security do you have against the almighty—when you, with all the ingenuity you possess, schemed to escape this and this, and then god brought it upon you, perhaps in a completely different manner. no, there is only one security and assurance in relation to the almighty—namely, to obey him unconditionally.45

upon closer examination, however, the consequences of this turn towards unconditional obedience are significant. And, as the attack on Christendom gains momentum, the faith that elevated abraham and denigrated moses earlier in the corpus becomes somewhat transvalued. For example, Kierkegaard states, “a whole country is Christian; there are several million Christians, 10,000 preachers, and there is constant talk about faith. let us take a look at it!” Certainly, the challenge is directed at merely talk about faith, but he continues: “moses is commanded by god to be an instrument by which a miracle is to be performed. (we only imagine the torture, what a maiming it must be for an individual to be used in that way—we imagine it but do not grasp it).”46 at this juncture, there is no talk of the blessedness of obedience. and, if being used as an instrument is tormenting, Kierkegaard heaps on even more in his description of moses’ particular task, the task of setting a slave-minded people free,47 the task he so innocently elevated early in his life. Yes, Kierkegaard’s new moses is cast as one who witnesses to the truth and is still opposed with ingratitude by both egyptians and hebrews.48 IV. Conclusion as one stands back and gazes over the interpretation and appropriation of moses in Kierkegaard’s corpus, it is clear that we have a very different moses in the early and the late writings. the reforming Jewish moses of the early comments is worldhistorical and is used by god to move the development of religion in the world; the late, prototypically obedient moses is barely more than a chosen shell for governance to accomplish his purpose in the world. Yet, stating the differences in this way also reveals formal similarities. in both cases, god is at work accomplishing his purposes in the world. in both cases, moses is employed as a critical prototype against select contemporaries. therefore, the humiliation of moses that occurs in Kierkegaard’s thought, evidenced in the transitions highlighted in the second section of this article, becomes very important in distinguishing precisely how the early and the late moses are different, and why their difference matters. essentially, the key lies in the difference between focusing on what god has done and focusing on what one must do for God. In the early writings, Kierkegaard pronounces with confidence how god has worked in history; in the late writings, Kierkegaard proclaims that one cannot presume to know how god is working in history. and, in this slight shift, SKS 20, 218–19, nB2:198 / JP 1, 951. in this same entry, Kierkegaard continues by postulating that even if moses refused to go to pharaoh, there are still many other ways in which god could have ensured his return to egypt. 46 SKS 20, 372–3, nB5:7 / JP 6, 6141. 47 SKS 23, 158–69, nB16:99 / JP 4, 4182. 48 SV1 Xii, 472 / JFY, 206. 45

98

Paul Martens

everything changes. one no longer looks at the history of the world for meaning; one must look to one’s relationship with god to discover what one must do. and, it is precisely in this shift that moses slides from a world-historical reformer to a “faithless” prototype for true Christianity in nineteenth-century denmark.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Moses [luther, martin], En Christelig Postille, sammendragen af Dr. Morten Luthers Kirke- og Huuspostiller, new danish trans. by Jörgen thisted, Copenhagen: den wahlske Boghandling 1828, p. 322; p. 420 (ASKB 283). rosenkranz, Karl, “eine parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836– 38, vol. 2, no. 1, 1837, pp. 1–31 (ASKB 354–357). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, pp. 138–64 (ASKB 80). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Moses engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das Alte Testament, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag 1998, p. 46; p. 87; p. 103; p. 110; p. 120; p. 141; p. 213; p. 270. evans, C. stephen, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations, oxford: oxford university press 2004, p. 310. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 128; p. 167; p. 188. Quinn, philip, J., “Kierkegaard’s Christian ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon d. marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 373. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, p. 62; p. 160.

david and solomon: models of repentance and evasion of guilt matthias engelke

I. Introduction as king of israel and the successor of saul, david ruled in Judah and israel from about 1000 bc to 961 bc and founded a dynasty of kings. solomon was one of his sons who, after quarrelling with his siblings about the succession to the throne, became david’s successor, reigning from 961 to 926 bc. the biblical books of samuel and Chronicles report david’s origin, advancement, kingship, and death. in the history of the literature of ancient israel, david came to be regarded as the epitome of the devout poet and singer. a multitude of prayers and songs in the Book of psalms were ascribed to david. his son solomon, whose reign is narrated in Kings, was idealized as a paragon of wisdom; he is described by Jewish and Christian traditions as being the author of proverbs of solomon, the words of the preacher, ecclesiastes, and the song of solomon, all of which fall in the category of wisdom literature. in the canonical version of the story of the kings david and solomon, not only official statements1 and loyal reports2 can be found, but also critical narrations, such as the tales of david’s adultery3 and the ill-advised national census.4 in spite of these sometimes critical portrayals, the expectation and hope for good kingly rule and an everlasting dynasty, the messianic idea, was attached to the person of david and his dynasty. This expectation was probably first developed and spread under his successor solomon5 and is evident in such biblical passages as psalm 89 and 2 samuel 7.6 The historicity and significance of these biblical narratives concerning David and solomon were contested in early nineteenth-century europe. martin leberecht de wette (1780–1847) argued that the books of samuel were compiled later than see, for example, the list of administrators in 2 sam 8:15–18 and in 1 Chr 18:14–17. see the confusion about the throne in 2 sam 15ff., and 2 sam 20. 3 see 2 sam 11. 4 see 2 sam 24 and 1 Kings 11. 5 lawrence a. sinclair, “david i. altes testament,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vols. 1–36, Berlin and new York: studienausgabe 1993–2006, vol. 8, 1993, p. 383, lines 9–10. 6 see ludwig schmidt, “Königtum ii. altes testament,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. 19, 2000, p. 328, lines 19ff. 1 2

102

Matthias Engelke

the events depicted in them but earlier than the consolidation of the deuteronomic and levitical traditions, and that the books of Chronicles were redacted at an even later date.7 Both sets of literature contained material from different sources, including legends and myths, although some of the material was to be regarded as historical. In spite of the affirmation of the real existence of David and Solomon, de Wette’s work did undermine confidence in the general historical reliability of the texts. meanwhile, Friedrich schleiermacher (1768–1834) voiced doubts about the significance of the Old Testament by advocating the view that Christianity was fundamentally different from the religion of ancient israel that had preceded it, thereby making the political institution of the monarchy of david and solomon problematic for Christian theology.8 nevertheless hans lassen martensen (1808–84) argued that in spite of critical doubts about the historical accuracy of some texts, and in spite of the difference between old testament piety and new testament faith, the history of israel was genuinely revelatory of god for Christians.9 For martensen, the old testament expressed the progressive realization of the fellowship of god with humanity, instantiating in the history of a particular race the universal truth of god’s fellowship with all people. The historically specific episodes in the Old Testament are types of god’s activity in general and types of the career of Jesus in particular, whose life was the richest instance of god’s redemptive activity. in general the old Testament, including Samuel and Chronicles, is limited by the specificities of its cultural context, and can point to the activity of god only fragmentarily. in spite of this liability, the davidic kingdom functions in this history as an expression of one aspect of israel’s messianic hope. the kingdom of david and solomon foreshadows the kingly office of Christ, Christ’s eschatological rule over the entire cosmos. as we shall see, Kierkegaard was largely uninvolved in these disputes. he wrote as if the episodes concerning david and solomon reported in the Bible were real events. usually, he neither dismissed the old testament stories as irrelevant to Christians nor did he treat them as prefigurements of Christ. Rather, he used the narratives as illustrations of spiritual dynamics that can potentially occur in the life of any individual. Kierkegaard was most interested in david and solomon as exemplars of certain types of virtues and vices. we shall explore the ways in which he uses each of them as examples in the development of his literature, proceeding from the earlier works to the later ones.

wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 225–43 (ASKB 80). 8 Friedrich schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsä[t]zen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt, vols. 1–2, 3rd ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1835–36 [vols. 3–4, in Friedrich Schleiermacher’s sämmtliche Werke, Erste Abtheilung. Zur Theologie, Berlin: g. reimer 1834–64 (some of the volumes were published in Berlin: august herbig)], vol. 2, pp. 346–51 (AKSB 258). 9 hans lassen martensen, Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1849, pp. 228–35 (ASKB 653). 7

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

103

II. David A. either/or three allusions to the stories of david occur in Either/Or, including references to 1 samuel 16:14–23, 2 samuel 24, and 2 samuel 12:7. Because these references function differently in Kierkegaard’s text, they must be treated separately. The first passage attempts to explain David’s coming to the royal court of Saul, the reigning king of israel. according to this passage the harpist david soothes the troubled Saul with his music. A reference to this episode can be found in the first part of Either/Or, in the papers of a published by victor eremita that contain a study of mozart’s “magic Flute.” in this essay the power to while away the time is attributed to Tamino’s flute playing. However, the more important ability of the music to drive away evil thoughts is questioned, while its capacity to cure insanity and psychological ailments is completely denied. 10 this reference to the possibility that music might have the power to dispel evil spirits and emotional woes is an allusion to the potency of david’s music as described in 1 samuel. among the papers of a in Either/Or a study is included concerning the concept of “the tragic” and the way the concept differs in the ancient and the modern ages. the chief characteristic of the modern age is the widespread social disintegration that produces the phenomenon of isolation. the narrative of david’s census of his subjects found in 2 samuel 24 is taken as an example of the futile effort to overcome isolation by seeking solace in associations of large numbers of persons. a remarks, “when david really wanted to feel his power and glory, he had his people counted; in our age, however, it may be said that the people, in order to feel significant over against a superior power, count themselves.”11 Here the figure of David functions as an example of an unfortunate human tendency to identify with a collectivity in order to attain a sense of personal significance, a perennial tendency that has become more overt in the modern age. among the papers of B in the second part of Either/Or is the contribution “the esthetic validity of marriage,” an essay addressed to a in the form of a letter. on the very first page of this attempt to convince the young aesthete that marriage is not inimical to romantic happiness, an allusion to 2 samuel 12:7 is prominently featured.12after david has committed adultery with Bathsheba and indirectly caused the death of her husband, the prophet nathan presents to his king a lawsuit concerning the robbery of a poor man’s sheep by a wealthy neighbor. infuriated about the rich man’s insolence in stealing the last sheep of a poor man, david exclaims, “as the lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die!” as soon as david pronounces these words, nathan replies, “You are the man!”13 B’s introduction to his reflections on marriage emphasizes the fact that the writing is intended to be a letter to a, and therefore should be read as one. he insists that the 10 11 12 13

SKS 1, 88 / EO1, 82. SKS 1, 141 / EO1, 141. SKS 2, 15 / EO2, 5. see 2 sam 12:1–7.

104

Matthias Engelke

writing is really about a, and that this fact should be recognized by a when reading the long epistle. Just like david (and B mentions this explicitly), a must realize that the parable is aimed at himself. in the context of the letter it is a who is the target of the accusation “You are the man, o King.”14 For B this biblical excerpt, which Kierkegaard cites as early as 1837 in one of the fragmentary notes in his journals,15 functions as an instance of a fundamental dilemma of the dramatic art. when viewing a theatrical performance that uses the limited medium of acting, it is impossible for the onlookers to perceive that “this drama is about me!” due to the phenomenon of personal distancing generated by the fact that the drama is enacted on a stage, a member of the audience is allowed to presume that he is not implicated by the story being performed, but rather that it refers to someone else. therefore, another person is required to join the action, such as nathan with his direct address after relating his parable to david, in order to establish a direct connection and to state the essential point: “You are the man, o King!” this motif of nathan’s denunciation “You are the man” was critically important to Kierkegaard’s literary strategy of provoking the reader to apply Kierkegaard’s writings to the reader’s own self. as we shall see, references to this passage reappear throughout Kierkegaard’s later works and play a key role in them. B. Four upbuilding discourses in “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” based on James 1:17– 22 and included as the second discourse in Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1843, Kierkegaard explores the verse “let everyone be quick to listen.”16 according to Kierkegaard, an individual who has started to listen to the word of god will begin to trust more in listening than in talking. it is in this context that Kierkegaard refers to david in order to contrast the attitude of the truly pious individual to that of the old testament king. Kierkegaard asserts, “ultimately he will not even say with david: hasten, o lord, to speak! but will say to his own soul: hasten, oh, hasten to listen!”17 david’s words are presented as an example of inadequate attention to the quality of the individual’s own listening. oddly, here Kierkegaard is misrepresenting the biblical material. Certainly the prayerful supplication “make haste, o lord” is a common idiom in the psalms.18 however, not a single biblical passage exclaims, “hasten, o lord, to speak!” the redactors of the biblical books do not put these words into the mouth of david. in the psalms god is asked to aid,19 to stand by,20 and to deliver,21 but not to speak. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

SKS 2, 15 / EO2, 5. SKS 17, 51, aa:45.a / KJN 1, 44. see Jas 1:19b. SKS 5, 141 / EUD, 138. see ps 22:20; ps 38:23; ps 40:14; ps 70:2; ps 71:12. see ps 22:20; ps 40:14; ps 71:12. see ps 38:23. see ps 70:2.

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

105

although imploring god to speak may sound like scriptural language, it actually has no backing in the Bible. nowhere in the biblical texts does david call upon god to speak, for such a demand would have appeared to be an utterly improper attempt to seize hold of god. the few biblical verses that do seem to be requests for divine speech are actually commitments to listen to god. For example, in 1 samuel 3:9 samuel calls out, “speak, lord, for Your servant hears,” after he had been raised from sleep three times by god. psalm 85:9 is the opposite of a demand for god’s speech when it announces, “i will hear what god the lord will speak.” at other times god is called upon to listen to the individual’s prayers: “give ear to my words, o lord, consider my meditation.”22 similarly, the psalmist implores, “i have called upon You, for You will hear me, o god; incline Your ear to me, and hear my speech.”23 psalm 141:1 begs, “lord, i cry out to You; make haste to me! give ear to my voice when i cry out to You.” the biblical texts that articulate god’s promises include god’s speaking and hearing as an aspect of the envisioned new heaven and new earth. this is evident in the verse: “it shall come to pass that before they call, i will answer; and while they are still speaking, i will hear.”24 a close examination of these passages shows that the theme from which Kierkegaard distances himself, the words ascribed to david “hasten, o lord, to speak!,” is actually not to be found in the Bible. the motif of imploring of god to speak can be traced to the origins of german revivalism. through the religiosity of his father Kierkegaard had become acquainted with the piety and literature of the awakening movement, including the writings of Gerhard Tersteegen (1697–1769). In the first booklet of Tersteegen’s Geistliches Blumen-Gärtlein from 1729,25 the poem “die himmlische Berufung” [“the heavenly appeal”]26 ends thus: Herr, rede du, dir schweige ich! [“lord, you speak; i am silent before you”]. in his second booklet tersteegen quotes the only biblical passage he can claim to support his choice of words, daniel 10:19.27 in this verse daniel speaks after he had been overwhelmed by a vision of god and is subsequently encouraged by god, saying, “let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” in the third booklet under the heading “abendgedanken einer gottseligen seele” [“evening thoughts of a god-blessed soul”] tersteegen implores in the seventh stanza, Herr, rede du, lass mich ganz stille sein! [“lord, you speak; let me be totally silent”]. the importance of tersteegen to Kierkegaard is evident in the fact that a four-line poem in german from the appendix “dies ist der Frommen lotterie” [“this is the devout lottery”] of tersteegen’s Blumen-Gärtlein28 is featured as a motto in Kierkegaard’s On My Work see ps 5:2. see ps 17:6. 24 isa 65:24. 25 gerhard tersteegen, Geistliches Blumen-Gärtlein, Frankfurt and leipzig: g.C.B. hoffman 1769; see gerhard tersteegen, Des gottseligen Arbeiters im Weinberge des Herrn: Gerhard Tersteegen’s…gesammelte Schriften, vols. 1–4, stuttgart: l.F. rieger, stuttgart: Becher und müller 1844–45 (ASKB 827–830). 26 tersteegen, Geistliches Blumen-Gärtlein, p. 119, no. 534. 27 ibid., p. 231, no. 117. 28 see ibid., p. 476, no. 78. 22 23

106

Matthias Engelke

as an Author from 1851.29 Kierkegaard quotes, Wer glaubet, der ist groß und reich, / Er hat Gott und das Himmelreich. / Wer glaubet, der ist klein und arm, / Er schreiet nur: Herr Dich erbarm! [“whoever believes is great and rich, / he has god and the Kingdom of heaven. / whoever believes is small and poor, / he only cries: lord, have mercy!”]. given Kierkegaard’s familiarity with tersteegen, it is possible that Kierkegaard was projecting tersteegen’s phraseology onto the Bible. C. stages on life’s way In the epilogue to the diary that was fished from the lake in Stages on Life’s Way, Frater taciturnus analyzes the unfortunate love story and proceeds to discuss the issue of repentance in the third section (§ 4).30 it should be noted that the setting of the first of the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions published just one day before Stages on Life’s Way is confession and its theme is also repentance.31 in Stages on Life’s Way david’s adultery32 serves as a foil for the discussion of the unusual quality of the case of the failed romance related in the diary. in many of his writings Kierkegaard applied the method of “experimental hermeneutic,” retelling the same biblical narrative in different ways in order to explore its different interpretive possibilities.33 accordingly, the narration of david’s adultery with Bathsheba and the death of her husband uriah vary in Kierkegaard’s literature according to the particularities of the context and the rhetorical purpose. according to the story as narrated in 2 samuel, david had ordered uriah, a noted warrior, to be stationed in the front line of his troops. Kierkegaard retells the episode, altering and embellishing it. in Kierkegaard’s altered version david sends a messenger to uriah’s superiors with the order to expose uriah to fatal danger, but then suffers from second thoughts and dispatches a second messenger to intervene and undo the earlier command. in this scenario genuine repentance over a course of action that may not have been completed involves a willingness to intervene and an attempt to prevent the guilt from becoming established. in some respects, the situation of the lover in the diary is analogous to the situation of david, for the lover too finds himself to be in an intermediate stage, waiting for what may happen. He is willing to part with his fiancée so that she would no longer feel bound to him in any respect, but is not sure that she will emotionally sever the ties. however, in other respects the situation of david and the lover are different. in comparison with the anonymous lover, david’s case appears to be rather simple to Frater taciturnus. david’s case lacks the simultaneity of tragedy and comedy, a simultaneity that is evident in the situation of the lover. even if the lover’s intention succeeded, he still remains bound to his fiancée on an inward level because he has not determined SKS 13, 8 / PV, 2. SKS 6, 416–17 / SLW, 450–1. 31 SKS 5, 391–418 / TD, 9–40. 32 see 2 sam 11. 33 matthias engelke, Kierkegaard und das Alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag winrich C.-w. Clasen 1998, p. 197. 29 30

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

107

whether his behavior toward her was culpable or not, a dilemma that is at once tragic (a failure) and comic (the simultaneity of success and failure). the commentator accurately observes that “he cannot begin to repent, because what it is he ought to repent of seems to be undecided as yet.”34 in contrast to the lover’s incapability to comprehend himself and determine his guilt or innocence, the first of the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, also published in 1845, expresses the attitude that, independent of specific concrete occasions of culpability, an individual should experience a pervasive sense of guilt in the face of God. The acceptance of guilt is necessary in order to find God, for it promotes the realization that without god the individual can do nothing and that god had always been with the individual.35 the description in Stages on Life’s Way of David’s anguished perplexity about his guilt or innocence in a very specific matter serves as a contrast to the discourse’s articulation of a religious individual’s willingness to regard himself as guilty in general. D. works of love—2 Samuel 12:7 Kierkegaard returned to the story of nathan’s implicit accusation of King david in Works of Love during his explication of one phrase from Jesus’ sermon on the plain in luke 6. Kierkegaard paraphrases luke 6:44: “the tree is to be known by its fruits.” in this context he observed, “the gospel does not need to add what the prophet nathan added to his parable, ‘You are the man,’ since it is already contained in the form of the statement and in its being a word of the gospel.” 36 the obvious interpretation of this passage is that anyone who reads these words of the gospel is the tree mentioned by Jesus. in such contexts where the rhetorical force is clear, the explicit clarification provided by Nathan is not needed. E. For self-examination For Self-Examination, published in 1851, contains discourses, introduced without the addition of “upbuilding” or “Christian,” for three consecutive holy days: the last Sunday before Pentecost (the fifth Sunday after Easter), Ascension Day, and Pentecost. The first discourse is based on James 1:22ff. and bears the title “What Is required to look at oneself with true Blessing in the mirror of the word?” in the course of the discourse, the familiar narrative of 2 samuel 11–12, the adultery of david and the objection of the prophet nathan, is retold in a free style.37 Kierkegaard explains emphatically that reading god’s word is like looking in the mirror. he remarks, “when you read god’s word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: it is i to whom it is speaking, it is i about whom it is speaking—this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness.”38 in this divergent retelling of david’s 34 35 36 37 38

SKS 6, 417 / SLW, 451. SKS 391–418 / TD, 8–40. SKS 9, 22 / WL, 14. SKS 13, 64–6 / FSE, 37–9. SKS 13, 63 / FSE, 36.

108

Matthias Engelke

adultery and nathan’s objection to it, Kierkegaard casts david and nathan as two intellectuals with refined literary tastes. He describes a conversation between them about the virtues and flaws of a novel that Nathan has read to his poetry-sensitive king. the conversation about the literary merits of the story takes a more personal turn only when nathan says: “thou art the man.”39 as learned as david was, in order for him to grasp the import of the passage someone from the outside was needed, someone who said to him: “You.” here again the story of david and nathan is used to encourage the reader to engage the Bible in a self-involving manner. this time david is portrayed as an example of a literary aesthete prone to ignore the existential significance of text because of undue fascination with its aesthetic form. III. Solomon throughout his works Kierkegaard took the details in the biblical material to be the authentic words of the traditionally supposed authors, although he was probably familiar with the discussions in academic literature concerning the true authorship of those texts. de wette, for example, had argued that the wisdom literature attributed to solomon actually dated from a much later period.40 however, for Kierkegaard, the books of proverbs, ecclesiastes, and song of songs were indeed works by solomon and therefore contained information about solomon’s personality. we shall examine these passages in order to understand Kierkegaard’s use of solomon both as a literary ornament and as an illustration of certain dynamics in an individual’s religious life. in the following inquiry no further reference will be made to ecclesiastes, because a separate article in this volume is dedicated to it. moreover, we will not deal with matthew 6:29 and luke 12:27 in which the fantastic splendor of King solomon is compared with the beauty of the lilies in the field, even though Kierkegaard often referred to this Bible passage. a separate article is dedicated to these passages as well. A. Letters In a letter to his fiancée Regine Olsen from May 5, 1841, Kierkegaard briefly mentions a girl from the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights, “who in addition to other virtues also had a mouth like the seal of solomon.”41 Kierkegaard sent a rose back with the letter and sealed the envelope with a kiss—a seal which, so Kierkegaard notes, is actually regine’s.42 here the reference to solomon is merely a literary embellishment. SKS 13, 66 / FSE, 39. de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 347–56. 41 this may be an allusion to the story of the love between dschubair bin umair and the lady Budur. see Tausend und eine Nacht. Arabische Erzählungen, vols. 1–4, trans. by gustav weil, ed. by august lewald, stuttgart und pforzheim: dennig, Finck & Co. 1838–41, vol. 3, p. 17 (ASKB 1414–1417). 42 B&A, vol. 1 p. 67 / LD, letter 40, p. 85. see song of solomon 8:6. 39 40

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

109

B. repetition Constantin Constantius, the pseudonymous author of Repetition, asks himself, “solomon says that a woman’s nagging is like rain dripping from the roof; i wonder what he would say about this still life.”43 he muses about this on the occasion of a visit to a restaurant that he has often frequented and has observed that the customers always follow the same routine. sadly, he discovers that “here a repetition was possible!”—for the same things happen over and over again.44 in this context solomon functions as the source of a bit of commonplace wisdom about ordinary life. C. stages on life’s way After a brief excursus on Goethe in “Some Reflections on Marriage In Answer to objections” contained in Stages on Life’s Way, a “married man” writes, “solomon puts it beautifully when he says that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains a good gift from god—or, to modernize the saying a bit, to him who falls in love, the god has been gracious. if he marries the beloved, he does a good deed and does well to finish what he has begun.”45 In these reflections it is the husband’s purpose to argue that marriage is the only appropriate continuation to the state of being in love, as opposed to the purely erotic liaison by a lover who avoids marriage. of course, the reader must wonder if solomon, the polygamist and lover of many foreign women, is an effective witness to the virtues of responsible monogamy.46 given the inappropriateness of solomon as the married man’s example of marital duty, it is possible that Kierkegaard may be distancing himself from his pseudonym. D. “Solomon’s Dream” the second part of the Stages, the diary of an anonymous, unhappy lover found by Frater taciturnus, contains six literary sketches in which the author of the diary contemplates various possibilities for his existence.47 they bear the titles “Quiet despair,” “a leper’s self-Contemplation,” “solomon’s dream,” “a possibility,” “the reading lesson: periander,” and “nebuchadnezzar.” during the day the unhappy man reports on occurrences with his former fiancée that had happened exactly one year ago and at midnight of the same day he reflects on the question of whether he has become guilty or not by slipping out of the engagement. the midnight entry “solomon’s dream” corresponds to the morning’s reminiscence that his fiancée’s demeanor had become “somewhat unfree” and that a reticence had appeared in the conversations between his fiancée and himself, as if she was afraid to be criticized by him. perhaps, he speculates, this reticence is motivated by her fear 43 44 45 46 47

SKS 4, 44 / R, 170. see prov 19.13. ibid. SKS 6, 146 / SLW, 156. see prov 18:22. see 1 Kings 11:1–3. SKS 6, 234ff. / SLW, 250–2.

Matthias Engelke

110

that “what she says would not be brilliant enough. That is how difficult my external nature has made our mutual understanding for me.”48 the reference to a dream of solomon remotely recalls the story in 1 Kings 3:5–15 in which god promises solomon that he will develop a discerning heart like his father’s that can distinguish between right and wrong. Frater tacitunus, however, takes great liberties with the story and develops it in an entirely different direction. In the evening’s reflection Solomon is sketched as a happy man, not only happy to be among the chosen people, but happy to be allowed to be the son of the chosen one, King david. in solomon’s eyes david is the idealized hero while solomon himself is merely the admiring poet, happy to laud the virtues of the hero. solomon’s happiness is disturbed when Solomon awakens one night to find his father alone and in the deepest despair. the diarist reports that solomon “hears the cry of despair from the penitent’s soul.”49 solomon then hypothesizes in a dream that it is not david’s sincerity to god or his familiarity with god that is the basis of david’s status as the chosen one of god.50 rather, “that secret guilt was the secret that explained everything.” according to the diarist, solomon’s dream “intimates that god is not the god of the godly but of the ungodly, and that to be singled out by god one has to be an ungodly person.”51 through his recognition of this contradiction between inner despair and outward felicity solomon “became wise, but he did not become a hero; he became a thinker, but he did not become a man of prayer; and he became a preacher, but he did not become a believer, and he could help many people, but he could not help himself; and he became sensual, but not repentant; and he became crushed but not raised up again, for the power of the will had been overstrained in lifting what was beyond the lad’s strength.”52 in this story of david and solomon, father and son, two ways of existence are described, anguished remorse and perplexity about possible guilt. these existential possibilities are related to one another in the way that the repentance typical of religiosity is related to the ambiguous attitude of this unhappy lover. possibly Kierkegaard discerned the same relation reflected in the difference between his father’s religiosity and his own passional life, even though “solomon’s dream” is free of autobiographical details. the story of the relationship of solomon the son and david the father runs parallel to the sad love story of the former couple. in both instances a type of melancholy disrupts the understanding that had seemed to characterize the relationship. in the story of solomon’s dream the lack of understanding arises due to solomon’s discovery of david’s hidden melancholy. solomon, who is only a child, is unable to comprehend the change in his father from a secret criminal to a (seemingly) repentant man. For the rest of his life solomon, like the author of the diary, remains in an intermediate stage, imagining what god’s forgiveness might be like, but unable

48 49 50 51 52

SKS 6, 233 / SLW, 250. SKS 6, 234 / SLW, 251. SKS 6, 234 / SLW, 252. SKS 6, 234 / SLW, 251. ibid.

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

111

to appropriate it. solomon, like the author of the diary, epitomizes the individual who cannot decisively repent and therefore cannot embrace god’s forgiveness. in the story of solomon’s dream the new testament message of god’s love for sinners (see romans 5:8) is alluded to in an ambiguous way in the relation of the two generations, the two famous royal witnesses of the old testament. it remains an open question which option is chosen in the end: is it god’s forgiveness that is accepted or is it the shock triggered by the sudden perception of perversion and the anomaly that the godless one is chosen by god? this open-endedness is deliberate, for it compels the reader to decide for himself or herself to which side the pendulum will swing. here Kierkegaard puts into practice the “You are the man” theme from 2 samuel 12:7.53 Both david and solomon function in many different ways in Kierkegaard’s literature. sometimes references to them are simply literary ornaments to embellish a point that Kierkegaard or one of his pseudonyms is making. however, at other times david and solomon play more substantial roles, all of them related to the ethical and religious struggles of the two kings. david’s interaction with nathan is used by Kierkegaard to draw attention to humanity’s general unwillingness to engage in self-examination. david’s imagined effort to countermand the order to engineer uriah’s demise provides an example of the failure to simply accept one’s pervasive guilt without trying to exonerate oneself. similarly, the non-biblical story of solomon’s dream serves as a vivid example of the inability to thoroughly repent and open oneself to god’s grace. neither david nor solomon function as prefigurements of the messianic reign of Christ. In spite of their royalty and heroic status, both men usually serve in Kierkegaard’s literature to draw attention to the dangers, temptations, and failures that haunt religious life.

53

SKS 6, 440 / SLW, 478.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss David and Solomon gesenius, wilhelm, Lexicon hebraicum & chaldaicum in veteris testamenti libros, leipzig: vogel 1833, pp. 451–2 (ASKB 72). martensen, hans lassen, Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1849, pp. 228–35 (ASKB 653). rosenkranz, Karl, Encyclopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und son 1831, pp. 139–41 (ASKB 35). wette, martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 225–43 (ASKB 80). winer, georg Benedikt, Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: reclam 1833–38, vol. 1, 1833, pp. 298–307 (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of David and Solomon Barrett, lee C., “authorial voices and the limits of Communication in Kierkegaard’s ‘signed’ literature: a Comparison of Works of Love to For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!,” in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21), p. 30. dunning, stephen, Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Inwardness: A Structural Analysis of the Theory of the Stages, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1985, pp. 126–7. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das Alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998, p. 84; p. 101; p. 109; p. 130; p. 159; p. 166; p. 174; p. 260; p. 269. guillamore hansen, p., Søren Kierkegaard og Bibelen, Copenhagen: p. haase 1924, pp. 33–5; p. 38. hall, amy laura, Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2002, pp. 165–6. —— “stages on the wrong way: love and the other in Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way and Works of Love,” in Stages on Life’s Way, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon: georgia 2000 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 11), p. 40.

David and Solomon: Models of Repentance and Evasion of Guilt

113

Kjær, grethe, “the Concept of Fate in Stages on Life’s Way,” in Stages on Life’s Way, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon georgia: mercer university press 2000 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 11), p. 253. law, david, “Cheap grace and the Cost of discipleship in Kierkegaard’s For SelfExamination,” in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21), p. 124. mcCarthy, vincent, “morning and melancholia in ‘Quidam’s diary,’ ” in Stages on Life’s Way, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon: georgia: mercer university press 2000 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 11), p. 163; p. 166. martens, paul, “authority, authorship, and the difference between Kierkegaard’s old and new testament,” in The Book on Adler, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2008 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 24), p. 132. parkov, peter, Bibelen i Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1983, pp. 14–16. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, pp. 36–7. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 88–90. poole, roger, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville, virginia: university of virginia press 1993, pp. 115–25. Pyper, Hugh, “The Apostle, the Genius and the Monkey: Reflections on Kierkegaard’s ‘the mirror of the word,’ ” in Kierkegaard on Art and Communication, ed. by george pattison, new York: st. martin’s press 1992, pp. 132–3. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, p. 62; p. 91.

Job: Edification against Theodicy timothy h. polk

I. Introduction the Book of Job is the Bible’s classic response to the constellation of issues that have been traditionally labeled “theodicy.” theodicy is the struggle to legitimate talk of god’s love and justice in situations of theological dissonance, most particularly when natural and moral evil is evident and severe. Theodicy can be defined narrowly as the attempt to justify the ways of god in the face of evil, or more broadly as any response to the experience of disorientation when a society’s given religious nomos is challenged. in his writings on Job, Kierkegaard was critical of the enterprise of theodicy when it was construed as a conceptual exercise, as if the alleged “problem of evil” were amenable to a resolution through the development of more satisfying conceptual networks or more plausible hypotheses about god and the universe. For Kierkegaard, the problem of human tragedy should be addressed doxologically, not theoretically. doxology is preferable to theodicy in the way that blessing the name of god is preferable to cursing it. this is true not only of our speaking of God but also of our reading of Scripture. For the purpose of edification, reading the Bible doxologically makes better sense than reading the Bible in order to distill a metaphysics or to reconstruct the cultural dynamics of an ancient society. Kierkegaard’s authorial practice presaged a “post-critical” way of engaging scripture, a way that avoids the reduction of meaning to an allegedly objective reconstruction of the original situation of a book’s composition or redaction. Kierkegaard takes the passions and purposes of readers seriously as critical factors in the construction of textual meaning. Kierkegaard illustrates how a certain set of passions and interests can generate a doxological reading of the Book of Job in his short novel, Repetition, and in the edifying discourse titled after the celebrated proverb in Job 1:21, “the lord gave, the lord took away; Blessed Be the name of the lord.”1 Before examining Kierkegaard’s doxological alternative to purely historical-critical readings of Job and to theodicy, i shall consider two contrasting ways of reading this work, which i shall call the metaphysical and the socio-cultural readings. Kierkegaard did not read the Book of Job in order to find a propositional answer to the question, “why does god allow suffering and evil?” as a reader of the Bible 1

SKS 5, 115–28 / EUD, 109–24.

116

Timothy H. Polk

who engaged the texts for edifying purposes, he was suspicious of any reading aimed at the generation of a theodicy. theodicy is not a purely objective or morally neutral endeavor. as we shall see, for Kierkegaard, the seemingly intellectual “problem of theodicy” has a way of transforming itself into an existential problem for the individuals who engage in theodicy, for such reflections encourage a mood of detachment that makes encountering God difficult. The problem of theodicy becomes severe if a reader is concerned about the Bible’s normative status, its capacity to function as canonical scripture. theodicy often involves a drastic distancing from the Bible’s first-order language of faith and from its use in the activities that constitute the life of faith. Consequently, theodicy itself may be an even more powerful incentive to disbelief than is the evil that it seeks to explain. Kierkegaard warns that Job “did not detain his soul and quench his spirit with deliberations or explanations that only feed and foster doubt, even though the person suspended in them does not even notice that.”2 For Kierkegaard, theodicy typically involves a suspension of the relationship with god that Christians call faith, and, as such, would qualify as a form of despair, or, to use doctrinal language, sin.3 II. Job in Kierkegaard’s Intellectual Context in the intellectual environment that shaped Kierkegaard, biblical scholars had been disputing almost every aspect of the Book of Job for several decades. indeed, they rarely agreed about its author, place of origin, genre, and date, much less its theological or ideological implications. First, there was extreme and impassioned disagreement about the time of the book’s composition. Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803) suspected that it predated the formation of the israelite kingdom, for it seemed to contain traces of a nomadic culture.4 The influential exegete Wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849), by contrast, favored a much later date, probably during the Chaldean period.5 a further heated debate concerned the authenticity of the book’s various literary components. herder and leonhard Bertholdt (1774–1822)6 found elihu’s speech to be an integral part of the book, while de wette dismissed it as a spurious later interpolation. most scholars were keenly aware of the profound difference between the poetic dialogues (Job 3:2– 42:6) and the prose framework (Job 1–2; Job 42:7ff.) and the difference between the poet’s “protesting Job” and the “patient Job” of the folk tale. many doubted that SKS 5, 125 / EUD, 121. SKS 11, 189–242 / SUD, 75–131. see also SKS 9, 48–50 / WL, 40–43. 4 Johann gottfried herder, Vom Geist der hebräischen Poesie, in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 1, pp. 86–137 (ASKB 1676–1684). 5 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 356–65 (ASKB 80). 6 leonhard Bertholdt, Historisch-kritische Einleitung in sämmtliche kanonische und apokryphische Schriften des alten und neuen Testaments, vols. 1–7, erlangen: palm 1812–19, vol. 5, pp. 2151–63. 2 3

Job: Edification against Theodicy

117

the prologue and epilogue were original parts of the composition,7 and advanced arguments against its authenticity that de wette rehearsed in a text that Kierkegaard owned.8 Johann gottfried eichhorn (1752–1827) proposed that the entire book was a poetic composition with few roots in history.9 Most significantly, disagreement raged about the main point of the text. For herder, who abstracted the poetic dialogues from the prose framework, the text poetically expresses the sublimity of god as creator and as judge in order to stimulate a sense of awe and wonder in the reader. in herder’s view the book’s main theme is its depiction of god as pervading and animating nature; the entire cosmos is god’s palace.10 de wette regarded the Book of Job as a not entirely successful attempt to overcome a theology of retribution according to which the good prosper and the wicked suffer. in the face of life’s unfairness and tragedy, the book encourages the virtues of resignation, trust, and humble submission as antidotes to doubts about god’s purposes.11 Karl rosenkranz (1805–79) cited Job as an extreme instance of Judaism’s acute differentiation of god and humanity, in which the individual stands in opposition to god.12 Job presents an abstract monotheism that defines God as absolute will to be obeyed and sheer glory to be adored with awe. From the books in his library Kierkegaard would have been familiar with many of these views. Although he did not find it religiously profitable to engage in scholarly disputes about the historical context of Job, echoes of some of the themes from this scholarly conversation can be detected in his writings. III. Metaphysical Readings Of the two varieties of non-Kierkegaardian reading that we shall consider, the first is so distant from the biblical idiom that it need refer to Job only tangentially, as an illustration of points independently established. it is theodicy done in the grand manner of metaphysics, a way of engaging Job with which Kierkegaard was quite familiar. the problem for Kierkegaard was that such academic work proceeded in a spirit entirely different from that which generated the biblical materials. it tended to marginalize Job’s normative role in the practice of piety. divorced from the context of the religious life, in particular from the activities of praise central to that life, biblical scholarship easily slipped into an attitude foreign to that which enables the Bible to function as scripture. matthias stuhlmann, Hiob. Ein religiöses Gedicht, hamburg: perthes 1804. de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, p. 361. 9 Johann gottfried eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, vols. 1–5, 4th ed., göttingen: rosenbusch 1824 [1780–83], vol. 5, pp. 114–34. 10 Johann gottfried herder, Vom Geist der hebräischen Poesie, pp. 86–137. 11 de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 357–8; pp. 362–3. 12 Karl rosenkranz, “eine parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 13–14 (ASKB 354–357). in 1837 Kierkegaard took extensive notes from this article. see SKS 17, 220–1, dd:10 / KJN 1, 212. 7 8

118

Timothy H. Polk

metaphysically oriented theology has typically framed theodicy in terms of conceptual challenges to the theological claims that god is powerful (usually the claim is that god is omnipotent) and absolutely loving. the plausibility of these propositions is thrown into question by the evident tragedy and suffering that pervade the created order, things which a loving and powerful god presumably could prevent and would want to prevent. the metaphysical response to this conundrum is to attempt to discern a reason for this suffering, a reason that does not impugn god’s power, justice, or love. theodicy is, in John hick’s words, “an exercise in metaphysical construction consisting in the formation of large-scale hypotheses concerning the nature and process of the universe.”13 the assumption is that religious beliefs are justified primarily by occupying a position in a theoretical scheme. That scheme is composed of highly general propositions about the world, propositions to which one’s concept of God must conform in order to be justified. In this strategy common to all theodicies, the concept god is made to function as a cypher within a particular metaphysics, uprooted from its natural context of worship. the Book of Job would be of interest to this enterprise insofar as it could provide images and narratives that would trigger the development of an adequate metaphysical scheme or provide illustrations for such a scheme. The impulse to generate theodicies was strong in Kierkegaard’s era. The influential gottfried wilhelm von leibniz (1646–1716), whose work Kierkegaard frequently cited, had reanimated the enterprise of doing theodicy by explaining the presence of tragedy in terms of the necessary imperfection of finite being.14 Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), using a different conceptual idiom, continued this explanatory strategy in the first half of the nineteenth century.15 Baur also drew critical attention to the very different “gnostic” theory that a dimension of negativity exists in god which, when projected outward into the finite universe, manifests itself as evil.16 Baur claimed that this gnostic view had been revived and reworked by Jacob Böhme (1525–1624) and further developed in a more subtle guise in Friedrich wilhelm Joseph von schelling’s (1775–1854) philosophy of nature. Kierkegaard was aware of this gnostic view and realized that it implied the identification of creation with

John hick, Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, ed. by stephen t. david, atlanta, georgia: John Knox 1981, p. 39. 14 see Herrn Gottfried Wilhelms, Freyherrn von Leibnitz, Theodicee, das ist, Versuch von der Güte Gottes, Freyheit des Menschen, und vom Ursprunge des Bösen, 5th revised ed., ed. by Johann Christoph gottsched, hannover and leipzig: im verlage der Försterischen erben 1763 (ASKB 619). 15 Ferdinand Christian Baur, “erwiderung auf herr dr. möhler’s neueste polemik gegen die protestantische lehre und Kirche,” Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, vol. 1834, tome 3, 1834, pp. 127–248. Kierkegaard owned a danish translation of this article, see Ferdinand Christian Baur, “Besvarelse af hr. dr. möhler’s nyeste polemik imod den protestantiske lære og Kirke,” Tidsskrift for udenlandsk theologisk Litteratur, vol. 2, 1834, pp. 587–625 (ASKB u 29). 16 Ferdinand Christian Baur, Die christliche Gnosis oder die christliche ReligionsPhilosophie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, tübingen: C.F. osiander 1835, pp. 557–626 (ASKB 421). 13

Job: Edification against Theodicy

119

the fall.17 other authors drew attention to the ancient theory, suggested by augustine, that good required evil as a term of contrast.18 pursuing a different strategy, Karl daub (1765–1836) proposed that all relative evils are the expression of essential evil, a reality whose existence is utterly inexplicable and must be regarded as being as miraculous as is the good creative activity of god.19 daub’s view was often disparagingly regarded as a sophisticated variant of dualism.20 dualistic tendencies were also evident in the controversial work of Bernard heinrich Blasche (1766– 1832).21 an alternative view was commonly ascribed to georg wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), who was credited with being the most influential modern advocate of the view that human evil was the product of the assertion of individuated subjectivity, a transitory negative moment to be sublated.22 hegel was accused of entertaining the view that a necessary dialectic governs the self-unfolding of spirit, which was taken to imply a fatalism that would include the suffering caused by human agency.23 although each of these theodicies explained the presence of evil differently, they all shared a crucial common feature. all of these speculations implicitly assumed that biblical faith in god entails or depends upon a “theory,” an ideology or system of theoretical propositions.24 Combating this assumption, Kierkegaard wrote as if the concept of god only acquires meaning when it is properly embedded in a particular way of life. For Christians, this way of life is normed by the primary witnesses of faith, the Bible. understanding the god presented in the Book of Job has more to do SKS 17, 257, dd:122 / KJN 1, 248. m. Fronmüller, “die lehre des Joh. scotus erigena vom wesen des Bösen nach ihrem inneren zusammenhang,” Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, vol. 1830, tome 1, 1830, pp. 49–89. 19 see Carl daub, Judas Ischariot, oder das Böse im Verhältniß zum Guten, vols. 1– 2, heidelberg: mohr and winter 1816–18. Kierkegaard was aware of this book and spoke approvingly of daub’s placing evil in the category of the miraculous. see SKS 23, 70, nB15:101 / JP 4, 4030. see also Jon stewart, “daub: Kierkegaard’s paradoxical appropriation of a hegelian sentry,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), p. 69. hans lassen martensen (1808–84) sought to defend hegel against the accusation of fatalism. see hans lassen martensen, Grundrids til Moralphilosophien System, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1841, p. 248. 20 see Julius müller, Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde, vols. 1–2, Breslau: Josef max, 1849, vol. 1, Vom Wesen und Grunde der Sünde, pp. 560–1 (ASKB 689–690). 21 Bernhard heinrich Blasche, Das Böse im Einklange mit der Weltordnung dargestellt oder neuer Versuch über den Ursprung, die Bedeutung, die Gesetze und Verwandtschaften des Uebels: mit kritischen Blicken in die Gebiete der neuern Theologie und Pädagogik in philosophischer Hinsicht, leipzig: F. a. Brockhaus 1827. 22 see müller, Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde, vol. 1, pp. 495–558. 23 henrik nicolai Clausen, Det Nye Testaments Hermeneutik, Copenhagen: Jens hostrup schultz 1840, pp. 371–2 (ASKB 468). see Jon stewart, A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, tome ii, The Martensen Period: 1837–1842, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2007 (Danish Golden Age Studies, vol. 3), pp. 470–83. 24 i would agree with paul holmer that it does not. see “theology, theism, and atheism,” in his The Grammar of Faith, san Francisco: harper & row 1978, pp. 159–78. 17 18

120

Timothy H. Polk

with the activity of praising, and other such practices of the religious life, than with the task of securing an ideology. according to Kierkegaard, when transferred out of the activity of worship into that of system building, the concept of god becomes a different concept, one egregiously inadequate to its supposed referent.25 the flattening of biblical themes and concepts becomes more severe the more remote one gets from the practice of using the Bible to guide the religious life. For Kierkegaard, understanding any biblical theme requires the submission of the reader’s life to the scrutiny of scripture, and a willingness to be transformed by and to appropriate what is read. Kierkegaard resisted submitting scripture to the scrutiny of modern worldviews that presumed scripture’s primary content to be passion-neutral truth claims about the nature of the universe. Kierkegaard’s practice suggests that the appropriate construal of a biblical book for Christian purposes requires approaching it in canonical context, that is, as scripture.26 This means more than just addressing the final form of the text. It means considering the text in relation to the communities that formed and shaped it, and that continue to read it, as scripture. it means taking into account the implicit rules that normatively guide their reading, as well as the web of beliefs, commitments, practices, and purposes in which their reading is embedded. For Kierkegaard, praise is a continuous thread in that web. too often theodicy à la metaphysics obscured the canonical context and failed to hear the praise. IV. Socio-Cultural Readings our second type of non-Kierkegaardian reading does not attempt to actually “do” theodicy so much as explain why and how the questioning of god’s goodness arises. this type of analysis attends to the performative force of the Bible as an ideological instrument. viewed from this perspective, scripture serves to legitimate a religious community’s world order (nomos), especially in situations of crisis. more particularly, the Book of Job was intended as a device to reinforce the ideological world and institutional arrangements of an ancient people during a time of disorienting stress.27

daniel hardy and david Ford put it well in their book, Praising and Knowing God, philadelphia: westminster 1985, p. 109: “in the case of knowledge of god, as with any other claimed object of knowledge, the question is whether the criteria and the way they are applied are appropriate to the object. if, for example, the only way to know god is to interact with him in particular ways, then criteria which demand a neutral, non-involved knowing will be inappropriate.” 26 i continue to use “canonical” in the broad sense Brevard Childs employs it in order to refer to a historical process of composing, redacting, transmitting, and preserving the biblical literature with religious uses in mind, and to the interpretive stance of realizing the literature in relation to those uses. see Brevard Childs, Old Testament Theology in Canonical Context, philadelphia: Fortress press 1989, p. 119. 27 peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, garden City, new York: anchor 1969. 25

Job: Edification against Theodicy

121

attempts were made in the early nineteenth century to read Job as a response to a cultural and theological crisis. For example, in his introductory book on the old testament, de wette dated Job rather late. in the fourth edition of his work that Kierkegaard owned, he situated Job in the Chaldean period,28 but in his fifth edition he placed it a bit earlier during the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah during the seventh century bc.29 in either case, the seemingly patriarchal character of Job was taken to symbolize the Jewish people during a time of national calamity. Consequently, the Book of Job is depicted as an attempt to come to terms with the failure of the doctrine that the virtuous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished to explain the egregious afflictions of the people. For de Wette, the point of Job is that the moral principle of retribution is not necessarily built into the cosmos, as Job’s three “comforters” assume it must be. on the contrary, there is no necessary connection between sin and suffering whatsoever, Job’s or the people’s as a whole. By marginalizing the epilogue and the prologue, de wette interpreted the book as being a recommendation of the fundamental religious attitude of submission to the inscrutable purposes of god. Job adopts a posture of self-abasement before the radically transcendentalized, omnipotent, and wholly righteous deity. god’s governance of the cosmos cannot be judged by human standards. as a result, the sacrality of the nomos is maintained by Job’s submission. In a similar way, Hegel proposed a less contextually specific account of the production of the Book of Job.30 treating Job as an expression of the development of the “religion of spiritual individuality,” hegel saw the book as an attempt to deal with a tension that would inevitably arise within Judaism’s monotheism. god has been posited as both the sublime author and governor of nature, and as the source and guarantor of humanity’s moral telos. Because god wills the good and because god is absolute power, one would expect anyone’s state of well-being to be proportionate to his or her state of well-doing. when empirical circumstances make the disparity between righteousness and worldly felicity evident, an ideological adjustment must occur. in the Book of Job’s case resigned acknowledgement of god’s power is the recommended resolution, which then ushers in a new kind of happiness. through this modification the conceptual order is preserved. our two types of non-Kierkegaardian readings, the metaphysical and the sociocultural, illustrate how the project of theodicy can be theoretically formulated and how Job can be construed in terms of that project. From Kierkegaard’s perspective, these readings treat the book quite differently from the way it is employed in the first-order language of faith, and thereby obscure the Book of Job’s more appropriate upbuilding uses. Kierkegaard sets out to provide alternatives to these religiously unsatisfying readings in Repetition and “the lord gave, and the lord took away.” de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 363–5. 29 ibid., pp. 403–4. 30 georg wilhelm Friedrich hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by philipp marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: duncker and humblot 1840 (vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke, vols. 1–18, ed. by philipp marheineke et al., Berlin: duncker and humblot 1832–45), vol. 2, pp. 66–8 (ASKB 564–565). 28

122

Timothy H. Polk

these two literary pieces, one an instance of the aesthetic literature and the other an instance of the upbuilding literature, were published a few weeks apart, and were intended to be read in tandem. interestingly, they exhibit very different perspectives on Job. Repetition highlights the angry, defiant, outraged Job of the poetic discourses, while Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourse foregrounds the resigned Job of the prose prologue. By distributing the two Jobs in two different works, Kierkegaard shows that he was well aware of the exegetic conversation about the apparent discrepancy between the prologue and the poetic discourses, and sensitive to their very different literary forms. however, as we shall see, his novella and his upbuilding discourse point to each other, and invite the reader to try to integrate the two perspectives. Through this struggle to discern the resigned, pious Job in the anguished, defiant Job, and vice versa, the reader may discover a very upbuilding blessing in the midst of suffering and strife. By offering the two different perspectives on Job simultaneously, Kierkegaard was replicating the canonical shape of the book and encouraging the reader to wrestle with the bifocal image in the way that the faithful had always done. V. Praise as Ordeal A. The Concept “Repetition” an exploration of “repetition” provides the context for Kierkegaard’s appropriation of Job in a manner that avoids the pitfalls of theodicy. the question driving Kierkegaard’s short novel, Repetition, is whether a repetition is possible. though speculatively raised by the pseudonymous author Constantin Constantius, the question becomes an existential ordeal for the anonymous “young man” who is the story’s protagonist. prompted by his own situation of lost love, the young man’s fascination with Job sharpens the two key categories, “repetition” and “ordeal.” what “repetition” means is hard enough to determine; assessing its possibility is even harder. Kierkegaard employs the concept in a characteristically equivocal manner, with its sense shifting according to the form of life, or stage of existence, of the person attempting to engage in repetition. repetition begins with the individual’s capacity for imaginative self-consciousness. aware of ourselves in our concreteness and finitude, we are also able to project possibilities for ourselves. Although the possibilities are ideal, they are authentic insofar as they are consciously grounded in the actual selves that we happen to be. accordingly, we repeat the ideal to the degree that we enact it in actuality, realizing it in the medium of our day-to-day living.31 the emphasis on actual existence points to the ethical as the sphere of existence in which repetition has a home. repetition is a self-building process through which we construct and become full human subjects. For Kierkegaard, it is in the ethical sphere that a person recognizes the achievement of selfhood and subjectivity as one’s proper life-work and sets about doing it. Consequently, repetition seems to be see david gouwens, Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of the Imagination, new York: peter lang 1988, p. 206. 31

Job: Edification against Theodicy

123

the product of the individual’s own agency. the danish term Gjentagelse literally means “again-taking,” and its nuance of agency points back to the primacy of the ethical sphere. the recognition that one does not simply “have” a self but must become one, and the consequent striving to become an actual self, are marks of the ethical life. some persons in the aesthetic stage of life are so immersed in their immediate environment that they merely take themselves for granted and do not strive to become a self. others, aesthetes proper, relate to their possibilities only hypothetically; they balk at undertaking a commitment to any one of them. either way, there can be no repetition in the aesthetic life. only after the adoption of ethical categories can the question of the possibility of repetition be meaningfully raised. the tragic irony is that once the question of repetition is raised in the ethical sphere, its normative province, the question becomes urgent and anguished in the extreme. the self one becomes always turns out to be a broken self, and not the ideal. (we hear the lutheran dimension of Kierkegaard speaking here, for he echoes the lutheran theme of the endurance of sinfulness even in the saints.) Yet precisely at this point another irony may emerge, even greater than the tragic disparity of the ethical ideal and the actual achievement. For in the religious life it happens that in spite of crushing ethical failure the self is found and “re-taken” outside of the sphere of one’s striving, that is, outside and in violation of the ethical principle that repetition should be the product of one’s own efforts to actualize one’s possibilities. this is a paradox, a conflation of spheres. Repetition’s fulfillment is an exception to its own ethical assumptions. the fact that Kierkegaard refers to this construction process with the religiously freighted term, “edification” (or “up-building”), suggests a paradoxical quality within the concept of repetition, a kind of transgression of spheres or mixing of categories.32 This fulfillment of repetition is part of the paradox that for Kierkegaard marks the religious stage of existence. ironically, the person who actually experiences repetition outwardly resembles the person still caught in aesthetic immediacy who takes herself as given. inwardly, however, she is different for having gone through the struggle of the ethical and been educated by it. having learned and acknowledged that she cannot establish her own self by herself, she receives herself not from nature as a product (aesthetically) but from god as a gift (religiously). thus the religious fulfillment of an ethical category suspends the ethical and so looks like the aesthetic; nevertheless, the ethical is an indispensable dimension of it. what does Job have to do with this abstract scenario? louis mackey succinctly expresses the Job-like nature of “repetition.” he asserts that “repetition” is really about “the possibility of restoring a personality to integrity after it has been broken by grief and guilt.”33 For the young man, and for Kierkegaard, Job is a paradigm of such restoration. the novel Repetition is styled and structured to promote that very goal of restoration, as is the Kierkegaardian corpus as a whole. as mark lloyd taylor has see especially the chapter “love Builds up,” in SKS 9, 212–26 / WL, 202–24. see also Johannes Climacus’ discussion of edification in SKS 9, 233–5 / CUP1, 256–9. 33 louis mackey, Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet, philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press 1972, p. 322, note 20. mackey’s mention of guilt points to an interesting psychological fact: Job feels guilty even though he is not—indeed, even though he knows he is not. 32

124

Timothy H. Polk

shown,34 the novel’s appearance in tandem with Fear and Trembling was deliberate, for thematically the one repeats the other. Both are aimed at introducing the concept of repetition. Both are “the story of an ordeal that ends with a repetition by virtue of the absurd, which, in some fashion, illustrates religious faith.”35 of course, in regard to illustrating faith, Job more closely repeats abraham than does the young man himself, and what abraham and Job both illustrate faith to be is essentially receptivity. the restoration of health and household to Job, like the restoring of isaac to abraham, represents a receiving back of life in its finite immediacy. But the repetition is also a receiving of life in a new way, not naively as at first but in a second immediacy, “whereby,” Taylor says, “the finite is received from the hand of God.”36 the absurdity of Job’s fairy-tale restoration was of course a natural magnet for Kierkegaard’s interest, since the restoration so clearly violated both his age’s skepticism, grounded in its essentially aesthetic-objectivist world-view, and its ethical sensibilities. it was partly for this reason that de wette found the epilogue to be an embarrassment that undercut what he took to be the book’s central effort to deconstruct the ideology of retribution and reward.37 rather than decrying Job’s ability to receive back earthly happiness, the aesthete Constantin Constantius, who can imagine (but not enact) an ethical repetition, marvels, “who would have imagined this ending?”38 in order to emphasize the marvelous nature of any such repetition, Kierkegaard had to read Job canonically, with the disputed epilogue treated as an integral part of the text. Constantin’s inability to fathom Job mirrors the perplexity of Johannes de silentio, pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, whose inability to fathom abraham generates his four depictions of what abraham might have done differently if he had “doubted,” that is, had abraham been unreceptive, an ethical hero of selfconstituting activity rather than a “knight of faith” who was receptive.39 incredible was abraham’s ability to receive isaac back again with joy, once having resigned himself to the catastrophic loss. analogous is Job’s apparent willingness to accept the restoration, including a new set of children (Job 42:13–16). offense is given not just by the intellectual absurdity that arises from an appraisal of what is plausible, but by Job’s overcoming an ethical repugnance at the claim that one’s life and cherished relationships do not belong to oneself, but rather to god, who gives and takes (Job 1:21) and gives again, inscrutably. mark lloyd taylor, “ordeal and repetition in Kierkegaard’s treatment of abraham and Job,” in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard, ed. by george B. Connell and C. stephen evans, atlantic highlands, new Jersey: humanities press international 1991, pp. 33–53. 35 ibid., p. 39. 36 ibid., p. 8. on the “second [also “new” or “later”] immediacy,” see among other places, SKS 4, 172 / FT, 82 and SKS 7, 239 / CUP1, 263. 37 de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 357–8; pp. 362–3. 38 SKS 4, 79 / R, 212. 39 see “the exordium,” SKS 4, 104–11 / FT, 9–14. see also de silentio’s remark in the “eulogy”: “if abraham had doubted, he would have done something else…” (SKS 4, 117 / FT, 20). 34

Job: Edification against Theodicy

125

like de silentio, Constantin is constructed to represent (repeat) a dominant perspective among Kierkegaard’s readership. accordingly, his wonderment serves to articulate a common reader response to the bizarre ending of Job. like de silentio’s speculations about abraham, Constantin’s consideration of Job triggers questions about Job’s silence after his restoration, questions that are more disturbing because the divine restoration includes no divine guarantees that catastrophe will not strike unexpectedly and absurdly again. For the reader, a slow clarification may occur through this mirroring of the reader’s questions. The difficulty of again-taking may then be seen as the difficulty of surrendering to God all proprietary claims to life and goods—and still have the capacity to care, love, and rejoice in that which we are given.40 the reader is prodded to ask with personal urgency how such repetition is indeed possible, a question that may bear edifying fruit. Kierkegaard performs his repetitions at another level as well. Constantin mirrors not just the reader’s reaction to Job’s story but also the narrative action within it. in the role of dubious advisor to the young man, Constantin is related to the young man as Job’s hapless comforters are related to Job. thus the reader of the story, to the degree that the reader views the narrative of Job from the perspective of Constantin the counsellor, is encouraged to identify with the least sympathetic characters in the story. whether or not the reader proceeds to recognize himself in shame, Kierkegaard has given the individual occasion for such self-recognition. no human being can do another’s repetition for them, Kierkegaard believed; only god can do that. But if one is suitably indirect, an author may, edifyingly, help to induce it. Constantin is not the only perspective on Job in the novel; Job is also viewed through the young man’s eyes. Naturally, if Constantin typifies Job’s friends, we would expect to encounter the young man as a type of Job. to an extent, our expectations are fulfilled. Beginning to regard his own life in the light of Job’s, the young man presents himself as Job does to his friends. “no doubt wisdom will die with you; but i have understanding as well as you,” Job sarcastically insists in Job 12:2–3. similarly, the young man can quote wisdom with the best of the pedants, remarking, “i do not converse with people, but in order not to break off communication with them, as well as not to give them blather for their money, i have collected quite a few poems, pithy sayings, proverbs, and brief maxims from the immortal greek and roman writers who have been admired in every age.”41 through his Job-like self-interpretation, the young man interprets Job for the reader as a master of wisdom’s standard speech forms, although as a master chastened by the recognition that such mastery can be vacuous. the reader is also shown the prospect that one might, like the young man, find one’s own self impelled to repeat Job’s passion to fill the empty forms with substance. through this literary strategy Kierkegaard mirrors ancient israel’s concern with wisdom as right-speaking. In the Book of Job this intensified concern with the substance of speech is framed in terms of human integrity (Job 1:11, 22; Job see edward F. mooney, “understanding abraham: Care, Faith, and the absurd,” in Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: university of alabama press 1981, pp. 100–114. 41 SKS 4, 71 / R, 203. 40

126

Timothy H. Polk

2:3, 9–10). the issue of integrity is fundamentally related to the question of the way in which humans should properly fear god, or whether they can properly fear god. this is “the satan’s” question in the prologue that generates Job’s ordeal in the first place (Job 1:9). The young man re-introduces the reader to this constellation of themes by again mirroring the role of Job. as Job rejects the false self-interpretation enthusiastically recommended by his friends (Job 11:6, 13–15; Job 22:5, 21), and clings to his integrity (Job 13:16; Job 19:7, 23ff.; Job 23:7), so the young man clings to his, by refusing the charade proposed by Constantin as a way to resolve his dilemma. like Job, the young man insists, “i demand my rights—that is, my honor.”42 It is significant that the young man conceives of his integrity, his “honor,” in terms of “rights,” for so does Job. Job’s enumeration of duties performed (see especially the innocence oath of chapter 31) constitutes the basis of his claim upon god for what Job regards as his rightful due. For Kierkegaard, this is integrity defined ethically. a wholeness of self is won by the self through the embracing of duty. with Job this wholeness is won through the fulfillment of covenantal obligations. The question of religious repetition is precisely the question of whether another form of integrity, rooted in an enhanced relationship with god, is possible. Job’s “confession” at the end of the book does seem to suggest that Job’s integrity shifts in quality with the divine revelation, and his fear of god deepens. such a construal is not indisputable, however. Kierkegaard’s young man has led the reader into a hermeneutical puzzle, forcing the reader to make a decision about the most apt way to interpret the quality of Job’s integrity in light of the book’s ending. For instance, Job’s restoration can also be read deconstructively as the reinstatement of the doctrine of retribution that the divine speeches appeared to shatter, as de wette tended to read it; or, in Kierkegaardian terms, as the reabsorption of the religious by the ethical, as the domestication of the transcendent by society’s ideology of distributive justice. When Job repents, he finally seems to do what the doctrine of retribution had required all along. as his friends had advised, he confesses the sin of which his suffering was a symptom, according to the doctrine as presented by his friends.43 moreover, he is rewarded by god, receiving from the appeased Yahweh the recompense that his good deed (the confession) rightly deserves. Kierkegaard’s writing suggests that which reading one chooses may be a function of one’s willingness to take the possibility of a repetition seriously. although the doctrine of retribution does seem to have been reinstated, perhaps it has been reinstated only in the manner of a repetition; that is, it is reinstated only after being filtered through the dialectic of experience, de-ossified and revivified, purged of naive immediacy, and taken again by a heart that has been transformed by its testing.

SKS 4, 70 / R, 202. the doctrine of retribution proposes that good deeds result in happy consequences, while evil deeds in unhappy consequences, such as suffering and death. Job’s friends read the doctrine backwards, reasoning that any happiness people experience is the result of goodness on their part, any suffering the result of their sin. the backwards reading does not follow logically from the doctrine itself. 42 43

Job: Edification against Theodicy

127

similarly, the restoration need not be construed as the collapse of the religious sphere into the ethical; rather, the ethical has been taken up into the religious and acknowledged as dialectically essential to it. Yes, the doctrine affirms the pleasure god takes in the good done by the creature, for doing good relates creature and Creator in the appropriate manner. And the doctrine affirms the divine displeasure at evil, which yields disproportion and disrelationship and so more evil. But a syllogistic doctrine of retribution is inadequate to the complexity of human experience or indeed of the divine mind. sin does generate suffering, but not every instance of suffering, including Job’s, is the direct effect of the sufferer’s sins. dutifully striving to embody god’s will in human works does form the self, but it does not complete it. god does restore and complete Job after Job’s confession, conferring upon him the integrity Job sought, but this chronological sequence need not imply causality. the fact that the restoration is subsequent to Job’s confession does not mean that it must be regarded as a consequence of the confession. the restoration may simply be the free gift of god’s good pleasure. and the wonder may be less whether god freely gave it than where Job got the heart, the integrity, to gladly receive it, if not from god as a free gift. the way the restoration bears on the status of the doctrine of retribution has raised an important issue. of the last two questions (did god give the gift freely and where did Job get the heart to receive it?), Kierkegaard would regard the first as the stuff of idle speculation and as a standard means of evading the second. the second, however, is serious because it is so potentially edifying. By wondering how Job got the heart to receive new children gladly, one may be opening the door to do some receiving oneself. in fact, that openness to the possibility of receptivity would itself be a building up of the self. For Kierkegaard, the issue of whether the text actually answers either question is less important than its power to stimulate a passionate asking of the second one. indeed, the intensity of the reader’s involvement may be proportionate to the text’s opaqueness on certain crucial questions. something in the way the Book of Job is styled, something Kierkegaard sought to repeat in Repetition, clearly signaled to him an edifying intent. we see from that repetition of styling that his hermeneutic investment lies in the capacity of the text to foster a religious passion in the reader. A qualification is in order at this point. The young man is a type of Job only to an extent; he is not fully identifiable with Job. Like Constantin, he is a reader with possibilities that we are likely to share. standing too close to Job for his own comfort, and too close to us for our comfort, he articulates what might be called Kierkegaard’s epidemiological model of scripture: the text carries a contagion. if we read scripture, we might catch that contagion. the young man writes: and yet anxiety comes over me, as if i still did not understand what someday i would come to understand, as if the horror i was reading about was waiting for me, as if by reading about it i brought it upon myself, just as one becomes ill with the sickness one reads about.44

44

SKS 4, 74 / R, 206.

Timothy H. Polk

128

the dreadful prospect that the young man refers to is what i have referred to as Job’s “ordeal.” it is through the young man as anxious observer, i.e., as a type of the passionate reader, that Kierkegaard introduces us to this most decisive category in his description of Job. it is the ordeal that the young man/reader must repeat, if repetition is possible. it is noteworthy that the ordeal is understood to include the dialogue section of the book, both with its complaints and with Job’s announced intent to “take god to court as a child of man does his fellow.”45 in a religiously serious reading, Kierkegaard makes clear that Job’s protests are not to be silenced but must be allowed to reverberate with utmost significance, not unlike Jesus’ cry of abandonment from the cross. even more interestingly, Job’s ordeal becomes the focus for the dithyrambic praises that so markedly distinguish the young man’s voice from Constantin’s. at this point the voice of the young man also closely resembles that of Kierkegaard’s own authorial persona in the edifying discourses, most especially in the discourse on Job and its echoes of the verse “the lord gave, the lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the lord” (Job 1:21). we can therefore expect to see this edifying discourse attempt to induce a repetition, just as we have seen Repetition serve as a stimulus for edification. Both texts present a Job praised precisely for the complex form of praise with which he confronts his ordeal. we turn now to inspect both the ordeal and the praise more closely. B. Fearful Edification and Proverbial Wisdom In describing the relation of edification to religious ordeal, Johannes Climacus remarks, “It holds true of everything upbuilding that it first and foremost evokes the requisite adequate terror, for otherwise the upbuilding is make-believe.”46 the promotion of this fear that is necessary for edification is the purpose of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourse that draws its title from Job 1:20–21: “the lord gave, and the lord took away; blessed be the name of the lord.” in this discourse from 1843 Kierkegaard attempted to read all of Job through the lens of this suitably daunting proverb. By doing so, Kierkegaard considers the book from the perspective of Job’s praise and blessing of god rather than from the perspective of Job’s outrage and anguished perplexity. the voice of the discourse is very different from the voice of the young man in the pseudonymous novella. nevertheless, the dynamic interaction of the two readings of Job generates a tensive, multi-dimensional engagement with the text that no singular exposition could bring about. in fact, it is the interplay of the two that generates the most fearful edification. Both authors are worried that Job’s theme of blessing god in the midst of loss could degenerate into a cultural platitude. in Repetition the young man bemoans the potential of Job to be reduced to a cliché. he exclaims:

45 46

ibid. SKS 7, 234–5 / CUP1, 259.

Job: Edification against Theodicy

129

Job! Job! o Job! is that really all you said, those beautiful words: the lord gave, and the lord took away; blessed be the name of the lord? ...no more, no less, just as they say “god bless you” when one sneezes! no, you who in your prime were the sword of the oppressed, the stave of the old, and the staff of the brokenhearted, you did not disappoint men when everything went to pieces—then you became the voice of the suffering, the cry of the grief-stricken, the shriek of the terrified, and a relief to all who bore their torment in silence, a faithful witness to all the affliction and laceration there can be in a heart, an unfailing spokesman who dared to lament “in bitterness of soul” and to strive with god.47

the young man’s allusions to Job’s protestations in the dialogues shows that he knows that the proverb was not a cliché because the life situation out of which it was spoken was not a cliché. in Job’s mouth the proverb means more than “god bless you.” it means more because of who Job was, because of what had happened to make him what he was. The proverbial phrase acquires extraordinary significance because of the context in which Job uses it, and because of the way that he uses it. in the edifying discourse, Kierkegaard exhibits a similar concern for the conditions necessary for the significant use of the proverb, claiming: the statement itself is not the guide, and Job’s significance consists not in his having said it but in his having acted upon it. the saying itself is certainly beautiful and worth pondering, but if someone else had said it, or if Job had been someone else, or if he had said it on another occasion, the saying itself would have become something different— meaningful, if it had any meaning at all, as spoken, but not meaningful because he acted in asserting it, because the asserting was itself an action.48

on this matter of the conditions for the meaningful assertion of the proverb, the young man and the voice of the discourse are in agreement. Significantly, Kierkegaard notes that “the asserting was itself an action.”49 Job’s utterance not only asserts god’s blessedness, but also performs the blessing. Job not only reports what god has done, but the telling relates him to god, identifying god as the one by whom he is confronted and with whom he has to deal in both good and bad. Kierkegaard observes that Job’s act of blessing god signals that “intimacy with the lord was still his as before, perhaps more inward than before.”50 Kierkegaard underscores Job’s insistence that even in the midst of his sufferings it is God with whom he is dealing. Job’s act of blessing God solidifies and reinforces his relatedness to god. Kierkegaard’s use of Job 1:20–21 in the edifying discourse, and the young man’s use of it in the quotation above, reflects the Book of Job’s own employment of the ancient proverb. the Book of Job narrativizes the proverb, situating it in the context of the story of a life that practices the wisdom it asserts. accordingly, in the edifying discourse Kierkegaard first carefully narrates Job’s transition from felicity to calamity

47 48 49 50

SKS 4, 67 / R, 197. SKS 5, 116 / EUD, 109–10. ibid. SKS 5, 126 / EUD, 122.

130

Timothy H. Polk

before expositing the proverb.51 only by dwelling on Job’s circumstances can the reader begin to imaginatively discern this proverb’s dreadful implications. proverbs can only make one wise if they are taken by the reader out of the realm of the purely aesthetic and used to cultivate the appropriate fear of the lord. the hermeneutical upshot for Kierkegaard is that if the Book of Job is to be read as an experiment in wisdom, the proverb must be located in the context of Job’s full ordeal. to situate Job 1:20–21 in the narrative of Job’s ordeal is to problematize it. part of the proverb’s problematization is that the subsequent narrative of its enactment includes the dialogues of Job with his friends, dialogues in which Job expresses outrage and perplexity. even while valorizing Job’s act of blessing, Kierkegaard alludes to these anguished deliberations that would follow in the story.52 Because Kierkegaard insists that the proverb only acquires significance through Job’s subsequent efforts to enact it, this enactment of blessing must include Job’s “battle of despair”53 and the “distress and misery in which Job was tested.”54 the problem is that in these dialogues Job’s blessing of god seems to be on the verge of devolving into the cursing of god. the danger that Job faces is that a person might “curse life in such a way that there would not even be an echo of faith and trust and humility in his words.”55 the reader would be aware that no sooner had Job blessed god than he cursed god’s work, namely, the day of Job’s birth, which of course is part of god’s creation (Job 3:1–26). although this was not tantamount to cursing god directly, the quality of Job’s blessing of god has become questionable. according to Kierkegaard, it is crucial for the reader to appreciate Job’s theocentric obsession implied by the proverb’s phrase “the lord has taken away.” Kierkegaard emphasizes Job’s certainty that it was indeed god who took everything away.56 he writes: was it not a storm from the desert yonder that blew down the house and buried his children; did the messenger mention any other perpetrator, or did he mention anyone who had sent the stormy weather? Yet Job said, “the lord took away,” and at the very moment he received the message, he understood that it was the lord who had taken away everything. who informed Job of this, or was it a mark of his piety that he shifted everything over to the lord in this way; or who authorized him to do this, and are we not more devout, we who sometimes hesitate a long time before speaking this way?57

Job also has no doubt that it was god who has put Job in the wrong (Job 19:6), and therefore it is this accuser god, not some obscure satan or perverse fate, whom Job insists on facing—and who, remarkably, appears. now if for Kierkegaard the blessing implies its enactment in the dialogues, and the dialogues include expressions

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

SKS 5, 119–20 / EUD, 114–15. SKS 5, 125 / EUD, 121. SKS 5, 116 / EUD, 110. SKS 5, 117 / EUD, 111. ibid. SKS 5, 123–6 / EUD, 119–21. SKS 5, 124 / EUD, 119.

Job: Edification against Theodicy

131

of anger and outrage, then blessing would seem to be lived out in a way that seems close to cursing. Job’s dialogues, with all their protests and laments, express the intimate connection between the blessing of god and the fear of god. Job’s cries of protest against god demonstrate that in all things Job knows that it is god with whom he has to do. even in the self-loathing in which Job would annihilate himself, Job knew that it was truly god with whom he was dealing. By reading the dialogues from the perspective of the blessing, Kierkegaard shows that in Job’s mouth the proverb articulates the fear of god. accordingly, Kierkegaard’s young man contrasts the paltry fear that “does not dare to complain to god” with the brave and awful fear of unforgettable Job.58 such fear of god is at the heart of Kierkegaard’s description of Job’s plight as an ordeal. in general, an ordeal is a situation of such apparent god-forsakenness that the god-fearer’s response of clinging to god and insisting on god’s sovereign relevance by accusing god looks like godlessness. although by conventional standards of piety this seeming hostility toward god looks like blasphemy, god takes it as praise. to better understand Kierkegaard’s concept of the ordeal, we need to look more closely at the dynamics of praise. C. Blessing, Praise, and God Job’s proverb articulates the fear of god in part by making praise, one of this fear’s dimensions, explicit. according to Kierkegaard, Job’s ascription of both giving and taking to god, Job’s act of praise, makes clear the fact that the relationship of Job and god is asymmetrical. it is initiated by god, draws its strength from god, and is judged, vindicated, and consummated by god.59 praise is god-fearing in that it gives god god’s due. even though praise ascribes even losses and tragedies to god, its underlying mood is one of joyful gratitude.60 Kierkegaard writes, “if any house is a house of sorrow, Job’s house is, but where these words are heard, ‘Blessed be the name of the lord,’ there joy also has its home.”61 By ascribing all things to god, praise removes the apprehension that worldly powers and events could disrupt one’s relationship with god. the joy is rooted in the recognition that “intimacy with the lord”62 and therefore “incorruptible joy”63 is secure, even when the lord takes away. without the element of joyful gratitude, god-fear would not be the fear of god, who is the source of value, the initiator of our good. As an activity of affirming the excellence of God, praise reflects God’s creative activity. praise is creative, for praising establishes a relationship with the one praised, and by that very act adds something new to it. thus the praise itself becomes 58 59 60 61 62 63

SKS 4, 67 / R, 197–8. SKS 5, 120–6 / EUD, 115–21. SKS 5, 126 / EUD, 121–2. SKS 5, 126 / EUD, 122. ibid. ibid.

Timothy H. Polk

132

an item of increased mutual delight and appreciation, and, like god, is itself ever expansive and self-generative. Kierkegaard describes how Job’s praise of god is full of creative potential, for it has the power to edify others. after critiquing the non-vivifying voices that do not penetrate a suffering person’s heart, Kierkegaard observes, “But this voice of comfort [Job’s voice], this voice that trembles in pain but yet proclaims joy, this is heard by the ears of the troubled one; his heart treasures it, and it strengthens and guides him to find joy even in the depths of sorrow.”64 praise solidifies the relationship with God, and thereby participates in God’s consoling and healing power. As Kierkegaard emphasizes, the specific form of praise that Job’s proverb expresses is that of blessing. Job’s blessing of god is the mirror image of god’s blessing of Job. Blessing is the speech act through which God affirms the world in such a way as to enliven it, infusing it with potency and freedom. Kierkegaard insists that even in the midst of sorrow Job had an awareness of “god’s goodness that was now so vivid in his soul.”65 Job remembered that every good gift comes from god’s hand, and knew that it was this same god with whom he had to do even in the taking away. Job’s act of blessing is presented by Kierkegaard as the appropriate human response to god’s creative blessing. our blessing of god is a sharing in the creative activity of the god who spoke reality into being with his blessing. the fact that humans can bless god, the source and substance of all true blessing, follows from the virtuous circularity of the praise that is god’s very nature. Kierkegaard stresses the fact that Job, even in the midst of tragedy, blesses god in response to all that god has given.66 what is remarkable of course is that Job blesses god even in response to god’s taking away, as if even the taking away were a function of god’s praise of the created order. Kierkegaard’s renarration of Job depends on being able to read the taking-away doxologically, in the context of praise. this can be done if scripture is read as pointing to the love of god. Kierkegaard’s discourse implies that the intended consequence of god’s testing of Job was that Job’s integrity would be made manifest, and creation’s joy thereby enlarged. the reader, like those troubled ones who have heard in Job’s words the voice of a comforting companion, is invited to share the beauty of the “benediction” and to forget the possibility of the curse.67 D. Cursing and the Ordeal the text of Job itself does not demand that god’s response to Job be construed as a despot’s demonstration of superior power, or that it be read doxologically as an act of blessing. Both readings are the fruits of the imaginative paradigm that the reader brings to the text, and not purely the products of the literary structures one finds in it. Hermeneutically, we seem to have a choice. As readers of the text, we are free to respond with suspicion no less than with praise. although in the discourse 64 65 66 67

SKS 5, 127 / EUD, 122. SKS 5, 121 / EUD, 116. SKS 5, 120–3 / EUD, 115–19. SKS 5, 127 / EUD, 122.

Job: Edification against Theodicy

133

Kierkegaard makes his own decision to read doxologically quite clear, he does point to the myriad ways in which Job could be regarded differently by different readers with different concerns, histories, and attitudes.68 as he notes, the consequence of these other readings would be that Job’s act of praise would remain opaque. in Repetition, the young man illustrates yet other ways of reading, himself often wavering between seeing Job as a cosmic rebel and as a trusting although outraged person of faith. as a character within that storied world, Job is also free. Both Kierkegaard in his own voice and the young man make it abundantly clear that Job did not have to respond to the ordeal in the way that he did. god’s giving and taking made different possibilities available to Job, presenting opportunities either for enhancement and growth in freedom, or for self-constriction and disintegration. Job could respond to god either with blessing or with curse. the plot device for activating this freedom, both Job’s and ours as readers, is the satan. the role of the satan is easily trivialized or dismissed as an interpolation of an alien religious mythology, as it was by de wette.69 when the book is viewed as an exercise in theodicy, the introduction of the satan is liable to be criticized as an effort to exonerate god by shifting responsibility to another agent. abstracted from the biblical narrative, this was the strategy employed by the metaphysical dualists, a position that Karl daub had approximated.70 whether articulated mythically or speculatively, the device fails to exculpate god, for god would still be responsible for heeding a lesser being. however, if the issue is not the assigning of responsibility for evil but learning how to praise god in spite of it, the satan’s role seems much more significant. From the perspective of facing the challenges to the praising of god, the satan instantiates the fact that the negative possibilities inherent in human freedom are serious and have been actualized. suspicion and cursing, phenomena enacted by the satan, are already part of the environment. accordingly, the young man in Repetition does not ignore the satan, noting that Job’s ordeal began with “satan’s creation of discord between god and Job.”71 the principal danger in the ordeal is that Job might choose to curse god and god’s creation. the young man in Repetition flirts with this possibility as he wonders why he should be “involved” with “this big enterprise called actuality,” and seems to be on the verge of declaring life in the world to be worthless.72 in the discourse, Kierkegaard alludes ominously to something that is “sometimes heard in the world in the day of distress instead of praise and benediction.”73 the connection between the possibility of cursing and the satan is clear in the plot of the prologue of the Book of Job. It is the satan who proposes that Job will curse God if subjected to affliction. moreover, in terms of its form and rhetorical force, the satan’s proposal is not a mere SKS 5, 117–19 / EUD, 111–14. see de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 356–65. 70 see daub, Judas Ischariot. 71 SKS 4, 77 / R, 210. 72 SKS 4, 68 / R, 200. 73 SKS 5, 127 / EUD, 122. the emphasis is Kierkegaard’s. 68 69

134

Timothy H. Polk

wager or provocation, but is itself an attempt to curse, to deny praise to god and to deny the praiseworthy character of god’s creation. 74 malediction is the negative image of benediction’s attention to the other and its communication of value and love to the other. The figure of the satan as a member of God’s court intent upon subverting praise represents the objective, oppositional status of cursing and hatred over against blessing and love. the satan is the narrative attestation that the antithesis of blessing has been historically actualized as a virulent, hostile environment that blessing must struggle against. although Kierkegaard does not emphasize the role of the satan, the dreadful possibility of cursing and the actuality of cursing in the spiritual environment haunts both the discourse and the novella. accordingly, the young man in Repetition alludes ominously to the conference between god and the satan.75 Both the discourse and the novella are replete with daunting reminders of all the temptations that could provoke cursing. true to god’s own character as non-coercive praise, god does not remove these impediments to Job’s praise but lets Job’s ordeal continue. to refashion the environment so that praise would be without obstruction would be to grant cursing (and determinacy) the victory over blessing (and freedom). Consequently Job’s struggle proceeds in a context riddled with cursing, and the most urgent question becomes: is there a blessing that has the power to counteract cursing without itself being transformed into a curse? E. The Ordeal, the Exception, and the Paradigm Because of the tension between curse and blessing, Kierkegaard’s category of the ordeal is crucial in both of his two readings of Job. the young man in Repetition passionately insists that in regard to Job’s situation, “the explanation is this: the whole thing is an ordeal.”76 Kierkegaard in the discourse introduces Job as the prototype for “those who are being tried.”77 In both, Job is the battleground where the conflict between curse and blessing is fought, and is the place where the possibility of praise is tested. god’s praise of Job is spoken into an environment infected with cursing and therefore propels Job into a conflict, an ordeal. In order to understand Kierkegaard’s use of “ordeal,” the concept must be situated in the sphere of the uniquely religious life. a struggle can be an “ordeal” only when it takes an individual beyond the categories and dynamics of the aesthetic and ethical lives. as the young man says, “this category...is not esthetic, ethical, or dogmatic...[it] is absolutely transcendent and places a person in a purely personal relationship of opposition to god, in a relationship such that he cannot allow himself to be satisfied with any explanation at second hand.”78 “dogmatic” in this context refers to commonly held religious this is a feature typically neglected by the commentators. to my knowledge, only edwin good has fully explored the implications, see his “Job and the literary task: a response,” Soundings, vol. 56, 1973, pp. 475–82. 75 SKS 4, 67 / R, 198. 76 SKS 4, 76–7 / R, 209. 77 SKS 5, 115 / EUD, 109. 78 SKS 4, 78 / R, 210. 74

Job: Edification against Theodicy

135

doctrines, including the doctrine of retribution, the conviction of Job’s friends, and initially of Job himself, that sin should lead to suffering and righteousness should lead to flourishing. Doctrines, as comprehensive principles of behavior and valuation that purport to be rooted in the nature of things, play a role in Kierkegaard’s ethical sphere insofar as the “ethical” includes all socially objectivized knowledge that claims “universal” or “eternal” validity.79 accordingly, much of what conventionally passes as religious belief and behavior, though genuinely part of the religion, is not uniquely religious. the encounter with the absolute, god, may put an individual at odds with the allegedly universal principles that govern human understandings of god but are actually not identical with God. Such an encounter would put an individual in conflict with the conventions that aim to describe god but fail to contain god. the singular individual so encountered would be an exception, an anomaly to his peers and an enigma to himself. to such an individual even god would appear strange and inscrutable. the paradoxically exceptional situation of such an individual is the ordeal, as the young man in Repetition well knows.80 the young man has a painfully acute sense of the singularity of his situation and wonders if he has gone mad and longs to know what he must do “to enjoy civic esteem, to be regarded as sensible.”81 in the ordeal, the encounter with god transcends conventional conceptual frameworks and violates common sense; as a result, the ordeal cannot be contained in any “science.”82 the appropriateness of the category “ordeal” is illustrated by de silentio’s employment of it in Fear and Trembling, a book that was published along with Repetition, to characterize the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac.83 at stake in the ordeal/test is abraham’s ethical integrity as a member of his community, for whom killing one’s child is murder, and killing isaac in particular is a betrayal of the community that would have been blessed through isaac. in the story god’s promise to abraham functions as a dogmatic category and is the focal point of abraham’s covenantal relationship with god. hence de silentio speculates that had Abraham performed the sacrifice, he may have had a relationship with God, but he would have been incapable of relating to sarah, would have been unintelligible to the general culture, and would have had no communion with the descendants that he otherwise would have had. the category of the ordeal highlights the theme of the “exception” and a curious pattern of substitution that grows out of it. as the young man in Repetition and Kierkegaard in his edifying discourse both repeat, Job is exceptional.84 the young man in Repetition remarks, “the secret in Job, the vital force, the nerve, the idea, is that Job, despite everything, is in the right. On the basis of this position, he qualifies on the concept “universal” in Kierkegaard, see C. stephen evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus, atlantic highlands, new Jersey: humanities press 1983, pp. 59–61 and pp. 73–5. 80 SKS 4, 76–8 / R, 209–10. 81 SKS 4, 70 / R, 202. 82 SKS 4, 77 / R, 209. 83 SKS 4, 145–7 / FT, 52–3. 84 SKS 4, 75–9 / R, 207–11. SKS 4, 91–4 / R, 226–8. SKS 5, 233–24 / EUD, 123–4. 79

136

Timothy H. Polk

as an exception.”85 so says the young man, and for Kierkegaard, too, everything turns on the fact that Job is the innocent exception. the whole ordeal presupposes Job’s innocence; otherwise it would not be an ordeal. moreover, the ordeal makes him an exception to the conventional wisdom that one suffers because of sin, and his exceptionality singles him out for ridicule, which isolates him further. to make Job even more singular, the young man proposes that Job is exceptional as one who is “proved to be in the right” by virtue of having been “proved to be in the wrong before God.”86 the paradoxical outcome of the ordeal makes Job even more exceptional. the category of the “exception” helps prevent the confusion of Job’s situation with the consciousness of sin that Christians tend so readily to project upon Job. But for Kierkegaard sin-consciousness is a category logically tied to the incarnation and the revelation of god’s self-giving love, and thus belongs to a subsequent stage in the history of the divine–human relationship. the difference between guilt and sinconsciousness corresponds to the difference between Climacus’ “religiousness a” and “religiousness B.”87 in the former a person experiences guilt to the degree he recognizes the “infinite difference” between himself and the goodness of God. He recognizes that he has fallen short and is far from achieving the total reliance on god that constitutes our right-relatedness to god. But for him the question is the degree of the disparity between goal and performance, not whether it is possible to strive for the goal—that is, until one reaches the upper limits of the striving. then doubts begin to emerge as to whether god-relatedness is an immanent capacity. suspicions arise that the infinite difference might be an “infinite qualitative” one. However, it is only in the encounter with the god-incarnate, in religiousness B, that one recognizes that the whole project of striving to actualize the ideal has been an exercise in selfjustification, and therefore a failure to rely upon God. In Christ it is revealed that one has to rely on god even to be able to rely on god, that god-relatedness is a gift. For the Christian, a generalized sense of guilt is transformed into a sin-consciousness that only god in Christ can resolve. The story of Job may prefigure the story of sin-consciousness and its resolution, but it is not the same as that story. it may prepare the reader for that story, by showing that the god-relationship goes beyond ethical categories and religious strivings, but it does so by positing Job’s innocence rather than by positing god’s reconciling grace. Job is the righteous sufferer, not the instantiation of original sin. Kierkegaard makes it clear that the Book of Job is not a story about a penitent coming to a recognition of sin. the category of the ordeal of the exceptional innocent one enables Kierkegaard to read the old testament with Christian interests but without crudely assimilating it to a neat doctrinal framework. But if the book is not about Job’s coming to repent of his sinful nature, what is the nature of his “repentance” mentioned in Job 42:5–6? the elusiveness of Job’s “confession” has haunted the interpretation of the Book of Job. Kierkegaard does SKS 4, 75 / R, 207. SKS, 4, 79 / R, 212. 87 the discussion here owes much to david gouwens, Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of the Imagination, p. 232. For Kierkegaard’s (Climacus’) formulation of the relation between religiousness a and B, see SKS 7, 504–11 / CUP 1, 555–61. 85 86

Job: Edification against Theodicy

137

not treat Job’s words as a confession of sin, but as a confession of shame before the greater honor of one whose integrity he had contested.88 Job had imagined the world to operate by an order whereby his suffering implied god’s hostile assault upon Job’s own integrity. the young man in Repetition articulates and exemplifies Job’s pitting of his own integrity against god’s. he notes that “Job continues to take the position that he is in the right,”89 and that Job “knows that despite his being frail, despite his swift withering away like a flower, that in freedom he still has something of greatness.”90 this assertion of one’s own rectitude at the expense of god’s rectitude is in effect a desire to roll creation back into primeval “darkness” (Job 3:3–10), to rouse the chaos monster, “leviathan” (Job 3:8), and so obscure god’s intention in creation. the young man in Repetition replicates Job’s invocation of chaos by declaring life to be “without salt and meaning,”91 and raises the suspicion that the world may not have a “manager.”92 reading the doctrine of retribution as they did, both Job and the young man felt wronged, and in their hurt wanted to shift the blame to god (Job chapters 21, 24), even if that meant construing the world as a scene of senseless chaos. god’s whirlwind tour of creation serves to rebuke and thus shame Job,93 but it does so by revealing to Job something of creation’s truer order, the grander scope of it, than Job from his mortal perspective and through the lens of his grief could perceive. the strategy is not one of intimidation. god’s rhetorical questions focus Job’s attention away from the self, which already works a kind of liberation, onto the riot of nature. the questions cannot help but communicate the sense of the goodness of this kaleidoscopic scene which extends so far beyond the human vista. the order of creation turns out to be praise, when seen from the divine perspective.94 the young man in Repetition suggests the possibility of this sort of revelation of life’s goodness when he points to the “thunderstorm”95 that triggers Job’s “repetition” (receiving everything back double) and declares, “How beneficent a thunderstorm is!”96 But Job implicitly wanted to replace god’s fecundity with a usurpative order based on his own conception of distributive justice. Consequently, god’s praise of the created order and of Job himself shames Job by exhibiting the proper lines of relationship within it. By praising creation and declaring Job to be righteous, god demonstrates that god is the source of blessing. Job must face the reality that he himself is not the primal font of blessing. god’s blessing of creation and his vindication of Job reestablishes who is who in the relationship and what is what. this is the paradox articulated by the young man in Repetition: God justifies Job, proving see Charles muenchow, “dust and dirt in Job 42:6,” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 108, 1989, pp. 608–9. 89 SKS 4, 76 / R, 208. 90 ibid. 91 SKS 4, 68 / R, 200. 92 ibid. 93 see muenchow, “dust and dirt in Job 42:6,” p. 607. 94 see hardy and Ford, Prasing and Knowing God, pp. 96–9, where they distinguish “non-order” from disorder. 95 SKS 4, 79 / R, 212. 96 ibid. 88

Timothy H. Polk

138

him to be in the right even while proving him to be in the wrong.97 in the contest of honor, it was not a judicial verdict Job was after so much as it was some response by god to his complaints. god’s response, even in the form of an indictment, would be for Job a badge of honor (Job 31:35–6). appropriately, the young man in Repetition proposes that if the thunderstorm comes “it will shatter my whole personality,” but that through that shattering “my honor will be saved, my pride will be redeemed, no matter how it transforms me.”98 he passionately asserts that even god’s thunder “is a response, an explanation, trustworthy, faithful, original, a reply from god himself, which, even if it crushes a man, is more glorious than the gossip and rumors about the righteousness of governance that are invented by human wisdom and spread by old women and fractional men.”99 like Job, the young man concludes, “and yet i would be happy and indescribably blessed if the thunderstorm would only come, even if my sentence were that no repetition is possible.”100 But we need to return to the exceptionality of Job’s laudatory innocence. at the conclusion of the story, Job’s integrity is repeated by virtue of being re-established by god’s praise, wonderfully reconstituted by god’s direct revelation. Clearly, in all of this Job is exceptional. But as the exception, he is also, paradoxically, a paradigm. Johannes Climacus best states the peculiarity of the situation as it applies to the ordeal in general: the religious paradigm is the irregularity and yet is supposed to be the paradigm (which is like god’s omnipresence as invisibility and revelation as a mystery), or because the religious paradigm does not express the universal but the singular (the particular, for example, by appealing to visions, dreams, etc.) and yet is supposed to be the paradigm. But to be the paradigm means to be for all, but one can be the prototype for all only by being what all are or ought to be, that is, the universal, and yet the religious paradigm is the very opposite (the irregular and the particular).101

so the religious paradigm is one who is taken as a representative for all individuals, even though they are unlike him. Certainly, the young man discerned Job’s paradigmatically representative status when he praised him as “a faithful witness to all the affliction and laceration there can be in a heart.”102 that is, he praises Job as one whose heart, by complaining to god for brothers and sisters who suffer in silence, bears the fear of god. similarly in the discourse, Kierkegaard observes that for all passionately struggling and striving individuals, “Job is again present, takes his place, which is the outpost of humanity.”103 Job’s role as a representative of humanity, that is, as a substitute, is textually reinforced by reading the epilogue in canonical relation to the dialogues. the silence of shame is not in fact the last word we hear from Job, for god assigns him that peculiarly substitutionary task 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

ibid. SKS 4, 81 / R, 214. SKS 4, 67 / R, 198. SKS 4, 81 / R, 214. SKS 7, 235 / CUP1, 259. SKS 4, 67 / R, 197. SKS 5, 116 / EUD, 110.

Job: Edification against Theodicy

139

of interceding for his friends (Job 42:7–10). in parallel fashion, in the upbuilding discourse Job’s praise of god has a healing potential that blesses all fellow sufferers.104 as the paradigm of human righteousness, Job serves to represent god to humanity. By enacting god’s care and comfort for the suffering, Job will perform a kind of theodicy, not by defending god’s honor and reputation, but by actively representing god’s passion for human well-being and god’s passionate interest in the relation that humans bear to god. Job will perform a theodicy as he manifests the reality of god’s presence through praising god. this is a vindication of god that also accomplishes a vindication of humanity. the fact that the vindication of humanity is at stake is signaled by the young man in Repetition who observes, “Job is, so to speak, the whole weighty defense plea on man’s behalf in the great case between god and man.”105 Job, as the representative of humanity, is vindicated by letting god be god-for-us, precisely by asking god to vindicate him. Job justifies God by letting God justify him. Moreover, God accepts Job and all Job’s speaking as right-speaking of god. even though objectively Job’s words smacked of blasphemy, scandalized the sages, mistook the order of the world, and even took the form of a curse, god accepted it as praise. F. Hope, Witness, and the Dangers of Euphemism Kierkegaard’s practice reflects an overall construal of Scripture as pointing to the love and wisdom and praiseworthiness of God. Informed by that construal, it reflects an editorial grasp of both the beginning and ending of the book, and of the book’s place in the larger testimony of the canonical corpus. the interplay between the discourse and the novella keep the tension in the story of Job alive for the reader, a tension that is structurally suggested by the difference between the prose prologue and the poetic discourses in the Book of Job. Kierkegaard’s reading of Job explores the possibility that what conventionally seems to be an attempt to bless god, the defense of god through the construction of theodicies, may really be cursing in disguise. it also suggests that what looks like cursing, Job’s outrage, may really be a hidden form of blessing. whatever it is that Job offers to god, the text shows god accepting it as praise. readers are implicitly encouraged to hope that the god who answers Job might be their god, too, who substitutes his blessing for and against the curse. For the religiously interested reader whom Kierkegaard addresses, the issues of the text spill over its borders. Kierkegaard insists that how we read Job does indeed make demands on how we live when we put it down. in the introduction to the discourse Kierkegaard praises not only Job, but the reader whose life most accords with Job and who thereby interprets Job’s text with her own life, in the context of her own testing.106 only such a person “rightly interprets the saying,” he confesses.107 the spirit of doxology that embraces the ordeals of life must inform 104 105 106 107

SKS 4, 126–7 / R, 122. SKS 4, 77 / R, 210. SKS 5, 117–20 / EUD, 111–13. SKS 5, 118 / EUD, 112.

Timothy H. Polk

140

the confrontation with the text. he contrasts that existential understanding of the word, in which one’s life interprets the word such that one never need even speak of it, with the prolixity of “the person who spent his whole life explaining just this one word.”108 the class of such persons would include not only the authors of theodicies, but also himself. It is his own “human wisdom,” “eloquence,” and “fluency” that he denigrates in the closing paragraph of his prelude. Kierkegaard ironically cancels himself while justifying himself, in the service of the reader’s edification. The effect is to refuse the reader the luxury of resting with Kierkegaard’s own “explanation” of the word. For any unappropriated verbal understanding proves a deception. this emphasis on life as the medium for interpreting the word has returned us to the reading-loving-living nexus. however, Kierkegaard salvages a margin of utility for his ruminations about Job. if the reader takes care “not to become trapped himself in the fine words of human persuasion,”109 those words might at least help position him to appropriate Job when the right circumstances arise. Kierkegaard modestly hopes: “perhaps the deliberation would at some time have its importance for him.”110 with that tentative gesture of self-justification, Kierkegaard dared to coach the reader in the appropriation of the Book of Job.

108 109 110

ibid. SKS 5, 119 / EUD, 113. ibid.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Job Bretschneider, Karl gottlieb, Handbuch der Dogmatik, vols. 1–2, 4th ed., leipzig: J.a. Barth 1838, vol. 1, p. 161 (ASKB 437–438) hahn, august, Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, leipzig: vogel 1828, p. 292 (ASKB 535). hase, Karl, Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche: Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studierende, 4th revised ed., leipzig: Breitkopf und härtel 1839, p. 176 (ASKB 581). hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by philipp marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin; duncker and humblot 1840 (vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke, ed. by philipp marheineke et. al., vols. 1–18, Berlin: duncker and humblot 1832–45), vol. 2, pp. 66–8 (ASKB 564–565). herder, Johann gottfried, Vom Geist der hebräischen Poesie, in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 1, pp. 86–137 (ASKB 1676–1684). martensen, hans lassen, Den menneskelige Selvbevidstheds Autonomie, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1841, p. 109 (ASKB 651). rosenkranz, Karl, “ein parallele zur religionsphilosophie,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836– 38, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 13–14 (ASKB 354–357). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 356–65 (ASKB 80). winer, georg Benedikt, Biblisches Realwörterbuch, vols. 1–2, 2nd ed., leipzig: Carl heinrich reclam 1833–38, vol. 1, 1833, pp. 580–1 (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Job engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), p. 92; p. 97; p. 122; pp. 126–7; p. 144; p. 191; p. 214; p. 219; pp. 221–2; pp. 242–4; p. 269. eriksen, niels nymann, Kierkegaard’s Category of Repetition, Berlin and new York: walter de gruyter 2000 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 5), pp. 42–7.

142

Timothy H. Polk

Ferreira, m. Jamie, Kierkegaard, malden, massachusetts: wiley-Blackwell 2009, pp. 63–5. grau, gerd-günther, “die hiob-situation des religiösen denkens. Kierkegaard und nietzsche ii,” in his Die Selbstauflösung des christlichen Glaubens. Eine religionsphilosophische Studie über Kierkegaard, Frankfurt am main: schulteBulmke 1963, pp. 225–87. guillamore hansen, p., Søren Kierkegaard og Bibelen, Copenhagen: p. haase 1924, pp. 35–7. mooney, edward F., Selves in Discord and Resolve: Kierkegaard’s Moral-Religious Psychology from Either/Or to Sickness unto Death, new York and london: routledge 1996, pp. 27–40. müller, hans-peter, “welt als ‘wiederholung.’ sören Kierkegaards novelle als Beitrag zur hiob-interpretation,” in Werden und Wirken des Alten Testaments. Festschrift für Claus Westermann zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by rainer albertz et al., göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht 1980, pp. 355–72. politis, hélène, “stades kierkegaardiens dans la lecture de la Bible: Job, abraham,” in her Kierkegaard, paris: ellipses Édition 2002, pp. 23–30. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, pp. 153–200. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 115–16. sàez tajafuerce, Begonya, “palabra de Job,” in La etica, aliento de eterno. Homenaje al Professor Rafael A. Larrañeta, ed. by Francisco luis mendez, salamanca: aletheia 2003, pp. 335–41. schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, munich: Kösel-verlag 1968, pp. 152ff. shestov, lev, “Job and hegel,” in his Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy, trans. by elinor hewitt, athens, ohio: ohio university press 1969, pp. 29–39. strowick, elisabeth, “der einspruch der ausnahme: hiob,” in her Passagen der Wiederholung. Kierkegaard—Lacan—Freud, stuttgart and weimar: metzler 1999, pp. 118–50. suances marcos, manuel, Sören Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, madrid: universidad nacional de educación a distanca 1997, vol. 1 (Vida de un filósofo atormentado), pp. 140–5. taylor, mark lloyd, “ordeal and repetition in Kierkegaard’s treatment of abraham and Job,” in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard, ed. by george B. Connell and C. stephen evans, atlantic highlands, new Jersey: humanities press 1992, pp. 33–53. thust, martin, “das vorbild der Frömmigkeit, die treue des verstoßenen: der tröster hiob,” in his Sören Kierkegaard. Der Dichter des Religiösen. Grundlagen eines Systems der Subjektivität, munich: C.h. Beck 1931, pp. 106–26. vos, pieter hendrik, “Job: het waarom van het lijden,” in his De troost van het ogenblik. Kierkegaard over God en het lijden, Kampen: ten have Baarn 2002, pp. 124–30.

psalms: source of images and Contrasts matthias engelke

Kierkegaard’s language is saturated with phrases and images drawn from the psalms. this is not surprising, for the use of the psalms in the liturgy and hymnody of the lutheran church made the internalization of their vocabulary almost inevitable. Although Kierkegaard seldom engaged in an extended reflection on a specific passage from the psalms, he did derive much of the linguistic framework in which he thought and wrote from this biblical source. sometimes his use of the psalms would be casual, with their phrases used as nothing more than literary embellishments. sometimes he would use them critically to express sentiments that he wanted to reject. sometimes he would use them positively to reinforce and intensify the life of faith. at times he would appropriate their words and use them in ways that were at odds with their original employment. at other times his writing would accurately reflect the mood and rhetorical force of a particular passage. In short, he used the language of the psalms in a wide variety of ways, for many different purposes. I. The Historical Background of Kierkegaard’s Use of the Psalms the psalms were a crucial part of Kierkegaard’s ecclesial and intellectual environment. Because of its liturgical and devotional use, the Book of psalms became the most familiar portion of the old testament for lutherans. martin luther (1483–1546) continued the venerable medieval tradition of interpreting the psalms christologically; for luther, the psalms speak about Christ, both literally and allegorically.1 as we shall see, this tendency to interpret the psalms from the perspective of the new testament would be appropriated by Kierkegaard. however, by the late eighteenth century other interpretive options were available. Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803) gave the psalms a new kind of prominence by proposing that the primal religious language of humanity was poetry, for poetry connects sensual observation with religious feeling.

martin luther, Dictata super Psalterium, in D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe), weimar: hermann Böhlau 1883ff., vol. 55, part i, pp. 6–25. 1

144

Matthias Engelke

this claim motivated attempts to better appreciate the primal power of the poetry in the psalms by situating them in their original cultural contexts.2 the subsequent rise of historical criticism generated puzzlement and discussion about the origin of these unusual bits of biblical poetry. in spite of the still common assumption that many of them had been written by King david, the authorship and provenance of the psalms began to be questioned. Johann gottfried eichhorn (1752–1827) insisted that they be treated as literature written by human beings who expressed themselves in the unique and limited thought-forms of their cultures. eichorn proposed that the authentic davidic psalms were scattered about in different parts of the psalter and were not neatly clustered together as the tradition assumed.3 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849) developed this impulse to situate the psalms in their historical context further, rejecting the attempt to understand them in terms of the biography of david their alleged author, and regarding them as the products of different historical periods and different religious settings.4 Kierkegaard would have been familiar with many of these academic conversations from his theological training, and he owned relevant texts that discussed the psalms by herder and de wette.5 however, worries about the authenticity and authorship of individual psalms are largely absent from Kierkegaard’s pages. rather than considering the various psalms in the light of their historical origins, Kierkegaard situates them in the context of the development of religious subjectivity. throughout his literature he is much more interested in the purposes to which they can be put in the cultivation of Christian pathos than in debates about their composition and transmission. II. Kierkegaard’s Use of Individual Psalms A. Psalms 1–50 Because each psalm is treated differently by Kierkegaard, it will be helpful to consider each one separately. By doing so, continuities and discontinues in his use of particular verses will become evident. this procedure will make it possible to identify and trace the evolution of certain interpretive strategies and theological themes through the development of his literature.

see Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 2, pp. 175–280 (ASKB 1676– 1684). 3 Johann gottfried eichhorn, Einleitung ins Alte Testament, vols 1–3, leipzig: weidmann & reich 1780–83, vol. 2, pp. 1–7. 4 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Commentar über die Psalmen, heidelberg: mohr und zimmer 1811, pp.1–96. 5 see Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vol. 2, pp. 175–280; wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 332–40 (ASKB 80). 2

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

145

In the first of the Two Upbuilding Discourses from 1844 entitled “to preserve one’s soul in patience,” based on the phrase in luke 21:19, “by your endurance you will gain your souls,” Kierkegaard portrays a quarrel between two men who argue about which one of them has persevered longer at a task. their dispute, a prideful contention over “who is going to sit at the head or the foot,” is characterized by a phrase taken from psalm 1:1. Kierkegaard concludes that both men will “end up sitting together in the council of the mockers.”6 here the employment of the verse from the psalm is used to promote a moral critique of pride. the third sermon of the Three Upbuilding Discourses of 1844, entitled “he must increase; i must decrease (John 3:30),” develops the theme of “humble self-denial,”7 such as that exhibited by John the Baptist who allowed his own ministry as a prophet to be eclipsed by that of Jesus. Kierkegaard contradicts anyone who believes that only the person who is “planted near the streams of water” (a phrase from psalm 1) is truly increasing, 8 and does not appreciate that someone who “plants himself in the blessed soil of self-denial” is actually thriving spiritually.9 interestingly, the phrase from the psalm is used to typify the attitude that is critiqued by Christianity’s valorization of self-denial. often the language of the psalms is associated with positions that Kierkegaard is opposing. At the end of the first part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits of 1847, in a discourse intended for the occasion of a confession, Kierkegaard borrows language from psalm 2:1 and 2:4 to caricature the nonsense that an appeal to a human collectivity of whatever numerical size might have any significance at all when an individual is facing god. Kierkegaard paraphrases, “the royal psalmist declares that while the heathen make a big noise god is in heaven and laughs at them.”10 god always regards the individual alone, apart from the crowd.11 here the psalm’s disparagement of a corporate mass of menacing heathen is lifted out of its immediate context and transposed to the situation of contemporary society. Kierkegaard will often enlist the aid of the psalms in his polemics against his contemporary religious culture. Knowing which psalms Kierkegaard did use in which particular ways may be instructive; however, Kierkegaard’s works might be illuminated equally well by knowing which psalms and which passages from them he has not used. the psalms contain several exceptional passages which reject an israelite cult of the dead; the particular passages that do this most overtly are psalm 6:6, psalm 88:6, psalm 88:11ff., and psalm 115:17.12 For most of the people in ancient religious cultures, SKS 5, 197 / EUD, 194; other allusions to ps 1:1 can be found in SKS 9, 83 / WL, 76, in which it is rhetorically used contrary to its original meaning as an allegation against a person in good circumstances who comes into conflict with his compatriots due to his willingness to equate brotherly love with love for the wretched and poor. 7 SKS 5, 273 / EUD, 279. 8 see ps 1:3. 9 SKS 5, 278 / EUD, 285. 10 SKS 8, 232 / UD, 134. 11 ibid. 12 On Ps 9:14 and the expression “death’s door” Kierkegaard reflects in the diary entry SKS 17, 216, dd:6.c / KJN 1, 208, stating that the concept of revelation does indeed contain 6

146

Matthias Engelke

such a rejection of cults to venerate the dead would have been dismissed as an absurdity. it was this hostility to cults of the dead and to the notion that the dead enjoy some sort of continuing self-consciousness—along with the commandment of monotheism—that helped differentiate the people of israel from their contemporary cultural and religious neighbors. Curiously, with the exception of psalm 6:6, none of these passages is found in Kierkegaard’s work. the exception is evident in Stages on Life’s Way. in the diary that Frater taciturnus claimed to have found in the bottom of a lake the message of psalm 6:5 is explicitly contradicted, although in an indirect, comical way. the author of the diary writes, “no, scripture is not true when it says that there is no recollection in the grave, for i shall recollect her. in eternity!”13 of course, “her” refers to the diarist’s beloved in this context. the author ignores the historical context of the passage, and the fact that the recollection mentioned in the psalm is indeed the remembrance of god, in order to use it to highlight the eternal significance of a particular human relationship. the phrase from psalm 6:7, “weary of sighing,”14 used by the psalm’s author to express the depth of his lament, is borrowed by Kierkegaard to paint the image of a desperately unhappy man for whom the things of this earth had lost their attraction.15 here the lament triggered by being surrounded by threatening enemies is set in a new context, that of disappointment with earthly joys. Kierkegaard would often spiritualize the psalms in this manner, transforming them so that they referred to the passional struggles of the individual rather than to material circumstances. in a journal entry from 1847 Kierkegaard complains about the decline in moral spirit that was evident in Copenhagen. according to Kierkegaard an explanation for this decline can be found in the observation that the city of Copenhagen—being the only city in the country and the only large city speaking danish—cannot be compared to other cities in other parts of the world. in large cities in other countries some “modesty and decorum” must be maintained, or else the neighboring cities might find out about the spread of “all these loathsome passions of envy, stupidity, the market-town spirit,”16 and disparage the offensive metropolis. But the majority of the population in Copenhagen could capitulate to the rampant cultural demoralization, secure in the belief expressed by the fool in psalm 10 that “no one sees me.”17 (the phrase is echoed in psalm 94:7.) in the context of the psalm, it is god who the fools mistakenly think does not see them, while here it is the scrutiny of other human communities that is denied. here Kierkegaard takes a statement voiced by those who are depicted in the psalm as being wicked, arrogant, greedy, deceitful, and oppressive, and puts it in the mouths of the citizens of Copenhagen, thereby incriminating them. again the language of the psalm becomes a tool for cultural critique. in itself the concept of the hidden or obscure, just as the word “door” signifies that one does not come back from death. here Kierkegaard quotes in hebrew ps 9:14. 13 SKS 6, 201 / SLW, 214. 14 SKS 9, 127 / WL, 123. Kierkegaard conflates this phrase from Psalm 6 with a citation of tobit 3:10 referring to unhappy sara who “deeply grieved, thought of suicide.” 15 SKS 9, 127 / WL, 123. 16 SKS 20, 168, nB2:66 / JP 5, 6018. 17 SKS 20, 168, nB2:66 / JP 5, 6018.

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

147

Kierkegaard observed in his journals from 1851 that the phrase in psalm 10:14, tibi derelictus pauper,18 is incorrectly translated in the vulgate as meaning that god chooses the poor. he notes that Christian scriver (1629–93)19 proposes that this phrase means that because the world chose the noble and the powerful, no one remained for god to choose but the needy and the lost. Kierkegaard objects that the phrase should be translated as “the poor entrusts himself to You.”20 By retranslating the verse in this manner, Kierkegaard shifts the focus to the individual’s agency in actively relying upon god’s support. the shift of focus onto the responsibility of the individual is typical of Kierkegaard’s redeployment of the Bible’s poetic language. in nikolai Fogtmann’s (1788–1851) catechism21 psalm 14:1 (“the fool says in his heart that there is no god”) is cited to show how unreasonable it is to mistrust the proofs for the existence of god which he had presented. the author of Philosophical Fragments makes fun of this contention by referring to the same Bible passage: For the fool says in his heart that there is no god, but he who says in his heart or to others: Just wait a little and i shall demonstrate it—ah, what a rare wise man he is! (note: what a superb theme for a crazy comedy!) if, at the moment he is supposed to begin the demonstration, it is not totally undecided whether the god exists or not, then, of course, he does not demonstrate it….22

By using the same passage that had been used to justify proofs for the existence of god in order to critique such proofs, Kierkegaard suggests that the stance of doubt which the very effort to prove god’s existence presupposes is a foolish strategy. the psalm’s denunciation of unbelief is redeployed to critique the contemporary spirit of objectivity in regard to god. in effect, Kierkegaard’s redeployment of the psalm suggests that the contemporary fools who deny god are the very ones who attempt to prove god’s existence. in the fourth and closing section of Christian Discourses, “discourses at the Communion on Fridays,” the confession of guilt from psalm 19:12 (“who knows his errors? From my hidden faults cleanse thou me”) is presented as an example of the pathos to which an “earnest and honest self-examination” in the face of god “finally leads as its last and truest” expression.23 For erik pontoppidan,24 whose the tibi refers to Deo (god). see M. Christian Scrivers...Seelen-Schatz: Darinnen Von der menschlichen Seelen hohen Würde, tieffen und kläglichen Sünden-Fall, Busse und Erneuerung durch Christum, göttlichen heiligen Leben...erbaulich und tröstlich gehandelt wird, vols. 1–5, magdeburg and leipzig: seidel 1723, vol. 1, p. 35 (ASKB 261–263). 20 SKS 24, 296, nB23:191 / JP 3, 2325. 21 see nikolai Fogtmann, Lærebog i den christelige Religion. Til Brug for den studerende Ungdom, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1823, p. 21. Kierkegaard learned this catechism in the Borgerdyd school. see valdemar ammundsen, Søren Kierkegaards Ungdom. Hans Slægt og hans religiøse Udvikling, Copenhagen: Københavns universitet 1912, p. 76. 22 SKS 4, 249 / PF, 43. 23 SKS 10, 308 / CD, 287. 24 erik pontoppidan (1698–1764) epitomized the branch of pietism in Copenhagen that was under the influence of Halle. He was appointed a court preacher by King Christian VI in 1735, probably as a counterweight to the pietism of herrnhut, which had also gained a 18 19

148

Matthias Engelke

catechism had been used to instruct Kierkegaard’s father in the Christian faith and which his father had used to burden søren in early childhood, this verse from the psalms was employed to encourage an extremely rigorous examination of the individual’s conscience as a test of faith.25 Kierkegaard distances himself from this kind of Christian practice and, in the Christian Discourses, suggests that in any selfexamination before Christ some hidden guilt will continue to exist undetected and unconfessed. he exclaims, “and when a person examines his relation to Christ, who then is the human being who completely knows his faithlessness, who the human being who would dare to think that in his very self-examination there could not be faithlessness!”26 He then makes an appeal: “Therefore you do not find rest this way. so, then, rest; then seek rest for your soul in the blessed comfort that, even if we are faithless, he still is faithful,” which is an allusion to 2 timothy 2:13, the biblical text for this Christian discourse.27 in this way Kierkegaard used a passage that had been employed to stimulate greater rigor in self-examination in order to foster greater confession of inadequacy. the closing third part of Practice in Christianity, entitled “Christian expositions by anti-Climacus,” begins with a sermon, which Kierkegaard delivered in vor Frue Church in Copenhagen on Friday, september 1, 1848. in the sermon he praises the loftiness and royalty of Christ with words from psalm 19:2ff., and from many other biblical texts.28 Ironically, he then identifies this glorious loftiness with the fact that Christ was also the abased and suffering one, whose glory consisted in his willingness to suffer in order to love and redeem humanity. a verse from the old Testament suggesting divine majesty is used for Christological purposes to redefine the paradoxical nature of that majesty. In the fifth edition of the pamphlet series The Moment Kierkegaard scourges contemporary Christendom for breaking with true Christianity, and for hypocritically disguising the fact that genuine Christianity involves “crucifying the flesh” and suffering in imitation of Jesus’ sufferings.29 in his quotation of psalm 22:7 Kierkegaard suggests that being a Christian involves being treated as “a worm, not a human foothold in Copenhagen. the pietism of herrnhut was suspected of disloyalty and enthusiasm. in 1736, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the introduction of the reformation, the practice of confirmation was introduced in Denmark, and the king instructed Pontoppidan to write a catechism, which was completed in 1737 and served, by the king’s verdict, as the sole textbook. pontoppidan’s catechism, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, is based in its formal structure on philipp spener’s Einfältige Erklärung der Christlichen Lehr nach der Ordnung deß kleinen Catechismi deß theuren Manns Gottes Lutheri, Frankfurt: zunner and Frankfurt: Friedgen 1677, without being able to capture spener’s pastoral sensitivity and commitment; see matthias engelke, Kierkegaard und das Alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), pp. 29–42. 25 erik pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, Copenhagen: Kongelige waysenhus 1769, p. 151. 26 SKS 10, 308 / CD, 287. 27 ibid. 28 SKS 12, 170 / PC, 167. 29 SKS 13, 240 / M, 189.

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

149

being.”30 But instead of acknowledging the suffering intrinsic to the Christian life, Christendom engages in the hypocrisy of forging the new “concept of what it is to be a Christian” and interpreting the Christian life as “sheer happiness.”31 verse 22:7 had been used Christologically throughout the Christian heritage, for according to mark 15:34 Jesus had quoted verse 22:1 (“my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?”) on the cross. Consequently, it made sense to treat the “i am a worm” phrase as if it were spoken by Jesus as an expression of the anguish that he experienced due to the mockery directed toward him. Kierkegaard expands the Christological application to include all those who would aspire to be Jesus’ followers; they too must be willing to experience hostility and suffering. here a psalm of lament becomes reinterpreted as an expression of the suffering that all Christians must undergo. an entry in his journal from 1854 in similar manner bemoans Christendom’s distortion of the faith. the prototype for the Christian life, Christ, who is “the highest,” epitomizes “sheer wretchedness, need, being a worm.”32 Kierkegaard observes, “his life, as it says in scripture, was to be a worm and no man, and he speaks of it himself as sheer wretchedness and suffering.”33 But because this life is the “highest,” and ideal to be emulated, Christendom promptly and deceitfully says, “i am too humble, to aspire to the highest or to will the highest.”34 again the words of psalm 22 are ascribed to Jesus and used by Kierkegaard to critique the contemporary church’s failure to emulate Christ. How easy it is to elude the “infinite conception of what it means to be a Christian” and to avoid being serious about “dying to the world, hating oneself, suffering for the doctrine” is the main theme in last edition of The Moment, no. 9, which Kierkegaard published himself before his death.35 he ominously observes that “even the toughest ones almost drooped under these difficulties, writhed like worms.”36 Kierkegaard then sarcastically suggests, “be a blatherskite, and you will see, all difficulties vanish!...then fundamentally falsify god’s or Christianity’s view of this life; let its being easy (directly contrary to god’s word) be the sign to you that the way is the right way.”37 Again the “worm” allusion from Psalm 22 figures prominently to highlight the inevitable dimension of suffering that is intrinsic to the earnest and genuine Christian life. Kierkegaard could also use the psalms of lament and their allusions to suffering in more casual and even frivolous ways. an allusion to psalm 22:15 (as well as psalm 6:3, and probably also psalm 31:11, psalm 38:4, psalm 102:4, and psalm 102:6) occurs in a letter to his brother peter Christian Kierkegaard (1805–88). søren writes, “As it says in ψ [psalms], ‘my bones are vexed’ at times (I suspect it is a slight case of hemorrhoids), but my soul is well and I can endure infinitely more than I had 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

ibid. SKS 13, 241 / M, 190. SKS 26, 149, nB32:46 / JP 2, 1935. ibid. ibid. SKS 13, 240 / M, 319–20. ibid. ibid.

150

Matthias Engelke

thought.”38 the sacrality of the psalms did not prevent them from being used for ironic purposes, in this case the juxtaposition of spiritual anguish and hemorrhoids. at the beginning of one of the Four Upbuilding Discourses from 1843 Kierkegaard emphasizes that any sort of “upbuilding view” can only commence with the appreciation of the god-created equality of all persons. this egalitarian sensibility regards the powerful person “who leans on his scepter” as being of no more spiritual significance than the “overburdened person who has to be contented that god is his rod and his staff.”39 the phrase “his rod and his staff” from psalm 23 is used to contrast the condition of the powerful and the plight of the afflicted, and also to emphasize the virtue of total reliance upon god. in at least one other instance Kierkegaard alludes to psalm 23 in order to draw attention to the need to rely upon god, particularly to rely upon god’s grace. god’s grace, according to Kierkegaard, encompasses the Christian on every side, in every aspect of Christian life. the relation of forgiveness and subsequent growth in faith in the Christian life is explained by Kierkegaard in Christian Discourses with the help of two different passages from the psalms. Kierkegaard writes, “ ‘his grace comes to the Christian beforehand’ (Psalm 59:10), so that he may will to be satisfied with god’s grace, and ‘comes afterward’ (psalm 23:6), so that he may not have willed in vain and may blessedly never regret that he was satisfied with God’s grace.”40 the citation of psalm 59 highlights the fact that god’s steadfast love will “meet” the individual, while the mention of psalm 23:6 draws attention to god’s “goodness and mercy” that “shall follow” a person all their days. By pairing the two passages with one another, Kierkegaard points to the need to rely upon god throughout the course of life, both at the inception of faith and also during its subsequent maturation. the verses from the psalms function as an antidote to the possibility of prideful selfreliance and presumptuousness in regard to both regeneration and sanctification. here the combination of passages from different psalms reinforces a theme that was deeply embedded in the lutheran heritage. a note in the journals from 1851 allows the curious reader to take a look behind the scenes of Kierkegaard’s working process: he mentions here that he had read his “usual portion in the old testament” and that “the sequence came to david’s psalms (24, 25, 26, 27, 28).” 41 Kierkegaard admits that he had just read the new book by Bishop Jakob peter mynster (1775–1854) in which mynster in the same passage referred to meïr goldschmidt (1819–87) as a “most talented author” and to Kierkegaard as a “gifted author.”42 to be associated with goldschmidt, his old nemesis from The Corsair, irritated Kierkegaard. while he fretted about this episode, he noted that particularly psalm 26:4 and psalm 27:10 had touched him very much, for psalm 26:4 stated “i do not sit with the worthless, nor do i consort with hypocrites,” while psalm 27:10 asserted, “if my father and mother desert me, B&A, vol. 1, p. 114 / LD, letter 74, p. 146. SKS 5, 145 / EUD, 143. 40 SKS 10, 75 / CD, 66. 41 SKS 24, 296, nB23:189 / JP 6, 6745. 42 Jakob peter mynster, Yderligere Bidrag til Forhandlingerne om de kirkelige Forhold i Danmark, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1851, p. 44. 38 39

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

151

the lord will take me up.” Kierkegaard here was applying the words of the psalms rather directly and transparently to specific relationships and events in his own life, and identifying with the perspective of the psalmist. The first of the Three Upbuilding Discourses from 1843 derives its title and its subject matter, “love will hide a multitude of sins,” from 1 peter 4:8, which is itself an altered quotation from proverbs 10:12. in the course of this sermon Kierkegaard says “Blessed is the man whose sins are covered; more blessed is the love that hides a multitude of sins,” in which the phrase “blessed is the man whose sins are covered” is an allusion to psalm 32:1.43 Kierkegaard cites this passage in arguing that the Christian virtue of love requires overlooking the sins of others, rather than dwelling on them in order to reinforce one’s own sense of moral superiority. Kierkegaard uses the psalm in order to argue for a rigorous ethic of forgiveness of others rather than to celebrate the state of being forgiven by god, which is the ostensible theme of this verse. Once again Kierkegaard modifies the rhetorical thrust of a passage in order to encourage enhanced self-examination and the cultivation of the Christian virtues in one’s own self. the work Either/Or closes with a sermon by an anonymous preacher about the “upbuilding that lies in the thought that in relation to god we are always in the wrong.”44 the preacher asserts that when seemingly unfair calamities beset us, it is better to think that we ourselves are in the wrong than to think that god is in the wrong by afflicting us unjustly. In the Two Upbuilding Discourses from 1843, whose appearance corresponded with the publication of Either/Or, Kierkegaard returns to the issue of reconciling the pain of life’s misfortunes with trust in god’s benevolence. however, in this discourse Kierkegaard sets a different tone from that of the preacher in Either/Or and develops the theme differently. Here the individual who is filled with trust in the faithfulness of god and realizes what this trust involves, can think differently about life’s unexpected misfortunes. the faithful individual continues to trust in god’s benevolence even when “grief supersedes joy.”45 Kierkegaard refers to psalm 33:4 in speaking about the “expectancy of faith,” 46 the endurance of faith in the face of experiences that ostensibly contradict its expectations. Kierkegaard draws attention to the fact that faith assumes that all god’s works are “done in faithfulness.” (the theme of god’s trustworthy benevolence recurs in psalm 139.) here Kierkegaard does positively capture the psalm’s praise of god’s steadfastness and faithfulness in order to encourage faith in god. psalm 37:2547 is cited by Kierkegaard thus in his journal: “i have been young, and now am old; yet i have not seen the righteous forsaken.”48 the psalm is compared with Jesus’ words on the cross as reported in matthew 27:46: “my god, my god, why have You forsaken me?” Kierkegaard concludes that the passage from the psalm culminates in “all human religiousness, and also Judaism,” which expect 43 44 45 46 47 48

SKS 5, 74 / EUD, 64. SKS 3, 321–2 / EO2, 341–54. SKS 5, 35 / EUD, 26. ibid. see also ps 37:16; ps 103. SKS 22, 11, nB11:7 / JP 1, 498.

152

Matthias Engelke

righteousness to eventuate in worldly felicity, while the passage from matthew makes it clear that Christianity involves suffering, crucifixion even,49 in regard to everything that is earthly.50 a verse from the new testament (which ironically is itself a reference to an old testament passage, psalm 22:1) is juxtaposed to a theme from the Old Testament, utterly reversing it. This strategy reflects Kierkegaard’s tendency to equate Judaism with the hope for prosperity and happiness in this life, and to contrast it with genuine Christianity’s conviction that faith will inevitably produce inward suffering and outward persecution in this life. the second part of Christian Discourses entitled “states of mind in the strife of suffering” cites verse psalm 49:5 as the biblical source of its main theme.51 this section and the preliminary studies for its composition all develop this theme with a reference to psalm 49.5: “i will incline my ear to a proverb; i will set my dark saying to the music of the harp.”52 the psalm’s paradoxical association of “dark saying” and “music” parallels the discourse’s effort to show the joy that is paradoxically contained in Christian suffering. the second sermon in this section of Christian Discourses takes up this theme with an allusion to a phrase that occurs in both psalm 57:8 and psalm 108:2: “wake up zither and harp.”53 in these psalms the expression is simply a celebration of god’s steadfast love, while for Kierkegaard it becomes a celebration of god’s love expressed in and through earthly suffering. The statement “He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me; to him who orders his way aright i will show the salvation of god” from psalm 50:23 had been noticed by Kierkegaard in 1849 while reading a sermon of luther. he copied it instantly and stated that a demonstration of gratitude is essentially the “sacrifice” preferred by god.54 here Kierkegaard’s (and luther’s) appropriation of the psalm reflects one of the psalm’s main themes: that the true sacrifice that God desires is not burnt offerings but a life of thankfulness. B. Psalms 51–100 in The Concept of Anxiety vigilius haufniensis refers to psalm 51:5 in a passage about the concept of the Fall. according to vigilius, the complaint of a human being that he has been born in misery and “that his mother conceived him in sin”55 (to use the words of psalm 51) is certainly true. But the grief about this miserable state can only be serious if he himself bears the responsibility for having brought this state upon himself; otherwise it would be an “esthetical” sorrow about sinfulness without the dimension of personal guilt and would thus be contradictory in itself. the only person who has the authority to grieve about sinfulness and who is himself without For further comparisons of Christianity and Judaism in the diaries consult engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 189ff. 50 the same applies to the comparison in Pap. X–6 B 240. 51 SKS 10, 103 / CD, 93. 52 Pap. viii–2 B 98 / CD, supplement, p. 369. Pap. viii–2 B 123:12 / CD, supplement, p. 370. SKS 10, 105 / CD, 93. 53 SKS 10, 118 / CD, 107. 54 SKS 22, 100, nB11:172 / JP 3, 2497. 55 SKS 4, 345 / CA, 38. 49

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

153

personal guilt would be Christ.56 By citing psalm 51 here, the author substantiates his rule which he had stipulated at the beginning of his conceptual clarification, “that man is individuum and as such simultaneously himself and the whole race, and in such a way that the whole race participates in the individual and the individual in the whole race.”57 the paradoxical relation between the race and the individual suggested in the verse from psalm 51 is used as authoritative evidence to corroborate vigilius’ view of the simultaneity of the race and the individual. Kierkegaard’s use of psalm 51:5 in this manner had already been preliminarily developed in the lutheran catechisms, with which Kierkegaard and his father had been educated.58 here Kierkegaard was putting the verse to a traditional theological use. in the Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1844 Kierkegaard again takes up the theme of the deep uneasiness of an individual about himself, which he had first elaborated in The Concept of Anxiety, and confronts that uneasiness with the message that it is “a human being’s highest perfection” that he become nothing in relation to god and thus recognize his need for god.59 in the third discourse psalm 51:5 is quoted in order to apply its implication of being in spiritual danger and needing salvation to every human being. Kierkegaard warns that for any individual the state of being in danger has come about simply “by his having been conceived in transgression and born in sin.”60 (“transgression” here is in allusion to romans 5:14ff.) again a motif from a psalm is used to support a traditional theological point. in the last of the four discourses the coming of the Comforter is described with words also drawn from psalm 51, this time verses 10–12.61 Kierkegaard writes “then…he (the Comforter) makes everything new, strips the sufferer of his mourning apparel and gives him a new heart and an assured spirit.”62 the Comforter brings the reassurance that life’s struggles have been an expression of god’s providential care. again the language of the psalm is enlisted to reinforce a traditional theological motif. in the Two Ethical-Religious Essays, which were in fact originally a part of The Book on Adler that Kierkegaard never published, the consciousness of a person who lives in the correspondence of word and deed is described with reference to psalm 51:12. Kierkegaard observes that this consciousness can indeed involve “an assured and steadfast spirit, but it does not give him authority.”63 the presence of the steadfast spirit does not prove the rightness of his teachings; it only shows that he lives according to them, a fidelity that does establish their truth. Earlier in 1846, pursuing a different purpose in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard ibid. ibid. 58 his father had been educated with pontoppidan, Sandhed i Gudfrygtighed, p. 69, and søren with nikolai edinger Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, indrettet til Brug i de danske Skoler, Copenhagen: J.h. schultz 1840, p. 29, p. 50; see more in engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 43–9. 59 SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 326. 60 SKS 5, 337 / EUD, 349. 61 ps 51:10. 62 SKS 5, 379 / EUD, 396. 63 SKS 11, 102 / WA, 99. 56 57

154

Matthias Engelke

had allowed his pseudonym Johannes Climacus to ridicule the hiatus between any alleged certainty based on hegelian speculation and the authentic certainty of faith by using the language of psalm 51:12.64 the “certain spirit” of faith is acquired through the daily cultivation of infinite interest in the individual’s own eternal happiness, not through the pursuit of objective knowledge. although their purposes differ, both Two Ethical-Religious Essays and Concluding Unscientific Postscript use the psalm in a positive way to assert the connection between a religious consciousness and a steadfast spirit. in one of his polemical writings against Christendom Kierkegaard turns the words of comfort of psalm 56:8 (“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.”) into words of threat. Kierkegaard warns that when the preacher, crying hot tears, preaches about poverty as a rich man among the rich, the congregation may be delighted, but god is not pleased. Kierkegaard reproaches such preachers: “ah, if it is so (and so it is, after all, since god himself says it is) that he counts the sufferer’s tears and keeps them in a bottle, then woe to these speakers if god has also counted their sunday tears and kept them in a bottle!”65 the psalm is used as an authority to substantiate a theological claim about god’s watchfulness, although that claim is used to critique hypocrisy rather than to give comfort to the afflicted, as the original psalm had done. once again a psalm is used in a manner at odds with its original force in order to expose the inauthenticity of Christendom. The first discourse “On the Occasion of a Confession” of the Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, seeks to remind the reader of the necessity of ongoing remorse and repentance by quoting from psalm 58:8 which warns that the godless “will be like the snail, which dissolves into slime as it goes along.”66 this points to the tragic consequences of a life that wants to “have outgrown the eternal,” as if religious passions were appropriate only to childhood or repentance only appropriate to old age. the psalm that Kierkegaard quotes is a call for vengeance against the wicked, while Kierkegaard’s appropriation of its language draws attention to the results of a life that fails to maintain religious passions throughout the course of a lifetime. again a verse from a psalm becomes a tool for self-examination and selfcritique. prompted by the essay of gerhard tersteegen (1697–1796),67 in 1850 Kierkegaard discovered this verse from psalm 77: “my soul refuses to be comforted.” while reading it, Kierkegaard became aware of the contrast between not letting oneself be comforted by other human beings and letting oneself be comforted by god alone.68 although it is not clear that this is the psalm’s intent, such a construal is possible and was a common interpretation. in a journal entry from January 3, 1839 Kierkegaard writes, “at just this moment i feel the dreadful truth in the words: psalm 82:6: “i say, ‘You are gods, sons of the SKS 7, 59 / CUP1, 55. SKS 13, 246 / M, 195. 66 ps 58:8. 67 see Auswahl aus Gerhard Tersteegen’s Schriften, nebst dem Leben desselben, ed. by georg rapp, essen: g.d. Bädeker 1841, p. 370 (ASKB 729). 68 SKS 23, 346, nB19:26 / JP 4, 4756. 64 65

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

155

most high, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall like a tyrant.’ ”69 in the context of the psalm these words seem to be spoken by god to the members of god’s council who shall perish like mortals because they have governed the universe unjustly. Kierkegaard takes the admonition that occurs in a cosmic context and applies it self-critically to human beings, most particularly to himself. as he frequently did, he is here appropriating the words of a psalm in order to intensify self-critique. according to its preface, the third part of Christian Discourses signals the attack of essential Christianity on counterfeit Christendom, an attack that must, of course, be launched from behind.70 according to Kierkegaard, two different propositions are equally true: the blessed conviction of faith requires sheer fear and trembling, and “one day in god’s house is better than a thousand anywhere else (psalm 84:10).”71 Kierkegaard elaborates the theme that faith is a dialectical form of subjectivity that involves both the attraction of blessedness and the repulsion of terror. to counterbalance the intimidating and potentially terrifying message that Christianity inevitably involves suffering, Kierkegaard borrows the celebratory words of the psalm and thereby reflects the psalm’s jubilant spirit. later in his broadsheet The Moment Kierkegaard uses the reference to “going through the valley of Baca (a place of desolation)” in the same psalm to express the Christian doctrine that the world is nothing but “a time of testing related to an accounting and judgment,” and is a “vale of tears and prison.”72 according to Kierkegaard, this teaching is cruelly twisted by the priests of official Christianity, who disfigure it and turn it into an invitation to a happy family party.73 once again the psalms are used as a source of images to emphasize the suffering and testing that are an essential dimension of the Christian life, even when the particular psalm has little to do with that theme. an entry included in the “diapsalmata” from the papers of a reads: “girls do not appeal to me. their beauty passes away like a dream and like yesterday when it is past.”74 the allusion to psalm 90:4 (the use of “like a dream” to suggest transience) puts the erotic lover in the position occupied by god in the psalm, for whom 1,000 years pass in a single day. The theme of fleetingness in the psalm is used to emphasize god’s transcendence, while in the diapsalm it is used to express the ephemeral nature of pleasure. The young man cannot find pleasure in getting to know a girl who would be faithful to him. he writes: if i found such a one, she would appeal to me from the standpoint of her being a rarity; from the standpoint of a long period of time she would not appeal to me, for either she would continually remain faithful, and then I would become a sacrifice to my eagerness for experience, since i would have to bear with her, or the time would come when she would lapse, and then i would have the same old story. 69 70 71 72 73 74

SKS 17, 274, dd:188 / KJN 17, 265. SKS 10, 172 / CD, 162. ps 84:10. see SKS 10, 186 / CD, 175. ps 84:6. SKS 13, 228–9 / M, 178–9. SKS 2, 39 / EO1, 29.

156

Matthias Engelke

psalm 90:4: functions very differently in the edifying literature. in order to depict the sense of fulfillment that occurs when the struggle is over and “when longing is calmed and the benediction says amen” Kierkegaard echoes the phrase from the psalm that “the past is like yesterday.”75 the phrase is used in yet another way in a another upbuilding discourse to suggest the superficiality of youth in grasping the huge span of the past—the fact that god created the world 6,000 years ago—as if it were “but yesterday.”76 an allusion to psalm 90:10 (“the days of our lives are seventy years“) occurs in Stages on Life’s Way in the reply of the husband in “Some Reflections on Marriage.”77 here the reference is situated in the unmasking of the ambivalence in contemporary religious discourse in which temporality is both ascribed ethical importance but also dismissed as a vanity. in the diary in Stages on Life’s Way the magnitude of god is playfully suggested by taking the verse stating that 1,000 years are a single day in god’s sight from psalm 90:4 and combining it with the claim in psalm 90:10 that 70 years remain to a person. By combining the two passages, the author concludes that for god this time span “is precisely one hour, forty-six minutes, and three seconds.”78 a different tone is evident in Christian Discourses of 1848. psalm 90:10 is situated in the dialectic of temporality and eternity. alluding to that verse Kierkegaard observes, “if the suffering lasts seventy years, it is only once,” because “eternally understood, temporality is a moment, and a moment, eternally understood, is only once.”79 similarly he exclaims that “the one time of suffering, when it is past, is no time.”80 instead of speaking in terms of the years of one’s life, Kierkegaard speaks about the years of one’s suffering, which, from the standpoint of eternity, are melted together into a nothing, for “one time is no time.”81 a development in Kierkegaard’s use of the temporal language from psalm 90 is here evident. It became more and more difficult for Kierkegaard to recognize any holiness within the limitations and imperfections of earthly life. temporality and eternity, which had been related to each other in the works of the first years and which had exhibited a dynamic interaction throughout the numerous articulations of their relation to each other are here separated. thinking in the category of eternity destroys the perception of the goodness of temporality, except as the stage upon which the drama of ethical and religious suffering is enacted. in Practice in Christianity echoes of psalm 90 can be heard in the words attributed to the ascended Jesus (compare this to John 12:32). according to anti-Climacus, the risen Christ announces that “for him everything is eternally present—the eighteen hundred years are the same as one day.”82 in Judge for Yourself! Kierkegaard asserts 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

SKS 5, 206 / EUD, 205. SKS 5, 242 / EUD, 244. this is similar to the phrase’s use in SKS 4, 236 / PF, 29. SKS 6, 161 / SLW, 173. SKS 6, 222 / SLW, 237. SKS 10, 110 / CD, 97–8. SKS 10, 110 / CD, 97. SKS 10, 113 / CD, 101. SKS 12, 169 / PC, 166.

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

157

that the gospel, too, has but one position concerning the long life of an individual: “no, for the gospel these seventy years are but a moment, and its discourse hurries on to eternity’s decision.”83 in 1855 Kierkegaard published the discourse The Changelessness of God based on James 1:17–21.84 it is not altogether without a certain sense of humor that Kierkegaard calls this publication a “discourse,” since it is a sermon unlike most of the other “upbuilding” and “Christian” discourses. it was delivered by Kierkegaard on may 18, 1851 in the Citadel Church. it is published in connection with his struggle against contemporary Christendom, together with his series of leaflets The Moment, which began to appear in May 1855. While the title “A Discourse” hints at an official distance (søren Kierkegaard had never been ordained), it now additionally suggested a distance concerning the content of actually existing Christianity, even more so because Kierkegaard had been alienated from the lutheran state church in 1854. on august 9, 1851, a few months after he had delivered this sermon in the garrison church, Kierkegaard, then 38 years old, had a conversation with Bishop Jakob peter mynster who was responsible for the education of the priests of the lutheran Church in denmark. For Kierkegaard this conversation was also intended to discover if and under what conditions he might teach at the pastoral seminary and— after the successful completion of his studies more than 10 years previously—meet the prerequisites for the position of a priest. in his journal, Kierkegaard mentions that mynster rather casually dropped the remark that Kierkegaard should start to establish a pastoral seminary of his own.85 This intimated that the door to an office in the church was thus closed to him. at this point in his life Kierkegaard realized that his finances (he lived off the inheritance that his father had left him upon his death in 1838) would—not soon, but eventually—be exhausted if he maintained his current lifestyle.86 it must be left an open question whether a connection exists between this uncertainty about his future and his theological reflections, but at the latest from 1851 on it is evident that the already existing dualisms of body/spirit, time/eternity, and belief/sexuality that had been present in his literature were taken to extremes that verge on gnosticism.87 in this “discourse” on the changelessness of god, the third-to-last of his publications, Kierkegaard illustrates the differences between god’s and humanity’s perspectives on time by stating, “at the moment, when temporality’s pointer, the minute hand, pointed to seventy years and the man died, during that time eternity’s pointer had scarcely moved a trifle—to that degree everything is present for eternity and for him, the Changeless one!”88 the evolution of Kierkegaard’s use of this SV1 Xii, 425 / JFY, 150–1. SKS 13, 321–39 / M, 263–81. 85 SKS 24, 397–8, nB24:121 / JP 6, 6777. 86 SKS, 23, 62–3, nB15:90 / JP 6, 8582. see also the notes in søren Kierkegaard, Gesammelte Werke, abtheilungen 1–36, trans. and ed. by emanuel hirsch and hayo gerdes, gutersloh: guterslöher verlagshaus mohn 1979–87, abtheilung 35: Briefe (1985), p. 267. Pap. iv C 1 / JP 4, 3916. 87 engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 169–71; pp. 253–4. 88 SKS 13, 334 / M, 275. 83 84

158

Matthias Engelke

psalm exhibits an intensification of the theme that an individual’s life is short and will be evaluated by god. Kierkegaard alludes to psalm 91:11–12 (“For he (god) will command his angels concerning you to guard you in your ways. on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”) in order to use it for Christological purposes, as had been done in the new testament itself.89 according to Climacus, god’s walk in a man’s form was conducted “more circumspectly than if angels were carrying him,”90 not in order to look after himself, but “so that he may not tread in the dust the people who are offended at him.”91 Christ, while walking the earth, was endowed with the power of god, which—if it had been put to use—would have had a crushing effect on those who did not respond in faith. it is a sign of his love that Jesus did not want to use his divine powers. this detail should shed some light on a tendency toward metaphysical docetism that sometimes appeared in Kierkegaard’s concept of god’s incarnation. it is implied that god, in his incarnation in Christ, retains all that distinguishes god from humankind, including god’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, but chooses not to exercise them overtly. The humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, figuratively speaking, hides god from humankind’s eyes. god, who is spirit, even while making the temporality and limitations of Jesus’ life his own, remains, according to Kierkegaard, spirit, whose proper dimension is eternity. god’s suffering in Christ is the suffering of the infinite spirit united with a limited, finite, human life. The suffering here in the incarnation is referred to the spiritual dimension and not to the body. Because of this, the suffering has an uplifting message for the follower of Christ. it leads to the perception that suffering regarded from the point of view of eternity is nothing but a single moment, the recognition that “The one time of suffering is no time.”92 Kierkegaard compares suffering in relation to temporality and eternity with the death of an actor on stage: “in temporality and in its understanding, it looks so terrible….it is an optical illusion. it is as in the play when one actor kills the other; it looks exactly as if he pierced him, but we all know, of course, that it is not so….But just as the murdered actor goes home unharmed…so a believer’s soul goes into eternity unharmed.”93 in The Sickness unto Death anti-Climacus sketched classical docetism in a very accurate way and rejected it, since docetism claims that “…Christ does not become an individual human being but only appears to be,” thus he “docetically becomes fiction, mythology, which makes no claim upon actuality.”94 the equally unacceptable opposite position would be to regard Christ as “an individual human being” in which case “he rationalistically becomes an actuality who makes no claim mt 4:6. SKS 4, 239 / PF, 32. Kierkegaard in the discourse on the “Care of presumptuousness” says that god even watches over the bird when he plunges into the depth “more securely than if all the angels were holding it.” SKS 10, 70 / CD, 61. 91 SKS 4, 239 / PF, 32. 92 SKS 10, 113ff. / CD, 101–5. 93 SKS 10, 113 / CD, 101–2. 94 SKS 11, 242 / SUD, 131. 89 90

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

159

to be divine.”95 Kierkegaard’s tendency toward metaphysical docetism suggests neither classical docetism nor its rationalistic alternative. For Kierkegaard, Christ is a real human being, and god is really in him, but within him no real relinquishing of power has taken place, only its concealment and non-utilization. accordingly, Kierkegaard writes, “no one dares to compare himself to him [Christ] or measure himself by his standard; between him and every human being there is an eternal difference.”96 similarly, he observes, “god and man are two qualities separated by an infinite qualitative difference. Humanly speaking, any teaching that disregards this difference is demented—divinely understood, it is blasphemy. in paganism, man made god a man (the man-god); in Christianity god makes himself man (the god-man).”97 of course, in Christianity the difference is paradoxically overcome in the incarnation, but even in becoming human, god does not surrender the attribute of eternality. it is the perspective of eternity that continues to be the primary lens through which both the life of Christ and the lives of his followers are viewed, and the language of the psalms is enlisted to accomplish this. In the first part of the Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits an allusion to psalm 94:9 (“he who planted the ear, does he not hear?”) already points to the last part of the book, “the gospel of sufferings.” Kierkegaard contrasts a person who thought that he had faith in god’s providence because he had experienced being helped, although he helped no one himself, with a person who has been denied the help he desired, but nevertheless helped others. Kierkegaard asks which one actually had genuine faith in god’s providence that cares for those who suffer, and then observes, “is it not a beautiful and a convincing conclusion: should not he who planted the ear hear? But is not the opposite conclusion just as beautiful and convincing: Should not he whose life is sacrificing love believe that God is love?”98 the immediacy of the theology of creation which informs the psalm, the sense of god’s agency manifested through the created order, is applied by Kierkegaard to the theology of suffering. suffering for the good is a state in which god and the individual meet directly. in a sketch in his journals this phrase from psalm 94:9 is described as having the same persuasive power as a fully worked-out teleological proof of god.99 here Kierkegaard does seem to be expressing an appreciation of the power of god manifested in the created order. Kierkegaard notes the astonishment which Johann georg hamann (1730–88) expresses about the fact that psalm 99:8 associates two opposing things: mercy and punishment.100 hamann writes, “as it is said of the three men in the scriptures, that ibid. SKS 8, 382 / UD, 287. 97 SKS 11, 237 / SUD, 126; see also SKS 11, 239–40 / SUD, 127–9. Kierkegaard uses wordings here recalling the reports of Karl rosenkranz (1805–79), whom Kierkegaard often excerpts, see engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 74–7; see also SKS 13, 352 / M, 294, where to be a Christian means suffering, and to die from the body and to be aware of god in the inwardness of the spirit. 98 SKS 8, 178 / UD, 70. 99 SKS 20, 63, nB:72 / JP 2, 2295. 100 SKS 23, 427, nB20:62 / JP 2, 1222. 95 96

160

Matthias Engelke

god forgave them and punished their deed. psalm 99 [8].”101 Kierkegaard, on the contrary, states that this conjunction is a characteristic expression of the Christian concept of the forgiveness of sin, inasmuch as the suffering of punishment is accepted as an expression of god’s mercy and not of god’s anger. here the verse from the Psalms is treated as a prefigurement of a Christian theological theme concerning human suffering, including the suffering due to punishment, as an expression of god’s disciplinary and educative love. C. Psalms 101–33 in the fourth of the Four Upbuilding Discourses from 1843 a reference to psalm 102:26 (“they [the heavens] will all wear out like a garment”) serves as an instance of the theme that heaven and earth will perish while the believer wins his soul in patience.102 in the psalm this phrase is part of a reminder of god’s steadfastness and endurance in the midst of cosmic change and is intended to stimulate trust in god’s reliability. For Kierkegaard, however, it becomes part of a description of the terrifying tribulations in the midst of which the faithful individual should remain quiet and patient. this same phrase recurs in Christian Discourses. in this context god is described as the invariant one who draws an absolute, eternal distinction between justice and injustice. the eternal nature of this difference is expressed by Kierkegaard through the use of language drawn from genesis 1:6–8, isaiah 34:4, hebrews 1:10ff., and also psalm 102:26–8.103 the doctrine of god’s invariability forms a leitmotif throughout Kierkegaard’s works. with references to psalm 102:26–8 and also to James 1:17 this theme is already anticipated in The Concept of Irony.104 in the upbuilding discourses it becomes a counterpoint to the pseudonymous works, as in the Two Upbuilding Discourses of 1843 which is juxtaposed to Either/Or, 105 in the Three Upbuilding Discourses of 1843 which is juxtaposed to Fear and Trembling,106 and in the Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1844 which is juxtaposed to The Concept of Anxiety.107 Four times it is the subject 101 see Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich roth, Berlin: g. reimer 1821–43, vol. 1, 1821, letter no. 40, pp. 369–86 (ASKB 536–544). 102 SKS 5, 168–9 / EUD, 169–70; the same usage is in “the lily in the Field,” see SKS 11, 42 / WA, 40. 103 SKS 10, 217 / CD, 208. 104 SKS 1, 88 / CI, 26–7. 105 SKS 5, 34 / EUD, 25: “would he then be able to be changed, he in whom there is no change or shadow of variation? would he not be faithful, he through whom every human being who is faithful is faithful.” 106 SKS 5, 103 / EUD, 98: “…because he who believes god contrary to the understanding is strengthened in the inner being. For him the spiritual trial served as a strengthening in the inner being; he learned the most beautiful thing of all, the most blessed—that god loved him because the one god tests he loves. For such a person, then, prosperity and adversity serve for strengthening in the inner being…because the witness itself is a gift from God, from whom comes every good and perfect gift.” 107 SKS 5, 326 / EUD, 338: “He has returned to himself; he is no longer beatific by being rescued from himself to himself and to being transfigured in God—so that the past must let go

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

161

of various sermons: in one of the Two Upbuilding Discourses of 1843, in two of the Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1843, and in the sermon The Changelessness of God published during his late period of struggle against Christendom. From Kierkegaard’s first publication to his last this fundamental conviction concerning god’s changelessness spans his literature like a bridge. it was a proposition which he knew from Balle’s catechism, which asserts that god “is always changeless and remains the same,”108 and which cites the same supporting biblical verses of psalm 102:27 and James 1:17. the centrality of the theme of god’s changelessness was confirmed by Fogtmann with references to the same biblical passages.109 in Kierkegaard’s sermon delivered in the pastoral seminary, december 1, 1841, an allusion to psalm 103:15–16 can be found (“as for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field for the wind passes over it, and it is gone…”).110 in Kierkegaard’s appropriation of this language it does not refer to the transitory nature of human life, as it does in the psalm, but rather to the swiftly changing moods of the soul. the imagery of the psalm becomes an allegory of the passional life of the individual. the second of the Four Upbuilding Discourses from 1843 sketches the subject of the sermon, that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” a theme based on James 1:17–22 and psalm 103:13 (“as a father has compassion for his children, so the lord has compassion for those who fear him.”).111 in the course of this sermon on the dangers of doubts about the goodness of god, this verse is one of the passages that reinforce the need to construe life’s contingencies as good gifts which come from god who loves like a compassionate parent.112 Kierkegaard may have learned this use of this biblical passage from Balle’s catechism.113 The first of the Three Upbuilding Discourses from 1844, “think about Your Creator in the days of Your Youth,” based on ecclesiastes 1:12, contrasts the waning of youth and the vanity of taking its fleeting charms too seriously with the “Godsurrendered nonchalance” of youth and its never-wilting capacity to trust and hope in god.114 The first characteristic of youth, its vanity, should be discouraged, while the second, its trust in god, should be preserved. Kierkegaard uses words from psalm 103:16 (“for the wind passes over it and it is gone”) to describe the vanity of longing for the fleeting pleasures of youth.115

of him and is powerless to condemn him because the self-accusation is mitigated, forgotten in the understanding with governance’s inscrutable wisdom, in the blessed instruction of a reconciliation; so that the eternal fears no future, indeed, hopes for no future, but love possesses everything without ceasing, and there is no shadow of variation.” 108 Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 13. 109 Fogtmann, Lærebog i den christelige Religion, pp. 34ff. 110 Pap iii C 1 / JP 4, 3915. 111 SKS 5, 132f. / EUD, 129–30. 112 the other passages are ps 37:16 and prov 16:8; see SKS 5, 132 / EUD, 128. see also ps 143:10; SKS 5, 136 / EUD, 133. 113 Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 15. 114 SKS 5, 248–9 / EUD, 249–51. 115 SKS 5, 248–9 / EUD, 250–1.

162

Matthias Engelke

in a journal entry Kierkegaard quotes the words of psalm 103:2: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”116 But then he asks himself who possesses a memory that can remember all of god’s good deeds and continues, “Then let me at least not forget this benefit—that you bear with my forgetfulness.”117 For Kierkegaard, even a verse of thanksgiving for earthly blessings can become an expression of contrition and thankfulness for forgiveness. Kierkegaard describes the nature of irony in his dissertation The Concept of Irony as involving free action determined only by what is possible. Consequently, he explains that irony “enjoys in the realm of practice a similar divine freedom that knows no bonds, no chains, but plays with abandon and unrestraint, gambols like a leviathan in the sea.”118 here the words of psalm 104:26 (“leviathan that you formed to sport in it [the sea]”) which are a celebration of god’s creativity are transposed to describe the creativity of human irony. a phrase from psalm 104:15, “how the vine pleases man’s heart” is alluded to in a sermon in one of the Prefaces.119 again Kierkegaard shows that he can borrow the language of the psalms for the purpose of casual literary embellishment. the third part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, “the gospel of sufferings,” emphasizes the proposition that “in relation to god a person always suffers as guilty.”120 this conviction is derived from the confession that god is love. indeed, borrowing language from psalm 104:29 (“when you take away their breath, they die”) Kierkegaard says, “if it is so that the creature must die if god withdraws his breath, then it is also true that if god for one single moment has denied his love, then all tasks are dead and reduced to nothing, and hopelessness is the only thing there is.”121 the psalm’s elaboration of the general sustaining power of god’s providence is transmuted into a meditation on the meaning-conferring power of god’s love. again Kierkegaard spiritualizes the theme of the psalm. in a journal entry of 1849 Kierkegaard writes, “if you have not sensed today that god is present here...your coming into god`s house is in vain...then you could just as well...have stayed at home, so that your coming here would not be a sin; as david says: the prayer of the ungodly shall be counted as sin.”122 this quotation of psalm 109:7 directly applies the biblical verses’ condemnation of prayer by an allegedly unrighteous man to the casual, passionless church attendance of contemporary Christians. interestingly, in the psalm the individual is being falsely accused, while in Kierkegaard’s appropriation of it the church is indeed guilty of a lack of religious passion. in “the gospel of sufferings” Kierkegaard borrows the phrase “the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom” from psalm 111:10123 and remarks that, “if 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

SKS 24, 146, nB22:84 / JP 3, 3458. ibid. SKS 1, 315 / CI, 279; Cf. ps 115:3. SKS 4, 491 / P, 29. SKS 8, 363 / UD, 265. SKS 8, 374 / UD, 277. SKS 21, 323, nB10:131.b / JP 1, 590. see also prov 1:7.

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

163

the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom, then learning obedience is the consummation of wisdom; it is to be promoted in wisdom by being educated by the eternal.”124 this “consummation” is partially effected by the suffering that obedience entails. Kierkegaard emphasizes here the imperative that one must learn to let god have free rein in one’s life, thereby shifting the psalm’s focus on god’s graciousness and fidelity to a concentration on the necessity for a human response. As he often does, Kierkegaard adapts the psalm to the goal of encouraging an appreciation of the daunting rigors of the Christian life. according to Kierkegaard’s explanation in The Lily in the Field, not only is the fear of god the beginning of wisdom, but so also is silence the beginning of fear of the lord. silence even increases in value for Kierkegaard, for “silence is more than the beginning of the fear of god, [silence] is the fear of god.”125 the words of the psalm are appropriated in order to elaborate the value of silence before god, a motif absent in the original psalm. In defining the concept of sin, a surprising analogy between Socrates’ ignorance and psalm 111:10 occurs in the second section of The Sickness unto Death. antiClimacus writes, “let us never forget that socrates’ ignorance was a kind of fear and worship of god, that his ignorance was the greek version of the Jewish saying: the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom…that as far as it was possible for a pagan he was on guard duty as a judge on the frontier between god and man.”126 the “fear” mentioned in the psalm is given an epistemological twist, for it is seen to involve a cognitive humility and sense of incapacity in regard to the mystery of god. such an epistemic separation of god and human is only possible with the Christian belief in god’s otherness, an absolute difference that is preserved even through the paradox of the incarnation.127 the fear of god, a concept which is central in Pontoppidan’s catechism, signifies the qualitative difference between God and man. psalm 115:3 proclaims, “our god is in heaven; he does whatever he pleases.” what was articulated in the psalm to distinguish the god of israel from the visible idols of the other nations was turned into one of the central dogmatic pillars of Christianity in the catechisms which Kierkegaard had been taught. in Balle’s work the verse serves as an expression of god’s omnipotence.128 this passage is used to elaborate the theme of divine omnipotence in other portions of Kierkegaard’s literature. In his dissertation Kierkegaard apparently developed his definition of irony, that “its actuality is only possibility,”129 partly through reflection on the theme of divine transcendence, including its expression in psalm 115:3. alluding to that passage Kierkegaard writes, “our god is in heaven and does whatever he pleases; the ironist is on earth and does whatever he desires.”130 in spite of establishing a 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

SKS 8, 356 / UD, 258. SKS 11, 9 / WA, 11. SKS 11, 212 / SUD, 99. ibid. Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 13. SKS 1, 315 / CI, 279. SKS 1, 317 / CI, 282.

164

Matthias Engelke

parallelism of divine freedom and the freedom of irony, Kierkegaard also suggests a profound difference. god’s omnipotence includes the merging of possibility and actuality into one piece. in distinction to that union of possibility and actuality that is characteristic of god, the romantically shaped concept of irony is only a love for pure possibility. Kierkegaard returns to this biblical passage again in a journal entry from 1854. here he speaks explicitly of “the formulation of the catechism that god is in heaven and does what he pleases.”131 however, Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the verse goes far beyond that of the catechisms. in his elaboration of the passage, not only are omnipotence and omniscience mentioned, but so also is god’s unbearable closeness that can detect and evaluate the most seemingly trivial phenomena. Facing god’s pure subjectivity, an individual becomes nothing, or rather he only truly becomes something when he faces god with the appropriate humility. in a journal entry from 1848 Kierkegaard quotes the words of psalm 116:10: “i kept my faith, even when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted.’ ” 132 presumably Kierkegaard was applying this passage to his own life. although the psalm itself is essentially an expression of thankfulness for deliverance and bounty, Kierkegaard excerpts the one verse that emphasizes personal fidelity in the face of adversity. in the closing chapter of Philosophical Fragments concerning the “Follower at second hand” Johannes Climacus’ conversation partner attempts to differentiate the situation of the generation that was contemporaneous with Christ from that of the following ones. according to his interlocutor, while the generation contemporary with Christ did suffer from the pain of being in the presence of the paradox of the incarnation, the “new order of things” would eventually produce “the happy generation that with songs of joy harvests the fruit that was sown in tears by the first generation.”133 he conversation partner is echoing the words of psalm 126:5–6: “may those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” The claim that the first generation shall weep but the later generation “shall doubtless come again with rejoicing” elicits Climacus’mockery, for the note of festive triumphalism eliminates the sense of conflict and uncertainty that is essential for genuine faith.134 the victorious jubilation of the psalm is deemed inappropriate for the Christian life in time. in the last of the Two Upbuilding Discourses from 1844, there is a different note in the allusion to psalm 126:5–6 in Kierkegaard’s description of anna’s patience and the fulfillment of her expectations, as narrated in Luke 2:33–40. Anna had “sown with tears” before she saw the child Jesus and was then appropriately filled with joy.135 here the psalm’s pattern of sorrow/joy is endorsed by Kierkegaard and applied to the Christian life.

131 132 133 134 135

SKS 26, 337, nB34:25 / JP 3, 2576. SKS 20, 355, nB4:147 / JP 4, 4616. SKS 4, 304 / PF, 107. ibid. SKS 5, 224 / EUD, 225.

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

165

the second discourse in Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1844 entitled “the thorn in the Flesh,” based on 2 Corinthians 12:7, describes the suffering of someone who, like the apostle Paul, had been “transfigured in God” and had experienced the inexpressible beatitude of being in the presence of god, and then returned to “the thralldom of temporality.”136 after the ecstatic experience is over “and the harvest song of joy is silenced,” Kierkegaard uses the words of psalm 126:5–6 to observe that “again there will be sowing in tears.”137 Kierkegaard here interprets an israelite lament about alienated cultural life in a foreign region as an almost gnostic-like lament about the imprisonment of the spirit in earthly time. temporality itself, rather than cultural-political oppression and geographic displacement, is construed as a life in “exile.”138 these Four Discourses can be viewed as a Christian response to The Concept of Anxiety, and yet with their hostility towards the body they have distanced themselves from the affirmation of creaturely, embodied life typical of most of the old and new testament. there is a sharp disjunction between the words of the psalm that express a longing for a restoration of earthly good fortune and the spiritualized message that Kierkegaard derives from it. the second of the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions of 1845, intended for the occasion of a wedding, develops the theme “that, considered as the resolution of marriage, love conquers everything,”139 and dedicates itself to the exploration of the meaning of a “resolution.” It maintains that the first condition for a resolution is “to will to have a true conception of life and of oneself.”140 this involves facing life’s uncertainties and one’s own failings, a candor that triggers a “trembling” that “toughens one.”141 those who genuinely make their resolution to marry in this spirit have “a true conception of life and of oneself.”142 as well as of god.143 Borrowing the words of psalm 126:5–6, Kierkegaard adds the encouraging note that “what is here sown with tears is harvested with songs of joy, and one does recover from the sorrow.”144 the more sobering this thought is, the more strengthened the life that follows from it will be. here the dialectic of sorrow/joy is applied to the ethical task of remaining faithful to a resolution. again the focus is not on the ordinary vicissitudes of earthly existence, but upon the rigors of the passional life of the Christian individual.

SKS 5, 326 / EUD, 338. ibid. this passage also contains allusions to the lament of ps 137. Kierkegaard refers to ps 137:5–6 again in the ninth section in Works of Love, “the work of love in recollecting one who is dead,” see SKS 9, 341 / WL, 345–58. in connection with sirach 22:11, these passages can be seen as examples of what the dignified commemoration of the dead might be. it is distressing to see that the longing and the insatiable hope for zion from ps 137:5–6 are reduced to the commemoration of the dead by Kierkegaard. 138 see engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 253–5. 139 SKS 5, 421 / TD, 46. 140 SKS 5, 429 / TD, 52. 141 ibid. 142 ibid. 143 SKS 5, 438 / TD, 63. 144 SKS 5, 429 / TD, 52. 136 137

166

Matthias Engelke

the closing section of Christian Discourses is dedicated to a contemplation of “blessing” and deals with Jacob’s struggle at the Jabbok river, in which Jacob wrestles with a mysterious figure who seems to be a manifestation of God.145 the power and effect of the blessing that results from this struggle is further explained with the aid of psalm 127.146 Kierkegaard quotes Jacob’s words to his wrestling partner, “i will not let you go unless you bless me.” interestingly, Kierkegaard does not use these words to construe the reception of god’s blessing as the fruit of the individual’s struggle with god, but rather to emphasize god’s promise to bless the faithful through the communion service. the blessing of Jacob is reinterpreted in a Christological and eucharistic context. In the text “Some Reflections on Marriage in Answer to Objections by a Married man,” an essay in Stages on Life’s Way, several references of certain biblical passages, including psalm 1:2–3, occur. all of them are used in a way that preserves the standard and obvious way of interpreting them.147 the blessing of having a wife who “will be like a fruitful vine within your house,” as psalm 128:3 phrases it, is praised, and bachelors who do not have enough human sympathy to delight in the prospect of a “flowering” wife are chastised. (Psalm 1:2–3 uses similar imagery to describe the pious individual who contemplates and delights in god’s law.148) here the psalm’s positive attitude toward marital felicity is reflected in the parallel attitude of the “married man.” in a journal entry Kierkegaard writes, “even in david’s psalms there are examples of the kind of self-encapsulation or closedupness which seeks to avoid every human relationship in order to remain Du und Du with god.”149 this indicates the difficulty of interpreting such “closedupness,” which could be due to “pride toward men” or to “an erotic love affair with god.” here Kierkegaard may have had in mind psalm 130:1 (“out of the depths i have cried to You, o lord”). according to alastair mcKinnon, Kierkegaard had learned from this psalm—too late—that only the mentally ill avoid human relations in order to be closer to god.150 in an upbuilding discourse Kierkegaard appropriated the phrase “live together in harmony” in order to describe the proper relationship between an individual and his resolution, and to suggest that the separation of the two is due to cowardice.151 the phrase in the psalm 133:1 which had a social implication is adapted by Kierkegaard to apply to the stringent demands of the ethico-religious life.

gen 32. SKS 10, 322 / CD, 297. 147 see engelke, Kierkegaard, pp. 101–10. 148 see ps 1:2–3; SKS 6, 94 / SLW, 113. 149 SKS 18, 246, JJ:332 / KJN 2, 227. 150 alastair mcKinnon, “Kierkegaard on hating one’s Father, etc.,” Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter, no. 41, 2001, pp. 17–19. 151 SKS 5, 351 / EUD, 365. 145 146

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

167

D. Psalm 139 psalm 139 is so prevalent in Kierkegaard’s literature, and used so differently, that a separate, more detailed discussion of its appearance in each work is required. the publication of Two Upbuilding Discourses in 1843 shows for the first time the force, ambiguity, and disquieting effect of Kierkegaard’s strategy to publish in parallel fashion pseudonymous works counterbalanced by edifying, signed works. this strategy was intended to “deceive [individuals] into the truth,” into Christianity.152 the discourses serve to make a “movement” possible that differs from the attitudes toward life expressed in Either/Or. the edifying thoughts derive their power from depicting human beings under the comprehensive rule of sin, doing this with the help of a reference to Job 40:2: “shall the one who contends with the almighty correct Him? he who rebukes god, let him answer it.”153 these upbuilding discourses emphasize the righteousness of god and appropriate the language of psalm 33:4 to promote this purpose: “For the word of the lord is right, and all his work is done in truth.”154 in his youth Kierkegaard could already have encountered such an important use of this passage from the textbook of nicolai edinger Balle.155 the second discourse, entitled with a phrase taken from James 1:17, “every good and every perfect gift is from above,” employs comforting language drawn from, among other places, psalm 139:2ff. Kierkegaard writes, “ ‘From the Father of lights,’ says the apostle, and thereby signifies that God penetrates everything with his eternal clarity, that he understands people’s thoughts from afar and is very familiar with all their paths.”156 Kierkegaard develops this theme in order to foster an appreciation of all of life’s vicissitudes as being “a good and perfect gift for everyone who has enough heart to be humble, enough heart to be trustful.”157 the words of the psalm are used to suggest that from the perspective of faith all events, even the tribulations, can be seen as a providentially directed education of the individual. the Four Upbuilding Discourses from 1844 were intended to be read in conjunction with the reflections in The Concept of Anxiety. in the latter work the “dreaming spirit’s” projected actuality is a “nothing” that begets infinite anxiety,158 while in the discourses the individual’s encounter with his own nothingness is the basis for his fulfillment, because “to need God is his highest perfection.”159 the fourth discourse entitled “against Cowardliness,” based on 1 timothy 1:7, describes the endangering of the individual by sin, death, and judgment.160 Cowardice is described as being the attitude which desires to be exempted from the task of

152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

SKS 13, 13 / PV, 7; see SV1 Xiii, 571 / PV, 87–8. Cf. SKS 3, 324 / EO2, 344 with SKS 5, 26 / EUD, 16. SKS 5, 35 / EUD, 25. Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 16. SKS 5, 48 / EUD, 39. SKS 5, 48 / EUD, 41. SKS 4, 348 / CA, 41. SKS 5, 316 / EUD, 326. SKS 5, 338 / EUD, 350.

168

Matthias Engelke

realizing what the good is,161 from doing good,162 and from committing oneself to it.163 however, Kierkegaard warns, the prospect of being judged by god cannot be avoided by any man. in this context Kierkegaard uses the images and words from psalm 139:7ff. in his own description of the inevitability of judgment and the impossibility of escaping it: “But try this: go to the farthest limits of the world, conceal yourself in the abyss, and then see whether the justice that imprisoned you does not know how to go and fetch you out.”164 whether or not this judgmental understanding appropriately expresses the message of these verses from psalm 139, which do suggest the futility of any attempted flight from God’s presence, may be left an open question. in any case, Kierkegaard succeeds in shedding a different light on the theme of nothingness developed in The Concept of Anxiety by the pseudonym vigilius haufniensis. here the attempt to avoid the recognition of one’s own nothingness is seen as an expression of cowardice, as a refusal of the imperfect human creature to rely on god’s perfection.165 again the words of the psalm are put to an accusatory purpose. Concluding his theological examination, Kierkegaard delivered a sermon on 1 Corinthians 2:6–9 in trinity Church in Copenhagen on February 24, 1844. he did not publish it separately, and it was not available until the publication of his journals in 1912.166 the introductory prayer contains, along with numerous new testament allusions,167 old testament references to exodus 20:21, 1 Kings 8:12, psalm 139:2,168 psalm 139:12, and psalm 139:23.169 this prayer will be fully cited here due to its complexity: Father in heaven! well do we know that you dwell in light and that your essence is brightness, but for that very reason you are also dark (even in your revelation) and like a secret we are unable to utter. But then it is for our consolation that you see in secret and understand from afar. so test even our hearts, and according to the secret which each one’s heart conceals and according to the way you understand it, make it clear also to him in proportion to his keeping the secret and his love for you.170

the formulation “for that very reason you are also dark (even in your revelation)” appears here as an inversion of psalm 139:12, which speaks of the exact opposite: “the darkness shall not hide from You.” in Job 10:22 this type of inversion of light/ darkness serves Job as a reference to the world of the dead, “a land of obscurity, the SKS 5, 343 / EUD, 356. SKS 5, 349 / EUD, 362–3. 163 SKS 5, 355 / EUD, 369. 164 SKS 5, 338 / EUD, 350. 165 Cf. SKS 5, 370 / EUD, 368–9. 166 Pap. iv C 1 / JP 4, 3916. 167 mt 6:4, 18 and 1 tim 6:16. 168 “[You] understand from afar off,” in the quoted prayer echoes “you discern my thoughts from far way” in ps 139:2. 169 “test even our hearts” in the quoted prayer echoes “search me, o god, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts” in ps 139:23. 170 Pap. iv C 1 / JP 4, 3916. 161 162

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

169

darkness of the shadow of death, without any order, and the shining is as darkness.” the bond with his deceased father, a relationship that left a profound mark on Kierkegaard and affected him long after his father’s death, may have found a way to express itself in this secretive manner. on the occasion of a confession, the verses from psalm 139:7ff., “where can i go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” are interpreted in two different ways: first, as a reference to the presence of God that is inescapable even if someone tried to evade it, and secondly as a reference to the impossibility of losing the presence of god, even if human beings are separated from one another or incarcerated.171 Both the theme of divine judgment and the theme of divine comfort are articulated through the use of the psalm’s vocabulary. the change in his contemporary lecturer and lutheran priest adolph peter adler (1812–69) from a convinced follower of hegel to an alleged recipient of a revelation who, in Kierkegaard’s terms, discovered a type of “inwardness” for himself, gave rise to a study of Kierkegaard’s own religiosity and of the way in which it differed from adler’s. in 1843 adler announced that he had received a revelation from Christ himself in september 1842, concerning, among other things, the origin of evil. adler proceeded to broadcast his experience in various publications, although his attempt to convince Kierkegaard of the veracity of his revelation failed. Kierkegaard’s response to the case, The Religious Confusion of the Present Age Illustrated by Magister Adler as a Phenomenon: A Mimical Monograph, was not published as a whole, although two parts of it were printed in 1849 as the Two Ethical-Religious Essays by the pseudonym h.h. without the slightest hint about its “editor” or real author. in the unpublished study Kierkegaard acknowledges adler’s “excellence,” which he saw mainly in the fact “that he [adler] was shaken, was deeply moved,”172 an attitude that Kierkegaard explicitly supports. Kierkegaard elaborates on the importance of “being deeply moved” by suggesting, “in a certain sense a preacher should be such that the listeners have to say: how can i get away from this man? his sermon catches up with me in every hiding place, and how can i get rid of him, since he is over me at every moment?”173 here Kierkegaard is again echoing the words of psalm 139:7. the individual’s appropriate response to an authentic preacher is likened to the response of an individual god. Both should involve a daunting awareness of scrutiny and evaluation. In the introductory section of the first part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, a discourse “on the occasion of a Confession,” a reference is made to psalm 139:2 (“you [god] discern my thoughts from far away”). the confessor whom Kierkegaard describes does not face an ordinary conversation partner, but someone who confronts him with the “earnestness of eternity,”174 namely, god. to reinforce the mood of thorough self-scrutiny and candor necessary for true repentance, Kierkegaard appropriates the words of the psalm and describes god as

171 172 173 174

SKS 5, 404 / TD, 24. Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 190 / BA, 103. Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 191 / BA, 105. SKS 8, 136 / UD, 21.

170

Matthias Engelke

the “omniscient one who knows every thought from afar.”175 the words of the psalm that suggest the impossibility of escaping from the presence of god are given an explicitly judgmental nuance. the discourses published by Kierkegaard in 1848 all bear the title “Christian discourses,” including the seven “discourses at the Communion on Fridays.” the third one, based on John 10:27 (“my sheep hear my voice, and i know them, and they follow me”) develops the theme “he knows them”176 with the aid of psalm 139:8ff. Kierkegaard writes, “even if you hid in the bottomless pit, he knows you—but there is no reason to flee, no reason to seek a hiding place, because the blessedness is precisely this, that he knows you.”177 This is the first time that the judgmental aspect of these verses is not emphasized, but rather its consoling character is highlighted. Kierkegaard associates being known by Christ with actually being one of Christ’s own, a thought that reassures the individual of god’s forgiving and consoling love. the preface to Practice in Christianity, signed with the initials of Kierkegaard as the editor, uses a characteristic Kierkegaardian paradox. after remarking that the “requirement for being a Christian” must be heard “as spoken to me alone,” the editor continues that this requirement is presented “so that i might learn not only to resort [or “flee”] to grace but to resort to it in relation to the use of grace.”178 the paradox is that the individual not only is the recipient of grace, but is also the agent who must actively do something with grace. in a journal entry of 1851 Kierkegaard restates this paradox, saying, “it can also be looked at this way—just because grace is shown to me and i am reprieved, precisely in this lies the requirement to exert myself all the more.”179 This way of wording the paradox of “fleeing to grace” probably originates from the phrase in Psalm 139:7: “where can I flee from Your presence?”180 psalm 139:7–12 is a reflection about the unlimited nature of God’s presence. Even at the imaginary limits of the three dimensions—height, width, and depth—god’s intimate knowledge of the individual is still effective, for “You [god] have hedged me behind and before.”181 Kierkegaard puts the language of “fleeing” or “resorting” to a different purpose, for here the fleeing is toward grace, a forgiveness that must be passively received, which then paradoxically becomes the basis for a new exertion.

SKS 8, 137 / UD, 22. SKS 10, 290 / CD, 271. 177 SKS 10, 291 / CD, 272. 178 SKS 12, 15 / PC, 7. 179 SKS 24, 191, nB22:159 / JP 2, 1482. 180 this is a view proposed by emmanuel hirsch in søren Kierkegaard, in Gesammelte Werke, abtheilung 26: Einübung zum Christentum (1980), p. 263, footnote 2. see SKS 12, 77 / PC, 65. also see engelke, Kierkegaard, p. 155. For comments on the phrase as it occurs in SKS, 21, 53, nB6:70 / JP 6, 6235 see SKS K21, 51, nB6:70; and as it appears in SKS, 22, 332, nB13:88 / JP 6, 6521 see SKS K22, 413, nB13:88. according to these notes, the phrase refers to the Communion of the danish liturgy, Dannemarks og Norges Kirke-Ritual, Copenhagen 1762 [1685], pp. 146–7, although it says there: henflyer til GUds Barmhiertighed i Christo Jesu. 181 ps 139:5. 175 176

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

171

The concept of “fleeing towards forgiveness” does not appear in this particular formulation in the biblical tradition. nevertheless the phrase does appear in a wellknown ecclesiastical song which luther had arranged in 1524, adapted from an older traditional version. luther’s “in the midst of life we are surrounded by death” had been available in a Danish translation since 1529. The first stanza, adapted from the medieval antiphon Media vita in morte sumus (in the midst of life we are in death) from the eleventh century, reads in luther’s version: though in the midst of life we are encircled by death. who is it that will bring help to us that we may obtain mercy? that is you alone, lord. we mourn our grievous sin which has stirred up your wrath. holy lord god holy powerful god holy compassionate savior You eternal god let us not perish in the bitter misery of death.182

luther expanded the song by two stanzas: in the midst of death the jaws of hell confront us. who will make us free from such misery and make us secure? that is you alone lord tender is your compassion that pities our great misery holy lord god holy mighty god holy compassionate savior, You eternal god do not allow us to be discouraged Before the deep fires of hell, have mercy, o lord!

english translation by the editor. the german is: Mitten wir im Leben sind / mit dem Tod umfangen. / Wer ist, der uns Hilfe bringt, / daß wir Gnad erlangen? / Das bist du, Herr, alleine. / Uns reuet unsre Missetat, / die dich, Herr, erzürnet hat. / Heiliger Herre Gott, / heiliger starker Gott, / heiliger barmherziger Heiland, / du ewiger Gott: / laß uns nicht versinken / in des bittern Todes Not. / Kyrieleison. see luther, “mitten wir im leben sind mit dem tod umgeben,” in J. Jonas and J. lange, Enchiridion oder Eyn Handbuchlein, erfurt: n.p. 1524, song number 18 (no pagination). 182

172

Matthias Engelke in the midst of hellish dread Our sins afflict us Where shall we flee to that we might remain? to You, lord Christ, only. Your precious blood was shed as atonement for sin holy lord god holy mighty god holy compassionate savior. You eternal god let us not forsake the comfort of a righteous faith. have mercy, o lord!183

Between the first two and the third stanza a change of theme occurs. In the first two stanzas the human being asks who is going to provide help, who is going to save the individual from the depths and from the jaws of hell. in the third stanza, however, the individual becomes active, for he asks about a refuge to which he can flee. Whereas it is God-in-Christ acting alone and unilaterally in order to rescue humanity in the first two stanzas, it is the beleaguered individual, the believer, who actively flees towards rescue and Christ according to the third stanza. the following line is like a response to this outrageous idea of Luther that seems to imply the efficacy of some human agency, for it emphasizes the fact that Christ has done everything necessary for the rescue, thereby refocusing on the agency of Christ. But in spite of his devotion to the theme of “grace alone,” Luther had already hinted at a significant role for human agency. even if luther tries to qualify and retract the emphasis on human activity, the human agent has been centrally positioned in one stanza, a move that may open up a new horizon for the significance of human effort. It is indeed only 50 years from luther’s death in 1546 to descartes’ birth in 1596. did Kierkegaard have a conscious authorial intention in combining the third stanza, with the emphasis on man’s self-initiative, with the first stanza? To support this suspicion, it must be noted that Kierkegaard has omitted the Christocentrism

english translation by the editor. the german is: Mitten in dem Tod anficht / uns der Hölle Rachen. / Wer will uns aus solcher Not / frei und ledig machen? / Das tust du, Herr, alleine. / Es jammert dein Barmherzigkeit / unsre Klag und großes Leid. / Heiliger Herre Gott, / heiliger starker Gott, / heiliger barmherziger Heiland, / du ewiger Gott: / laß uns nicht verzagen / vor der tiefen Hölle Glut. / Kyrieleison. Mitten in der Hölle Angst / unsre Sünd’ uns treiben. / Wo solln wir denn fliehen hin, / da wir mögen bleiben? / Zu dir, Herr Christ, alleine. / Vergos sen (Vergossen ?) ist dein teures Blut, / das g’nug für die Sünde tut. / Heiliger Herre Gott, / heiliger starker Gott, / heiliger barmherziger Heiland, / du ewiger Gott: / laß uns nicht entfallen / von des rechten Glaubens Trost. / Kyrieleison. see martin luther, “mitten wir im leben sind mit dem tod umgeben,” in J. Jonas and J. lange, Enchiridion oder Eyn Handbuchlein, song number 18 (no pagination). 183

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

173

that was so important to luther in his allusion to the psalm.184 Kierkegaard has also expanded the importance of an individual’s agency in his own salvation by inadvertently suggesting that it is not god who initiates the giving of mercy, but rather the human individual who flees towards it. or did Kierkegaard’s language have a different source other then luther’s hymn? in Aurora, or Dawn Ascending Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) in paraphrasing the hymn writes: therefore we appropriately sing: in the midst of life we are surrounded by death Where shall we flee that we may obtain grace? to you lord Christ only.185

Here the connection between “grace” and “fleeing” is more explicit. Similarly, Boehme used the phrase “flee to God’s grace” in his Mysterium magnum (Great Mystery).186 Kierkegaard owned this book, and it may have been the source of his way of phrasing this theme of “fleeing to grace.” Kierkegaard published the signed work For Self-Examination in 1851, which follows the form of the discourses without being either a lecture or a sermon, but rather three meditations. Although the first question from Psalm 8:5,187 “what is man that You are mindful of him,” is quoted in the introductory prayer of the first meditation, the answer from verse 6, “You have made them a little lower than god,” which almost suggests the near equality of god and humanity, is left out by Kierkegaard; he emphasizes the difference between god and humanity by exclaiming “You are not like a human being.”188 the line with the two titles of Jesus Herr (lord) and Christ—zu dir Herr Christ alleine (to you Lord Christ only)—does not fit into the otherwise parallel stanza structure. The Danish translation by contrast reads Dig / Du Herre krist alene! (you yourself, o Christ, only) in the first and second stanza—but in the third: Til dig, o Krist, alene! (to yourself, o Christ, only). The line from the third stanza has left a mark on the first two, and instead of the title “Lord” the interjection “o” was added—and thus the third stanza was emotionally differentiated from the first two stanzas. 185 english translation by the editor. in german this reads: Darum singen wir wohl recht: / “Mitten wir im Leben sind / Mit dem Tod umfangen / Wo sollen wir den fliehen hin / Dass wir Gnad erlangen? / Zu dir, Herr Christ alleine.” see Jacob Böhme, Aurora oder Morgenröte im Aufgang, in Jacob Böhme’s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–8, leipzig: J.a. Barth 1922, vol. 2, p. 166. 186 see Jacob Böhme, Mysterium magnum, Oder Erklärung über das Erste Buch Mosis Von der Offenbarung Göttlichen Worts durch die drey Principia Göttlichen Wesens auch vom Ursprung der Welt und der Schöpffung. Darinnen Das Reich der Natur und Das Reich der Gnaden erkläret wird ... amsterdam 1682, chapter 40, paragraph 53, p. 359 (ASKB 453). 187 a literary sketch can be found in the journals SKS 17, 202–4, CC:13. KJN 1, 193–6, in which a relative is caricatured who, in alluding to ps 8:5, calls out in german Was ist der Mensch? (what is man?) on the occasion of a mourning ceremony. 188 SKS 13, 43 / FSE, 13 184

174

Matthias Engelke

The first meditation, “What is Required in Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the mirror of the word,” based on James 1:22–7, is explicitly related to psalm 139:11, whose words, “if i would say, ‘surely the darkness will cover me, then night around me will become light; the darkness itself is not dark to you and the night is like the day,’ ” are quoted in full by Kierkegaard. as if Kierkegaard wanted to use the Bible in an intentionally witty manner, he relates this verse to John 3:1ff., the story of nicodemus’ visit to Jesus at night. with a tone of implicit reproach Kierkegaard then advises the reader not to distract himself with the question: how could anyone believe that he would be able to keep such a meeting secret “when one is going to him who is the light?”189 Kierkegaard then dismisses this question, admonishing, “no, you are not to talk in this manner, because you understand all too well why he [nicodemus] chose the night, that even though Christ is the way in contemporaneity, he was—and if he returned he would certainly again be—the forbidden way.”190 the words of the psalm function here to highlight the spiritual danger of trying to avoid making a total commitment to Christ and to urge the reader to look for any such evasion in the reader’s own life. Psalm 139:9ff. is used to accentuate the threat of judgment in the first discourse of the Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays. the verses are employed to suggest that no human being can hide “from justice.”191 Kierkegaard writes, “whither shall I flee from justice? If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the furthest sea, it is there. if i hide myself in the abyss it is there, and thus it is everywhere. Yet, no, there is one place to which I can flee—to love.”192 Kierkegaard substitutes an abstract justice for the presence of god which had been the subject of the psalm, and thereby renders these words much more ominous. in many of these uses of psalm 139:7ff. Kierkegaard appropriated the traditional lutheran understanding of judgment as being in tension with god’s love. the association of psalm 139:7ff. with this juxtaposition of justice and love had probably been taught to Kierkegaard by the catechisms through which he had been instructed in Christian doctrine at school. this particular psalm passage is used as evidence for the belief that god is omnipresence in the catechisms by Balle193 and by Fogtman.194 seldom did Kierkegaard manage to move beyond the traditional doctrinal understanding of these verses as implying judgment and to emphasize the passage’s more comforting character. one entry in the journals from 1852 is distinctive among the other entries.195 it surprisingly uses psalm 139:5 to emphasize the comfort of god’s proximity. SKS 13, 68–9 / FSE, 42. ibid. 191 SKS 12, 288 / WA, 172. 192 ibid. 193 see Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 14. 194 see Fogtmann, Lærebog i den christelige Religion, pp. 32–3. 195 SKS 24, 477–8, nB25:61 / JP 2, 1429. other instances include ps 138:7 in SKS 19, not6:29 / JP 3, 2830, which explains the difference between belief and heathen thinking, and ps 139:11–12 in Pap. X–6 B 2 / FSE, supplement, pp. 230–1, which establishes a connection to nicodemus, similar to that in For Self-Examination, see SKS 13, 68–9 / FSE, 42. here the allusion is to Jn 3:31ff., to which Kierkegaard adds a request not to condemn nicodemus, but 189 190

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

175

however, Kierkegaard does this only to later stress david’s shock over this proximity, and to paraphrase david’s words as meaning “this is too high for me.”196 this divine proximity makes it impossible to evade god and his judgment. according to Kierkegaard’s perception, contemporary Christianity has gotten rid of the sobering prospect of god’s constant scrutiny by using these verses merely as a “presentation” and not attempting to live them out in actuality. Kierkegaard concludes that this sham makes it possible for a preacher to engage in empty “presentation” and thereby show that he “does not live in the religious at all!”197 the weights have shifted here. no more does the emphasis of judgment precede these comforting verses; rather, it is the other way around. the unrestricted, merciful character of the verses serves as a foundation to expose and critique the lack of seriousness in contemporary Christianity for Kierkegaard. according to Kierkegaard, a hiatus has opened between authentic Christianity and the contemporary spiritual life of the church. these verses from the psalm serve his polemical purpose by drawing attention to the gap which he perceives. E. Psalms 141–50 Kierkegaard begins a draft of For Self Examination with an address to the reader using words from psalm 141:3.198 he quotes the psalmist’s words, “set a guard over my mouth, o lord, keep watch over the door of my lips.” Kierkegaard emphasizes the need for divine oversight of preaching and writing because he fears that a misplaced eloquence may be a distraction from the earnestness of life. in fact, such a display of eloquence is not innocent but “comes from evil.”199 here Kierkegaard is implicitly identifying with the psalmist and applying his words to his own authorship. in Four Upbuilding Discourses Kierkegaard responds to possible doubts about god as the source of all goodness,200 and recalls psalm 143:10, among others, quoting the words “that the spirit of god is good and leads you on a level path.”201 the gift of god, who is the only true good, is promised to the individual who steps onto “the smiling paths of joy” as well as to the one who walks the “narrow way of sorrow.” the equal validation of paths of joy and the way of sorrow will be seriously modified in Kierkegaard’s later works, in which the way of sorrow will tend to become normative. in any case, here a psalm that is a plea for rescue, refuge, and guidance is used to reinforce the sense that god is the only good, equally available in joy and sorrow. in the introduction to the meditations in For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard commenced with a prayer that began with the words of psalm 144:3202: “what is a rather to look at him as if he were a mirror showing one’s own search for excuses and one’s own cowardly character. 196 SKS 24, 477–8, nB25:61 / JP 2, 1429. 197 ibid. 198 pap X–6 B 2 6 / FSE, supplement, p. 227. 199 ibid. 200 SKS 5, 138 / EUD, 134. 201 SKS 5, 136 / EUD, 133. 202 Cf. ps 8:4.

176

Matthias Engelke

man that you are mindful of him, a child of man that you are concerned for him.”203 the passage can be found again in a draft of the essay in his papers.204 in both instances Kierkegaard uses the verse to foster a sense of humanity’s insignificance in order to accentuate the graciousness of god’s gift of the Bible to such an undeserving race. the solicitude of god for humanity by providing a revelation, a theme not directly suggested by the psalm, becomes the main point of Kierkegaard’s elaboration. the verse “You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16) can be found in the introductory prayer in the first of the Two Upbuilding Discourses from 1843, which bears the title “every good and every perfect gift is from above.”205 Kierkegaard became acquainted with the key traditional interpretation of this passage mainly through the catechisms of Balle and Fogtmann.206 Fogtmann uses this verse as a support for the doctrine of creatio continua (continuing creation). Kierkegaard uses the passage to encourage reliance upon god even when god seems to withdraw. the themes of the “expectancy of faith” and trust in god as the source of good gifts provide an alternative to the ways of life that he had depicted in Either/Or, which accompanied this volume.207 psalm 145:16 also makes an appearance in the middle part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, which is concerned with the topic of being happy with what one has, and with being content with being human. the birds and the lilies mentioned in matthew 6:24ff. serve as good examples of this attitude of modesty and contentment, but Kierkegaard supplements their witness with a reference to the verse from the psalm.208 once again Kierkegaard does not hesitate to use the two testaments intratextually, in this case practicing his common strategy of using the psalms to reinforce a motif from the new testament. In the first discourse in the first part of the Christian Discourses psalm 145:16 also functions to clarify the difference between being “satisfied” with earthly sustenance and “the blessing that satisfied.” A Christian does not seek to become satisfied in an earthly sense, but rather delights in “the blessing” of knowing that god is provident.209 It is not the gift of daily bread that is fulfilling, but rather the trust in the giver. of course, this theme of the intrinsic satisfaction of being related to a provident god was not explicitly stated in the psalm, although Kierkegaard’s elaboration was congruent with its mood of adoration. again the psalm’s theme is spiritualized so that it mainly refers to the development of the subjectivity of the individual Christian. psalm 145:15ff. serves to articulate the rudiments of a natural theology in the sixth discourse of the third part of Christian Discourses. alluding to the psalm, Kierkegaard notes that food and clothing come from god, so that god is not altogether SKS 13, 43 / FSE, 13. Pap. X–6 B 2, 5 / FSE, supplement, p. 226. 205 SKS 5, 39 / EUD, 31. 206 see Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, p. 22 and Fogtmann, Lærebog i den christelige Religion, pp. 50ff. 207 Cf. SKS 5, 26 / EUD, 16 to Job 9:3; and SKS 5, 35 / EUD, 25 to ps 33:4. 208 SKS 8, 273 / UD, 174. 209 SKS 10, 27 / CD, 15. 203 204

Psalms: Source of Images and Contrasts

177

unattested in the created order. 210 (Compare this with acts 14:17.) here Kierkegaard’s employment of the passage does reflect the laudatory and celebratory spirit of those verses. moreover, it does keep attention focused on material provision. III. Conclusion we have seen that Kierkegaard uses the psalms in a wide variety of ways, ranging from supplying minor literary embellishments to supporting substantive themes. sometimes Kierkegaard positively adopts the mood and theme of a passage from the psalms, manifesting his agreement with its spirit. usually he does this when a psalm expresses thankfulness to god for all things, or encourages self-examination and repentance. however, at other times he will identify the sentiment of a psalm with a position that he is critiquing. this happens most frequently when he suspects that a particular passage is encouraging the attitude that the Christian should seek and hope for a life of earthly felicity. here a passage from a psalm may function negatively as an example of the difference between Judaism and paganism on the one hand and Christianity on the other. often Kierkegaard uses the psalms in the manner typical of his lutheran heritage. he does frequently interpret the psalms from the perspective of the revelation of Christ in the new testament. when he employs this strategy, the verses of the various psalms become vehicles to express the grand themes of the lutheran heritage, such as the need to rely upon god’s grace for forgiveness and to ascribe all growth in the Christian life to the power of god’s grace. however, in his use of the psalms Kierkegaard does introduce a distinctive note. very frequently Kierkegaard does take a verse that is seemingly intended to express reliance upon god or to plead for god’s blessing and use it to encourage relentless self-examination and an awareness of the suffering that the Christian life involves. the psalms provide a vocabulary for describing the dynamics and challenges of the Christian life. most often this involves an accentuation of the theme that the surrounding culture will necessarily be hostile to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love and will be antagonistic toward anyone who devoutly attempts to enact them. in this world the Christian can expect hostility, persecution, and suffering.

210

SKS 10, 232 / CD, 224.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss the Psalms Balle, nikolai edinger: Lærebog i den Evangelisk-christelige Religion indrettet til Brug i de danske Skoler, Copenhagen: Jens hostrup schultz 1824 [1791] (ASKB 183). Fogtmann, nikolai, Lærebog i den christelige Religion. Til Brug for den studerende Ungdom, Copenhagen [no date or publisher] (ASKB a ii 21–22). [herder, Johann gottfried], Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 2, pp. 175–280 (ASKB 1676–1684). [pontoppidan, erik], Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, stavanger: n.p. 1849 (ASKB 190). [scriver, Christian], M. Christian Scrivers...Seelen-Schatz: Darinnen Von der menschlichen Seelen hohen Würde, tieffen und kläglichen Sünden-Fall, Busse und Erneuerung durch Christum, göttlichen heiligen Leben...erbaulich und tröstlich gehandelt wird, vols. 1–5, magdeburg and leipzig: Christoph seidel 1723, vol. 1, p. 35 (ASKB 261–263). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 332–40 (ASKB 80). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of the Psalms ammundsen, valdemar, Søren Kierkegaards Ungdom. Hans Slægt og hans religiøse Udvikling, Copenhagen: universitetsbogtrykkeriet 1912, p. 76. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmz verlag winrich C.-w. Clasen 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), pp. 83–193. mcKinnon, alastair, “Kierkegaard on hating one’s Father, etc.,” Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter, no. 41, 2001, pp. 17–19. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 66; p. 108; p. 179. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymns and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 100–22. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee, Broadman & holman 1994, pp. 102–41.

ecclesiastes: vanity, grief, and the distinctions of wisdom will williams

the old testament Book of ecclesiastes belongs to the genre of wisdom literature, and right-living through wisdom is one of its main concerns. tradition suggests that solomon is the author of ecclesiastes, although his name does not occur within the work.1 Kierkegaard was aware that the book’s solomonic authorship had been disputed,2 and this could be part of the reason that he attributes most of his ecclesiastes references to “the preacher.”3 nevertheless, Kierkegaard is also unafraid to attribute verses from ecclesiastes directly to solomon,4 so too much should not be made of this distinction. other features of the book became matters of scholarly dispute shortly before and during Kierkegaard’s life-time. Johann salomo semler (1725–91), the celebrated pioneer of the historical-critical method who was influenced by both Pietism and the Enlightenment, argued that different portions of the Bible reflect the Word of God to differing degrees, depending on how adequately their historically conditioned form expresses the universal themes of the faith. ecclesiastes ranked high in his list, since it obviously does deal with such universal human concerns as the apparent futility of human projects.5 Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827), another influential early historical-critic, thought he could detect a Greek influence in the text, for he found it to have a Sophist flavor.6 Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803) opined that it came from the period of the Babylonian captivity and discussed the possibility that its suggestion that the individual’s spirit returns to god was borrowed from however, eccl 1:1 says, “the words of the teacher, the son of david, king in Jerusalem,” and traditionally this has been taken as a confirmation of Solomonic authorship. 2 Pap. v B 72:28 / CA, supplement, p. 211: “in the sixth letter of The Centaur not Fabulous, Young say a few words about Ecclesiastes, a work he ascribes to solomon.” see edward Young, Einige Werke von Dr. Edvard Young, vols. 1–3, trans. by J.a. ebert, Braunschweig and hildesheim: schröders erben 1767–72, vol. 2, p. 398 (ASKB 1911). 3 “Preacher,” like “Teacher,” is a possible rendering of the Hebrew ‫ קהלת‬in Eccl 1:1. additionally, the danish name for ecclesiastes is Prædikerens Bog, which means “the preacher’s Book.” 4 For example, see SKS 8, 124 / UD, 8. 5 Johann salomo semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canon, vols. 1–4, 2nd ed., halle: Carl hermann hemmerde 1776 [1771–75], vol. 1, pp. 41–3. 6 Johann gottfried eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, vols. 1–5, 4th ed., göttingen: Carl eduard rosenbusch 1824, vol. 5, pp. 250–88. 1

180

Will Williams

the Chaldeans.7 he also compared ecclesiastes’ allusion to some shadowy sort of continuing existence of the ancestors to the beliefs of other primitive people, including the Celts.8 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849) considered ecclesiastes to be a late work, probably dating from the persian or macedonian era, reflecting the pessimism and skepticism triggered by the decline in national fortunes.9 he saw the book as an expression of profound doubt, but a doubt tempered and qualified by an even deeper reverence. In general, this scholarly literature emphasized the differences between ecclesiastes and the other biblical books, and tended to date the text fairly late in the evolution of israelite religion. typically the expositors explained Ecclesiastes’ differences as being due to the influence of other cultural traditions. the authors varied in their assessment of the spiritual value of these theological novelties, some applauding them as efforts to articulate universal truths and others seeing them as accommodations to alien ideologies. given ecclesiastes’ peculiarities, many theologians basically ignored this disturbing book in the canon; for example, hans lassen martensen (1808–84) never even cited it in his magisterial exposition of Christian doctrine.10 Kierkegaard owned the relevant works by herder and de wette, whose exegetical books he often consulted. From these sources, particularly de wette’s extensive footnotes, he could have been aware of these controversies. however, he shows no interest in the issue of the date of the work or the possible influences upon it. Kierkegaard alludes to ecclesiastes frequently throughout his authorship. However, his non-pseudonymous discourses, specifically his eighteen upbuilding discourses (1843–44), his Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), and his Christian Discourses (1848), are especially important loci for ecclesiastes references. this article attempts to deal with the breadth of Kierkegaard’s use of Ecclesiastes by organizing the references thematically. The first section briefly considers Kierkegaard’s method of indirect communication and his appeals, whether implicit or explicit, to the authority of solomon. the following sections address Kierkegaard’s use of ecclesiastes for making and preserving conceptually important distinctions. the second section treats the distinction between the eternal and the worldly and is subdivided into the two themes of vanity and grief. the third section treats distinctions made within the world, specifically those between speaking and remaining silent, between the individual and the crowd, and between youth and old age. in conclusion i argue that, while in Kierkegaard’s view the temporal world is indeed a place of vanity and grief, this is cause not for despair but for hope when the pains and insufficiencies of the world are seen in contrast to eternity.

Johann Gottfried Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1– 18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 1, pp. 181–215 (ASKB 1676–1684). 8 see ibid. 9 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 351–6 (ASKB 80). 10 hans lassen martensen, Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1849 (ASKB 653). 7

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

181

I. Kierkegaard’s Indirect Communication and Use of Solomonic Authority Kierkegaard says that the preacher in ecclesiastes speaks “with the power of conviction, with the authority of experience, with the trustworthiness of assured insight, with the joyful trust of bold confidence, with the emphasis of earnestness, with the concern of the admonition.”11 the preacher, as solomon, the king famous for being the wisest of all people,12 has great authority for the wisdom he speaks, and he speaks with that authority in his admonitions. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, claims to be “without authority.”13 he is reluctant to claim great authority for himself when he speaks on matters of Christianity or of morality more generally, preferring to use indirect means to provoke his reader into similar conclusions. solomon, then, becomes for Kierkegaard another means to employ his method of indirect communication. while Kierkegaard may claim to be without authority himself, he can use one with earnest authority to make claims of assured wisdom that bolster his argument at a given time.14 Further, because denmark claims to be a Christian nation, it is especially beholden to the authority of solomon’s wisdom, which is preserved in the Bible. since solomon’s wisdom was granted to him by god, he holds religious authority in addition to his authority in the realm of worldly wisdom. as Kierkegaard puts it, “that king is called a preacher.”15

11 SKS 5, 237 / EUD, 238. while Kierkegaard can undoubtedly make potent use of humor and irony, i believe it is a mistake to read him as a thoroughgoing ironist at every turn. here, Kierkegaard uses the preacher non-ironically as a genuine authority on wise living. if one attempts an inappropriately ironic reading of the preacher in order to generate ambiguity and so to escape the moral earnestness of a passage, Kierkegaard locates the fault in the reader and not in the author: “this is how the words sound, and even if you in lightness of spirit or in heaviness of spirit tried to beguile the preacher, to trick him out of the admonition, which certainly would be lamentable, you would not succeed; the preacher is not responsible for any ambiguity” (SKS 5, 239 / EUD, 238). again, he says, “if such a person does not want to understand himself, the discourse at any rate has understood him” (SKS 5, 248 / EUD, 250). 12 1 Kings 3:5–12; 4:29–34. 13 “ ‘Without authority’ to make aware of the religious, the essentially Christian, is the category for my whole work as an author regarded as a totality. From the very beginning i have enjoined and repeated unchanged that i was ‘without authority.’ ” see SKS 13, 19 / PV, 12; bold and italics original. 14 it seems this is what Kierkegaard is indicating in a line from his ecclesiastes-themed discourse, “think about Your Creator in the days of Your Youth.” referring to his current discourse, Kierkegaard says, “On the other hand, if the discourse will also influence a single young person to prevent the painful aftereffects of being remiss, it presumably will enhance the significance of youth for him, even though the discourse, with regard to authority, only borrows its way.” see SKS 5, 239 / EUD, 240. 15 SKS 8, 368 / UD, 271. see also SKS 5, 234–5 / EUD, 234–5. Contrast solomon’s title of “preacher” to the claim Kierkegaard makes for his Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843): “although this little book (which is called ‘discourses,’ not sermons, because its author does not have authority to preach…)” (SKS 5, 13 / EUD, 5; emphasis original). Kierkegaard frequently makes such claims to a lack of authority in the prefaces to his discourses.

182

Will Williams

II. Distinctions between the Eternal and the World solomon is praised in Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way for his famous verdict on the true mother of an infant,16 saying that “it was able to separate truth from deception” and made him famous “as the wise prince.”17 wisdom is the power to discern, in this case to discern truth from deception,18 and Kierkegaard calls upon the wisdom of ecclesiastes to help him illustrate the necessity of making proper distinctions in life. the fundamental distinction to be made is the distinction between god and man, between the eternal order and the temporal world. early in his authorship, Kierkegaard quotes a passage from edward Young (1681–1765) on ecclesiastes and solomon that comments on this important distinction: i believe that wise and experienced prince [solomon], whose wisdom and experience was designed to spare future ages their own fatal experience in folly, and, closing with his last sentiment, the sum of his divine philosophy, I affirm that many a philosopher may justly be reputed a fool; that there is but one god, one trial, one great tribunal, one salvation, so there is but one wisdom; that all which, devoid of that assumes the name, is but folly of different colors and degrees—gay, grey, wealthy, lettered, domestic, political, civil, military, recluse, ostentatious, humble, or triumphant; and is so called in the language of angels, in the sole-authentic and unalterable style of eternity.19

eternity knows the wisdom of god to be the one true wisdom and knows the socalled wisdom of the world’s various authorities and realms to be mere folly apart from it. solomon’s wisdom is to see the preeminence of the eternal and to order the rest of creation according to this experience and insight in such a way that it is profitable for future ages in avoiding folly. The quotation encapsulates much of Kierkegaard’s thought on the distinction between the eternal and the worldly, and i use it to suggest the organizational method of this article. in relation to the Book of ecclesiastes, Kierkegaard’s understanding of the wisdom of distinguishing between the eternal and the world can be treated more specifically under two themes: vanity and grief.

1 Kings 3:16–28. SKS 6, 233 / SLW, 250. 18 Kierkegaard greatly prized the ability to make distinctions: “hamann says of socrates: ‘he was great because he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.’ if only socrates could have had an epitaph! many an innocent person has drained the poisoned cup, many a one has sacrificed his life for the idea, but this epitaph belongs to socrates alone: here rests socrates; he distinguished between what he understood and what he did not understand.” see Pap. v B 44 / JP 2, 1554. Cf. also SKS 4, 310 / CA, 3. 19 Pap. v B 72:28 / CA, supplement, p. 211. see Einige Werke von Dr. Edvard Young, vol. 2, p. 398. As justification for reprinting the entirety of the quotation here, I cite Kierkegaard himself, who says, “this is a rather lengthy quotation; but if i have the patience to copy it the reader will no doubt also have the patience to read it.” see Pap. v B 72:28 / CA, supplement, p. 212. 16 17

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

183

A. Vanity ecclesiastes is well-known for its cry, “vanity of vanities…vanity of vanities! all is vanity.”20 this verse and those similar to it are among those that Kierkegaard references most often from ecclesiastes.21 is such a cry from Kierkegaard to be taken as one of deep despair, skepticism, or perhaps even nihilism? From his reading in de wette he could have been aware of the tendency to interpret ecclesiastes as a cry of doubt and hopelessness.22 Kierkegaard certainly acknowledges the potential of such verses to reflect a despair that drives one into the depths of aestheticism and pleasure.23 For example, he has Judge william say that the lecturing from the aesthete a reminds him of ecclesiastes.24 addressing a, Judge william observes that while others are crushed by it “you become erect and more jocular than ever and make yourself and others happy with the gospel vanitas vanitatum vanitas, hurrah!”25 Because everything is finally meaningless, let us eat, drink, and be merry. most often, however, Kierkegaard uses the theme of vanity in ecclesiastes not as a confirmation of the ultimate futility and meaninglessness of existence but as a denial of it. in one upbuilding discourse, Kierkegaard explains that light-mindedness (like a’s, presumably) misunderstands the preacher’s pronouncements. he writes, “ ‘all is vanity and pernicious toil,’ says the preacher, and light-mindedness regards such words as an ingenious plaything.”26 Kierkegaard then asks, “has [the preacher] not relegated everything to vanity precisely so that the eternal and blessed significance of that thought might become properly manifest, so that it might bind the straying soul in obedience to the admonition?”27 that is, the preacher’s declarations of vanity are not a final pronouncement on reality itself, but, rather, are a pronouncement on the nature of this worldly life, in contrast to eternal blessedness. they highlight the importance of eternity by speaking of this world’s insufficiency.28 while lighteccl 1:2. see, for example, SKS 1, 54 / EPW, 99. SKS 4, 48–9 / R, 175. SKS 6, 161 / SLW, 173. Pap. iv B 172 / EUD, supplement, p. 428. 22 de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 351–6. 23 the preacher himself apparently experienced something like this as well. see eccl 2:1–11. 24 SKS 3, 148 / EO2, 150. 25 SKS 3, 163 / EO2, 166. the latin is a near-quotation of the latin vulgate for eccl 1:2. as it stands, though, the phrase is more directly linked to the poem, “Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!” (1806) by Johann wolfgang von goethe. Kierkegaard even adds the “hurrah!” which the poem uses as a refrain. see Goethe’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand [in 55 volumes], vols. 1–40, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30; Goethe’s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1832–33, vol. 1, p. 145 (ASKB 1641– 1668). (english translation: The Poems of Goethe, trans. by edgar alfred Bowring, rev. ed., london: george Bell and sons 1891, pp. 85–6). 26 SKS 5, 236 / EUD, 236. 27 SKS 5, 237 / EUD, 237. “the admonition” refers to eccl 12:1. 28 this suggests the explanation for why the above references in Kierkegaard that link the “all is vanity” pronouncement to the lack of moral seriousness come from Judge william. the Judge in Either/Or, part two, is a representative of the ethical, and he fails 20 21

184

Will Williams

mindedness may use vanity as an excuse to take life less seriously and to declare that “all is but toys,” when the preacher declares that all is vanity, “it is precisely earnestness that he has in mente.”29 therefore, it is not inappropriate to proper religiousness to join the preacher in declarations of vanity, provided that it is done rightly. early in his career Kierkegaard wrote, “the devout mind also declares that all is vanity, but this is only insofar as through this negation all disturbing factors are set aside and the eternally existing order comes into view.”30 related to the idea that this worldly life is one of vanity is Kierkegaard’s skepticism towards a position of hoping in this world. thus, while the preacher teaches that “there is nothing new under the sun,”31 some persist in believing that even under the sun one might find newness, hope, and meaning. Kierkegaard in his upbuilding discourses, though, underscores the preacher’s message, saying, “the future is not utterly new, because there is nothing new under the sun—the future is the past.”32 that which Kierkegaard refers to as “double-mindedness”33 likes to play “in all possible colors” in a lawless way that “blends the colors and shades of colors in ever-new confusion.”34 Kierkegaard says that for double-mindedness “there is continually something new under the sun, and yet it is continually the old double-mindedness.”35 such innovation is no real innovation at all, and the newness is illusory. again, since meaninglessness is not ultimate for Kierkegaard, it is only “under the sun” that vanity reigns, which maintains the proper distinction between the worldly and the eternal. in two other places, though, Kierkegaard does note that in a way there can be something new under the sun. In the first example, the adult who wants to be to make adequate distinction between the ethical life and the religious life. Consequently, the Judge has an inadequate understanding of this world’s insufficiency, and he would be likely to perceive an embodiment of the claim that “all is vanity,” as one might find in A’s life, to be opposed to ethical earnestness and perhaps to earnestness as such. interestingly, this would mean that a and the Judge largely agree on taking “all is vanity” to indicate the meaninglessness of existence (though they have opposing evaluations of the worth of using it as a life-motto), while Kierkegaard, especially in his upbuilding discourses, presents a reading that disagrees with both a and the Judge. whether one gives oneself over to the aesthetic or to the ethical, both would be worldly exercises in “vanity” from the perspective of religiousness. indeed, the devout mind can declare that “all is vanity” in this world without confessing the meaninglessness of existence and without forfeiting earnestness precisely because of its focus on the eternal. 29 SKS 4, 446 / CA, 146. 30 SKS 1, 296 / CI, 257–8. Kierkegaard’s first treatment of these right and wrong ways to understand vanity is found in 1838 in his “andersen as a novelist,” where he notes that “a mistrust of life certainly contains a truth insofar as it leads to finding a trust (for example, when solomon says that all is vanity), but, on the other hand, at the same moment as it ends up as a final decision on life’s questions it contains an untruth,” SKS 1, 35 / EPW, 80. 31 eccl 1:9. see SKS 2, 223 / EO1, 230; SKS 6, 322 / SLW, 346; Pap. iii B 179:30 / EO1, supplement, p. 518. 32 SKS 5, 29 / EUD, 18. 33 see Jas 4:8. Cf. SKS 8, 138 / UD, 24. SKS 8, 150ff. / UD, 36ff. 34 SKS 8, 174 / UD, 65. 35 ibid.

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

185

something and so takes himself too seriously is no longer amazed by the wondrous, as a little child is, so for that adult there is indeed nothing new under the sun. But if he makes himself nothing, like a child, then his life will be a “joyful surprise” filled with wonder because it looks to the one true object of wonder, God.36 thus, what would otherwise be a drearily adult normalcy becomes a blessedly divine and wondrous variety. in the second example, Kierkegaard reverses the description. in the eighteen centuries since Christ left the earth, he writes, “the sun rises and sets, the wind shifts direction by turns, the latest news is heard and is soon forgotten, and then again something new is heard.”37 as the world changes and civilizations rise and fall, god uses “the most varied things” to draw all to himself, and, even though his means are numerous, “all the ways still converge at one point.”38 there is much newness under the sun, but none of those differences make a fundamental difference since God is above them all in unified constancy, using them to draw people to him through repentance from sin. the two examples use ecclesiastes 1:9 in opposite ways to suggest both unified sameness and the newness of diversity, which is a credit to Kierkegaard’s literary cleverness. however, both are agreed in their message that the worldly pales in comparison with the eternal, so, even while using opposing imagery, both reinforce a similar message of the vanity of the world in comparison to the divine eternal. B. Grief and Sorrow the vanity of the world and its unworthiness as a locus for one’s highest hopes means that it is frequently a source of much grief. this world, for example, is a place where one’s work can seem pointless toil.39 toil, though, is not the only source of grief, and, as the preacher says in ecclesiastes 1:18, wisdom and knowledge can also be a source of grief.40 in one place, Kierkegaard uses this verse to interpret the genesis passage41 where, as he says, eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would cause knowledge to enter the world and would bring grief with it.42 while that discourse uses ecclesiastes 1:18 in an absolute sense, regarding the entry of knowledge and grief into human life, Kierkegaard also uses the verse in an incremental manner, underscoring the increased grief that comes with moving from youth to advanced age.43 moreover, he even uses the verse in A Literary Review of Two Ages to critique the extreme reflectiveness of the present age, saying, “But one thing is sure, reflection, like knowledge, increases sorrow.”44 SKS 5, 224 / EUD, 226. SKS 12, 158 / PC, 155. 38 ibid. 39 eccl 1:13–14; 3:9; 4:8. see SKS 6, 161 / SLW, 173. SKS 6, 264 / SLW, 284. SKS 7, 501 / CUP 1, 552. SKS 8, 124 / UD, 8. Pap. vii–1 B 147 / JP 3, 3786. 40 SKS 5, 119 / EUD, 113. 41 gen 2:16–17. 42 SKS 5, 129 / EUD, 125. 43 SKS 5, 245 / EUD, 247. 44 SKS 8, 74 / TA, 77. see SKS 6, 123 / SLW, 130. 36 37

186

Will Williams

as with vanity, though, the grief and sorrow that are found in the world are not a pronouncement of the irremediable futility of life since, rightly understood, grief and sorrow can direct one to the hope of eternity by expressing dissatisfaction with the lesser hopes that the world offers. Kierkegaard uses grief to underscore the distinction between the eternal and the worldly in conjunction with ecclesiastes 7:2, which says that it is better to go to the “house of mourning” than to the “house of feasting.” in his upbuilding discourses, Kierkegaard takes the latter to mean finding a satisfaction in worldly provision, while taking the former to mean being properly dissatisfied by the world and seeking true hope from the next, even while one continues to live within the current order. For the preface to his Two Upbuilding Discourses (1844), Kierkegaard writes that his “little book” takes no delight in going to the house of feasting,45 which indicates its spiritual and upbuilding aims. the dichotomy between world and eternity is underscored by the comment that although the little book “is not without hope in the world, it nevertheless totally renounces all hope in the uncertain or of the uncertain.”46 one might say that it is the vanity of the world that the book rejects.47 elsewhere, Kierkegaard says, “oh, it is indeed better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the banquet house,” because the house of mourning teaches one the transience and relative insignificance of the world.48 he continues, “Yes, the banquet and the doughty companions will be forgotten long before [a hundred years have passed], but truly the eternal will not be forgotten, not in a thousand years.”49 the celebration and feasting that is indicative of a worldly banquet is not suitable for one who finds one’s true home in eternity.50 to say that grief can direct one to the eternal is to say that grief can positively change the heart. Quoting ecclesiastes 7:3, Kierkegaard says that grief is better than laughter because in proper sorrow “the heart can be changed for the better.”51 this change of the heart is “the change eternity asks about and not about the changelessness of the suffering.”52 that sorrow holds the possibility of internal change, especially with eternal aid,53 explains why Kierkegaard is critical of one who might “delude himself, push the fault away from himself,” and “choose the pain of the lack instead of the sorrow of repentance.”54 For Kierkegaard, grief in this world and sorrow for one’s wrongdoing are so important to one’s turning towards god that he can speak of God’s presence in it. He maintains, “Spiritually, the fulfillment is always SKS 5, 183 / EUD, 179. ibid. 47 Quoting 1 thess 2:1, Kierkegaard, says that this book, like his other upbuilding discourses, does not desire “that its visit might be in vain.” see SKS 5, 183 / EUD, 179, emphasis mine. 48 SKS 8, 184 / UD, 77. 49 ibid. 50 see SKS 5, 278 / EUD, 285. SKS 11, 275 / WA, 138. Cf. also SKS 6, 29 / SLW, 23, which references eccl 1:8 that says, “all things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.” 51 SKS 8, 245 / UD, 148. 52 ibid. 53 see 2 Cor 7:8–11. 54 SKS 5, 248 / EUD, 250. 45 46

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

187

in the wish, the calming of the concern in the concern, just as god is even in the sorrowful longing that is for him.”55 repentance and regret are valued because they secure the proper distinction between the world and eternity. in Kierkegaard’s use of ecclesiastes, the crucial thing about grief, as about the sense of vanity, is not that it makes a final despairing pronouncement on the misery of life as a whole but that it pronounces the insufficiency of this world and of our efforts in it. Wisdom keeps proper distinctions, and Kierkegaard recruits solomon to the task of strengthening the most important distinction, that between the temporal and the eternal.56 rather than squelching hope, in Kierkegaard’s hands ecclesiastes’ themes of vanity and grief preserve hope by driving us towards what is truly trustworthy and by handing us over to a godly sorrow that can change our hearts for the better. III. Distinctions within the World in one of the most celebrated verses of ecclesiastes the preacher proclaims, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”57 For Kierkegaard, right distinctions must exist not only between heaven and earth but also under heaven, amidst the daily commotion of life. indeed, one of Kierkegaard’s critiques of the present age is its failure to make right distinctions. he says, “the present age is essentially a sensible age, devoid of passion, and therefore it has nullified the principle of contradiction.”58 For example, he characterizes the present age with formlessness, which is “the annulled passionate distinction between form and content,”59 and with philandering, which is “the annulled passionate distinction between essentially loving and being essentially debauched.”60 Kierkegaard explains, through Johannes Climacus, that this annulment of distinctions leads to inaction and to spiritual harm. Climacus asserts, “the ethical consideration is quite simply this, that when worst comes to worst it is worse to become maundering than with decisiveness to carry out what has been decided, which perhaps was less properly considered, because maundering is the absolute downfall of every spiritual relationship.”61 the concern about spiritual harm here suggests that maundering even within the worldly realm can harm or obscure the proper relationship with the eternal. that is, it is not just that Kierkegaard addresses both distinctions between the eternal and the worldly and distinctions within the world but that he believes the

ibid. Cf. SKS 11, 237 / SUD, 126: “God and man are two qualities separated by an infinite qualitative difference. humanly speaking, any teaching that disregards this difference is demented—divinely understood, it is blasphemy.” 57 eccl 3:1. 58 SKS 8, 93 / TA, 97. 59 SKS 8, 95 / TA, 100. 60 SKS 8, 97–8 / TA, 102. 61 SKS 7, 451 / CUP 1, 497. Cf. Pap. v B 195:6 / EUD, supplement, p. 443. 55 56

188

Will Williams

latter to be properly grounded in the former.62 Confusion in one has the potential to lead to confusion in the other. Consequently, ecclesiastes 3:1–8, with its 14 dichotomous pairs of “times” that god has made, becomes useful for Kierkegaard in showing the wisdom of keeping proper distinctions, which he can then use as a platform from which to make his further points in a given context. Kierkegaard begins a section of one upbuilding discourse that addresses being a human being in time63 with the words, “everything has its time, says solomon.”64 Here, he specifically references two of the dichotomous pairs from ecclesiastes: “there is a time to dance for joy,”65 and “For everything there is a time; ‘there is a time to be born and a time to die.’ ”66 largely, though, he makes do with the general principle established in ecclesiastes 3:1.67 Kierkegaard is, moreover, willing to present the reader with a passage where he renders his own creative version of the dichotomous pairs from ecclesiastes 3, including the example, “there is a time to play lightheartedly with the spring breezes and a time to be snapped off by the autumn storms.”68 For Kierkegaard, the most important of the dichotomous pairs from ecclesiastes 3 is that there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”69 referencing this verse, he explains in A Literary Review of Two Ages why failing to maintain this distinction erodes essential speaking: what is it to chatter? it is the annulment of the passionate disjunction between being silent and speaking. only the person who can remain essentially silent can speak essentially, can act essentially. silence is inwardness. Chattering gets ahead of essential speaking, and giving utterance to reflection has a weakening effect on action by getting ahead of it. But the person who can speak essentially because he is able to keep silent will not have a profusion of things to speak about but one thing only, and he will find time to speak and to keep silent.70 For example, Kierkegaard says, “the idolized positive principle of sociality in our age is the consuming, demoralizing principle that in the thralldom of reflection transforms even virtues into vitia splendida [glittering vices]. and what is the basis of this other than a disregard for the separation of the religious individual before god in the responsibility of eternity.” see SKS 8, 82 / TA, 86. 63 SKS 8, 124–8 / UD, 8–12. 64 eccl 3:1. SKS 8, 124 / UD, 8. see also SKS 4, 75 / R, 207 and Pap. vii–1 B 147 / JP 3, 3786. 65 eccl 3:4. SKS 8, 125 / UD, 9. this ecclesiastes reference is missed in the hong edition’s notes. 66 eccl 3:1; 3:2. SKS 8, 125 / UD, 10. 67 He willingly reflects on the verse, such as when he posits, “Perhaps the meaning would have been clearer if solomon had said: there was a time for everything, everything had its time—in order to show that as an old man he is speaking about the past….” see SKS 8, 124 / UD, 8. again, he notes that “it does not occur to youth” to have the perspective of old age that can say, “there is a time for the one and a time for the other.” see SKS 8, 125 / UD, 9. 68 SKS 8, 125–6 / UD, 10. 69 eccl 3:7. 70 SKS 8, 93 / TA, 97. 62

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

189

it might be surprising to hear Kierkegaard, a thinker celebrated for and devoted to his writing, advocating so vigorously that a place must be preserved for silence. he believes, however, that “[one’s] speaking and [one’s] producing are, in fact, born of silence,”71 and that “chattering dreads the moment of silence, which would reveal the emptiness.”72 this distinction between speaking and silence, preserving the latter from the encroachment of chatter and the former by maintaining essential speaking, is linked to piety and to wisdom. Kierkegaard says, “Just as the fear of god, as stated, is the beginning of wisdom, so also is silence the beginning of the fear of god.”73 he has the pseudonymous author Constantin Constantius use ecclesiastes 3:7 to rebuke a young man who had “spoken very much and very strangely.”74 importantly, Kierkegaard uses the verse in the introduction to The Point of View for My Work as an Author to clarify the issue of his reluctance to speak out against the misunderstanding that met his works. he explained, “there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. as long as i religiously considered the strictest silence as my duty, i strove in every way to preserve it,” even when his actions were interpreted “as pride, arrogance, and god knows what.”75 additionally, as a signal mark of the importance of ecclesiastes 3:7 for Kierkegaard, he selects the verse to be the epigraph for his 1849 letter to regine schlegel.76 as with its use in The Point of View, Kierkegaard uses the verse here to show that he is deliberate. when he speaks, it is for a reason. when he is silent, it is for a reason.77 the very fact that he makes and guards such distinctions is presented as an indication of his own earnestness and even religious faithfulness. in a related way, Kierkegaard draws support from the ecclesiastes 5:1–5 passage to advise being careful with words and with vows before god. through Climacus, he writes that “the religious person is silent, and the person who is silent before god learns to give way.”78 in Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard writes a discourse with the title and refrain, “watch Your step when You go to the house of the lord,”79 which includes the preacher’s warning that one should not enter hastily into a vow to god.80 it is better to pledge nothing—that is, to be silent—than to pledge hastily and SKS 8, 93 / TA, 98. ibid. 73 SKS 11, 24 / WA, 19. 74 SKS 6, 50 / SLW, 47. 75 SV1 Xiii, 517 / PV, 23. 76 B&A, vol. 1, p. 253 / LD, letter 235, p. 322. B&A, vol. 1, p. 262 / LD, letter 239, p. 334. note the text’s critical ambiguity in the latter citation. 77 For example, see SKS 18, 185, JJ:140 / KJN 2, 171. 78 eccl 5:1. SKS 7, 450 / CUP 1, 496. 79 eccl 5:1. SKS 10, 175 / CD, 163. SKS 10, 178 / CD, 166. SKS 10, 181 / CD, 169. SKS 10, 183 / CD, 172. see also SKS 20, 199, nB2:142. SKS 20, 231–2, nB2:243. SKS 20, 288–9, nB4:5 / JP 5, 6096. 80 eccl 5:1–5. see SKS 10, 181 / CD, 169: “take care, therefore, when you go to the house of the lord; bear in mind the words of the preacher: ‘Be not rash with your mouth and let not your heart be hasty in saying something before god’s face, because god is in heaven and you upon earth. when you pledge a vow to god, do not put off paying it, because he has no pleasure in fools; pay what you pledge. it is better that you pledge nothing than that you pledge and do not pay it.’ ” 71 72

190

Will Williams

to default on the pledge.81 also, the discourse notes that, upon going into the house of the lord, one will hear the truth for upbuilding. in words reminiscent of A Literary Review of Two Ages, passage on chatter and essential speaking,82 Kierkegaard says, “the upbuilding is least of all loose talk; there is nothing as binding.”83 loose talk is unsuitable for earnest and religious words of upbuilding. since silence is inwardness,84 maintaining the distinction between a time for silence and a time for speaking is characteristic of a mature individual. Fittingly, then, a second major worldly distinction that Kierkegaard addresses with ecclesiastes is that between the individual and the crowd. he explicates the preacher’s comment that “god isolated the human being in order to see whether he would regard himself as a beast”85 by saying that anyone who is unwilling to be uplifted in his identity as a distinct individual “regards himself as a beast” by devoting himself “to disappearing and perishing in the futile service of comparisons…no matter whether by way of comparison he was distinguished or lowly.”86 that is, “the crowd” is “the animal category,” and to abandon the good life of “isolated” or individual humanity apart from comparison with the crowd is in some way to abandon humanity itself.87 the distinctiveness of the human individual must be maintained. in fact, Kierkegaard emphasizes the importance of the individual so strongly that he might seem in danger of coming under the preacher’s warning that says, “woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.”88 he appears to sense this tension himself, for in his two published citations of the verse Kierkegaard handles it in ways that do not undercut but support his emphasis on the importance of individuality. with regard to the solitary one, Kierkegaard says, “we shall not say with the preacher (ecclesiastes 4:10), ‘woe to him who is alone; if he falls, there is no one else to raise him up,’ for god is indeed still the one who both raises up and casts down, the one who lives in association with people and the solitary one.”89 the preacher will not be invoked here because god is the companion who will raise up the rightly solitary man. later, Kierkegaard personifies shame as performing a similar role, saying: if the solitary one stumbled, if that sense of shame still attended him, we would not cry out as did the preacher, “woe to the solitary one,” nor say with the preacher, “woe to the solitary one; if he falls, who will raise him up?” because this sense of shame is more

see SKS 7, 443 / CUP1, 488: “But from a religious point of view, one is circumspect about making pledges (see ecclesiastes).” 82 SKS 8, 124–8 / UD, 8–12. 83 SKS 10, 182 / CD, 171. 84 SKS 8, 93 / TA, 97. 85 eccl 3:18–19. For consistency of language, this translation is taken from Kierkegaard, not the new revised standard version. 86 SKS 8, 288 / UD, 190. 87 ibid. 88 eccl 4:10. 89 SKS 5, 359 / EUD, 373. see Pap. v B 235 / EUD, supplement, p. 460. 81

Ecclesiastes: Vanity, Grief, and the Distinctions of Wisdom

191

concerned for him than his best friend, will help him better than all human sympathy, which easily leads to double-mindedness—not to will one thing.90

the distinct and solitary individual, then, who does not need to compare himself with the crowd, is nevertheless not alone if he stumbles since he does have a companion to help him up, whether it be god or his own shame. even within the solitary individual right distinctions must be made since people are temporal beings, changing over time.91 thus, a third major distinction that must be observed in the world is that between youth and old age. For example, Kierkegaard desires that the time of youth be respected for what it is, saying, “and indeed there was something he had forgotten, for he had forgotten to be young and to let his heart be cheered in the manner of youth while days are still there.”92 his most sustained treatment of youth and old age, relating to ecclesiastes, is the upbuilding discourse, “think about Your Creator in the days of Your Youth,” which takes its theme from ecclesiastes 12:1.93 there he again quotes the preacher’s words, “to let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth,” but he adds the preacher’s further declaration that “childhood and youth are also vanity.”94 Kierkegaard recognizes the fleeting nature of youth, which is both a reason to prize it while it lasts and a reason not to prize it too highly since it will not last. the admonition to think about one’s creator in the days of one’s youth95 is based on the temporary nature of the age and of the pleasure associated with it. You should think about your creator “before the evil days come and the years draw nigh of which you will say, ‘they do not please me.’ ”96 Youth needs to be admonished to do this since it does not think about those evil days or what it means when “the sound of the mill becomes weak, and all the daughters of

SKS 8, 164 / UD, 52–3. in making a point related to the emphasis on making right distinctions instead of lapsing into the double-mindedness and maundering reflection that fails to see properly distinct categories, Kierkegaard speaks of the importance of having a single focus or of willing one thing. the importance of having a focused and overriding idea or principle to guide one through the confusions of life is partly what Kierkegaard refers to when he speaks of the summa summarum. Kierkegaard links the phrase summa summarum to eccl 12:13–14, which says, “the end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear god, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For god will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (see SKS 4, 475 / P, 11. B&A, vol. 1, p. 221 / LD, letter 196, p. 280). Kierkegaard appears to take these verses as the “sum” of the preacher’s “divine philosophy” (Pap. v B 72:28 / CA, supplement, pp. 211–12. the hong edition of The Concept of Anxiety incorrectly cites eccl 12:13–14 as eccl 11:13–14.) analogously, he uses summa summarum elsewhere to describe the main idea or overriding point of a given topic. 91 For another reference to Kierkegaard’s anthropology and the book of ecclesiastes, see Pap. v B 55:4 / JP 1, 52. 92 eccl 11:9. see SKS 6, 262–3 / SLW, 282. 93 SKS 5, 233–49 / EUD, 233–51. 94 eccl 11:9–10. SKS 5, 236–7 / EUD, 237. 95 eccl 12:1. see SKS 5, 233 / EUD, 233. SKS 5, 239 / EUD, 238–9. SKS 5, 240 / EUD, 240. SKS 5, 245 / EUD, 246. SKS 5, 247 / EUD, 248. 96 eccl 12:1. Cf. SKS 4, 64 / R, 195. SKS 5, 424 / TD, 48. 90

192

Will Williams

song are feeble.”97 if youth does do it, though, then in old age one retains a place of youthful faith to “retreat” to, and “having thought about the Creator in one’s youth is the retreat’s rescuing angel.”98 everything, the preacher says, has its time, but this is not true for the eternal. Kierkegaard writes, “only the eternal applies at all times and is always, is always true, pertains to every human being of whatever age.”99 while much about human life and the world is temporary, god has “put eternity into the heart of human beings,”100 and this eternity should not have to jostle with temporal matters in order to claim its time. rather, Kierkegaard explains that “the eternal is the dominant, which does not want to have its time but wants to make time its own and then permits the temporal also to have its time.”101 the eternal does not share its space, and the different orders of the temporal and the eternal must be respected. Kierkegaard shows this by highlighting the insufficiency of the temporal world, in contrast to the eternal, through the preacher’s words on the vanity and the grief of the world that lies under the sun. still, even under the sun there are differences that must be respected. in fact, distinguishing between the eternal and the worldly helps one to make right distinctions within the world as well. among the various “times” of the world that should be given their places, Kierkegaard uses ecclesiastes to address the proper distinctions between speaking and remaining silent, between the individual and the crowd, and between youth and old age. since the eternal remains the dominant, though, it can never be reduced to the order of the temporal by being given its own finite “time.” This is not a dismissal of the value of the temporal as such but a right ordering that allows the temporal to be its true self beneath eternity, no more and no less. the distinctions and the wise experience of the world can comfort to some degree, but ultimately they are vanity, and only heaven’s salvation can outweigh the world.102 in Kierkegaard’s reading, solomon’s declarations on the vanity and grief of the world are not ultimately a cause for despair but rather are a stimulus for hope. as the one “whose lips’ front door was closed”103 by overwhelming grief knows, it is not the vanity of the world that comforts but “the expectancy of an eternal salvation [that] comforts beyond all measure.”104 eccl 12:4. SKS 5, 239 / EUD, 239. Youth’s failure to think about the future is one reason that the very young would not be good rulers, giving teeth to the ominous prophecy that “Boys shall rule over you.” see Pap. X–6 B 254 / JP 6, 6788. see also Pap. vii–2 B 274:21 / P, supplement, p. 87. SKS 18, 295, JJ:466 / KJN 2, 272. SV1 Xiii, 551 / PV, 64–5. while these citations in Kierkegaard may refer to eccl 10:16, they are at least as likely to refer to isa 3:4. 98 eccl 12:1. SKS 5, 248 / EUD, 249. 99 SKS 8, 125 / UD, 9. 100 eccl 3:11. see SKS 8, 126 / UD, 11. For consistency of language, the Bible translation is taken from Kierkegaard, not the new revised standard version. 101 SKS 8, 127 / UD, 11. 102 SKS 5, 259 / EUD, 263. 103 eccl 12:4. the hong edition of Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses incorrectly cites this as eccl 12:10. see SKS 5, 260 / EUD, 264. 104 ibid. 97

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Ecclesiastes Bretschneider, Karl gottlieb, Handbuch der Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche oder Versuch einer beurtheilenden Darstellung der Grundsätze, welche diese Kirche in ihren symbolischen Schriften über die christliche Glaubenslehre ausgesprochen hat, mit Vergleichung der Glaubenslehre in den Bekenntnißschriften der reformirten Kirche, vols. 1–2, 4th revised and enlarged ed., leipzig: J.a. Barth 1838, vol. 1, pp. 160–2 (ASKB 437–438; 3rd revised and enlarged ed., cf., ASKB a i 25–26). [herder, Johann gottfried], Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 1, pp. 181–215 (ASKB 1676–1684). rosenkranz, Karl, Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, pp. 139–42 (ASKB 35). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 351–6 (ASKB 80). [Young, edward], Einige Werke von Dr. Eduard Young, vols. 1–3, trans. and revised ed. by J.a. ebert, Braunschweig and hildesheim: ludw. schröders erben 1767– 72, vol. 2, p. 398 (ASKB 1911). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Ecclesiastes engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das Alte Testament, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), p. 78; p. 91; p. 93; p. 95; p. 112; p. 117; p. 118; p. 122; p. 140; p. 141; p. 149; p. 156; p. 175; p. 233; p. 290. martens, paul, “authority, authorship, and the difference between Kierkegaard’s old and new testament,” in The Book on Adler, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2008 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 24), p. 132. parkov, peter, Bibelen i Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1983, pp. 14–16. pedersen, Jørgen, “søren Kierkegaard’s view of scripture,” in The Sources and Depths of Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by niels thulstrup and marie mikulová thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1978 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 2), pp. 27–57.

194

Will Williams

perkins, robert l., “upbuilding as a propaedeutic for Justice,” in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2003 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 5), p. 341. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, p. 90. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, p. 159; pp. 162–9 passim; pp. 174–82 passim. walsh, sylvia, “when ‘that single individual’ is a woman,” in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2003 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 5), p. 36.

nebuchadnezzar: the King as image of transformation matthias engelke

I. Introduction nebuchadnezzar ii (630–562 bc) is the name of the Babylonian high king who built a huge empire in the ancient middle east. Cities that dared to oppose him were conquered, among them Jerusalem, first in 597 bc and then again for a second and last time in 587 bc. according to the old testament, following this second conquest nebuchadnezzar abducted Jerusalem’s ruling class and transported them to Babylon. nebuchadnezzar’s name is mentioned 118 times in the old testament including the apocrypha, particularly when a biblical text reports or refers to the conquest of Jerusalem. in the books of daniel and Judith, the story of the historical nebuchadnezzar was refashioned into the literary form of a legendary tale, in the case of daniel a tale with vividly supernatural elements. in the Book of Judith the character nebuchadnezzar functions as a symbolic representation of any despotic superpower. nebuchadnezzar is erroneously described as being the king of the assyrians in Judith 1:1 and is said to rule in nineveh, the chief city of assyria. in the Book of daniel, however, nebuchadnezzar is presented more ambiguously. at crucial times he represents the ideal image of an idolatrous and prideful king who nevertheless repents and reforms. in the latter role, nebuchadnezzar listens to reason after his threatened persecution of the wise men of Babylon for their inability to interpret one of his dreams. he also repents after he had ordered the incineration of the israelites shadrach, meshach, and abednego for their refusal to worship a golden image that he had constructed. he becomes more humble and pious when daniel interprets another dream predicting his temporary loss of his kingdom, even though it takes him seven years of madness and living like an ox to regain his sanity.1 within the structure of the Book of daniel nebuchadnezzar serves as a projection screen for the image of the teachable, potentially wise potentate. thus he is the counterpoint to the seleucid king antiochus iv, called “epiphanes,” an oppressive monarch roughly contemporary with the author of daniel, whose arrogance this text criticizes in coded language. this criticism of antiochus is embedded in the book’s apocalyptic conception of history, in which unjust empires are depicted as being the targets of god’s righteous retribution and the oppressed population is portrayed as 1

dan 3:31–4:34 in a pseudo-autobiographical text.

196

Matthias Engelke

the ultimate beneficiary of God’s benevolence. According to the message of Daniel, a dire future still lies ahead for god’s people, but the consolation is that the advent of a future time of the relieving of injustice and oppression has been announced.2 Kierkegaard was familiar with the stories of nebuchadnezzar in the Book of daniel and used them in a variety of ways. an allusion to nebuchadnezzar’s transformation in daniel 3:31ff. can be found in The Concept of Anxiety.3 this same biblical text serves as a model for a short, biblical-like sketch in Stages on Life’s Way.4 in Prefaces nebuchadnezzar is mentioned,5 and a reference to the narration in daniel 5 also occurs, alluding to the writing on the plaster of the wall that announced the fall of nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar. additional references occur in the journals6 and the preparatory works to the Stages on Life’s Way7 and The Book on Adler.8 II. The Scholarly Discussion of Daniel in Kierkegaard’s Time a heated scholarly discussion of the historicity of the nebuchadnezzar stories and the literary peculiarities of the Book of daniel had been growing in intensity for several decades before Kierkegaard’s birth. the celebrated pioneer of historical criticism Johann gottfried eichhorn (1752–1827)9 and the somewhat less influential Leonard Bertholdt (1775–1822)10 had argued that the book is really a prophetic critique of the author’s contemporary situation in the guise of a history of past events. however, this interpretation of daniel was not universally accepted. the conservative lutheran theologian ernst william hengstenberg (1802–69) supported the book’s absolute authenticity and developed elaborate theories to explain the apparent incongruities in its chronology and the ostensible internal contradictions.11 Kierkegaard was probably aware of these controversies among the biblical scholars, for he owned 52 volumes of the excellent reference work Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste, published by Johann samuel ersch (1780–1828) and Johann gottfried gruber (1774–1851), in which wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849) had contributed an essay concerning the discussion of the historicity of the Book of daniel.12 Kierkegaard also owned de wette’s widely-used introduction to biblical dan 2:40–3; 7:19–25; 8:23–4; 9:26–7; 11:30–45. SKS 4, 356 / CA, 50. 4 SKS 6, 334–7 / SLW, 360–3. 5 SKS 4, 473 / P, 9. 6 SKS 18, 104, FF:154 / KJN 2, 96. SKS 18, 263, JJ:263 / KJN 2, 205. 7 Pap. v B 132 / SLW, supplement, p. 608. Pap. v B 137 / SLW, supplement, pp. 608–9. 8 Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 9 / BA, 11. 9 Johann gottfried eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, vols. 1–4, 4th ed., göttingen: Carl eduard rosenbusch 1823–24 [1780–83], vol. 4, pp. 471–545. 10 leonhard Bertholdt, Daniel aus dem hebräisch-aramäischen, vols. 1–2, erlangen: Johann Jacob palm 1806–08, vol. 1, pp. 1–162. 11 ernst wilhelm hengstenberg, Die Authentie des Daniel und die Integrität de Sacharjah, Berlin: ludwig oehmigke 1831. 12 Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste in alphabetischer Folge von genannten Schriftstellern bearbeitet, section 1, vols. 1–29; section 2, 2 3

Nebuchadnezzar: The King as Image of Transformation

197

interpretation, a book which he consulted extensively.13 Because it summarized the exegetical debate about the Book of daniel, de wette’s work merits some attention. de wette objected to the views of hengstenberg concerning the historicity of daniel14 and opposed hengstenberg’s opinions with a barrage of historical-critical arguments. de wette based his skepticism about the Book of daniel’s reliability on the observations that the book is full of improbabilies, historical inaccuracies, and bizarre miracles.15 moreover, its chronology does not match the historical references in 2 Kings 24:12 and 2 Chronicles 36:19. to further raise suspicions, its apocalyptic rhetoric and symbolic style is unlike the typical discourse of the hebrew prophets. moreover, the events described in the text as being both past and future correspond with events that were occurring during the reign of antiochus epiphanes (who reigned 175–160 bc).16 de wette concludes that it is extremely unlikely that daniel was an historical personage who lived during the reign of nebuchadnezzar. according to de wette, the author of the Book of daniel probably took an old legendary character from ezekiel 14:14–20 or nehemiah 10, a prophet about whom little was known, and transposed him into a symbolic tale about contemporary events. in general nebuchadnezzar functions rather transparently as a symbol of antiochus epiphanes. For example, the massive golden statue raised by nebuchadnezzar in the Book of daniel is a thinly veiled symbol of the statue of olympian zeus erected by antiochus in the temple in Jerusalem. according to de wette, the purpose of this narrative was to discourage the tendency of the author’s fellow Jews to accommodate to the culture of their hellenistic conquerors, and to encourage the faithful resistance to hellenism with the promise that fidelity to the Law would be rewarded with the triumph of a theocratic Jewish kingdom. the message of the book was that if the people remain faithful, resisting the allure of foreign customs, they will prevail. Kierkegaard was probably familiar with this interpretation of the historical setting and rhetorical purpose of daniel, but he made little use of such an historical approach. in The Concept of Anxiety Kierkegaard alludes to the story of nebuchadnezzar’s transformation in daniel 3:31 as if it were an historical report.17 Kierkegaard himself may have believed this story to be historically true, since he vols. 1–14; section 3, vols. 1–9, ed. by Johann samuel ersch and Johann gottfried gruber, leipzig: 1818–37, leipzig: gleditsch 1818–31 and leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1818–37 [section 1, vols. 1–99; section 2, vols. 1–43; section 3, vols. 1–25, leipzig: gleditsch 1818–31 and leipizg: F.a. Brockhaus 1831–89], section 1, vol. 23, pp. 1–15 (ASKB 1311–1363). 13 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833 (ASKB 80). 14 see ernst wilhelm hengstenberg, Beiträge zur Einleitung ins Alte Testament, vols. 1–3, Berlin: l. oehmigke 1831–39, vol. 1, Die Authentie des Daniel und die Integrität des Sacharjah, 1831. 15 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 253–9 (ASKB 80). 16 ibid., pp. 256–7. 17 SKS 4, 356 / CA, 50: haufniensis claims that nebuchadnezzar’s transformation into an ox happened “four thousand years ago.”

198

Matthias Engelke

had always been suspicious of the critical discussion that was taking place in the academic community about the authenticity of biblical books.18 perhaps he merely found the issue of historicity to be irrelevant for the religious use of this ancient text. in any case, the debate had little impact on his use of the text, although it may have brought the Book of daniel to his attention. III. Kierkegaard’s Use of Nebuchadnezzar Kierkegaard refers to the legend of the transformation of nebuchadnezzar in daniel 3:31ff. in Stages on Life’s Way. this book, and the story in it, occupies a unique position in his authorship. the book was published in 1845 under the pseudonym of its publisher hilarius Buchbinder simultaneously with Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. the latter book, published under the name of søren Kierkegaard, referred in subtle ways to the former work. Stages appears to be an attempt to take stock of Kierkegaard’s work, summarizing, reiterating, and reworking important themes, and carrying out supplementary corrections. Kierkegaard had already published, during a creative surge in the years 1843–44, the pseudonymous works Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The Concept of Anxiety and, last but not least, Philosophical Fragments. he also published parallel to each pseudonymous work veronymous volumes of discourses (Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843; Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843; Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1843; Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844; and, parallel to the Philosophical Fragments, Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1844). the parallelism of Stages on Life’s Way and Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions establishes a dialogue between the two texts that clarifies the dynamics in his authorship up to that point in his career. in Stages several encounters with pseudonymous authors or editors of the works thus far published by Kierkegaard take place, a literary strategy that enables Kierkegaard to return to crucial themes that they had introduced. among those participating in a symposium about marriage, narrated by william afham, are Constantin Constantius,19 Johannes the seducer,20 and victor eremita.21 in addition to these echoes of voices from his previous works, a nameless young man reminds the reader of a similar character in Repetition. moreover, Frater taciturnus publishes an anonymous diary in connection with a “letter to the reader.” Both the aesthetic and the ethical stages known from Either/Or are thus supplemented by the studies of Frater taciturnus. In the diary fished from the bottom of a lake, “de profundis,”22 the anonymous writer asks himself whether he has become guilty or not in his breaking off an engagement, without coming to a conclusion. the diary is no ordinary selfreflection, for it contains several literary sketches, among them “A Leper’s SelfContemplation” and “nebuchadnezzar.” in Kierkegaard’s journals an entry from 18 19 20 21 22

SKS 18, 11, ee:13 / KJN 2, 6–7. Cf. also SKS 7, 41–54 / CUP1, 34–49. see SKS 4, 7–50 / R, 131–76. see SKS 2, 293–432 / EO1, 303–445. see SKS 2, 11–22 / EO1, 3–15. ps 130:1. SKS 6, 177 / SLW, 189.

Nebuchadnezzar: The King as Image of Transformation

199

184323 already contains the idea of the following sketch: “recollections of my life by nebuchadnezzar. Formerly emperor, recently an ox. published by nicolaus notabene.”24 In this sketch, Nebuchadnezzar reports his fate in a first-person retrospective narrative. the sketch is thus formally based on daniel 3:31ff.,25 a parallel further emphasized by a verse structure similar to the one in the Bible. without quoting the biblical text, the sketch sounds biblical even though it embellishes the scriptural story extravagantly. in the original biblical version of the story found in daniel 3:31,26 King nebuchadnezzar reports that he has been haunted by a dream that his own dream interpreters could not decipher. only daniel could interpret the dream successfully, predicting that the king would be driven from human society and made to eat grass for seven years, after which time his kingdom would be restored to him. in the course of one year, the event foreshadowed in the dream comes to pass. due to the overbearing character of nebuchadnezzar, the king spends seven years bereft of his mind in the company of the cattle in the fields, until finally he raises his voice “to declare the signs and wonders that the most high god has worked for me,”27 and is reinstated in his former office with all his honors. Interestingly a change of perspective takes place in daniel 4:30.28 Shifting abruptly from the first person (the voice of Nebuchadnezzar) to the third person voice, the author of daniel describes how the king lived among the animals and finally ran wild himself; evidently the mind-bereft Nebuchadnezzar cannot even report this in the first person in retrospect! in the sketch in the diary contained in Stages on Life’s Way, nebuchadnezzar suffers a more complex transformation. the dream and its interpretation are abbreviated to two verses. the king’s overbearing character is undermined by an intrusion from outside: “i was transformed as swiftly as a woman changes color.”29 it remains unclear as to whether he is literally turned into an animal and, if so, which species—except that his voice is described as sounding like an animal’s. at this point the text says, “My thoughts terrified me, my thoughts in my mind,”30 thoughts that are manifested as an amazed observation of the greatness, omniscience and omnipotence of god. in Kierkegaard’s version, the king’s interaction with the dream interpreters and daniel happens after the king has regained his sanity and wants to know why he had been transformed into a beast, or at least dreamed that he had been. those interpreters of dreams who could not interpret the king’s experience are killed and in the conclusion of the tale a “celebration of revision” is announced to SKS 18, 182, JJ:126 / KJN 2, 168. emanuel hirsch assumes that this note originates from the time when Kierkegaard had just heard about the new marriage of his former fiancée Regine Olsen; see Kierkegaard, Gesammelte Werke, abtheilungen 1–36, trans. and ed. by emanuel hirsch and hayo gerdes, gutersloh: guterslöher verlagshaus mohn 1979–87, abtheilung 15: Stadien auf des Lebens Weg, p. XiX, remark 351. 25 dan 4:1ff. 26 dan 4:1ff. 27 dan 3:32 or dan 4:2. 28 dan 4:33. 29 SKS 6, 335 / SLW, 360. 30 ibid. 23 24

200

Matthias Engelke

take place every seven years. one astronomer has to dress up as an animal, eat his own calculations as if they were hay, be led through the city and “all the people shall shout: the lord, the lord, the lord is the mighty one.”31 By retelling the story in this manner, Kierkegaard has separated the model daniel 3:3132 from its textual context of wisdom and apocalyptic literature. the episode is renarrated in the diary of the sadly infatuated young man in order to illustrate a unique possibility of existence. the sketch describes the discovery of inwardness, triggered by the power of god, due to a change in the individual’s outer appearance which is connected with the impossibility of expressing oneself clearly. only in this state of inwardness, in the absence of all social communication, do thoughts begin to appear that hint at god’s otherness, but without culminating in an experience of god’s presence. the connections and differences between a sense of god’s power and holiness and an actual encounter with god are one of the main subjects in Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions from 1845, the edifying volume that paralleled the publication of Stages on Life’s Way. In the first discourse of this volume, written on the occasion of a confession, the goal of seeking god is described as “friendship’s encounter with you, you the only mighty one.”33 other clues show the parallel between the tale of nebuchadnezzar and this discourse. like the story, the theme of needing silence and “stillness” with “no fellowship” as a condition for encountering god through confession is emphasized.34 Kierkegaard mentions the need of the powerful person filled with “the world’s glory and the far-flung importance of his achievements” to enter the silent enclosure of the confessional.35 the silence that nebuchadnezzar entered is a possibility for anyone. literally being metamorphosized into a beast is not a necessary feature of the encounter with “god’s voice delivering judgment”36 that occurs in stillness. nebuchadnezzar experiences the transformation in which a vague sense of wonder, “an ambivalent state of mind containing both fear and blessedness,” is changed into a sense of being in the presence of god and evaluated by god.37 in the discourse such a transformation from being a mere wonderer, someone who wishes for the infinite, to being someone who feels the power of God’s evaluation is associated with a physical change of color, just as it is in the story of nebuchadnezzar in Stages on Life’s Way.38 Kierkegaard exclaims that there could be no more powerful expression of this change “than for the wisher to change color.”39

SKS 6, 336 / SLW, 363. dan 4:1ff. 33 SKS 5, 392 / TD, 9. 34 ibid. 35 SKS 5, 392 / TD, 10. 36 SKS 5, 393 / TD, 11. 37 SKS 5, 399 / TD, 18. 38 SKS 6, 335 / SLW, 360. in the discourse this change is said to occur when that which is sought (god) is perceived as already given, in the recognition that the individual is always being judged by god. SKS 5, 404 / TD, 23. 39 SKS 5, 404 / TD, 23; see dan 5:6, 5:9–10 about Belshazzar and about daniel, dan 7:28; 10:8. 31 32

Nebuchadnezzar: The King as Image of Transformation

201

the nebuchadnezzar-sketch in the diary of the suffering man thus shows the possibility of a religiosity which is marked by a recognition of god’s power—god as a great majestic being—but not yet marked by the perception of god in the immediacy of an encounter with and within the single individual. nebuchadnezzar does not mention god’s forgiveness and “the repentance that his [sc. god’s] love loves forth.”40 nebuchadnezzar’s experience of god’s judgment does not seem to lead to joy or even hope.41 the chastened king knows that his days are numbered, but he does not know where he shall go after death or whether he will find favor with god. the young author of the diary is even farther removed from a full experience of god. Being someone who cannot determine whether he himself is guilty or not guilty, he is the farthest removed from the possibility which is offered by this discourse on confession; that is, to confess to be the worst sinner when facing god. in the discourse Kierkegaard writes, “the person who doubts his guilt is only making a bad beginning, or rather he is continuing what was badly begun in sin.”42 in the case of the young author of the diary, the inwardness of self-reflection therefore does not lead to a revelation of god, in which a man can “strive in all honesty to become more and more transparent to himself.”43 Kierkegaard’s other major allusion to the story of nebuchadnezzar is of less consequence. This reference occurred in the context of his reflections on the troubling case of the author and pastor adolph peter adler (1812–69), whom Kierkegaard knew personally. initially adler appeared as a convinced follower of hegel. however, in July 1843 adler published several sermons in which he reported to have experienced a revelation of Christ in december 1842, instructing him to burn his hegelian studies and preach a new doctrine of evil, which Christ himself supposedly dictated into his quill. adler had visited Kierkegaard, seeing in Kierkegaard a potential forerunner for his preaching, similar to John the Baptist’s role in Jesus’ life. in the introductory part of Kierkegaard’s The Book on Adler, the widespread belief in the progressive spirit of the times is ridiculed.44 Kierkegaard asserts that the age demands too much, for “like nebuchadnezzar, it not only demands to have the dream interpreted, but to get to know the dream,”45 which is an allusion to daniel 2:1–6 in which nebuchadnezzar wanted the dream interpreters not only to explain his dream but also to discover what his dream had been. analogously, the spirit of the times is the valorization of movement, a movement that not only requires an interpretation but also a stipulation of where it is going. Kierkegaard’s ruminations are intended to discover whether adler is such an author whose “dream” of spiritual movement may be without a destination. By implication, the interpreter of adler must discover what his “dream” actually involves before it can be interpreted. SKS 5, 407 / TD, 27. SKS 6, 336 / SLW, 363. 42 SKS 5, 408 / TD, 29. 43 SKS 5, 413 / TD, 33. 44 according to Kierkegaard, in modernity the individual does not know what it wants, but imagines that the company of other individuals, who also do not know what they want, would make clear the object of their desire. see Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 9 / BA, 11. 45 Pap. vii–2 B 235, p. 9 / BA, 11. 40 41

202

Matthias Engelke

particularly in the case of nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard has taken a biblical story whose original purpose, according to many of the biblical scholars of his day, was to stimulate fidelity to a religious tradition and encourage hope for liberation from oppression and transposed the story into the realm of the religious development of the individual. nebuchadnezzar no longer functions as a world-historical character in the drama of national oppression and liberation, but becomes a symbol of a certain type of religious crisis and a possible response to it. Kierkegaard renarrates the tale in order to transform it into an opportunity for the individual reader to reflect upon the quality of his or her own moral and religious life. this happens most powerfully when the story of nebuchadnezzar and the story of the young diarist are read in conjunction with the discussion of confession in the upbuilding discourse. in pursuing this goal, Kierkegaard does not make use of the historical-critical scholarship that attempted to interpret nebuchadnezzar as a symbol functioning in the context of the political and religious struggles of the hellenistic period.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Nebuchadnezzar Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste in alphabetischer Folge von genannten Schriftstellern bearbeitet, section 1, vols. 1–29; section 2, vols. 1–14; section 3, vols. 1–9, ed. by Johann samuel ersch and Johann gottfried gruber, leipzig: gleditsch 1818–31 and leipzig: F.a. Brockhaus 1818–37 [section 1, vols. 1–99; section 2, vols. 1–43; section 3, vols. 1–25, leipzig: gleditsch 1818–31 and leipizg: F.a. Brockhaus 1831–89], section 1, vol. 23, pp. 1–15 (ASKB 1311–1363). hase, Karl, Hutterus Redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 4th ed., leipzig: Breitkopf and härtel 1839, p. 92 (ASKB 581). hersleb, svend Borchmand, Kort Udsigt over Bibelhistorien, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1813, pp. 1–148 (ASKB a i 62). tholuck, Friedrich august gotttreu, Das alte Testament im neuen Testament, hamburg: Friedrich perthes 1836, p. 86 (ASKB 832). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 253–9 (ASKB 80). —– Lehrbuch der hebräisch-jüdischen Archäologie, 3rd ed., leipzig: Christian wilhelm vogel 1842, pp. 52–65 (ASKB 872). winer, georg Benedict, Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger, vols 1–2, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: Carl heinrich reclam 1833–38, vol. 2, pp. 169–72 (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of Nebuchadnezzer engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), p. 37; p. 103; p. 105; p. 140; p. 142; p. 160; p. 188. Kjær, grethe, “the Concept of Fate in Stages on Life’s Way,” trans. by Julia watkin, in Stages on Life’s Way, ed. by robert perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2000 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 11), p. 254. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 27. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 90–2.

204

Matthias Engelke

poole, roger, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville and london: university of virginia press 1993, pp. 136–9. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, p. 91. zeuthen, lisa, Søren Kierkegaards hemmelige note, Copenhagen: gads Forlag 1951, pp. 199–240.

part ii overview articles

Kierkegaard’s rewriting of Biblical narratives: the mirror of the text iben damgaard

I. Introduction rewritings of biblical narratives are often found in both the pseudonymous and the edifying writings of Kierkegaard. this article explores how and why Kierkegaard rewrites biblical narratives.1 in order to understand the hermeneutical implications of the rewritings, we need to consider his rhetorical strategy of rewriting in relation to his hermeneutical and ethical focus on the appropriation and actualization of the text in the reader’s concrete existence. Kierkegaard takes his point of departure in the assumption that our belonging to the Christian tradition has made the biblical texts so familiar to us that we read them as harmless pieces of cultural heritage and ignore their potential to reorient our lives. i will argue that Kierkegaard in his rewritings plays “stranger with the old and familiar”2 biblical narratives in order to deconstruct this. imagination is a key to understanding the hermeneutics at stake in the rewritings, for it is through imaginative variations of the biblical narratives that Kierkegaard provokes and encourages us to discover how the narratives challenge the reader and seek to bring about a transformation of the reader’s vision. i will seek to show that the hermeneutics implicit in the rewritings can be described through the interplay between two metaphors upon which Kierkegaard draws. he describes the Bible as a mirror in which we come to see ourselves truly, since it reveals our self-deception and the need for a change of action. this metaphor of the text as a mirror interacts with his metaphorical description of the meeting between reader and text like the wrestling match depicted in the old testament story of Jacob’s struggle with god (genesis 32:23–32). when Kierkegaard in Works of Love (1847) interprets the meaning of the biblical commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” he dramatizes the way in which the commandment wrestles with our imagination and turns our ideas of this article builds on the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s rewritings that i have presented in my book: At lege fremmed med det kendte. Kierkegaards gendigtninger af bibelske figurer, Copenhagen: anis 2008. 2 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 1

208

Iben Damgaard

love upside down.3 he uses the story of Jacob’s struggle with god as an intertext for this dramatic enactment of the meeting between the reader and the biblical commandment, depicting it as a struggle in which the reader discovers his own illusions and is transformed. II. The Wrestling Match and the Transformation of Vision let us begin with a close reading of this passage in Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself in Works of Love. he notes that the little phrase “as yourself” has the elasticity of eternity to penetrate into the innermost hiding place in a human being and wrench open the lock of improper selflove. he states: indeed, no wrestler [Bryder] can wrap himself around the one he wrestles as this commandment wraps itself around self-love, which cannot move from the spot. truly, when self-love has struggled with this phrase, which is, however, so easy to understand that no one needs to rack [bryde] his brain over it, then it will perceive that it has struggled with one that is stronger. Just as Jacob limped after having struggled with god, so will self-love be broken if it has struggled with this phrase that does not want to teach a person that he is not to love himself but rather want to teach him proper self-love.4

The biblical “as yourself” in the commandment is personified as a “wrestler” who wrestles with and wraps himself around a human being’s improper self-love in order to wrest it away.5 the “as yourself” is further described not as a “key” that easily opens up self-love, but instead as a “pick” [dirk] that wrenches open the lock of the improper self-love in order to teach a human being to love oneself in the right way which is the same way as one should love one’s neighbor. the improper self-love is thereby broken, marked and changed—just as Jacob limped at the breaking of day after having struggled with god all night. the old testament narrative of Jacob’s struggle with god is employed as an intertext, when Kierkegaard portrays the way that the biblical text wrestles with our self-deception and illusions and contradicts our image of ourselves and the other person in order to change our way of seeing.6 SKS 9, 32 / WL, 24. SKS 9, 26 / WL, 18. 5 this is an example of how Kierkegaard not only rewrites biblical narratives but also dramatizes and narrativizes non-narrative biblical texts and uses biblical narratives as intertexts for his exploration of non-narrative parts of the Bible. another example of this kind of creative reworking of biblical material is found in the second part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (SKS 8, 257–307 / UD, 157–212). In these discourses, the figures of the lily and the bird in Jesus’ sermon on the mount are inscribed in narratives that serve as parables for the readers of the discourses. For an interpretation of this example, i refer to my article: “the danger of the restless mentality of Comparison: Kierkegaard’s parables of the lily and the Bird,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2007, pp. 193–208. 6 my approach to Works of Love is influenced by Arne Grøn’s interpretation of the work as an ethics of vision. Grøn has drawn attention to the significance of the question of vision and imagination in Works of Love in different articles. Cf. arne grøn, “the ethics 3 4

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

209

it may be fruitful to take a close look at this old testament narrative, which takes place on the eve of Jacob’s confrontation with his brother esau, from whom he had fled twenty years earlier, after having deceived their father Isaac into giving him the patriarchal blessing instead of Esau, the first-born son. Jacob is now returning to his land of birth, Canaan, and he fears the revenge of esau. he is alone this night, after having sent all his wives, children, and servants across the river Jabok. an unknown man wrestles with him in the dark until dawn. Jacob cannot be overcome, and the man then touches Jacob’s hip, which is then disjointed. the man wants to get away before dawn breaks, but Jacob refuses to let him go unless he blesses him. the man asks him his name, and when he hear the name “Jacob,” which in Hebrew (‫)יעקב‬ is connected with the word for “deceiving” (‫)עקב‬, he declares that from now on his name shall be “Israel,” which in Hebrew (‫ )ישׂראל‬means “struggling with God.” Jacob desires to know his adversary’s name, but instead he receives a blessing. one can only learn the adversary’s identity by judging him by his words and actions, as Jacob does when he declares: “i have seen god face to face and my life has been delivered” (genesis 32:30). when the sun rises, Jacob crosses the Jabok river as a changed man, which is embodied in his limping. the story then moves immediately to his encounter with esau, where he limps in front of all his people and then faces esau and bows to the ground before him. as pointed out by Jan Fokkelman, this suggests a change of identity, for whereas Jacob had formerly survived by deceit and self-deceit, he now engages in a confrontation with his brother and his past. 7 the story of Jacob’s struggle is nowhere rewritten in Kierkegaard’s writings, but the epoch-making character of the event in which Jacob struggles with god and comes through the struggle as a changed man, is used as a metaphor for what happens to an individual’s improper self-love in the wrestling with the commandment of the Bible. in my view, Kierkegaard’s use of the story of Jacob’s struggle can be interpreted also at a second level as a metaphor for the meeting between the reader and the biblical narrative that Kierkegaard seeks to bring about through his rewritings. this meeting is understood by Kierkegaard as a dialectical battle, a “wrestling match,” through which the reader is transformed. Kierkegaard returns to the story of Jacob’s struggle in one of his Christian Discourses on the expression in the First letter of John: “even if our heart condemn us, god is greater than our hearts” (1 John 3:20). he uses this expression in his exploration of the question: how is it possible to speak in our finite language about the infinite, about God’s infinite love? He writes: when we, then, human beings as we are, want to form a conception of god’s greatness, we must think about true human greatness, that is, about love and about the love that forgives and shows mercy. But what does this mean, would the meaning be that we want to compare god to a human being, even if this human being were the noblest, the purest, the most reconciling, the most loving person who has ever lived? Far from it. the apostle does not speak that way either. he does not say that god is greater than of vision,” in Ethik der Liebe. Studien zu Kierkegaards “Taten der Liebe,” ed. by ingolf dalferth, tübingen: mohr siebeck 2002, pp. 111–22. 7 this interpretation of the story of Jacob’s struggle is indebted to Jan Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis, Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991 [1975], pp. 208ff.

210

Iben Damgaard the most loving human being, but that he is greater than the heart that condemns itself. god and the human being resemble each other only inversely. You do not reach the possibility of comparison by the ladder of direct likeness: great, greater, greatest.…see, language seems to burst and break in order to describe god’s greatness in showing mercy. Thought tried in vain to find a comparison, then finally found it, something that, humanly speaking, is no comparison, the brokenness of a repentant heart—god’s mercy is even greater….it limps, this comparison—a human being always does after wrestling with god.8

so here we are again at the brink of the Jabok river, when the sun rises over the limping Jacob, who has been marked by his nocturnal wrestling with god. the finite human language wrestles with the problem of how to speak about the divine love that transcends human language and reason. the story of Jacob’s struggle is once again intertext for the reversal of perspective. human language cannot speak about god in direct comparisons, but only inversely, only through a broken, limping comparison that inverts the perspective, for god’s greatness can only be grasped from the perspective of the brokenness of a repenting heart! in Works of Love Kierkegaard reflects on the metaphorical language of the Bible. he claims, “all human speech, even the divine speech of holy scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført] speech.”9 this metaphorical nature of language is grounded in the constitution of human existence, since a human being from the moment of birth is understood as a spiritual being, though he only later becomes conscious of himself as spirit. this has implications for language since a child may understand only a word’s concrete meaning, whereas a grown-up may also grasp the transferred meaning of the expression, in which the literal sense in ordinary language is given a deeper spiritual significance. By using language metaphorically, the Bible manages to speak about the highest with simple words. Kierkegaard compares this metaphorical use of the old familiar word with the reader who manages to appropriate and establish new acquaintance with the old and familiar text. “as children we no doubt have often played the game of stranger: this is precisely the earnestness, to be able to continue in earnest this upbuilding jest, to play stranger with the old and familiar.”10 Just as the metaphor plays stranger with the ordinary word, Kierkegaard plays stranger with the well-known biblical figures and narratives that have become such a matter of course that they are no longer seen as puzzling and challenging. this metaphorical playing stranger with the familiar has the capacity to transform vision. in one of the discourses from “the gospel of sufferings,” he elaborates on this: “to deliberate”11 is a transferred expression, but a very suggestive one, and therefore has the advantage a figure of speech always has, that one, as if through a secret door, indeed, as if by a magic stroke of the sudden, from the most common everyday conceptions SKS 10, 313–14 / CD, 292–3. SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 10 SKS 9, 213 / WL, 210. 11 the danish word overveie is literally translated “to weigh over,” but figuratively it means “to deliberate” or “to consider.” 8 9

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

211

stands in the middle of the loftiest conceptions, so that while talking about simple everyday things one suddenly discovers that one is also talking about the very highest things.12

the metaphor is characterized by its capacity to make us suddenly discover a new dimension in everyday life. the metaphorical language has the poetic power to open up new possible worlds that brings about a transformation of our vision, since it makes us perceive a new meaning in the midst of the most ordinary aspects of life. Kierkegaard uses this creative power of the metaphorical play in his rewritings that wrestle with the problem of how to communicate Christianity in a modern age in which Christianity has become domesticated and reduced to empty phrases and dead metaphors that no one wonders at: the trouble is not that Christianity is not voiced (thus the trouble is not that there are not enough pastors) but that it is voiced in such a way that the majority eventually think it utterly inconsequential….thus the highest and the holiest things make no impact whatsoever, but they are given sound and are listened to as something that now, god knows why, has become routine and habit like so much else.13

through close readings of some of Kierkegaard’s rewritings of both new testament and old testament narratives, i will proceed to explore how Kierkegaard plays stranger with the old and familiar biblical narrative in order to provoke the reader to engage in a wrestling match with the biblical narratives that turn around the reader’s perspective. III. Rewriting as Dialogical Contemporaneity let us take our point of departure in a close reading of Kierkegaard’s rewriting of the gospel story of peter’s denial of Christ that is found in Works of Love. Kierkegaard speaks about the duty to love the people we see and the duty to be able to continually find the beloved lovable no matter how he is changed. He illustrates this with a rewriting of the gospel episode of peter’s denial of Christ. Kierkegaard chooses to speak “quite humanly about this relationship,”14 and takes his point of departure from the fact that “we will all agree that if the same thing happened in a relationship between two friends as happened to Christ with peter, there would surely be sufficient reason to break—with such a traitor.”15 Kierkegaard dramatizes the scene for us like a choreographer who makes us see still new possibilities in the interaction, and thereby makes us contemplate what we would have done if our nearest friend had betrayed us when we were in danger. Kierkegaard writes, “so, then you stood there accused by your enemies, condemned by your enemies.…in this way you stood—accused, condemned, insulted; you sought in vain to discover a form that still resembled a human being, to say nothing of a kind face upon which 12 13 14 15

SKS 8, 399 / UD, 306. SKS 11, 214 / SUD, 102–3. SKS 9, 168 / WL, 168. SKS 9, 168 / WL, 168.

212

Iben Damgaard

your eyes could rest—and then you saw him, your friend, but he denied you.”16 we are provoked to consider whether we would not in that situation have broken off the friendship, and this natural response is then contrasted with the love of Christ: how differently Christ acted! he did not look away from peter in order to become seemingly unaware of his existence; he did not say, “i do not want to see that traitor”; he did not leave him to take care of himself. no, he “looked at him.” he immediately caught him with a look; if it had been possible, he surely would not have avoided speaking to him. and how did Christ look at peter? was this look repelling; was it like a look of dismissal? ah, no, it was as when a mother sees the child in danger through its own carelessness, and now, since she cannot manage to grasp the child, she catches it with her admittedly reproachful but also saving look….He did not say, “Peter must first change and become another person before i can love him again.” no, he said exactly the opposite, “peter is peter, and i love him. my love, if anything, will help him to become another person.”17

again, Kierkegaard points to the wrestling match that is brought about, when our attempt to find the perfect person to love in a self-serving way is confronted with the biblical idea of Christian love that moves in the opposite direction, from heaven’s unselfish love to earth. The rewriting of the scene stages this confrontation in a way that addresses the reader directly. the dialogical form, the constant questioning of the reader and the juxtaposition of contrary ways of relating to the situation, is a rhetorical strategy that seeks to enable the reader to see himself as contemporary with the characters in the scene. we are invited to imagine ourselves what it would be like if we were in that situation. we are so accustomed, says Kierkegaard, to praise Christ’s relationship to peter, but we should take care that this praise is not an illusion “because we are unwilling to stretch our thinking to think of ourselves as contemporary with the event. so we praise Christ and, on the other hand, provided we are able to become contemporary with a similar event, act and think altogether differently.”18 in his rewritings, Kierkegaard experiments with the characters in the biblical story in order to explore how the story would have developed otherwise if the characters involved had related differently to themselves, the others, and god.19 this is particularly obvious when we consider his many rewritings of the old testament story (genesis 22) of how god tested abraham’s faith by commanding him to go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac. These rewritings are found in the early pseudonymous work Fear and Trembling (1843) that repeatedly addresses the SKS 9, 169–70 / WL, 168–9. SKS 9, 170ff. / WL, 170ff. 18 SKS 9, 171 / WL, 171. 19 It should be noted that Kierkegaard is not the first one to rewrite biblical narratives. rewriting was already an integrated part of early Jewish hermeneutic practice. in the “haggadah,” the ancient interpreters expanded and elaborated on little details and particularities of the biblical narratives in order to explain the ambiguous gaps in the narratives. this tradition also influenced the writings of the Church Fathers of the early Christian Church. Cf. James Kugel, The Bible as It Was, Cambridge, massachusetts and london: harvard university press 1997, pp. 28ff. 16 17

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

213

difficulty and the fear and trembling involved in trying to speak about and understand this terrifying story. in the opening “exordium” we are told the story of a man who is haunted and intrigued by the abraham narrative. he longs to become a “witness of the event.”20 we are told that this is not a wish “to see the beautiful regions of the east” since “the same thing could just as well have occurred on a barren heath.”21 it is a spiritual contemporaneity with the story as something that is happening here and now when we try to imagine what it would be like to be in the situation that abraham is in. this man imagines four alternative variations of how one could respond to the trial in different modes of despair and resignation if one did not have the faith of abraham. the different rewritings change the biblical story into four new stories that deal with the enigmatic gaps in the biblical story. For example, they elaborate on what abraham may have thought and how isaac may have experienced the journey, matters about which the biblical narration is silent. all variations of the story represent, however, only disanalogies to abraham. By the end of the book, the pseudonymous author Johannes de silentio lets us know that none of the alternative figures contains “an analogy” to abraham; none of them makes him more comprehensible. on the contrary, the deviations from him point to the “boundary of the unknown territory.”22 in this way, we are challenged and provoked to consider the unanswered questions and the enigmas of this story of faith with which each reader must struggle. after these four opening stories, we are told that the man thought of the event “thus and in many similar ways.”23 the story can be imagined and rewritten in many other ways, and different rewritings are in fact scattered throughout the whole text. we come across new variations right after this introductory section, when Johannes, in two new rewritings of the story, considers what would have happened if abraham had doubted. he might then have looked around irresolutely when he stood on mount moriah and then he might immediately have spotted the ram and gone home again with isaac. alternatively, if he had doubted he could have gone to mount moriah only to thrust the knife into his own breast in order to spare isaac. Johannes contrasts these doubting versions of abraham with the biblical abraham who in faith responded to god’s call with no doubt or hesitation. he writes, “we read in sacred scripture: ‘and god tempted abraham and said: abraham, abraham, where are you? But abraham answered: here am i.’ ”24 if we actually do read genesis 22, we notice that Johannes has added the question “where are you?” to genesis 22, although this question actually is found in genesis 3:9, where god addresses adam after he has eaten the forbidden fruit. we may ask, then, what Johannes achieves by this intertextual allusion to the story of the Fall? it could be seen as a way of making us discover the contrast between the meeting between god and adam and the meeting between god and abraham. when god was wandering around the garden, calling to Adam “Where are you?,” Adam was hiding and became terrified when he heard 20 21 22 23 24

SKS 4, 104 / FT, 9. ibid. SKS 4, 200 / FT, 112. SKS 4, 111 / FT, 14. SKS 4, 117 / FT, 21.

Iben Damgaard

214

God’s voice, whereas Abraham, in contrast, answers cheerfully, freely, confidently, loudly with “here i am!” Johannes immediately asks the reader, “was this the case with you?”25 we are required to examine ourselves to discover whether we would hide like Adam or have the courage to answer the call confidently like Abraham. We are asked directly to behold ourselves in the mirror of the story. Johannes exemplifies this self-examination for the reader by performing it himself, when he readily admits that he lacks the courage of faith and would have reacted with resignation if he had been “ordered to take such an extraordinary royal journey as the one to mount moriah.”26 Countless generations have known the story of abraham and isaac by heart, and Johannes argues that it is because the story has become such a matter of course for us that it is usually mistold and misunderstood. we rush to the end of the story, since we know that in the end an angel calls to abraham from heaven, telling him not to sacrifice Isaac. Thus confident in God’s grace, we omit the anxiety and fear and trembling, and the whole episode is over and done with as soon as it is narrated. Kierkegaard observes, “we mount a winged horse and in the same instant we are on mount moriah, in the same instant we see the ram.”27 we thereby deceive ourselves into sweet sentimental ways of relating to this horrifying story, instead of asking ourselves if we have the courage of faith that would face the test as abraham did. Johannes takes us through all these narrative detours in order to approach the story of abraham in the right way, namely, a very slow way that takes time and demands patience. the danger of the empty praising of abraham at mount moriah is then illustrated by a story of a preacher who speaks about abraham in a way that completely leaves out the anxiety and the radically disorienting nature of the story. the preacher glorifies Abraham as the father of faith, and he interprets the story allegorically when he praises Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice the highest source of earthly joy that he had. the preacher speaks so easily and peacefully about the story that the listener might as well smoke his pipe or take a nap during the sermon. But then Johannes proceeds to imagine what would happen if “someone listening is a man who suffers from sleeplessness—then the most terrifying, the most profound, tragic, and comic misunderstanding is very close at hand. he goes home, he wants to do just as abraham did, for the son, after all, is the best.”28 and if the preacher would afterwards blame him because of the murder, the sleepless sinner would be right to answer that “it was after all what you yourself preached about on sunday.”29 the sleepless person does use the text as a sort of mirror, for he projects himself into the biblical narrative of abraham, but he dangerously misunderstands what he sees in the tale, since he has not understood that “it is only by faith that one achieves any resemblance to abraham, not by murder.”30 the question, then, is 25 26 27 28 29 30

ibid. SKS 4, 130 / FT, 34. SKS 4, 145 / FT, 52. SKS 4, 124 / FT, 28. ibid. SKS 4, 126 / FT, 31.

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

215

how are we to speak about abraham without “running the risk that some individual will become unbalanced and do the same thing?”31 Johannes distances himself both from the sleepless murderer’s far too literal understanding of the story and from the preacher’s allegorical and idealizing way of speaking about abraham as an abstract “phantom,” a showpiece for diversion.32 we should, he says, either cancel out Abraham entirely or learn to be horrified by the paradox that he embodies. The only way to appropriately approach the abraham story is very long and laborious, for we must be patient and willing to work hard and be burdened if we are to try to understand faith, since faith essentially involves patience. this need for patience is embodied in the writing strategy of the book, since we are exposed to multiple novel rewritings of this journey of faith that all seem to miss the point and leave us puzzled and provoked to engage in dialogue with this biblical story anew. Johannes approaches the story of abraham by contrasting him with an extensive gallery of biblical, literary, and imaginary figures, which at first glance seem to have much in common with abraham, and yet turn out to be mere disanalogies. we hear, for instance, the story of a tragic hero such as agamemnon, who, seemingly like Abraham, was prepared to sacrifice his child in order to save his people. Yet, this tragic dilemma is a conflict between his dual ethical obligations to care for his child and to defend the interests of his people. Because this tension occurs entirely within the sphere of the ethical, the tragic hero therefore can be described as a “darling of ethics,” in contrast to abraham who is caught in a paradox of faith that points to the limits of ethics. Johannes goes on to explore abraham’s silence by contrasting him with the demonic silence of different literary and biblical figures. He does, for example, rewrite the ancient folk tale about the merman and agnes in different versions. one variant is the tale of a guilty and demonically despairing merman, while another is the story of a merman who is saved by faith in grace. in this way, the strategy of rewriting narratives is used generally to point to existential questions and enigmas suggested not only by biblical but also by non-biblical narratives. this endless comparing and contrasting of the story of abraham with all these biblical, literary, and imaginary figures could be characterized as a literary strategy of detours. Johannes walks the road to mount moriah with us again and again in company with still new textual figures. He does, however, avoid the terrifying moment at the top of the mountain when abraham draws the knife.33 an explanation for this may be found in Johannes’ remark that anyone who looks directly upon this scene is paralyzed and blinded. we may take the sleepless man as a warning, as a cautionary example of what happens when we rush hastily to take up the knife in ethical blindness. instead of taking his point of departure from the terrifying climax of the story at the top of the mountain, Johannes goes the roundabout way to explore what leads up to this point and what comes after. this approach reminds us of what ibid. SKS 4, 123 / FT, 27. 33 lasse horne Kjældgaard has drawn attention to Johannes’ way of abruptly breaking off the narrative when reaching the paralyzing instant at the top of the mountain. Cf. lasse horne Kjældgaard, Mellemhverandre. Tableau og fortælling i Søren Kierkegaards pseudonyme skrifter, hellerup: Forlaget spring 2001, p. 94; p. 109. 31 32

216

Iben Damgaard

Kierkegaard says of socrates in his early treatise on The Concept of Irony: “socrates commences most of his inquiries not at the center but on the periphery, in the motley variety of life.”34 the literary strategy of rewritings could be seen as such a socratic exploration through detours in the peripheries of concrete experiences in the motley variety of life. there is an interesting tension between proximity and distance evident in Kierkegaard’s rewritings. he wants us to see ourselves as contemporary with the world of the text, but in order to bring about such a spiritual contemporaneity, he needs to deconstruct the reader’s familiarity with the text, because this familiarity has turned the biblical text into such a matter of course that the reader has become blind to its challenging potential. the rewritings produce an alienating distanciation (Verfremdung), in which Kierkegaard metaphorically plays stranger with the familiar in order to help the reader to discover it anew. He reflects on how to tell the biblical story in the right way—how to give it its due—for when we know the story by heart it is too easy for us to remain disengaged and ignore the troubling fact that it requires our ethical involvement. he therefore rewrites the same story over and over again, appealing to the imagination as a faculty for discerning other possibilities in the narrative, varying small details of the story and presenting it from constantly new perspectives. the rewritings seek to engage us in a dialogue with the biblical narrative by raising for us the questions with which the narrative characters struggle. imagination is a key concept not only if we seek to understand the hermeneutics implicit in the rewritings, but also if we hope to appreciate Kierkegaard’s approach to the issues of subjectivity and ethics. he understands imagination as a capacity for seeing new possibilities for alternative ways of being, a capacity that extends the individual’s horizon beyond that which is immediately given. in imagination we transcend what we immediately are by projecting scenarios of how life could be lived differently, and this vision of the possible is crucial for coming to perceive and understand ourselves. in The Sickness unto Death, the imagination is described as a “medium for the process of infinitizing” since “imagination is reflection, is the rendition of the self as the self’s possibility.”35 metaphorically, imagination is described as a mirror of possibility. imagination is, however, not only fundamental to genuine human experience, but it is also ambiguous. we need imagination in order to discern the possibilities resident in what we see, but imagination can also be used to prevent ourselves from seeing what we see.36 we can use our imagination to form ideas and ideals that make us blind to the actual reality in which we live. if the imagination is not to be used in a way that is ethically problematic, the possibilities that are projected in the mirror of imagination must be linked to an understanding of what we already are. this depends on the will to accept oneself and “to submit to the necessity in one’s life, to what may be called one’s limitations.”37

SKS 1, 94 / CI, 32. SKS 11, 146–7 / SUD, 30–1. 36 Cf. arne grøn, “imagination and subjectivity,” Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 128, nos. 7–8, 2003, p. 722. 37 SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 36. 34 35

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

217

Kierkegaard points to a complex dialectic between the imagination and the will to acknowledge and account for oneself instead of seeking to escape and delude oneself. this dialectic between the imagination and the will is crucial in order to understand Kierkegaard’s approach to the appropriation of the Bible. he creatively reinvents the imaginative potential of a biblical narrative, when he rewrites it in startlingly novel versions. often, the rewritings open with an initial address to the reader that invites him to “imagine” ever new possibilities in the biblical text. without this imaginative approach we would be confronted with the danger of fanatical interpretations that could take such narratives as the story of abraham and isaac to imply that murder is the demand of faith, a possibility illustrated in the example of the slavish literalness of the sleepless man. it is, however, also possible to delude oneself precisely by means of imaginative readings of the Bible, if they are used as an excuse to ignore the way that the Bible challenges us and requires self-examination, a phenomenon illustrated by the example of the figurative and allegorical preacher. Kierkegaard stresses the need for a literal reading understood as an existential-ethical reading, which is different from both slavish literalness and an allegorical reading.38 whereas the sleepless murderer sees himself in the mirror of the Bible, but in a way that tragically misunderstands the story, the preacher avoids seeing himself in the mirror at all and avoids the possibility of being confronted with his own self-deception and illusions. it is this complexity in understanding the biblical text as a mirror for selfexamination that needs to be further explored in the next section. IV. “Thou Art the Man”—The Mirror of the Word The first part of For Self-Examination (1851) contains some of Kierkegaard’s most explicit reflections on biblical hermeneutics building on the letter of James: But be doers of the word, and not only hearers of it, whereby you deceive yourselves. if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer of it, he is like a man who observes his bodily face in a mirror, for he would observe himself and go away and at once forget what he was like. (James 1:22–4)

god’s word is metaphorically described as a mirror in which we see ourselves truly. the requirement is to see oneself in the mirror, and Kierkegaard therefore argues against what he takes to be a characteristic of his own scientific age, namely, that one looks only at the mirror, i.e., observes the mirror by asking only objective, scholarly, historical questions that can never lead to anything more than approximations of certainty about factual matters. Kierkegaard’s concern here is not to argue against a

see also Jolita pons’ discussion of Kierkegaard’s approach to literal and non-literal readings of the Bible. she argues that when Kierkegaard stresses the need for a careful, literal reading, he is not speaking about a kind of literalism, “but about the spiritual sense of ‘literal’ when the meaning of the Bible becomes concrete for an individual reader.” Cf. Jolita pons, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, p. 60. 38

Iben Damgaard

218

historically-critical scholarly reading of the Bible, but to argue against never getting beyond such a reading to an existentially and ethically oriented reading. the reader is asked to imagine god’s word as a “love-letter” written in a foreign language and expressing a wish from the beloved that requires something of the lover. Kierkegaard asks us to consider how a lover would read this letter, and he points out that he would “distinguish between reading and reading, between reading with a dictionary and reading the letter from his beloved.”39 with a personally engaged reading, the translation and explanation of the letter would only be a prerequisite for the most important thing: the “real” reading that seeks to understand and respond to the wish of the beloved without unnecessary delays. Kierkegaard protests against the “tragic misuse of scholarship,” namely, the tendency to read the Bible with ten dictionaries and 25 commentaries, looking only for variations among different manuscripts and scholarly interpretations. such a detached way of reading ignores the imperatives of the text and inhibits us from wondering, “have i done this?” we thereby risk deceiving ourselves into never coming to the “real” reading, that is, reading from an engaged first person perspective as if the text were a message of love from god. in order to stress the ethical task of moving from text to action, Kierkegaard further envisages god’s word as a “royal decree” and asks the reader to imagine a country in which a royal decree is issued to the whole population. having sketched this analogy to contemporary culture, Kierkegaard asks: what then happens? the entire population turns into interpreters, critics, scholars, and authors, but no one acts according to the requirement in the royal decree, since they ignore the king’s authority. neither a royal decree nor god’s word is meant as a poem or as an answer to a philosophical question, but rather is intended to function as a call to which one must respond in concrete action by a change in how one lives. it is, says Kierkegaard, “only human to pray to god to have patience if one cannot immediately do what one should but still promises to strive, it is human to pray to god to have mercy, that the requirement is too high for one.”40 what he argues against is that “i cunningly shove in, one layer after another, interpretation and scholarly research…between the word and myself and then gives this interpreting and scholarliness the name of earnestness and zeal for the truth.”41 Kierkegaard emphasizes that what is required in reading is that we continually remind ourselves, “it is i to whom it is speaking, it is i about whom it is speaking.”42 he shows this, however, also indirectly by having recourse to the old testament story of King david, who has taken the beautiful Bathsheba, after having arranged that uriah, her husband, would be killed in battle (2 samuel 12). god sends the prophet nathan to david, and nathan recounts to his king the parable of a rich man who stole a poor man’s only lamb. when david angrily condemns the avaricious rich man of the story, Nathan replies, “Thou art the man!,” and David, finally realizing the implication of the narrative, repents. Kierkegaard, however, rewrites this encounter 39 40 41 42

SKS 13, 55, / FSE, 27. SKS 13, 62 / FSE, 35. ibid. SKS 13, 63 / FSE, 37.

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

219

between david and nathan in order to “make the situation really contemporary and modernize it a bit!”43 He changes the figures into nineteenth-century connoisseurs of science and culture. David personifies the modern, cultured reader of the Bible, and it is to this “expert on matters of taste” that nathan recites his little short story. Kierkegaard imagines then how david calmly and objectively evaluates the aesthetic details of this poetic piece of work, until nathan says the crucial words: “thou art the man!”44 Kierkegaard then concludes, “see the tale the prophet told was a story, but this ‘thou art the man’—this was another story—this was the transition to the subjective.”45 Kierkegaard wants us to see how little “the impersonal (the objective)—a doctrine, a story, scholarly research” helps in understanding an existentially relevant text, when even a man like david, otherwise righteous, could go on pretending that nothing illicit had happened right until the moment when nathan breaks through the spell of the impersonal, and david acknowledges his sin and repents. Kierkegaard concludes, “someone from the outside was needed, someone who said to him: You.”46 he presents stories as being potentially on a par with doctrines and scholarly research as examples of the impersonal use of texts, since we can treat stories just as impersonally as a scientific hypothesis when we reflect only upon their aesthetic qualities (as is the case in the rewritten story of nathan and david) or their allegorical, abstract meaning (as is the case in the example of the preacher). Because of this danger of objective distance, Kierkegaard rewrites biblical narratives and parables in ways that directly address, challenge, provoke, and encourage the reader to appropriate the story subjectively, that is, to approach the story through the watchword: “thou art the man!” this exhortation to read in a self-involving manner corresponds to the metaphor of the mirror of the word. right after the rewriting of the meeting between david and nathan in For Self-Examination, this hermeneutic imperative is illustrated again, this time with reference to the parable of the good samaritan. Kierkegaard concludes the retelling of the parable with the exhortation: “go and do likewise.”47 thus, we are again reminded to tell ourselves: “it is i to whom this is addressed—away at once!”48 Kierkegaard’s hermeneutic strategy is oriented towards getting from text to action, and he insists that in this movement there is no time to waste! his point of departure is the negative observation that we prefer to delay the execution of this movement by engaging in endless interpretive projects that enable us to postpone the transition from text to action. in his deconstructive reading of Kierkegaard, Joakim garff has argued that the constant narrative detours in Kierkegaard’s own writings contradict and counteract Kierkegaard’s insistence on a “hermeneutics of

43 44 45 46 47 48

SKS 13, 64 / FSE, 37. SKS 13, 65 / FSE, 38. ibid. SKS 13, 65 / FSE, 39. SKS 13, 68 / FSE, 41. ibid.

220

Iben Damgaard

action.”49 i suggest, however, that the tension between Kierkegaard’s insistence on a hermeneutics of action and his own narrative detours should be interpreted differently. We need to consider again Kierkegaard’s reflections on the complex dialectic between imagination and will and between parable and imperative. in Works of Love, Kierkegaard points out that when Christ is confronted with an abstract question such as “who is my neighbor?” he turns the question around and diverts it away from an abstract discussion of the concept of “neighbor” in order to press the urgency of the task as intensely as possible upon the questioner in order to leave him no excuse for further delays. Kierkegaard shows that Christ accomplishes this precisely by means of a combination of the narrative detour of the parable of the good Samaritan and the direct summoning of the listener in the final admonition “go and do likewise!”50 Kierkegaard insists that the gospel seeks to awaken and encourage the reader through the doubleness of rigorousness and leniency. this doubleness is also embodied in the interplay between different biblical genres such as imperative and parable. Kierkegaard imitates this biblical writing strategy in his own communication with the reader that combines the long, circuitous route of the indirect, metaphorical playing stranger with the familiar in the rewritings with the direct and rigorous questioning of the reader. precisely because his rewritings keep addressing, questioning, and summoning the reader through the watchwords “thou are the man” and “go and do likewise,” the narrative detours wrestle with the reader in such a way that they leave him no excuse for any postponement of action. we are provoked to engage in an existential struggle with the text in order that we might see ourselves in the mirror of the word. this textual struggle involves an inversion of our perspective, since the encounter with the text contradicts our expectations and turns our conceptions and ideas [forestillinger] upside down,51 so that we, like david, come to see the need for repentance and change of action. therefore, in my view, Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the metaphor of the mirror of the word is best understood in connection with his use of the story of Jacob’s struggle with god, since the Bible wrestles with the reader’s illusions and wrenches open the lock of self-deception in order to open up a new way of seeing oneself and others. the metaphor of the mirror of the word had already been employed in the early Christian tradition; Kierkegaard did not invent it ex nihilo. in his “preface Cf. Joakim garff, “Den Søvnløse”: Kierkegaard læst æstetisk/biografisk, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1995, p. 263. 50 SKS 9, 100 / WL, 22. 51 in the new testament Christ is called a sign of contradiction because he was destined to disclose the thoughts of many hearts. in Practice in Christianity, the pseudonym antiClimacus writes that when one is looking at the sign of contradiction “one sees as in a mirror, one comes to see oneself, or he who is the sign of contradiction looks straight into one’s heart while one is staring into the contradiction. a contradiction placed squarely in front of a person – if one can get him to look at it—is a mirror; as he is forming a judgment, what dwells within him must be disclosed. it is a riddle, but as he is guessing the riddle, what dwells within him is disclosed by the way he guesses. the contradiction confronts him with a choice, and as he is choosing, together with what he chooses, he himself is disclosed.” Cf. SKS 12, 131–2 / PC, 127. 49

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

221

to Bultmann,” paul ricoeur claims that “hermeneutics is the very deciphering of life in the mirror of the text,” and proceeds to trace the roots of this hermeneutical concept back to the pauline insistence that “the interpretation of the Book and the interpretation of life correspond and are mutually adjusted….paul invites the hearer of the word to decipher the movement of his own existence in the light of the passion and resurrection of Christ.”52 ricoeur emphasizes that “the relation between the text and the mirror—liber et speculum—is basic to hermeneutics.”53 the reader comes to understand himself through the medium of the text. according to ricoeur, the hermeneutics of the text is therefore closely connected with a hermeneutics of the self.54 he points to a complex interplay between activity and passivity in the refiguration of the reader’s vision through the process of reading, since coming to see and understand oneself through the mirror of the text involves seeing oneself as another.55 according to my interpretation, this is already the crucial point in Kierkegaard’s approach to the classic metaphor of the self in the mirror of the text that interacts with his employment of the metaphor of Jacob’s wrestling match. V. “My Dear Reader!”—Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Ethics We have seen how Kierkegaard in the first part of For Self-Examination stresses the hermeneutic theme that the Bible should be read through the lens of the watchword, “thou art the man!,” treating it as a mirror in which we come to see ourselves truly. But Kierkegaard not only critiques the inability to get beyond a merely scholarly reading to an existentially engaged reading, but he also exposes the possible dangers involved in seeing oneself in the mirror of the text. he explores narratively the ways in which different characters identify with biblical figures in odd ways that provoke the reader to wonder if their existential engagement with the text may not just be paul ricoeur, “preface to Bultmann,” in Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. by lewis s. mudge, london: Fortress press 1980, pp. 52–3. 53 ibid., p. 54. 54 ricoeur accounts for this connection in numerous writings on hermeneutics, for instance throughout the entire volume From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II, evanston: northwestern university press 1991. i have used the expression “from text to action” in this article, since it also describes a crucial concern in Kierkegaard’s hermeneutics. 55 “To understand oneself before the text is not to impose one’s own finite capacity of understanding on it, but to expose oneself to receive from it a larger self which would be the proposed way of existing that most appropriately responds to the proposed world of the text. understanding then is the complete opposite of a constitution for which the subject would have the key.” Cf. paul ricoeur, “toward a hermeneutic of the idea of revelation,” in Essays on Biblical Interpretation, p. 108. ricoeur illustrates the metaphor of the mirror with reference to marcel proust’s Remembrance of Things Past in which the narrator reflects on his readers, observing, “it seemed to me that they would not be ‘my’ readers but the readers of their own selves, my book being merely a sort of magnifying glass like those which the optician at Combray used to offer his customers—it would be my book, but with its help i would furnish them with the means of reading what lay inside themselves.” Cf. paul ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vols. 1–3, Chicago and london: university of Chicago press 1985, vol. 3, p. 246. see also vol. 2, p. 150 in where this passage is quoted. 52

222

Iben Damgaard

another form of self-deception. we have already seen an example of this in the case of the sleepless man’s mirroring himself in abraham’s trial. another example can be found in Repetition (1843), a work that recounts the story of a young man who mirrors himself in the sufferings of Job. in a direct address to his reader, “my dear reader,” the pseudonymous author Constantin Constantius announces that “it is an art to be a good reader”;56 and Repetition can in fact be interpreted as a book about reading, since the young man’s passionate reading of the Book of Job provokes us to consider what it takes to be a good reader and what it means to be transformed by reading in such a way that one perceives the potential newness in the midst of the old life. the main character, a poetic young man who has just left his girlfriend, is obsessively engaged in reading the old testament story of Job’s trials and sufferings. he describes how he reads the Book of Job every night and strives to make Job’s word his own: although i have read the book again and again, each word remains new to me. every time i come to it, it is born anew as something original or becomes new and original in my soul. like an inebriate, i imbibe all the intoxication of passion little by little, until by this prolonged sipping i become almost unconscious in drunkenness. But at the same time, i hasten to it with indescribable impatience. half a word—and my soul rushes into his thought, into his outcry; more swiftly than the sounding-line sinker seeks the bottom of the sea, more swiftly than lightning seeks the conductor does my soul glide therein and remain there.57

in a series of letters the poetic young man describes in great detail the existential passion involved in his reading of Job, and one can hardly accuse him of not reading the story of Job in an existentially engaged way. he understands Job’s misfortunes and anguish from the perspective of his own problems, and he repeats the text over and over again in an attempt to come to terms with his own past and the issue of guilt that it raises. But we may question whether the young man is really transformed by the text, or whether he mainly uses the figure of Job to legitimize his impatient wish to withdraw into a poetic existence. this seems to be quite remote from the faith of Job that embraces actuality instead of taking flight into an idealized world of poetics. through the narrative example of the young man, the reader is confronted with the possibility of mirroring oneself in the biblical text in ways that only confirm one’s illusions rather than deconstruct them. in the passage quoted above, the young man describes how his soul sinks into the text with “indescribable impatience.”58 i suggest that this is the key to the understanding of the problem involved in his reading, namely, his impatient wish to be Job. he idealizes Job, and his impatient eagerness to see himself as a second Job merely prevents him from seeing his actual existence.59 SKS 4, 91 / R, 225. SKS 4, 72 / R, 205. 58 ibid. 59 For a more thorough interpretation of Kierkegaard’s rewritings of Job, i refer to my article: “ ‘my dear reader’: Kierkegaard’s reader and Kierkegaard as a reader of the Book of Job. reception and transformation in the writings of Kierkegaard,” in Religion and 56 57

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

223

we are brought by the text to perceive that the art of being a good reader requires patience and earnest self-examination. according to For Self-Examination this involves “distrust of oneself, to treat oneself as a suspicious character, as a financier treats an unreliable client, saying, ‘well, these big promises are not much help; i would rather have a small part of the total right away.’ ”60 one needs to treat oneself as “a suspicious character” rather than using the text to legitimize oneself. Kierkegaard emphasizes the problem of sin, that is, that we will not understand and acknowledge ourselves, and this makes him acutely aware of the many different ways we seek to avoid the patient self-examination that is essential for the art of reading. it is again the complex interplay between one’s imagination and one’s will that is crucial, since reading demands not only our imaginative engagement with the text but also our will to candidly confront and unmask our own illusions in a quest for true selfunderstanding. Kierkegaard places emphasis on the reader’s patient and “decisive self-activity, upon which everything depends.”61 he is, however, also well aware of the complex interplay between activity and passivity at work in any transformation of our vision. we have seen an example of this when he points to the way that metaphorical language opens our imagination by disclosing new possibilities and potentialities in our given reality. Kierkegaard stresses the dialectical character of the act of reading, regarding it as a dialogical battle that requires both receptivity and activity. he repeatedly informs his reader that he is an author without authority, warning that “you have only yourself to consider, not me, who, after all, am ‘without authority.’ ”62 he encourages the reader to engage in dialogue with the text, which is not a dialogue with the author behind the text but with the ways of life and possibilities that are opened in front of the text through the reading process. reading is a dialogue with the concepts and possibilities that are “captured” in the text, and their “release” depends on the reader’s response. Kierkegaard describes the favorably disposed reader as the one, who “gives an opportunity to what is said, brings the cold thoughts into flame again, transforms the discourse [tale] into a conversation [samtale].”63 the meaning to be understood in the text is fully realized only in the reader’s making it concrete in his own existence, so that his existence comes to express what he has understood. it is the reader who “gives it [the discourse] meaning, and transforms it into much.”64 this emphasis on the reader’s active role combined with the self-effacement of the writer is characteristic of both his edifying and pseudonymous writings. Kierkegaard’s polyphonic way of communicating indirectly with the reader through pseudonymous voices as well as the voices of historical, literary, biblical, and imaginary figures

Normativity: Receptions and Transformations of the Bible, ed. by Kirsten nielsen, Århus: aarhus university press 2009, pp. 93–105. 60 SKS 13, 70, / FSE, 44. 61 SKS 8, 223 / UD, 122. 62 SKS 13, 33 / FSE, 5. 63 SKS 5, 231 / EUD, 231. 64 SKS 5, 113 / EUD, 107.

224

Iben Damgaard

orients his books towards the reader’s process of understanding in front of the book rather than the author’s intention behind the book.65 What Kierkegaard says about his reader’s freedom in the appropriation of his writings corresponds with how he himself acts as a reader of the Bible, since he experiments with, rewrites, and recontextualizes the biblical texts with remarkable freedom. But, whereas he continually maintains that his own writings are written by an author without authority, he insists just as emphatically that scripture is indeed authoritative. we may therefore ask: how can this emphasis of the authority of scripture be combined with an equally strong highlighting of the freedom in reading? how are we to make sense of this relation between the authority of the Bible and the freedom with which Kierkegaard changes and reworks the biblical texts? an attempt to answer this question may take its point of departure from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. the pseudonym Johannes Climacus criticizes the view of scripture as “the secure stronghold that decides what is Christian and what is not.”66 he emphatically asserts that “the dialectical still cannot be excluded.”67 according to Climacus, it is impossible to find “a stockade that is the end of the world and of dialectics. It is of no use.”68 this is because the dialectical is a general condition of understanding whether it is a word, a book, another person or culture, that we seek to understand. But “in a human being there is always a desire, at once comfortable and concerned, to have something really firm and fixed that can exclude the dialectical, but this is cowardliness and fraudulence toward the divine. even the most certain of all, a revelation, eo ipso becomes dialectical when i am to appropriate it.”69 the freedom embodied in Kierkegaard’s rewriting of biblical narratives is a way of dealing with this dialectical and dialogical element in all appropriation. the paradigmatic figure for Kierkegaard’s approach to his dialogue with the reader is socrates70 and “the socratic art of asking questions.”71 Kierkegaard’s insistence on being an author without authority also corresponds to the Socratic figure of the midwife, for the Socratic figure of the midwife incarnates the merely assisting role that one person may have in relation to another person’s understanding. Climacus see also george pattison and Jolita pons, since they both address the question of how Kierkegaard’s emphasis on being an author without authority relates to his emphasis on the active role of the reader, his dialogical, indirect way of communicating, and the authority of the Bible. Cf. george pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Theology, Literature, london and new York: routledge 2002. Cf. also Jolita pons, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible. pons discusses this question in relation to the pseudonymous writings on pp. 39ff. 66 SKS 7, 31 / CUP1, 24. 67 ibid. 68 SKS 7, 31, note / CUP1, 24, note. 69 SKS 7, 41 / CUP1, 35. 70 Cf. pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Theology, Literature. Pattison has shown the significance of the Socratic dialogue for understanding Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the active role of the reader as well as his indirect, dialogical and polyphonic way of communicating with the reader in the upbuilding discourses. 71 SKS 1, 94 / CI, 33. 65

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

225

observes, “Socrates remained true to himself and artistically exemplified what he had understood. he was and continued to be a midwife…because he perceived that this relation is the highest relation a human being can have to another. and in that he is indeed forever right, for even if a divine point of departure is ever given, this remains the true relation between one human being and another.”72 in Kierkegaard’s rewriting of biblical narratives, his point of departure is the authority of the Bible, but because his own readings refuse any authority, he can experiment rather freely with the biblical narratives in order to help the reader approach them in new ways, since this socratic art of maieutics remains the highest relation between human beings. this maieutic art of helping is later described in the following way: “if one is truly to Succeed in Leading a Person to a Specific Place, One Must First and Foremost take Care to Find him where He is and Begin there. this is the secret in the entire art of helping.”73 Kierkegaard rewrites biblical narratives in still new imaginative variations that re-contextualize them in the contemporary life of the reader in order to help the reader to discover new potential in the well-known stories. Kierkegaard’s rewritings can therefore be interpreted as his maieutic attempt to discover where contemporary readers are in order to challenge and encourage them to respond existentially and ethically to the biblical texts. according to hans-georg gadamer, the task of hermeneutics can be described as “entering into dialogue with the text,” a project that involves understanding the question that the text is struggling with. gadamer claims, “interpretation always involves a relation to the question that is asked of the interpreter. to understand a text means to understand this question.”74 as we have seen, Kierkegaard’s rewritings attempt to open up the question that the characters in the biblical narrative are struggling with in order to help the reader to engage in a dialogue with this question, an arduous task that also entails a questioning of one’s own understanding of oneself and the world. Kierkegaard bases his writing strategy on the assumption that the reader’s participation in the Christian tradition has made the reader so accustomed to the biblical texts that they will automatically engage them as harmless pieces of cultural heritage and will no longer be challenged by their radical nature. he therefore rewrites biblical narratives in order to produce an alienating distanciation (Verfremdung) that deconstructs our familiarity with the biblical narratives. in his rewritings, Kierkegaard metaphorically plays stranger with the familiar biblical narrative to help us to discover it anew. he rewrites the same story in ever new versions, appealing to the imagination as a sense for discerning other possibilities in the story. i have argued that the hermeneutics implicit in the rewritings can be described through the interplay between Kierkegaard’s metaphorical description of the Bible as a mirror in which we come to see ourselves truly, and his metaphorical description of the meeting between reader and text as the wrestling match depicted in the old testament story of Jacob’s struggle with god. the rewritings practice a strategy of SKS 4, 219 / PF, 10. SV1 Xiii, 533 / PV, 45. 74 hans-georg gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised translation by Joel weinsheimer and donald g. marshall, london: sheed and ward 1989 [1975], p. 368. 72 73

Iben Damgaard

226

de-familiarization with the biblical narratives as a means of enabling the readers to recognize how the biblical narratives wrestle with our illusions and self-deception. the rewritings disorient the reader in order to bring about a reorientation and open up a new way of seeing and relating to oneself and others. Kierkegaard creatively reinvents the imaginative potential of a biblical narrative. without this imaginative approach, we are confronted with the danger of fanatical interpretations that take biblical stories with slavish literalness and draw unfortunate conclusions from them, as did the sleepless man with the story of abraham and isaac. it is, however, also possible to delude oneself through imaginative, allegorical readings of the Bible, if they are used to avoid a concrete existential response, as is illustrated by the allegorical preacher and the aesthetic approach to the text exemplified by the characters in Kierkegaard’s rewritten David. Kierkegaard’s rewritings involve a complex dialectic between imagination and will. the emphasis of human sinfulness makes Kierkegaard acutely aware of the many ways the reader can seek to avoid the patient and earnest self-examination that is the key to “the art to be a good reader.”75 in Kierkegaard’s rewritings, the metaphorical playing stranger with the familiar that embarks on imaginative variations in “the motley variety of life” involves a direct questioning of the reader.76 the reader is thus provoked and encouraged to self-discovery in the mirror of the text that challenges the reader’s vision.

75 76

SKS 4, 91 / R, 225. SKS 1, 94 / CI, 32.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Retell Biblical Narratives Bauer, Bruno, “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 3, no. 1, 1837, pp. 125–210 (ASKB 354–357). günther, anton, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte spekulativer Theologie. Fragment eines evangelischen Briefwechsels, vienna: wallishausser 1834, pp. 114ff. (ASKB 520). rosenkranz, Karl, Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, pp. 136–42 (ASKB 35). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, p. 180; pp. 191–5 (ASKB 80). winer, georg Benedict, Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: Carl heinrich reclam 1833–38, vol. 1, pp. 12–16 (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Retelling of Biblical Narratives Barrett, lee C., “authorial voices and the limits of Communication in Kierkegaard’s ‘signed’ literature: a Comparison of Works of Love to For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!,” in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21), p. 30. Børsand, grete, “abraham. troens ridder. den tragiske helt. en sammenligning,” in her Forbilde og utfordring. En Kierkegaard-studie, oslo: Johan grundt tanum Forlag 1966, pp. 39–53. Come, arnold, Kierkegard as Theologian: Recovering My Self, mcgill-Queen’s university press: montreal and Kingston 1997, pp. 252–5. Conway, daniel, “abraham’s Final word,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by edward F. mooney, Bloomington, indiana: indiana university press 2008, pp. 175–95. damgaard, iben, At lege fremmed med det kendte. Kierkegaards gendigtninger af bibelske figurer, Copenhagen: anis 2008. —— “ ‘my dear reader’: Kierkegaard’s reader and Kierkegaard as a reader of the Book of Job. reception and transformation in the writings of Kierkegaard,” in

228

Iben Damgaard

Religion and Normativity: Receptions and Transformations of the Bible, ed. by Kirsten nielsen, Århus: aarhus university press 2009, pp. 93–105. davenport, John, “Faith as eschatological trust in Fear and Trembling,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by edward F. mooney, Bloomington, indiana: indiana university press 2008, pp. 196–233. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), p. 84; p. 101; p. 109; p. 130; p. 159; p. 166; p. 174; p. 260; p. 269. Fendt, gene, “whose ‘Fear and Trembling’?,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), p. 180; p. 182. Fenves, peter, “Chatter.” Language and History in Kierkegaard, stanford, California: stanford university press 1993, pp. 174–84. hall, amy laura, Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2002, pp. 51–82. gellman, Jerome i., The Fear, the Trembling and the Fire. Kierkegaard and Hasidic Masters on the Binding of Isaac, lanham, maryland: university press of america 1984. —— Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac, aldershot: ashgate 2003, pp. 73ff. gouwens, david, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1996, p. 4; p. 23; p. 86; pp. 118–19; p. 121; p. 165. green, ronald m., “ ‘developing’ Fear and Trembling,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair hannay and gordon marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 270. —— “enough is enough! Fear and Trembling is Not about ethics,” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 21, no. 2, 1993, pp. 191–209. guillamore hansen, p., Søren Kierkegaard og Bibelen, Copenhagen: p. haase 1924, pp. 33–5; p. 38. James, david and douglas moggach, “Bruno Bauer: Biblical narrative, Freedom and anxiety,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 1–21. Kjældgaard, lasse horne, Mellemhverandre. Tableau og fortælling i Søren Kierkegaards pseudonyme skrifter, hellerup: Forlaget spring 2001. law, david, “Cheap grace and the Cost of discipleship in Kierkegaard’s For SelfExamination,” in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21), p. 124. Levy-Valensi, E. Amado, “Kierkegaard et Abraham, ou le non-sacrifice d’Isaac,” in Kierkegaard, ed. by Jean Brun, [special number of] Obliques, paris: eurographic 1981, pp. 119–27. lippitt, John, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling, london and new York: routledge 2003.

Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text

229

mackey, louis, “the view from pisgah: a reading of Fear and Trembling,” in Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Josiah thompson, new York: anchor Books 1972, pp. 394–428. mooney, edward, F., “abraham and dilemma: Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension revisited,” International Journal of the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 19, 1986, pp. 23–41. —— Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, albany, new York: state university of new York press 1991 (SUNY Series in Philosophy). mura, gasparre, Angoscia ed esistenza. Da Kierkegaard a Moltmann. Giobbe e la “sofferenza di Dio,” rome: Città nuova 1982. parkov, peter, Bibelen i Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1983, pp. 7–9; pp. 73–4. patterson, david, “abraham and Kierkegaard: a new approach to the Father of Faith,” Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 8, 1980, pp. 8–19. pattison, george, “d. F. strauss: Kierkegaard and radical demythologization,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, tome ii, Theology, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2007 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources, vol. 6), pp. 233–57. pepper, thomas, “abraham: who Can possibly understand him?” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 1996, pp. 211–39. perkins, robert l., “abraham’s silence aesthetically Conceived,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 155–76. politis, hélène, “stades kierkegaardiens dans la lecture de la Bible: Job, abraham,” in her Kierkegaard, paris: ellipses Édition 2002, pp. 23–30. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 127; p. 167; pp. 171–3; p. 188. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 72–85. poole, roger, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville, virginia: university of virginia press 1993, pp. 115–125. Pyper, Hugh, “The Apostle, the Genius and the Monkey: Reflections on Kierkegaard’s ‘the mirror of the word,’ ” in Kierkegaard on Art and Communication, ed. by george pattison, new York: st. martin’s press 1992, pp. 132–3. rocca, ettore, “la parola della fede,” in his Tra estetica e teologia. Studi kierkegaardiani, pisa: edizioni ets 2004 (Philosophica, vol. 12), pp. 87–98. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, pp. 65–71. strowick, elisabeth, “die doppelbewegung der unendlichkeit,” in her Passagen der Wiederholung. Kierkegaard—Lacan—Freud, stuttgart and weimar: metzler 1999, pp. 151–230. taylor, mark C., “Journeys to moriah: hegel vs. Kierkegaard,” Harvard Theological Review, vol. 70, nos. 3–4, 1977, pp. 305–26.

230

Iben Damgaard

—— “sounds of silence,” in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. by robert l. perkins, university, alabama: university of alabama press 1981, pp. 165–87. —— Altarity, Chicago: Chicago university press 1987, pp. 3–33. taylor, mark lloyd, “ordeal and repetition in Kierkegaard’s treatment of abraham and Job,” in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard, ed. by george B. Connell and C. stephen evans, atlantic highlands, new Jersey: humanities press 1992, pp. 33–53. thust, martin, “das vorbild des glaubens, der gehorsam der ausnahme: der ritter abraham,” in his Sören Kierkegaard. Der Dichter des Religiösen. Grundlagen eines Systems der Subjektivität, munich: C.h. Beck 1931, pp. 82–106. viallaneix, nelly, “Kierkegaard: abraham, isaac et le belier,” Revue Catholique Internationale Communio, vol. 10, no. 3, 1985, pp. 79–92.

Kierkegaard’s use of the old testament: From literary resource to the word of god lori unger Brandt

I. Introduction peppered liberally throughout Kierkegaard’s works are references and allusions to scripture, a feature of his texts that few scholars thought worthy of sustained attention until recently.1 Perhaps his prolific use of Scripture has been overlooked because Kierkegaard made no claim to being an academic exegete and ignored many of the historical-critical interpretive practices that were emerging in his day as being too impersonal and thus unhelpful. his reading strategies ostensibly seem unusual compared to the scholarly methods of biblical interpretation and theological inquiry that were becoming common in northern european universities. this omission of attention to Kierkegaard’s use of scripture has deprived readers of Kierkegaard of meaningful engagement with one of his most basic affirmations: that the meaning of scripture becomes most clear when it is imaginatively appropriated into the life of faith. Certainly the lack of willingness among scholars to explore the centrality of scripture in Kierkegaard’s thought has led to the overlooking of many subtleties in his use of scripture and the way that it functions within his theological arguments and rhetorical strategies. this essay, appearing in the midst of a burgeoning interest in Kierkegaard’s scriptural habits, will explore Kierkegaard’s various uses of scripture with a particular focus on the old testament. First we might question whether Kierkegaard found anything authoritative in the old testament at all. Certainly it can be said that he favored the new testament, pointing Christians consistently and insistently toward Christ as the ultimate paradigm for Christian living. he even wrote, “it is not easy to have both the old and the new testaments, for the o. t. contains altogether different categories.”2 in this passage he equates the old testament with the hope for worldly felicity, a hope that it is at odds with the Christian imperative to renounce the world in order see, for example, l. Joseph rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman publishers 1994; timothy polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997; Jolita pons, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004; matthias engelke, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmz-verlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3). 2 SKS 18, 188, JJ:146 / KJN 2, 174. 1

232

Lori Unger Brandt

to gain eternity. according to Kierkegaard, the Christian recognition that suffering is an intrinsic aspect of a faithful life is obscured or even contradicted in the old testament’s expectation of worldly blessings.3 the worldliness of the old testament is so troubling to Kierkegaard that he writes, “in Christendom one finds that almost all of the more pious errors are connected with elevating the old testament to the level of equality with the new testament, instead of the new testament always presupposing the old testament in order to make itself negatively recognizable.”4 in this apparent tendency to downplay the old testament Kierkegaard was the product of his lutheran environment. ever since the reformation, the lutheran identification of the essential gospel message with the theme of justification by grace had tended to privilege the new testament narratives of Jesus’ atoning work and paul’s articulation of a theology of grace. the old testament was of derivative value insofar as it could be seen as presaging the gospel of god’s gracious love clearly revealed in Christ, or as expressing the theme of “law” that served as the necessary presupposition for the theme of grace. For example, for luther, the psalms were crucially significant because they implicitly proclaim salvation through Christ, and the law was vital because it awakens an awareness of the need for grace.5 in different ways, both the enlightenment and pietism contributed to the continuation of this tendency to accord a much higher priority to the new testament. philipp Jacob spener (1635–1705), the influential Pietist writer who encouraged a renewed concern for the experiential dimension of the Christian life, emphasized the cultivation of faith through the reading of the epistles of the new testament, which describe, exemplify, and encourage the growth of heart-felt identification with Christ, and consequently tended to ignore the old testament.6 at most the old testament articulated the promises of God, many of which had been fulfilled in the New Testament, and some of which were still to be fulfilled in the future consummation.7 august hermann Francke (1663–1727), another widely-read pietist, revitalized the deeply engrained lutheran propensity to search for Christ as the true although often hidden subject matter of every portion of the old testament.8 Friedrich schleiermacher (1768– 1834), in many ways a product of pietism, may have pushed this trajectory to its logical conclusion by suggesting that at the experiential level the Christian faith was

3 see paul martens, “authority, apostleship, and the difference between Kierkegaard’s old and new testaments,” in The Book on Adler, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2008 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 24), pp. 121–41. 4 SKS 25, 365, nB29:102 / JP 2, 2225. 5 see, for example, martin luther, Dictata super Psalterium, in Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, weimar: hermann Böhlau 1883ff., vol. 55, part i, pp. 6–25. 6 philipp Jakob spener, Das nötige und nützliche Lesen der Heiligen Schrifft: mit einigen darzu dienlichen Erinnerungen in einer Vorrede über die Bibel, Frankfurt and leipzig: heinichen 1704, pp. 1–159. 7 philipp Jakob spener, Vertheidigung des Zeugnüsses von der Ewigen Gottheit Unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, als des eingebohrnen Sohns vom Vater, Frankfurt: zunner 1706. 8 see B. Augusti Hermanni Franckii Introductio in Psalterium Generalis et Specialis, halle: orphanotropheum 1734.

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

233

essentially different from the religion expressed in the old testament.9 meanwhile, the Enlightenment’s disparagement of non-universal, culturally specific behavioral codes (such as the dietary laws in hebrew scriptures) reinforced the habit of relegating the old testament to a secondary status in the canon, as can be seen in Johann salomo semler’s (1725–91) contention that the “word of god” is absent in most portions of the old testament.10 an interpretive trajectory represented by Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849) qualified this marginalization of the old testament by construing the ancient texts as the historical record of the gradual maturation of certain religious concepts that possess universal value, such as the holiness of god.11 however, the parochialism and ethnic particularism of postexilic Judaism inhibited the blossoming of these concepts, which only came into full bloom in the New Testament. Even here the Old Testament’s significance was a function of its role as a precursor to the new testament. hans lassen martensen (1808–84), Kierkegaard’s theology tutor and later bishop, agreed with de wette that the hebrew scriptures exhibit a progressive revelation of divine truth, arguing that the old testament is a culturally limited expression of the general truth that god seeks reconciliation with all people.12 like his ancestors in the lutheran tradition, martensen interpreted the old testament typologically, seeing individual passages as shadows and figures of Jesus’ manifestation of God. All these multifarious influences contributed to a theological ethos that relegated the old testament to a subordinate status and rendered its significance problematic. Kierkegaard’s orientation toward the new testament was no accident. Yet despite this preference for the new testament, Kierkegaard wrestled significantly with texts from the Old Testament time and again, seeking to glean meaning from its pages. he obviously knew the old testament well, for he quoted it variously and widely, at times throwing in an off-hand allusion to an obscure passage, and at other times delving deeply and prolongedly into a particular text, engaging its pathos and agonizing at length over its significance for the Christian life. Sometimes he interpreted old testament texts from the perspective of the new testament, manifesting the form of biblical supersessionism and hermeneutic christocentrism that saturated his theological environment, and other times he allowed old testament stories to speak for themselves. For a writer and theologian who clearly called the church to account for falling away from its new testament paradigm, what is Kierkegaard’s purpose for wrestling at all with the old testament? understanding Kierkegaard’s use of the old testament is further complicated by his use of various and diverse authorial voices and personae, each of which has 9 Friedrich schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsä[t]zen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt, vols. 1–2, 3rd unchanged ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1835–36, vol. 2, pp. 346–51 (AKSB 258). 10 Johann salomo semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canon, vols. 1–4, 2nd ed., halle: hemmerde 1776 [1771–75], vol. 1, pp. 28–36. 11 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 7–179 (ASKB 80). 12 hans lassen martensen, Den christelige Dogmatik, C.a. reitzel 1849, pp. 228–35 (ASKB 653).

234

Lori Unger Brandt

a unique approach to the text and a distinct reason for using scripture. these voices embody the various perspectives and approaches to reading scripture prevalent in his culture, taking on by turns the character of a consummate aesthete, the respected voice of a paragon of civic piety and reasonableness, and the voice of an individual who ambivalently considers the possibility of faith, to name a few. assuming that his readers embody these perspectives, and that these perspectives may impede the development of genuine Christian passions, Kierkegaard adopts various personae, purporting to share his readers’ assumptions and biases in order that he might demonstrate their folly and free them from their power.13 as l. Joseph rosas demonstrates, when Kierkegaard writes as an aesthete, he alludes to scripture as he would to shakespeare, with no particular appeal to its authority.14 in these instances, he might as easily have replaced these allusions with a secular reference with no change in his meaning or purpose.15 as the respected voice of society’s commonsense and ethical values, as with Judge william in Either/ Or, part two, Kierkegaard claims scripture as authoritative in the sense that it “underscores the ethical universal,” smoothing over apparent inconsistencies and harmonizing difficult passages in order to preserve the natural valuational order of the universe.16 others of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms, like de silentio in Fear and Trembling, dwell on the stories of the old testament, at times agonizing over the repellant and attractive dimensions of the faith exhibited by old testament characters and wondering how one could ever achieve a faith such as theirs.17 all of these differ from Kierkegaard’s own voice as articulated in his treatment of Job in his earlier edifying discourses18 as well as in his later treatment of david and nathan in For Self-Examination,19 which, though not devoid of the indirect strategies and careful construction of authorial personae evidenced in his pseudonym works, at least seem to more explicitly express his own espoused convictions. these personae, given their well-defined dispositions and biases, portray irreconcilably different postures toward scripture in general and the old testament in particular. Kierkegaard’s various voices, in one breath saying one thing and in the next saying something markedly different, make it rather difficult to discern any coherent reading strategy when it comes to his treatment of the old testament. one must take care not to ascribe to Kierkegaard attributes and positions that he meant only to caricature. how might one discern what Kierkegaard really thought about the use of scripture during any period of his career, particularly what he thought about the appropriate employment of the old testament? see lee C. Barrett, Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: abingdon press 2010, pp. 17–24. 14 rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, p. 61. see, for example, the host of literary allusions, biblical and non-biblical, in “diapsalmata,” in SKS 2, 27–52 / EO1, 1–43. 15 rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, p. 61. 16 ibid., p. 62. 17 SKS 4, 105–19 / FT, 9–23. 18 SKS 5, 116–28 / EUD, 109–24. 19 SKS 13, 64–6 / FSE, 37–9. 13

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

235

in order to get at the differences among Kierkegaard’s various voices concerning the ways that they treat the old testament, i propose to use david Kelsey’s set of hermeneutical questions as outlined in Proving Doctrine: Uses of Scripture in Modern Theology.20 Kelsey designed his questions having observed the odd phenomenon that while many theologians make use of scripture, their reasons for doing so and what they mean to accomplish by its use can vary substantially. as such, he proposes a series of questions intended to diagnose the use of scripture in a theological argument and thereby distinguish one use from another. i will use them to diagnose how Kierkegaard in his various voices uses scripture in general, focusing on his use of old testament texts in particular. Kelsey’s questions are as follows: 1. what aspects of scripture are taken to be authoritative? that is, does the author appeal to the doctrinal teachings in scripture, to the historical reports, to the poetic symbols, to the narrative patterns, to the paradigmatic characters, to the moral codes, or what? 2. what is it about this aspect of scripture that makes it authoritative? is it, for example, authoritative because it is divinely inspired? or was the experience of the author uniquely profound? or is the truth of the text corroborated by human reason and experience? or does the text function successfully in the life of a community? 3. what logical force is given to the text? For example, does it demand obedience to a precept? does it inspire the emulation of an exemplary character? does it evoke a certain type of experiential response? Does it invite reflection about human life? Does it teach theological propositions? 4. how is the cited scripture brought to bear on theological proposals so as to authorize them? For example, are they used as direct evidence to support a conclusion about matters of faith and practice? or do they function more indirectly as background assumptions that help structure a general frame of reference?21

while Kelsey intended these questions to apply to the use of scripture as a whole, we will restrict our inquiry to representative samples of Kierkegaard’s uses of the old testament as illustrated by the aesthetic sensibility of the young man in Either/ Or, part one, the ethical perspective of Judge william in Either/Or, part two, the uncertain and awe-struck attitude of Johannes de silentio in Fear and Trembling, and the more exhortatory voice in “the lord gave, the lord hath taken away,” in Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1843. each of these personae would answer Kelsey’s questions differently; engaging them through each of these lenses will offer a sense of Kierkegaard’s various purposes and intentions in his old testament references.22 doing so will bring into relief the vast differences among them and demonstrate a david Kelsey, Proving Doctrine: Uses of Scripture in Modern Theology, philadelphia: trinity press international 1999. 21 ibid., p. 15. 22 other scholars, such as rosas, have applied Kelsey’s framework to Kierkegaard’s writing, assuming that it is possible to reduce Kierkegaard’s use of scripture to a simple formula. Kierkegaard’s multiple personalities, however, make such a singular application of Kelsey impossible, since his use of scripture is as variable and internally divergent as his personae. see rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, pp. 147–9. 20

236

Lori Unger Brandt

trajectory in his work, pointing toward a mode of engaging scripture that was, for him, more authentic and more reflective of what he understood to be true Christian practice. II. What Aspects of Scripture are Taken to be Authoritative? For the aesthete, the answer to this first question is, quite simply, any feature of the text that can capture the imagination or spark creative reflection. For the aesthete, the old testament, and all of scripture for that matter, has no regulative authority in regard to the conduct of life. it is not the moral precepts, behavioral codes, or didactic portions that have power for him. rather, it is the Bible’s intriguing metaphors, images, and anecdotes that attract his attention. The Bible has no more significance than any other literary reference that the aesthete might make; he could just as easily use don Juan or shakespeare to illustrate his point if the reference were suitable. he tosses around allusions and references to scripture as he might throw confetti, adorning his argument with witticisms derived from cultural trivia. For example, when questioned whether he has remained faithful to his aesthetic ideal, he playfully yet resolutely insists that the secret is “like samson’s hair, which no delilah shall wrest from me.”23 elsewhere, he describes the genesis of boredom, improvising on the adam and eve story and stating, “the gods were bored, therefore they created human beings. adam was bored because he was alone; therefore eve was created. since that moment, boredom entered the world.”24 these references illustrate the aesthete’s delightfully indifferent posture toward the old testament; scripture for him is a literary foil for his witty repartee and nothing more. the use of the Bible as a source of illustrations of human passions and actions was by no means unique to Kierkegaard’s “aesthetic” pseudonyms. For decades the Bible had been treated as a rich reservoir of examples of human foibles, vices, and virtues by the influential authors of the amorphous and multi-faceted Romantic movement. in their pages the Bible was used in the same manner as shakespeare’s plays or greek and roman mythology. the old testament was a particularly fertile resource for their dramatic purposes, for the characters in the old testament loved and hated with passionate intensity. Kierkegaard was very familiar with this way of using the Bible, for he devoted a great deal of attention to the works of Friedrich schlegel (1772–1829), whose complete works he owned and commented upon, in which this tendency is obvious.25 in his essays, poetry, and translations schlegel could jump from old testament stories to hindu mythology and greek legends, treating them as being on a par. this habit of treating much of the old testament as another mythological expression of primitive human experience, akin to the lore of the ancient greeks and egyptians, had been indirectly fostered by the work of the biblical scholar Johann gottfried eichhorn (1752–1827), who regarded myths, including the mythic patterns SKS 2, 424 / EO1, 437. see Judges 16. SKS 2, 276 / EO1, 286. see gen 1–2. 25 see Friedrich Schlegel’s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, vienna: Jakob mayer 1822–25, vol. 9, pp. 199–312; vol. 10, pp. 267–356 (ASKB 1816–1825). see Kierkegaard’s discussion of schlegel’s irony in SKS 1, 302–15 / CI, 265–79. 23 24

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

237

in genesis, as the primal language of humankind.26 eichhorn shared this fascination with the poetically expressive, mythic language of the old testament with Johann gottfried herder (1744–1803) whose works Kierkegaard owned.27 the romantic spirit, including its tendency to assimilate the old testament to other mysterious ancient literature, pervaded the ethos of golden age Copenhagen and would have been part of the cultural air that Kierkegaard breathed.28 the aesthete’s use of the old testament as a reservoir of literary allusions, many of them of a mythic sort, is an extreme expression of a widespread cultural phenomenon with many roots, including roots in biblical studies. Kierkegaard’s Judge william is another matter, however. Contrary to the aesthete, he treats scripture with respect, quoting the text with reverence and with all seriousness. he is more selective than the aesthete and typically appeals to particular aspects of scripture: the moral precepts and stories of virtuous behavior. which passages of the old testament he selects, however, depends upon how well they correspond to his prior ethical commitments. in the case of Either/Or, part two, he chooses his authoritative canon accordingly, lifting out passages that highlight his ethical program. in that volume, Judge william argues convincingly against the young aesthete’s single-minded pursuit of aesthetic fulfillment as an end-in-itself, suggesting that while aesthetic happiness is an appropriate and desirable end within a marriage relationship, it can only be obtained in any lasting way through the pursuit of duty. as such, he uses and evaluates old testament passages according to how well they stack up against his program of synthesizing ethics and aesthetics. For example, he cites genesis 2:18, saying, “and god said, i will make a companion for adam,” an expression which he says, “has just as much esthetic warmth as it has truth.”29 however, he prefers the church’s emphasis of the verses following genesis 2:18. although the aforementioned expression already “has just as much esthetic warmth as it has truth,” the church adds the even more aesthetically delightful and ethically appropriate teaching from genesis 2:24 that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife.”30 this addendum pleases the Judge because it defies our expectation that a woman, being weaker and being the derivative companion, would be expected to leave her family to become one with her husband. instead, the scriptural expression takes a gallant turn, elevating the woman’s importance and thereby increasing the aesthetic value of the woman and the value of the text as a support for the synthesis of ethics and aesthetics. the Judge ignores the innumerable passages in the old testament that ostensibly legitimate the subservience of women. his prior commitment to the integration of the ethical and

Johann gottfried eichhorn, Urgeschichte, in Repertorium fur biblische und morgenländische Litteratur, vols. 1–18, leipzig: weidmann 1777–86, vol. 4, pp. 129–256. 27 see Johann Gottfried Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 2, pp. 175–280 (ASKB 1676–1684). 28 see george pattison, Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2002, pp. 116–36. 29 SKS 3, 96 / EO2, 92. 30 ibid. 26

238

Lori Unger Brandt

aesthetic dimensions of life determines his functional canon in regard to the issue of marriage. Judge william’s logically prior commitment to the integration of the ethical and the aesthetic is further confirmed by the notable absence of other biblical texts that do not square with his argument that marriage is an ethical and aesthetic good. nowhere in his defense of marriage as an ethical and aesthetic good does he address paul’s affirmation that it is good for a man not to marry,31 nor Jesus’ retort to the pharisees that “in the resurrection (people) neither marry nor are given in marriage.”32 though he saturates his argument with scriptural references from both testaments to the duty to marry and to an affirmation of the aesthetic delights of marriage, he tellingly chooses to completely ignore these texts that contradict his argument entirely. For the Judge, only those scriptures which align with his prior ethical and rational commitments hold any authority. Judge william’s approach to the Bible, selectively appropriating certain didactic passages as examples of moral precepts and values, is similar to a tendency that had been present in continental protestant european theology for at least 75 years. Johann Salomo Semler (1725–91), an extraordinarily influential professor at Halle, proposed that Christian faith, like all religion, is primarily the inner intuitive conviction of the truth of universal moral principles and values.33 on the basis of this claim, semler distinguished the historically conditioned dimensions of scripture, appropriate only for the cultural contexts of ancient civilizations, from the enduringly authoritative aspects.34 accordingly, for semler the only criterion for determining the abiding canonicity of a biblical text was its capacity to express a universal moral truth. only the passages that express such truths can be taken as truly inspired and authoritative. semler tended to dismiss the books of ruth, Chronicles, esther, ezra, and nehemiah and all the genealogies as being little more than the historical records of an ancient people,35 while he valued psalms, proverbs, ecclesiates, Job, and the later prophets as repositories of universal moral and spiritual truths.36 this hermeneutic trajectory was extended by Johann philipp gabler (1753–1826) at Jena37 and georg lorenz Bauer (1755–1806) at altdorf,38 whose works identify the essentially authoritative portions of scripture with those passages that can be harmonized with self-evident moral and religious truths. Kierkegaard would have been familiar with these views

see 1 Cor 7:1. see mt 22:30. 33 semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canon. 34 ibid., vol. 1, pp. 58–61. 35 ibid., vol. 1, pp. 27–36. 36 ibid., vol. 1, pp. 42–63. 37 Johann philipp gabler, “de iusto discrimene theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utriusque finibus,” in D. Johann Philipp Gabler’s kleinere theologische Schriften. Opuscula Academica, ed. by theodor august gabler and Johann philipp gabler, vols. 1–2, ulm: stettin 1831, vol. 2, pp. 179–98. 38 georg lorenz Bauer, Handbuch der Geschichte der hebräischen Nation von ihrer Entstehung bis zur Zerstörung ihres Staates, vols. 1–2, nürnberg and altdorf: J.C. monrath and J.F. Kussler 1800–04, vol. 1, pp. 1–42. 31 32

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

239

through the lectures of henrik nicolai Clausen (1793–1877)39 and through the articles contained in the three volumes of Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie which he owned.40 moreover, a tendency to equate Christianity with the moral principles of northern european culture was evident in Balle’s Catechism, one of the basic texts used in Kierkegaard’s childhood religious formation, which had been written by the mildly rationalistic and very civic-minded Bishop nicolai Balle (1744–1816).41 unlike Judge william, but like Kierkegaard’s aesthete, Johannes de silentio does not privilege old testament passages that express absolute or universal ethical imperatives or duties. indeed, he makes no claim to being a Christian at all and his perspective is that of an outsider looking in. he does not align himself with a community that looks to the Bible to find didactic passages that would be normative for faith and practice. Yet he is inexplicably drawn in by the scriptural depictions of faithful individuals, particularly by one story in the old testament, and is captivated by its drama and endlessly fascinated as much by what it does not say as by what it does say. For de silentio, the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, if any of Scripture is pertinent to human life or is worthy of intensive reflection, it is certain types of stories in the Bible, stories with characters and plotlines, into which a person can immerse oneself and wonder what one might feel or do in the same situation. The characters with whom he identifies become paradigms of faith, persons he himself never expects to be able to emulate, but whom he holds up as paragons of genuine faith in god. while he makes other references and allusions to scripture, his most characteristic use of an old testament text is his angst-ridden contemplation of abraham taking isaac to slaughter him as an offering at god’s command.42 what confounds de silentio is precisely that the story flies in the face of the most basic ethical universal: the duty to protect offspring and ensure the well-being of future generations. De silentio is astonished, horrified, and fascinated that a father might be willing to kill his own son, the very fulfillment of God’s promise, at the command of that same god.43 unlike the Judge, he cannot simply write off the text because it is out of line with his ethical priorities. rather, he is compelled to struggle deeply as he imagines how abraham must have struggled, wondering how he can remain faithful to a god who would ask such a thing of him. as such, he turns the story over and over in his mind, finding himself sleepless as he imagines Abraham’s motivations and state of mind. did he attempt to shelter god from blame, thinking it better for SKS 19, 9–13, not1:2. see Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38 (ASKB 354–357); see especially: Bruno Bauer “der mosaische ursprung der gesetzgebung des pentateuch,” vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 140–81; Bruno Bauer, “der alttestamentliche hintergrund im evangelium des Johannes,” vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 158–204; Bruno Bauer, “die neueren Commentare zu den psalmen, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 217–52; Bruno Bauer, “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 125–210. 41 nicolai edinger Balle, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion indrettet til Brug i de danske Skoler, Copenhagen: J.h. schultz 1824, pp. 1–120 (ASKB 183). 42 SKS 4, 105–19 / FT, 9–23. see gen 22:1–19. 43 SKS 4, 154–5 / FT, 60–1. 39 40

240

Lori Unger Brandt

isaac to believe his father to be a monster than to lose faith in god? did he resent God’s directive, silently obedient but forever after joyless? Was he horrified at his willingness, agonizing over the question of which was the greater sin: to be willing to sacrifice the child of his heart or to disobey in order to be true to a father’s duty toward his son?44 de silentio ponders all of these things, marveling at abraham’s faith and wondering who could ever understand it.45 though he himself will never comprehend the faith of such a hero of faith and is not himself bound by the authority of abraham’s paradigm, he understands deeply that comprehension will never come without real struggle. it is most appropriate, he contends, to be made sleepless by abraham, even if one never hopes to understand.46 Kierkegaard, when writing in his own voice, most often employs a similar strategy to that of de silentio in dealing with a biblical text. that is, he also regards narrative paradigms as being the aspect of scripture that holds the most authority. the difference, for Kierkegaard, is that the authority he ascribes to those paradigms is real; he actually thinks a Christian can and should be bound by the examples set by persons of faith as narrated in scripture, whether they function as positive examples of attitudes and actions to be emulated or as negative examples of attitudes and actions to be eschewed. For Kierkegaard, paradigms are most profound when they confound ordinary human commonsensical assumptions and expectations, for it is within the paradoxical tension between biblical paradigm and common sense that true faith arises. his discourse on Job is a prime example of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical priorities.47 Job, having lost everything and having every reason to curse god, chooses instead to open his heart despite his pain and to respond in gratitude to god.48 like de silentio, Kierkegaard imagines different responses that Job could have chosen, especially since it was god and no human agent who took all that was dear from him. Kierkegaard wonders how Job was able to summon the faith to respond in blessing rather than vitriol. however, unlike de silentio, Kierkegaard concludes that Job’s response to god, far from being incomprehensible and therefore untenable, is to be an example to all people. despite the paradox, or maybe because of it, Kierkegaard insists that every Christian should be able to walk in the valley of the shadow of death and still bless god. For Kierkegaard, Job is a pattern for all to learn from and to follow. in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Kierkegaard makes this explicit, describing Job as “one of those glorious prototypes,” and as “a tried and tested person who passed the test” as we all should strive to do.49 For Kierkegaard, when writing in his own voice, the old testament is a fertile source of these paradigms, paradoxically confounding human categories and pointing the church to a new and deeper relationship with god.

SKS 4, 105–11 / FT, 9–14. SKS 4, 111 / FT, 14. 46 SKS 4, 125 / FT, 28. 47 søren Kierkegaard, “the lord gave, and the lord took away, Blessed Be the name of the lord,” in SKS 5, 116–28 / EUD, 109–24. 48 SKS 5, 124–8 / EUD, 121–4. see Job 1:21. 49 SKS 8, 379 / UD, 284. 44 45

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

241

Kierkegaard’s own use of the old testament, using biblical characters to manifest various aspects of the dialectic of sin and faith, may have roots in one aspect of the Pietist movement that figured so prominently in his religious formation. For such proto-pietist authors as Johann arndt (1555–1621), the religious struggles of the characters in the old testament, including abraham, david, and solomon, prefigure the tensions between sin and faith in the Christian life.50 Consequently, the proper context for interpreting the old testament is the journey of the individual Christian from unbelief to sanctification. Kierkegaard owned collections of Arndt’s works,51 and books of pietist hymns and devotional literature, including the writings of gerhard teerstegen (1697–1769).52 this tradition of applying old testament themes to the development of piety was continued in a more academic fashion by Friedrich August Gotttreu Tholuck (1799–1877), who was influenced in his biblical studies by schleiermacher’s focus on Christian subjectivity.53 hermann olshausen (1796–1839), whose biblical commentaries Kierkegaard used extensively, practiced this hermeneutic method of treating old testament characters as paradigms and types for the Christian life. For example, he approvingly followed the lead of paul in regarding the characters of sarah and hagar from genesis as being symbols of the tensions in the Christian soul.54 Kierkegaard’s non-pseudonymous tendency to concentrate on old testament stories of faithful and faithless individuals as the most essential portions of the texts was not entirely without precedent. III. What is it about this Aspect of the Old Testament that Makes it Authoritative? not only do Kierkegaard’s various personae appeal to different aspects of the old Testament, but they do so for different reasons. They find the Old Testament’s significance and/or authority to be rooted in very different considerations. For the aesthete, the text does not have authority because it is sanctioned by a community or because its source is divine revelation. rather, its images have an intrinsic evocative power that is effective in witty repartee. the cultural familiarity of these images adds to their utility as evocative conversational references. For example, the author of the “diapsalmata” refers to the crossing of the red sea, and the uniform redness Johann arndt, Sämtliche geistreiche Bücher vom wahren Christentum, welche handeln von heilsamer Buße, herzlicher Reue und Leid über die Sünde, wahrem Glauben, auch heiligem Leben und Wandel der rechten wahren Christen, 2nd new ed., tübingen: Berger 1737 (ASKB 276). 51 ibid.; see also Johann arndt, Fire Bøger om den sande Christendom, new translation, Christiania: Chr. grøndahl 1829 (ASKB 277). 52 see Des gottseligen Arbeiters im Weinberge des Herrn: Gerhard Tersteegen’s… gesammelte Schriften, parts 1–8 in vols. 1–4, vol. 1, stuttgart: l.F. rieger, vols. 2–4, stuttgart: Becher und müller 1844–45 (ASKB 827–830). 53 Friedrich august gotttreu tholuck, Das Alte Testament im Neuen Testament: Ueber die Citate des Alten Testaments im Neuen Testament und Ueber den Opfer- und Priesterbegriff im Alten und im Neuen Testamente, hamburg: perthes 1836, pp. 1–121 (ASKB 832). 54 hermann olshausen, Biblischer Commentar über sämmtliche Schriften des Neuen Testaments, vols. 1–4, 3rd ed., Königsberg: unzer 1837–40, vol. 4, pp. 80–98 (ASKB 96–100). see gen 15:16 and gal 4:21–31. 50

242

Lori Unger Brandt

of the water in which the egyptians drowned, in conveying a sense of the uniformity of his mood simply because the image is intriguingly suggestive and his audience is familiar with the episode.55 used craftily, even obscure references from the old testament can delight his audience and impress his conversation partners. thus, its literary potency and cultural familiarity make scripture useful, but these factors do not require that it be used in any authoritative way. Judge william ascribes some authority to scripture because it is a part of a grand tradition; in his context it can be taken for granted that the Bible should function as a necessary conversation partner in any dialogue of substance. as part of that tradition, scripture must be reckoned with, both the new testament and the old, but at no time does scripture shape the conversation. dialogue originates with his ethical ideals, controlling the agenda and dictating priorities. as peter mehl indicates, the Judge’s religious claims (and his use of scripture) strike one more as “a rhetorical effort designed to sing the praises of a way of life” than as a necessary and contributing factor in the formulating of the Christian life.56 For Judge william, it is rather a happy moment when the dictates of scripture harmonize with what he already believes, happy because he would like to treat scripture as having authority. however, such authority is not based on any intrinsic feature of the text such as a divinely inspired origin or the credentials of its authors. rather, scripture’s prominent place within the dominant culture requires that he engage the text, and it gains authority only as it is confirmed by his previously established ethical commitments. Parts of the old testament can be taken as authoritative because they mesh with values and principles his civic-minded culture already cherishes. de silentio is very different, for the power of old testament stories such as the near-sacrifice of Isaac is not based on their correspondence to a culture’s ethical assumptions. de silentio seems surprised by his own captivation by the text and is unsettled by his yearning for the kind of faith he finds described in its pages. He comes to the text not intending for it to hold any necessary regulative authority for his life. he does not say to himself that he must emulate abraham no matter what, although he is keenly aware that the Christian tradition has treated abraham as a paradigm of faith. rather, de silentio discovers that the story will not let him go. as such, if there is anything about certain old testament stories that is authoritative for de silentio, it is to be found in his experiential encounter with the text, as he struggles unsuccessfully to place himself within the paradigms of faith that he finds there. The paradoxical faith of Abraham, for example, is too much for de silentio to find viable, but he is gripped by the very idea that anyone could have such a faith as abraham’s. If anything in the Scriptures would be sufficiently authoritative to move him from his silent observation, it would be the power of these paradigms of paradoxical faith to stimulate strong feelings of attraction and repulsion. However, he finds them

SKS 2, 37 / EO1, 28. peter J. mehl, “moral virtue, mental health, and happiness: the moral psychology of Kierkegaard’s Judge william,” in Either/Or Part II, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1995 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 4), p. 182. 55 56

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

243

impossible to live out, despite his experience of a destabilizing encounter with them, and thus does not take them to be normative for his own life. Kierkegaard, writing in his own voice, has different reasons for engaging scripture and the stories of the old testament in particular, although his reasons have significant overlaps with the attraction of de silentio to the text. Contrary to all three of the other voices illustrated here, Kierkegaard uses scripture because it is effective in the formation of true Christians; said otherwise, it works. For example, Kierkegaard writes glowingly of Job’s inner struggles, assuming that his readers will initially feel the spiritual magnificence of Job and be attracted to the joy of his final praising of God. Even when emphasizing the more sobering theme that Job experienced the sorrow of being “continually in the wrong with god,”57 Kierkegaard shows how this recognition of inadequacy is itself the basis of the joy of relying upon god for all things. Kierkegaard relishes the paradoxical nature of these stories because in the struggle to identify with them, Christians are expelled from their complacency and urged toward a more authentic way of being. as timothy polk suggests, Kierkegaard approaches the text as though it carried a contagion: if we read it we might catch it,58 and in catching it, we might be transformed by it. through the witness of these stories, says Kierkegaard, god helps us to understand them despite their paradoxical quality and then helps us to do them.59 used appropriately, passages from the old testament can do more than stimulate unsettling fascination, as with de silentio; they can also help catalyze a desire and commitment to grow in faith. IV. What Logical Force is Given to the Text? For the aesthete, the text has no authority to govern the conduct of life and thus has no imperative force. old testament passages do not command, inspire, instruct, or exhort. parts of the text do resonate, however, with his experience as a human being, in the same way that other great works of literature might. in a moment of candor, the aesthete declares in Either/Or, part one, “this is the reason my soul always turns back to the old testament and to shakespeare. i feel that those who speak there are at least human beings.”60 the logical force ascribed to the text in this instance is an evocative force, eliciting a feeling of resonance with his experience of what it means to be human, perhaps deepening that experience, but stopping short of challenging him to reach beyond his own immediately given human experience. For the Judge, although scripture has little compelling force by itself, it functions in subordinate ways to shape the life of one who reads it. of course, rather than being based primarily on moral directives in the biblical text, one’s ethical commitments are logically prior to any reading of the text. engagement with scripture, for Judge william, is governed by the evaluation of its validity in light of greater ethical principles, and the text exerts no independent imperative force upon the reader. For 57 58 59 60

SKS 8, 380 / UD, 284. polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, p. 177. SKS 13, 43–4 / FSE, 14. SKS 2, 38 / EO1, 28.

244

Lori Unger Brandt

example, the Judge echoes proverbs 16:3261 in order to support his argument that true heroism is manifested in the ordinary tasks of life, particularly in the assumption of responsibility for one’s own character.62 the Judge does not base his argument upon this biblical passage; the value of the cultivation of such personal virtues as self-control is justified by a broader analysis of human experience. However, such texts still function as supporting evidence in the development of arguments that draw eclectically from Kant, hegel, and the prevailing moral ethos. the Judge affords the text a corroborative force in the justification of moral and religious imperatives and principles, acknowledging its usefulness on the basis of how well it reinforces previously held beliefs. de silentio, on the other hand, is fascinated by the prospect that the old testament story could have a shaping force in an individual’s life, but the difficulty of that way of life stays his hand. as such, the text exerts an ambivalent force upon him, teasing him by opening up a compelling, though seemingly impossible, vision of a life lived by faith. the paradoxes within the text take hold of his imagination and, though he cannot bring himself to embrace them, are the causes of his agonized musings on a sleepless night. de silentio sees this wrestling as an appropriate response to the stories; if one cannot hope to become like one of the old testament heroes of faith, one can at least dwell on the story, laboring heavily to understand it.63 here the text functions to present a paradigm of an existential possibility in a way that triggers imaginative engagement, including the daunting prospect of appropriating that paradigm. the question of force is perhaps where Kierkegaard’s non-pseudonymous voice is most distinct from the others. For where the others to greater or lesser degrees engage the text from a distance, Kierkegaard dives in, immersing himself fully in the pathos of the biblical stories, imagining himself in the story and giving himself to their paradoxes in order that he might be transformed. here the texts have both a normative force and an evocative force in stimulating certain passions and commitments. one should regard the texts as norms to govern one’s life and be open to their transformative potential. For Kierkegaard, the meaning of the texts cannot be grasped without paying attention to the passions and purposes appropriate to them, a practice which should lead to a new capacity to live the Christian life.64 Kierkegaard articulates this vision of the power of biblical texts to engender greater inwardness and self-reflection in For Self-Examination. in order to read the text as it ought to be read, one must first understand it to be the Word of God—that is, reading not as an intellectual exercise that has little to do with the way one lives one’s life, but as though it could speak into the very heart of a person—and then choose a posture of obedience toward the text, allowing scripture to seep into one’s everyday life and thus to be transformed by it.65 Kierkegaard writes, “if i open it [scripture]—any “one who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city.” 62 SKS 3, 282 / EO2, 298. 63 SKS 4, 104 / FT, 9. 64 see Barrett, Kierkegaard, pp. 18–19. 65 SKS 13, 58–9 / FSE, 31. 61

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

245

passage—it traps me at once; it asks me (indeed, it is as if it were god himself who asked me): have you done what you read there?”66 scripture, he says, is to be a mirror in which to see oneself, which becomes a mantra Kierkegaard repeats over and over. “when you read god’s word,” he writes, “in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: it is i to whom it is speaking; it is i about whom it is speaking.”67 according to Kierkegaard, scripture for Christians has an imperative force that compels its readers to subjectively engage with the text so as to enact what one finds there. interestingly, despite his lament that in the current state of Christendom “the new testament is…no longer the guide (handbook) for Christians,”68 Kierkegaard uses the old testament as well as the new to issue unconditional imperatives. For Kierkegaard, old testament models of faith as well as those characters who fail miserably as faithful followers of god function very well as a mirror. indeed, he chooses to demonstrate his point with the story of King david, who, having stolen a man’s wife and having sent him to be killed, failed to see himself in nathan’s parable of the wealthy man who stole a poor man’s only lamb despite having flocks of his own.69 according to Kierkegaard, nathan’s story functioned for King david as a mirror, directing his gaze to the horrible truth of his actions and inviting him to a new course of action. as such, when encountering the mirror of scripture, we are to place ourselves within the stories and, having so entered, to identify ourselves with the characters, saying, “it is i,” when the example set is in error, and, “it is not i,” when the model is righteous.70 V. How is the Cited Scripture Brought to Bear on Theological Proposals so as to Authorize Them? in the history of Christianity, sometimes biblical motifs have functioned as direct evidence for the justification of a proposed belief, ethical value, or course of action, while at other times they have functioned more indirectly to create an ideological environment in which decisions about faith and practice are made. Kelsey’s last question, dealing with this difference, is moot for the first of our case studies. For the aesthete, scripture authorizes nothing and so is never brought to bear in a normative way, either directly or indirectly, on any proposal concerning the proper conduct of life. Judge william, on the other hand, does use texts selectively to support prior ethical claims, but he does not treat them as decisive evidence from which a conclusion about the moral life could be directly drawn. he does not argue: the old testament stipulates such-and-such, and therefore we must engage in such-and-such a behavior or adopt such-and-such a policy. rather, his citations function as a sort of backing to reinforce his ethical commitments; they are background components 66 67 68 69 70

ibid. SKS 13, 63 / FSE, 36. SKS 13, 165 / M, 123. SKS 13, 65 / FSE, 38. SKS 13, 68 / FSE, 41.

Lori Unger Brandt

246

of his general ethical sensibility. By buttressing his convictions (such as the role of duty in the stabilization of intimate relationships), old testament allusions only indirectly authorize proposals about the proper way to live, for it is the convictions themselves that lead to behavioral proposals (such as the exhortation to the young aesthete to get married). For the Judge, scripture carries no inherent unconditional authority that might temper those ethical and religious convictions or dissuade him from following them. de silentio seems to wish that scripture could be brought to bear upon his life so as to transform it, but despairs that it is impossible without miraculous empowerment from god. Biblical stories do sketch out the contours of a way of life, only for de silentio it is an inaccessible way of life. interestingly, here such stories as the nearsacrifice of Isaac do function as direct evidence for the sketching of a way of life. de silentio appeals to the example of abraham in order to explore what the life of faith would be like. in fact, the story of abraham functions as a unique sort of very direct evidence, leading to the disturbing conclusion that faith involves a paradoxical dialectic of renunciation and hope, of resignation and expectation. these three ways of bringing scripture to bear on questions of how to live all lack one characteristic that Kierkegaard takes to be essential for a Christian use of scripture: the willingness to actually bring the paradigms of faith to bear on the way one thinks and on the way one acts. writing in his own voice, Kierkegaard insists that a properly devotional reading of scripture involves bringing it to bear directly and intimately on the life of the one reading. he has nothing good to say about impersonal and scholarly readings of the text, claiming with rancor that such practices provide a cunning and convenient distance between the reader and the word, allowing the reader to “go on living and pretend nothing has happened.”71 such unwillingness to place oneself into a subjective relationship with the text under the guise of cultured learning betrays a “dreadful non-entity into which we have been bewitched, an impersonal, objective something.”72 rather, Kierkegaard calls his readers to allow the text to enter their souls directly and subjectively through imaginative appropriation; he admonishes them to read “with fear and trembling, so that you can become human.”73 it is perhaps ironic that Kierkegaard wishes that the text of scripture could be directly brought to bear on the Christian lives of his readers when he himself employs all manner of indirect strategies to communicate his aim. Convinced that his readers are thoroughly entrenched in prevailing cultural values, he uses carefully constructed personae to create a dissonance within those values, and thus to demonstrate their folly. such attitudes and dispositions to Christianity and to the text, says Kierkegaard, do not produce authentic expressions of faith but a pale imitation, assimilated to the environing culture and bland. indeed, one of Kierkegaard’s primary purposes was to subvert the domesticated Christianity of his day, to protest the way in which Christendom had assimilated to the prevailing culture and to call Christians to authentic life in Christ. missing from this tame and 71 72 73

SKS 13, 66 / FSE, 39. SKS 13, 69 / FSE, 43. ibid.

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

247

uninspired religiosity was a requisite spiritual dissonance that could prompt genuine religious passion. By donning his various personae, Kierkegaard hoped to heighten this dissonance, inviting his readers into the chaos of paradox and immersing them in the struggle of faith, hoping to wake them from their socially respectable slumber. it could be said that Kierkegaard uses certain old testament texts as one of his indirect strategies, a way to engage slumbering Christians in the radical good news of the new testament gospel message. how exactly he uses an old testament text in any particular work depends on that work’s authorial voice and rhetorical purpose. sometimes, in the aesthetic literature, he will appeal to any old testament image or phrase simply because it has rhetorical power and is useful for evoking the desired imaginative response in the reader. sometimes, in the persona of champion of civic virtue, he will allude to ethical principles and patently didactic tales in the old testament in order to indirectly reinforce moral sentiments because those passages are a respected part of the religio-cultural environment. sometimes he will appeal very directly to paradigmatic stories of faith in the old testament because those stories possess the passional power to shock the reader into recognizing the unsettling paradoxical nature of the Christian life. often, in his own voice, he will present such old testament characters as Job as paradigms of faith to be emulated, using them as direct evidence for the construction of an existential ideal with imperative force. even a cursory scan of rosas’ index of scriptural references in selected Kierkegaard works reveals that Kierkegaard drew most heavily on old testament references in his pseudonymous works, a source that significantly gives way to New Testament references in the edifying literature and more significantly in the later works penned under his own name.74 as rosas notes, many of these later works are part of a corpus that emerged after a “metamorphosis” in Kierkegaard’s life, marking a change in his authorship in which his tone was sharper and more direct.75 though he continues in his later works to employ some of the literary techniques displayed so prominently in his earlier works, he becomes more willing to play his hand, engaging in direct polemics with the environing culture and its civil religion. that he uses predominantly new testament texts in these works suggests that he continued to see in the new testament the clear core of the gospel message, particularly as it impinged upon the contemporary situation of Christendom, and thus used fewer references to the old testament. that said, it is not clear that Kierkegaard is a radical supersessionist concerning the relationship between the old testament and the new. though old testament references taper off in his later works, he continues to draw on the stories and paradigms contained in the old testament for inspiration and direction for human life, from Job to abraham to david. unlike many in his lutheran context, he did not usually look to the old testament as a source of obsolete law or to paint god as judge. rather, he sought out stories of faith in the old testament, paradigms that defy human categories and thus point the way to a more Christian life. Kierkegaard’s creation of the personae and the very particular ways in which each used scripture is not an accident. the aesthete and the ethicist instantiate ways 74 75

rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, pp. 157–96. ibid., p. 19.

Lori Unger Brandt

248

of engaging the old testament that seem to take it seriously but fail to approximate its Christian use. such ways of reading were becoming prevalent in Kierkegaard’s culture and were, according to Kierkegaard, often confused with the genuinely Christian reading strategy. perhaps in de silentio Kierkegaard is exploring an opening, a possible way in which to begin to engage the scriptures as the word of god when one is unused to doing so. perhaps that is what Kierkegaard means when he writes, in the context of a discussion of the power of a woman’s silence, “it is precisely this silence we need if god’s word is to gain a little power over people.”76 Feminist critiques aside, perhaps this statement indicates how Kierkegaard hopes to engage those who are unaccustomed to allowing themselves to be transformed by scripture. Johannes de silentio, through his wrestling with the story of abraham and isaac, models for the aesthete and for the Judge how they might eschew their habitual distance from the text and begin imaginatively to enter its paradigms of faith, however implausible, and be transformed.

76

SKS 13, 73 / FSE, 47.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss the Use of the Old Testament Balle, nikolai edinger, Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion, Copenhagen: J.h. schultz 1824, pp. 1–120 (ASKB 183). Bauer, Bruno, “der alt-testamentliche hintergrund im evangelium des Johannes,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 1, no. 2, 1836, pp. 158–204 (ASKB 354–357). —— “der mosaische ursprung der gesetzgebung des pentateuch,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 1, no. 1, 1836, pp. 140–81 (ASKB 354–357). —— “die neueren Commentare zu den psalmen,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 2, no. 1, 1837, pp. 217–52 (ASKB 354–357). —— “die urgeschichte der menschheit nach dem biblischen Berichte der genesis, kritisch untersucht,” Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Bruno Bauer, Berlin: dümmler 1836–38, vol. 3, no. 1, 1837, pp. 125–210 (ASKB 354–357). gesenius, wilhelm, Lexicon hebraicum et chaldaicum in veteris testamenti libros, leipzig: vogel 1833, pp. v-x (ASKB 72). göschel, Karl Friedrich, “der pantheismus und die genesis,” in Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, ed. by Bruno Bauer, vols. 1–3, Berlin: dümmler 1836– 38, vol. 2, pp. 184–91 (ASKB 354–357). günther, anton, Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte spekulativer Theologie. Fragment eines evangelischen Briefwechsels, vienna: bei der mechitaristenCongregations-Buchhandlung 1832, pp. 114ff. (ASKB 520). [herder, Johann gottfried], Johann Gottfried Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 2, pp. 175–280 (ASKB 1676–1684). olshausen, hermann, Biblischer Commentar über sämmtliche Schriften des Neuen Testaments, vols. 1–4, 3rd ed., Königsberg: unzer 1837–40, vol. 4, pp. 80–98 (ASKB 96–100). rosenkranz, Karl, Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, pp. 122–41 (ASKB 35). rosenmüller, ernst Friedrich Karl, Scholia in vetus testamentum in compendium redacta, vol. 1, Scholia in pentateuchum continens, leipzig: J.a. Barth 1828 (ASKB 85).

250

Lori Unger Brandt

schleiermacher, Friedrich, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsä[t]zen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt, vols. 1–2, 3rd unchanged ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1835–36, vol. 2, pp. 346–51 (AKSB 258). tholuck, Friedrich august gotttreu, Das Alte Testament im Neuen Testament. Ueber die Citate des Alten Testaments im Neuen Testament und Ueber den Opfer- und Priesterbegriff im Alten und im Neuen Testamente, hamburg: Friedrich perthes 1836, pp. 1–121 (ASKB 832). wette, wilhelm martin lebercht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in one tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 7–179 (ASKB 80). winer, georg Benedict, Biblisches Realwörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Studirende, Kandidaten, Gymnasiallehrer und Prediger, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed., leipzig: Carl heinrich reclam 1833–38, vol. 1, pp. v-xvi (ASKB 70–71). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament Barrett, lee C., Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: abingdon press 2009, pp. 12–36. damgaard, iben, “Kierkegaard og Bibelen,” in Skriftsyn og metode, ed. by s. pedersen, 2nd ed., Århus: aarhus university press 2007, pp. 170–94. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3). Fishburn, Janet, “søren Kierkegaard: exegete,” Interpretation, vol. 39, 1985, pp. 229–45. Kelsey, david, Proving Doctrine: Uses of Scripture in Modern Theology, philadelphia: trinity press international 1999, p. 15. Kloeden, wolfgang von, “Biblestudy,” in Kierkegaard’s View of Christianity, ed. by niels thulstrup and marie mikulová thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1978 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 1), pp. 16–38. martens, paul, “authority, apostleship, and the difference between Kierkegaard’s old and new testaments,” in The Book on Adler, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2008 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 24), pp. 121–41. mehl, peter J., “moral virtue, mental health, and happiness: the moral psychology of Kierkegaard’s Judge william,” in Either/Or Part II, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1995 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 4), p. 182. pedersen, Jørgen, “Kierkegaard’s view of scripture,” in The Sources and Depths of Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. by niels thulstrup and marie mikulová thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1978 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 2), pp. 27–57. polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997. pons, Jolita, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible, new York: Fordham university press 2004, pp. 69–148.

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Old Testament

251

rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994. watkin, Julia, Kierkegaard, london: Continuum 1997, pp. 69–74. —— “the letter from the lover: Kierkegaard on the Bible and Belief,” in For SelfExamination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21), pp. 287–313.

Kierkegaard’s use of the apocrypha: is it “scripture” or “good for reading”? w. glenn Kirkconnell

in his introduction to the apocrypha in his german edition of the Bible, martin Luther (1483–1546) defined the Apocrypha as “books, not equal to the Sacred scriptures, but useful and good for reading.”1 Kierkegaard was a lutheran and thus was raised and educated with this ambiguous endorsement before him. on the one hand, the books were and are still sacred to many Christians, and had been sacred scripture for all Christians for over a thousand years. on the other hand, they were not in the hebrew Bible, although they were in the greek septuagint and in the latin vulgate. moreover, the apocryphal books did not obviously point to Christ and the good news of salvation, not even in a typological manner, which was a glaring deficit because some sort of Christological reference was Luther’s most important theological criterion of canonicity. Consequently, luther put them in a separate category in his 1534 german edition of the Bible, separated from the old testament books by two blank pages. most of the translation of these apocryphal books had not even been done by luther himself but by his colleagues, philipp melanchthon (1497–1560), Caspar Cruciger (1504–48), and Justus Jonas (1493–1555). so this is where Kierkegaard found the apocryphal books: in the Bible but not quite “biblical,” more than myth or philosophy but less than sacred. how does Kierkegaard use the writings of the apocrypha, and what does his usage reveal about his attitude towards it? how does it compare to his usage of “sacred scriptures,” or of unsacred wisdom in, say, socrates? luther himself had preserved the apocryphal writings in his Bible, but certainly did not feel bound to them. For example, when erasmus (1466–1536) quoted Ecclesiasticus in support of the doctrine of free will, Luther’s first response was that since this book is not present in the hebrew text it should not be considered canonical, and that he could ignore it if he wished.2 he famously rejected the authority of 2 maccabees both for textual reasons and because of its singular endorsement of see Die Bibel oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des alten und des neuen Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers, Carlsruhe and leipzig: expedition der Carlsruher Bibel 1836 [in two parts], part 2, p. 1. 2 martin luther, De servo arbitrio, wittenberg: hans lufft 1525, pp. 125–32. (english translation: On the Bondage of the Will, in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, ed. by e. gordon rupp and philip s. watson, philadelphia: the westminster press 1969, pp. 174–8.) 1

254

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

purgatory, which he thought a particularly odious dogma.3 he appears to reluctantly allow 2 maccabees to remain in his Bible, while hoping that pious readers will themselves discern how little weight it should be given. this attitude toward the apocrypha is consistent, of course, with his treatment of a wide range of Catholic practices, particularly in his defense of images during the iconoclastic controversies with andreas von Karlstadt (1486–1541), who even more sharply differentiated the apocryphal from the canonical books and declared the apocryphal ones to be devoid of authority.4 luther preferred to make only those changes in religious practice which he thought necessary, while hoping that time and teaching would allow successive Christians to go further where desirable. the status of the apocrypha continued to be ambiguous in the lutheran tradition. The Lutheran Confessional books did not categorically define which books were canonical and which books were not. various editions of lutheran Bibles differed on which particular apocryphal books they included, with the weimar Bible of 1644 adding 3 and 4 esdras and 3 maccabees. taking a more critical stance, the chief spokesperson of lutheran orthodoxy, martin Chemnitz (1522–86), declared the apocryphal books to be neither inspired nor authoritative.5 against this hardening of protestant orthodoxy the ecumenically-minded radical pietist Johann otto glüsing (1676–1727), who had been active in establishing pietist conventicles in Copenhagen, treated the apocrypha and other non-canonical books as being equal to the canonical ones.6 the situation became even more complicated and the ambiguous status of the apocrypha even more pronounced with the rise of historical criticism. Johann salomo semler (1725–91) explored the complex history of the process of determining the shape of the canon, emphasizing the role that local contextual factors played in the decisions about which books to include, as well as the existence of differing canons among ancient palestinian and non-palestinian Jews.7 this made the concept “canon” more open-ended and diminished the difference between canonical and non-canonical books. wilhelm martin leberecht de wette (1780–1849) reiterated this theme of the fluidity of the concept of sacred writings in ancient Judaism, but did suggest that even among hellenistic Jews the apocryphal books were not regarded

martin luther, “grund und ursach aller artikel d. martin luthers, so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind,” in D. Martin Luthers Werke, vols. 1–71, weimar: hermann Böhlaus nachfolger 1883–1970, vol. 7, 1883, p. 453. (english translation in martin luther, Career of the Reformer II, ed. by george Forell, minneapolis, minnesota: Fortress press 1958 (Luther’s Works, vol. 32), p. 96.) in 2 maccabees 12 the celebrated Judas maccabeus gives money to support prayers for Jewish warriors who had been slain in battle, an episode which was taken as legitimating prayers for the dead. 4 andreas von Karlstadt, Welche Bücher Biblisch seind, wittenberg: melchior ramminger 1520, pp. 1–22. 5 martin Chemnitz, Examen Decretorum Concilii Tridentini, vols. 1–4, Frankfurt am main: simon hüter und sigismund Feyerabend 1566–73, vol. 1, pp. 1–49. 6 Johann otto glüsing, Biblia Pentapla, vols. 1–4, gottorf: hermann heinrich holle 1711, vol. 3. 7 Johann salomo semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canon, vols. 1–4, halle: Carl hermann hemmerde 1771–75, vol. 3, pp. 1–189. 3

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Apocrypha: Is It “Scripture” or “Good for Reading”? 255

as being as authoritative as most of the others that were included in the canon.8 By the time that Kierkegaard reached theological maturity the status and role of the apocryphal books had become even more contested and murky. Kierkegaard got most of his knowledge of luther not from dogmatic study but from devotional reading of luther’s letters and sermons. as to luther’s theology, Kierkegaard received this mostly second-hand.9 His most direct influences were his father’s pietism, Balle’s Catechism,10 textbooks on lutheran doctrine,11 and his university studies.12 any direct familiarity with the historical-critical investigation of the apocrypha was probably gleaned from de wette’s introductory text, which Kierkegaard owned and used.13 his own attitude towards scripture differed significantly from Luther’s, as he himself recognized, owing to their different circumstances. luther had fought against excessive guilt and the burden of “works righteousness,” and hence tended to treat paul as a canon within the canon. Kierkegaard fought against complacency and the easy equation of social propriety with Christian righteousness, and hence had much more use for scriptures that luther despised (notably the epistle of James). in addition to having broader interests within the canon, Kierkegaard took joy at “the truth in the mouth of a hypocrite”14 or unbeliever; so he delighted in referencing a range of sources including homer, Shakespeare and, most famously, Socrates. And fittingly for one so widely read, he turned also to those books “not sacred, but good and useful.” But did he use them as he would socrates, or as he would use James? how he used the apocrypha varied greatly according to the nature of the material. there are three major genres in the apocrypha: narrative, wisdom poetry, and apocalyptic. Kierkegaard had little use for apocalyptic writings. he was not interested in trying to puzzle out its obscure symbolism, and certainly not concerned 8 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 21–2; pp. 292–325 (ASKB 80). 9 regin prenter, “luther and lutheranism,” in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, ed. by niels thulstrup and marie mikulová thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1981 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 6), pp. 121–72. 10 nicolai edinger Balle, Lærebog i den Evangelisk-christelige Religion, indrettet til Brug i de danske Skoler, Copenhagen: J.h. schultz 1824 (ASKB 183). 11 Karl gottlieb Bretschneider, Handbuch der Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche oder Versuch einer beurtheilenden Darstellung der Grundsätze, welche diese Kirche in ihren symbolischen Schriften über die christliche Glaubenslehre ausgesprochen hat, vols. 1–2, 4th ed., leipzig: J.a. Barth 1838 [1814] (ASKB 437–438); august hahn, Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, leipzig: vogel 1828 (ASKB 535); Karl hase, Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studirende, 4th revised ed., leipzig: Breitkopf und härtel 1839 (ASKB 581). 12 henrik nicolai Clausen mentioned the apocryphal books in his lectures of 1833, ascribing their demonology to Persian influence. See SKS 19, 20, not1:5. Clausen also cited 2 maccabees (SKS 19, 26, not1:5 and SKS 19, 50, not1:5); tobit (SKS 19, 49, not1:5) and sirach (SKS 19, 34, not1:5). 13 wilhelm martin leberecht de wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vol. 1, pp. 21–2; pp. 292–325. 14 SKS 4, 256 / PF, 52.

256

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

with trying to predict the future. he wrote that all one can or need know is that some day one’s own personal world will end; whether or when the world will end is beside the point.15 nor was he interested in visions of things beyond existence, whether god’s throne or the devil’s prison. god is the unknown, the future is the possible and uncertain, and to try to escape from this uncertainty is not faith but the lack of it. so books such as 2 esdras were little used by him. he had much more interest in the wisdom literature of the apocrypha, the proverbs and early philosophy. he quotes from ecclesiasticus, also known as sirach, in several of his journals and books; clearly it is a favorite as a source of bits of moral wisdom, functioning in a manner similar to the maxims of Benjamin Franklin.16 more significant for our purpose is his use of the Wisdom of Solomon in the discourse, “think about Your Creator in the days of Your Youth,” the title of which is a quotation of ecclesiastes 12:1, allegedly written by solomon.17 Kierkegaard writes: when youth is merrily celebrating at a banquet, the preacher….joins in the rejoicing, and when youth has heartily enjoyed itself, has danced itself weary, not for life exactly, since youth ought not to do that, but for the evening, then the preacher sits in a room within the dance hall and talks more earnestly. But he makes the transition just as naturally as youth, which is able, even with a smile on its lips and with enthusiasm, to listen appropriately to the discussion of lofty and holy matters. so, then, let “youth wear the crown of rosebuds before they wither” (the wisdom of solomon 2:8), but let no one teach this to youth, teach it to do this “as in youth” (Wisdom 2:6) and thereby influence, or in any other way influence, youth to “reason unsoundly” (Wisdom 2:1), as if this were the only thing it had to do, because the thought of the Creator is still youth’s most beautiful glory, is also a rosebud, but it does not wither.18

on the one hand, he seems to simply assume that the authors of ecclesiastes and the wisdom of solomon are one and the same person. he simply jumps from considering one book to the other and treats both as if they are discussing the same idea. on the other hand, he does not assume ecclesiastes was actually written by solomon, as tradition holds and the text seems to imply.19 this is consistent with his treatment of scripture in general. he is certainly aware of the scholarly disputes of his day, debates about authorship and historicity and so on. he simply does not have an interest in disputing these things, considering them to be distractions. the main concern should be “the truth that builds up,” and so he is willing in his signed and pseudonymous works alike to let the traditional assumptions go relatively unchallenged, while simultaneously turning attention away from these disputed assumptions and towards existential appropriations.20 in this case, it is not important SKS 5, 461–3 / TD, 91–4. see, for example, SKS 18, 181, JJ:122 / KJN 2, 167. Pap. vii–2 B 266 / JP 4, 4438. SKS 20, 86, nB:116 / JP 5, 5971. SKS 9, 20 / WL, 12. SKS 9, 45 / WL, 38. SKS 9, 342 / WL, 348. SKS 5, 141 / EUD, 139. SKS 5, 70 / EUD, 60. SKS 5, 73 / EUD, 63. 17 SKS 5, 234–5 / EUD, 233–5. 18 SKS 5, 240 / EUD, 241. 19 SKS 5, 234 / EUD, 234. 20 he does this perhaps most famously throughout The Concept of Anxiety, where the pseudonym allows for the historicity of adam while basing his argument on the notion that 15 16

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Apocrypha: Is It “Scripture” or “Good for Reading”? 257

to him whether solomon, or any king actually wrote ecclesiastes, much less whether the author in fact also wrote wisdom. what does matter is that it is to be read as if it was written by a king, and that any young person consider the significance that even a king, full of potential, should consider the thought of the Creator to be the most important thing. Kierkegaard’s treatment of the wisdom of solomon does seem qualitatively different than his treatment of, say, the wisdom of socrates. he writes as if it came from the same author as does an actual sacred text, and this confers a sort of authority on it that even socrates cannot claim. it seems to be neither the work of a genius nor an apostle, but something in between: perhaps an apostle or prophet who was writing not in the spirit but on personal authority.21 while Kierkegaard makes repeated use of the proverbs of the apocrypha, it is his use of the narrative material that may be the most interesting. many of these references are passing allusions, as is also true for most of the sirach references. But in Fear and Trembling the pseudonym Johannes de silentio gives a sustained and significant discussion of the Book of Tobit, and in particular of the story of the courtship of tobias and sarah.22 the plot of the book is fairly easy to summarize, despite its textual complexity: tobit was a pious israelite living in exile in nineveh. at risk to his own life at times, he continually practiced acts of charity and service to his fellow israelites and to Jews (strictly speaking, the people with roots in the southern kingdom) who also turned up on his doorstep. But despite his piety and charity, he was stricken blind and in despair prayed for death. meanwhile, across the empire his relatives also were suffering. raguel and edna’s daughter sarah had been married seven times, but each time the demon asmodeus killed the bridegroom on the wedding night. in her despair, she too prayed for death, at the exact same moment that tobit prayed for death. god sends the angel raphael to take care of both these pious believers in one fell swoop, by arranging for tobit’s only son tobias to marry sarah and then to cure his father. First, raphael arrives incognito and offers to accompany tobias as he travels to retrieve some money that his father had left in another city. When Tobias is attacked by a magical fish, Raphael advises him to capture the fish and use its organs to create cures for demonic curses and for blindness. raphael then tells tobias about sarah, and persuades him to use the magical fish liver to drive off the demon and marry the girl, thus breaking her curse and also becoming sole heir to her father’s wealth. Completing god’s work and his family duty, Tobias returns to his father and cures him using the magic fish’s gall bladder. Finally raphael reveals himself to be an angel and explains how god has used these events to cure all the afflicted and to bless both families by uniting them in marriage. how does Kierkegaard regard this story, and how does he use it? or more accurately, how does de silentio use it? First, he inserts it into a series of tales of the demonic, right after agnes and the merman and before richard iii. if the placement any explanation of original sin must treat adam as essentially one of us, so explaining adam explains each individual. 21 as paul does in 1 Cor 7:12, for example. 22 SKS 4, 191–6 / FT, 102–6.

258

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

of references to the wisdom of solomon suggests that Kierkegaard gave this work a certain authority, then surrounding Tobit with fictional characters certainly suggests the opposite. de silentio’s choice to call the tobias narrative a “Fortælling” may not itself say much about how he regards the story, but the lowrie and hong translations both use tone and word choices that suggest fiction. And in fact, even the text itself has such a fairy-tale aspect to it that it is hard to imagine anyone really seeing it as “literally” true; but it could still be authoritative in the way a parable is authoritative. de silentio does not seem to give it the same historical credence that he gives the story of abraham, but the life story of abraham presents itself as historical in a way tobit does not. de silentio treats the particular facts of the story of tobias with a great deal of freedom. in his account, it is sarah rather than tobias who is the focus of attention. the reader’s attention is drawn to her despair and her faith. given this interest in sarah, mention of the seven previous deaths would at best be a distraction and at worst would seem to be a bad joke at her expense. Consequently, de silentio eliminates that element of the plot from his version. instead, for him the story is one of a young maiden who has never loved, much less wed, but who knows that the day she does truly love a jealous demon will appear to kill her beloved. he then describes her situation, with primary attention on the emotional aspects: her unhappiness, the fact that what should have been her time of unbridled joy was instead a time of terror and grief, and how even her parents were grieving and fearful. he continues, “and now comes the time of the wedding. we read on—if we can read at all through our tears.”23 given that de silentio is self-described as a religious poet, all this emotionalism may seem to be just part of his persona, but there is also an epistemological point to this passional intensity. Kierkegaard shares with his predecessor Johann georg hamann (1730–88) a conviction that human nature is a whole, with reason and feeling and body functioning together, and that knowledge is received through senses and feelings as well as through reason.24 Just as a person would not be complete without feeling or imagination or sensation, so too knowledge is incomplete if it is limited to just reason alone. therefore, to truly understand the story of sarah it is necessary to feel her situation as well as to conceptually analyze it. it is this conceptual analysis that seems to motivate his interest in sarah over tobias. tobias shows courage, he writes, but any real man who really loved would do as much. sarah, by contrast, shows the faith to have the humility to allow tobias to save her. he writes: imagine sarah to be a man, and the demonic is immediately present. the proud, noble nature can bear everything, but one thing it cannot bear—it cannot bear sympathy. in it there is a humiliation that can be inflicted on a person only by a higher power, for he can never become the object of it by himself. if he has sinned, he can bear the punishment without despairing, but to be without guilt from his mother’s womb and yet to be destined as a sacrifice to sympathy, a sweet fragrance in its nostrils—this he cannot endure. 25 SKS 4, 193 / FT, 103. see ronald gregor smith, J.G. Hamann 1730–1788: A Study in Christian Existence, new York: harper & row publishers 1960, p. 43; p. 65; pp. 195–9; pp. 205–7. 25 SKS 4, 193 / FT, 104. 23 24

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Apocrypha: Is It “Scripture” or “Good for Reading”? 259

it is the concept of the demonic, and the relation of this concept to faith, humility, and pride, that drives de silentio’s treatment of the Book of tobit. sarah has been, in his words, “botched from the very beginning.”26 through no fault of her own, she has been denied happiness or her rightful place in the essentially, universally human. and worse, she is an object of pity.27 the thought that drove richard of gloucester to his life of evil was the pity he had endured throughout his life. But while he turned to pride and ambition and thus became evil, sarah faced her pitiful life with faith and humility. de silentio observes, “natures such as those are basically in the paradox, and they are by no means more imperfect than other people, except that they are either lost in the demonic paradox or saved in the divine paradox.”28 it took humility to accept her need for another without resentment, so that she could be rescued; it took faith to have the strength for that humility. and it is particularly noteworthy that it is pride, not evil, that is the defining characteristic of the demonic. De silentio writes, “thus Cumberland’s Jew is also a demoniac, even though he does good.”29 when someone has fallen outside the universal and into the realm of the paradox, they must choose either to humbly allow god to save them, or to proudly insist on trying to save themselves. this is the “great mystery,” according to de silentio: that not only is it better to give than to receive, but it is far harder to receive than to give. thus he writes: no, sarah is the heroic character. she is the one i want to approach as i have never approached any girl or been tempted in thought to approach anyone of whom i have read. For what love for god it takes to be willing to let oneself be healed when from the very beginning one in all innocence has been botched, from the very beginning has been a damaged specimen of a human being! what ethical maturity to take upon oneself the responsibility of permitting the beloved to do something so hazardous! what humility before another person! what faith in god that she would not in the very next moment hate the man to whom she owed everything!30

this really is extraordinary language. de silentio’s praise is reminiscent of the reverence he shows for abraham himself. not only does she show love for god, ethical maturity, humility and even faith, but she shows these in such abundance that de silentio wishes he could approach her more than anyone of whom he has read. he wishes he could follow one who set out to travel up mount moriah, but he wishes even more that he could be in the presence of sarah.31 it is clear that, whatever authority the Book of tobit may hold for him, sarah at least is an authority, a moral and spiritual authority. she is a knight of faith. she has not given up her isaac; she was cheated before she ever had such happiness, and now must have the humility ibid. lowrie’s translation puts it this way. see søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. by walter lowrie, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1941, p. 114. 28 SKS 4, 196 / FT, 106. 29 SKS 4, 196 / FT, 196. the sentence refers to a character in a play performed periodically in Copenhagen from 1795 to 1834. 30 SKS 4, 193 / FT, 104. 31 SKS 4, 128 / FT, 32. 26 27

260

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

and faith to believe that the mercy of god and the courage of tobias can give her the happiness she has only known before as promised. De silentio seems to regard the Book of Tobit as fiction, so the book does not have “biblical authority” for him in the way scriptural inerrantists would measure it. But in his evaluation of sarah he ascribes to tobit a level of spiritual insight and instruction that he claims to have seen nowhere else. this suggests in turn that Kierkegaard regards the apocrypha as a product of religious people with spiritual awareness not shared in other writings, people shaped by sacred scriptures even if the books they wrote are not quite so “sacred.” they may not be words direct from the mouth of god, but they are words from those people who did hear the very words of god. they do not have the force of commandments, or even apostolic pronouncements. sarah may show every quality of a knight of faith, but she is not one and is not comparable to abraham “the father of faith,” simply because he is a historical reality and she only a product of the religious imagination. But the spirit that produced her is that of a child of abraham by faith, writing out of that inheritance and through a superior understanding of it. what can we learn from comparing the more prominent usages of the apocrypha within Kierkegaard’s writings? he steers away from apocalypticism and towards wisdom literature, whether proverb or narrative. he does not concern himself with whether it is literally true, and does not treat this as the most important sort of truth or authority in any case. Without either affirming or denying the historicity of a textual narrative, he focuses on what suits his interests. he uses references to build up individual religiousness, and to illustrate and explore concepts of faith and unbelief. he does not derive commandments or dogmas from the apocrypha, but rather is guided in his understanding by other authorities. or rather, his faith and intellectual concerns provide the perspective from which he views the apocrypha and judges its importance. this is not all that unusual, within the history of lutheran hermeneutics. luther himself treated all scripture as leading towards the message of salvation by faith alone, and thus judged within the canon that the old testament was largely replaced by the new, and even that some books (such as James and revelation) were not really worthy of being in the new testament at all. at times luther is accused of placing paul above Christ and the epistles above the gospels. pietism accepted the general notion of the law as “tutor” which is replaced when the children of faith come of age through the gospel, but within the new testament it placed much more weight on the gospels in particular and instruction in general. Kierkegaard follows that general pietist “canon within the canon” in his selections of texts, most famously in his fondness for the letter of James (full of instructions but with too little sola gratia for luther’s tastes). in his earlier “aesthetic” writings (through the Postscript) he shows more interest in general religious instruction, writing “upbuilding discourses” using mostly epistles as texts. later, as his writings become increasingly direct, confrontational, and Christocentric, he writes more “Christian discourses” relying on gospel texts. it is the word of Christ that counts as commandment for the Christian, not the word given to moses or even paul; these are

Kierkegaard’s Use of the Apocrypha: Is It “Scripture” or “Good for Reading”? 261

only valid as they cohere with the gospel teachings.32 it is not surprising then that so many of his citations from the apocrypha would be from sirach or wisdom. in their pages Kierkegaard found proverbs and instructions that could be used to reinforce the instruction from the new testament. Another important influence of Pietism upon Kierkegaard was the concept of “the upbuilding,” which he adopted from pietist writers even as he changed it.33 this theme runs through his authorship from the start, and is particularly important in his treatment of narratives like the story of sarah and tobias. while some pietist writers tended to treat narratives as concrete examples of behavior to be imitated, Kierkegaard was more inclined to look for character traits to be emulated. For example, a pietist writer might ask, “can you actually imagine Christ dancing?” with the expected answer of “no, of course not” and the conclusion that therefore no Christian should dance. Kierkegaard instead looks at Christ as a paradigm of suffering, humble, limitless love and sees these as the aspects to be appropriated. if a Christian dances to follow paul’s injunction to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep,” as a way of showing Christ’s love, then would this necessarily be wrong? so when Kierkegaard looks at Jesus, or any other hero of the faith, the imitation he is most interested in is an imitation of the character of that person, an inward imitation. To achieve this, it is necessary to meditate on the figure imaginatively and passionately as well as analytically, and to consider not just what that person concretely did but also the spirit behind the action. Kierkegaard does this in his signed works, but even more so in his pseudonymous writings. as an example of the former, consider the use he makes of John the Baptizer in the discourse, “he must increase, but i must decrease.”34 John in that discourse, Job in Repetition, adam in The Concept of Anxiety, and abraham in Fear and Trembling are all prime examples of his tendency to use biblical characters as paradigms of different aspects of religious pathos. In all these cases, Kierkegaard takes a biblical figure and looks at him and examines that figure from multiple angles. He strives to empathize with the character, to imagine what he must have felt and why he did what he did. he tries to sympathize for that character, to feel the pain and burdens that character felt as well as the joys. he imagines what it would mean if that character had done something different. he tries to get inside that character, not just to see from the character’s point of view but more to get the reader to become, in some small way, a bit more like the character. and this is, of course, how he treats sarah as well. he manipulates the figure of Sarah to better see different aspects of her nature, feels for her, imagines her inner thoughts and desires, and holds her up as an example to be imitated—not so much for what she did, but for the kind of person she was (or would have been if she were real). in many ways, Kierkegaard’s use of the apocrypha differs little from his use of the canonical scriptures. what does differ is the weight he gives it. Clearly it see vernard eller, Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1968, pp. 388–440. 33 paul müller, “der Begriff ‘das erbauliche’ bei sören Kierkegaard,” Kerygma und Dogma, vol. 31, april–June 1985, pp. 116–34. 34 SKS 5, 270–82 / EUD, 275–89. 32

262

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

is less important to him than even the old testament; and when judging what to use or how to understand it, it is the canonical scriptures and the new testament in particular that sets the standard. sarah matters to him more than tobias because her humility matters more than his courage, even though the author of the original text clearly thought otherwise. But having learned (from other biblical examples and particularly from the example and teachings of Christ) how important humility is, he can in turn see the resources available in this apocryphal story to aid towards building up the reader’s faith. similarly, his prior faith and intellectual commitments guide his selection of apocryphal proverbs far more than they could be said to shape him, as when his reading of ecclesiastes governs his reading of wisdom. But while it would be impossible to argue that the apocrypha was ever a source or foundation for Kierkegaard in the way the lutheran canonical Bible was, it is clear that he found it a deep and at times unique source of spiritual insight and instruction.

Bibliography I. Works in the auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss the Apocrypha hahn, august, Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, leipzig: vogel 1828, pp. 130–35 (ASKB 535). hase, Karl, Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studirende, 4th revised ed., leipzig: Breitkopf und härtel 1839, pp. 94–5 (ASKB 581). [herder, Johann gottfried], Johann Gottfried Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, stuttgart and tübingen: J.g. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 13, pp. 201–10 (ASKB 1676–1684). rosenkranz, Karl, Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, halle: C.a. schwetschke und sohn 1831, p. 109 (ASKB 35). wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testamentes, vols. 1–2 (in 1 tome), 4th ed., Berlin: g. reimer 1833, vol. 1, pp. 21–2; pp. 292–325 (ASKB 80). II. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Use of the Apocrypha eller, vernard, Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1968, pp. 388–440. engelke, matthias, Kierkegaard und das alte Testament. Zum Einfluss der alttestamentarischen Bücher auf Kierkegaards Gesamtwerk, rheinbach: Cmzverlag 1998 (Arbeiten zur Theologiegeschichte, vol. 3), pp. 84–109. Keeley, louise Carroll, “the parables of problem iii in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,” in Fear and Trembling, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1993 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 6), pp. 128–9; pp. 147–9; pp. 151–2. lippitt, John, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling, london: routledge 2003, pp. 124–6. mooney, edward, Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, albany, new York: state university of new York press 1991 (SUNY Series in Philosophy), pp. 127–37. müller, paul, “der Begriff ‘das erbauliche’ bei sören Kierkegaard,” Kerygma und Dogma, vol. 31, april–June 1985, pp. 116–34. nagy, andrás, “the mount and the abyss: the literary reading of Fear and Trembling,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2002, p. 234.

264

W. Glenn Kirkconnell

polk, timothy h., The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1997, p. 191. prenter, regin, “luther and lutheranism,” in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, ed. by niels thulstrup and marie mikulová thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1981 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 6), pp. 121–72. rosas, l. Joseph, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, nashville, tennessee: Broadman & holman 1994, p. 158; p. 161; p. 173; p. 175; p. 180; p. 183; p. 185; p. 186; p. 190.

index of persons

aaron, 90. abraham, ix, xi, 38, 43–80, 89, 93, 94, 97, 124, 125, 135, 212–17 passim, 222, 226, 239–42, 246–8, 260, 261. adam, 3–40, 213, 214, 236, 237, 261. adler, adolph peter (1812–69), danish philosopher and theologian, 169, 201. agamemnon, 215. agnes, 215, 257. ambrose of milan (ca. 340–97), church father, bishop of milan, 8. andersen, hans Christian (1805–75), danish poet, novelist and writer of fairy tales, 91. anna, 164. antiochus iv, 195, 197. aquinas, thomas (ca. 1225–74), scholastic philosopher and theologian, 6. arndt, Johann (1555–1621), german mystic, 241. augustine of hippo (354–430), church father, 6, 8, 13, 35, 119. Baader, Benedict Franz Xaver von (1765– 1841), german philosopher, 5. Balle, nicolai edinger (1744–1816), danish bishop, 10, 161, 163, 167, 174, 176, 255. Bathsheba, 103, 106, 218. Bauer, Bruno (1809–82), german theologian, philosopher and historian, 6, 62. Bauer, georg lorenz (1755–1806), german protestant theologian, 238. Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1792–1860), german theologian, 118.

Bayle, pierre (1647–1706), French protestant scholar, 22, 23. Berthold, leonhard (1774–1822), german protestant theologian, 116, 196. Blasche, Bernhard heinrich (1766–1832), german protestant theologian, 119. Böhme, Jacob (1575–1624), german mystic, 118, 173. Bultmann, rudolf (1884–1976), german protestant theologian, 221. Calvin, John (1509–64), French protestant theologian, 9. Chemnitz, martin (1522–86), german protestant theologian, 254. Christ, xi, xii, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13–16, 29, 38, 46, 56, 59, 61, 65, 70, 71, 74, 75, 79, 80, 92–5 passim, 102, 107, 111, 128, 136, 141, 145, 148, 149, 153, 156, 158, 159, 164, 169–74 passim, 177, 185, 201, 211, 212, 220, 221, 231–3, 238, 246, 253, 260–2. Clausen, henrik nicolai (1793–1877), danish theologian and politician, 5, 10, 239. Cruciger, Caspar (1504–48), german theologian, 253. daniel, 195. daub, Karl (1765–1836), german theologian, 119, 133. david, 101–11, 166, 175, 218–20, 226, 234, 245, 247. delilah, 236. descartes, rené (1596–1650), French philosopher, 43, 172.

266

Kierkegaard and the Bible

eckhart or meister eckhart (ca. 1260–ca. 1328), german mystic, 6. eichhorn, Johann gottfried (1752–1827), german protestant theologian and orientalist, 117, 144, 179, 196, 237. eiríksson, magnús (1806–81), icelandic theologian, 75. elihu, 116. elijah, 94. erasmus of rotterdam, i.e., desiderius erasmus roterodamus, (1466/69– 1536), dutch humanist, 253. erdmann, Johann eduard (1805–92), german philosopher, 5, 9. ersch, Johann samuel (1780–1828), german bibliographer, 196. esau, 209. eve, 3–40, 236. Feuerbach, ludwig (1804–72), german philosopher, 62. Fichte, immanuel hermann, “the younger,” (1797–1879), german philosopher, 6. Fogtmann, nikolai (1788–1851), danish bishop, 147, 161, 174, 176. Fokkelman, Jan, 209. Francke, august hermann (1663–1727), german protestant theologian, 232. Franklin, Benjamin (1706–90), american politician and author, 256. gabler, Johann philipp (1753–1826), german protestant theologian, 238. gadamer, hans georg (1900–2002), german philosopher, 225. glüsing, Johann otto (1676–1727), german pietist, 254. goethe, Johann wolfgang von (1749–1832), german poet, author, scientist and diplomat, 109. goldschmidt, meïr aaron (1819–87), danish author, 150. gregory the great (pope from 590–604), 8.

gruber, Johann gottfried (1774–1851), german critic and literary historian, 196. günther, anton (1783–1863), austrian theologian and philosopher, 5. gyllembourg-ehrensvärd, thomasine Christine (1773–1856), danish author, 91. hagar, 241. hamann, Johann georg (1730–88), german philosopher, 5, 159, 258. hannay, alastair, 67. hegel, georg wilhelm Friedrich (1770– 1831), german philosopher, xii, 5, 10, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 23–25, 28, 43, 52, 60, 119, 121, 154, 169, 201, 244. heiberg, Johan ludvig (1791–1860), danish poet, playwright and philosopher, 5, 13, 58. heidegger, martin (1889–1976), german philosopher, 20. hengstenberg, ernst william (1802–69), german protestant theologian, 196, 197. herder, Johann gottfried (1744–1803), german philosopher, 116, 117, 141, 144, 179, 180, 237. hick, John, 118. hobbes, thomas (1588–1679), english philosopher, 3. homer, 255. hong, howard v. (1912–2010), american translator, 258. horace, 17. hume, david (1711–76), scottish philosopher, 3. isaac, 4, 45–55 passim, 58, 60, 61, 63, 66–79 passim, 124, 135, 212–17 passim, 226, 239–42, 246, 248, 259. Jacob, 166, 207–10, 220, 225. James, xii.

Index of Persons Job, ix, xi, 4, 38, 74, 75, 115–140, 222, 234, 240, 247, 261. John the Baptist, 26, 145, 201, 261. Jonas, Justus (1493–1555), german theologian, 253. Joshua, 91. Judith, 195. Kant, immanuel (1724–1804), german philosopher, xii, 3, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 30, 60, 244. Karlstadt, andreas von (1486–1541), german theologian, 254. Kelsey, david, 235, 245. Kierkegaard, peter Christian (1805–88), søren Kierkegaard’s elder brother, 149. Kierkegaard, søren aabye (1813–1855), From the Papers of One Still Living (1838), 90. The Concept of Irony (1841), 11, 16, 38, 57, 160, 161, 216. Either/Or (1843), 16, 21, 54, 56, 57, 103–4, 151, 155, 167, 176, 183, 198, 234–7, 242, 243. Repetition (1843), 16, 54, 109, 115, 121–7 passim, 131, 133–9 passim, 198, 222, 261. Fear and Trembling (1843), 16, 43, 94, 123, 135, 160, 198, 212, 234, 235, 239, 257–9, 261. Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843), 16, 54, 58, 151, 160, 161, 167, 176, 198. Three Upbuilding Discourses (1843), 24, 54, 151, 198. Four Upbuilding Discourses (1843), 104, 115, 121, 128–32 passim, 140, 150, 160, 161, 175, 198, 235. Two Upbuilding Discourses (1844), 145, 164, 186. Three Upbuilding Discourses (1844), 34, 145, 198. Four Upbuilding Discourses (1844), 34, 153, 160, 165, 167, 198.

267

Philosophical Fragments (1844), 16, 34, 72, 147, 164, 198. The Concept of Anxiety (1844), 3, 4, 6, 15–17, 23, 24, 29–39 passim, 72, 152, 153, 160, 165, 167, 168, 196, 197, 198, 261. Prefaces (1844), 16, 72, 162, 196. Stages on Life’s Way (1845), 17, 38, 73, 74, 106–10 passim, 146, 156, 166, 182, 196, 198, 199, 200, 202. Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), 96, 106, 107, 165, 198, 200. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), 65, 73–5, 138, 153, 154, 224, 260. A Literary Review of Two Ages (1846), 185, 188, 190. The Book on Adler (ca. 1846–47), 153, 169, 196, 201. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), 38, 73, 145, 154, 159, 162, 169, 176, 180, 211, 240. Works of Love (1847), 93, 107–8, 207–11 passim, 220. Christian Discourses (1848), 38, 75, 147, 148, 150, 152, 155, 156, 160, 166, 170, 176, 180, 189, 209. The Point of View for My Work as an Author (ca. 1848), 189. The Sickness unto Death (1849), 38, 158, 163, 211, 216. Two Ethical-Religious Essays (1849), 153, 154, 169. The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Devotional Discourses (1849), 163. Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (1849), 174. Practice in Christianity (1850), 14, 74, 148, 156, 170. For Self-Examination (1851), 73, 107–8, 173, 175, 217, 219, 221, 234, 244. Judge for Yourself (1851–52, published posthumously in 1876), 156.

268

Kierkegaard and the Bible

The Moment (1855), 148, 149, 155, 157. The Changelessness of God (1855), 157, 161. Journals, notebooks, Nachlaß, 21, 38, 39, 44, 50, 70, 71, 74–8 passim, 104, 147, 151, 154, 157, 159, 162, 164, 166, 196, 198. lazarus, 93. lehmann, orla (1810–70), danish politician, 90. leibniz, Baron gottfried wilhelm von (1646–1716), german philosopher and mathematician, 4, 5, 16, 21–24, 27, 36, 40, 118. leo i or pope saint leo the great (pope from 440–61), 8. lippitt, John, 66. liunge, andreas peter (1798–1879), danish editor and author, 90. lot, 45. lowrie, walter (1868–1959), american translator, 258. luther, martin (1483–1546), german religious reformer, 6, 90, 94, 141, 152, 171–3, 232, 253–5, 260. mackey, louis (1926–2004), 123. malantschuk, gregor (1902–78), 78. marheineke, philipp (1780–1846), german theologian, 5, 10, 17, 19. martensen, hans lassen (1808–84), danish theologian, 5, 58, 102, 180, 233. mary, 76, 77, 96. marx, Karl (1818–83), german philosopher and economist, 62. mcKinnon, alastair, 166. mehl, peter, 242. melanchthon, philipp (1497–1560), german theologian, 253. merman, the, 215, 257. milton, John (1608–74), english poet, 9. mohammed, 92. moses, 89–98, 260.

mozart, wolfgang amadeus (1756–91), austrian composer, 103. müller, Julius (1801–78), german theologian, 6. mynster, Jakob peter (1775–1854), danish theologian and bishop, 5, 150, 157. nathan, 103, 104, 107, 108, 111, 218, 219, 234, 245. nebuchadnezzar, 195–202. nicodemus, 174. nielsen, rasmus (1809–84), danish philosopher, 58. o’Connell, daniel (1775–1847), irish politician, 90. olsen, regine (1822–1904), 51, 54–6, 72, 78, 79, 108, 189. olshausen, hermann (1796–1839), german protestant theologian, 241. pascal, Blaise (1623–62), French scientist and philosopher, 43. paul, 58, xii, 4, 9, 15, 26, 28, 46, 48, 74, 76, 77, 165, 232, 238, 241, 255, 260. peter, 95, 211, 212. plato, 96. polk, timothy, 243. pontoppidan, erik, the younger (1698– 1764), danish bishop and historian, 147, 163. reimarus, hermann samuel (1694–1768), german philosopher, 60. richard iii, King of england (1452–83), 257. ricoeur, paul (1913–2005), French philosopher, 221. rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78), French philosopher, 3. rosas, l. Joseph, 234, 247. rosenkranz, Karl (1805–79), german philosopher and theologian, 3, 6, 19, 117.

Index of Persons samson, 236. samuel, 96, 101. sarah, 45–7, 135, 241, 257, 258, 260–2. saul, 101, 103. schaller, Julius (1810–68), german philosopher, 60. schelling, Friedrich wilhelm Joseph von (1775–1854), german philosopher, xii, 5, 10, 16, 19–21, 23, 36, 39, 43, 54, 61, 118. schlegel, Friedrich von (1772–1829), german romantic writer, 236. schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768–1834), german theologian, 5, 59, 102, 232. scriver, Christian (1629–93), german pastor and writer, 147. semler, Johann salomo (1725–91), german protestant theologian, 179, 233, 238, 254. shakespeare, william (1564–1616), english dramatist, 234, 236, 243, 255. socrates, 38, 163, 216, 224, 225, 253, 255, 257. solomon, 101–11, 180–2, 187, 188, 241, 256, 257.

269

spener, philipp Jacob (1635–1705). german protestant theologian, 232. spinoza, Baruch (1632–77), dutch philosopher, 3, 10. strauss, david Friedrich (1808–74), german theologian, historian and philosopher, 60. taylor, mark lloyd, 123, 124. tersteegen, gerhard (1697–1796), german mystic and poet, 105, 106, 154, 241. tertullian (ca. 160–235), church father, 8. tobias, 257–62 passim. uriah, 106, 111, 218. wette, wilhelm martin leberecht de (1780– 1849), german theologian, 101, 102, 108, 116, 117, 121, 124, 126, 133, 141, 180, 183, 196, 233, 254. Young, edward (1683–1765), english author, 182.

index of subjects

absurd, the, 52, 67–9, 75, 124. actuality, 20, 25, 30, 35, 69–71, 76, 90, 91, 122, 133, 134, 158, 163, 164, 167, 175, 222. akedah, 45–63 passim, 67, 69, 74, 76, 78, 79. anxiety, 4, 25, 31–3, 36–9 passim, 64–6, 70, 95, 127, 167, 214. atonement, 29, 35, 38, 39, 70–2, 172. augsburg Confession, 6. Bible, old testament, genesis, 3–42, 43–80, 160, 185, 207, 209, 212, 237, 241. exodus, 4, 168. ruth, 238. samuel, 102–8 passim, 111, 218. Kings, 101, 110, 168, 197. Chronicles, 101, 102, 197, 238. ezra, 238. nehemiah, 197, 238. esther, 238. Job, ix, xi, 4, 38, 74, 75, 115–140, 222, 234, 238, 240, 247, 261. psalms, ix, xi, 101, 104, 105, 141–77, 232, 238. proverbs, 101, 108, 151, 238, 244. ecclesiastes, 101, 108, 161, 179–92, 238, 257, 262. song of solomon, 101, 108. isaiah, 160. ezekiel, 197. daniel, 105, 196–200. new testament, matthew, 24, 27, 94, 151, 152, 176. mark, 149.

luke, 27, 93, 94, 107, 145, 164. John, 145, 156, 170, 174, 209. acts, 177. romans, 46, 48, 54, 72, 74, 79, 111, 153. Corinthians, 165, 168. philippians, 48, 66, 72, 79. timothy, 148, 167. hebrews, 46–8, 54, 66, 72, 79, 160. James, 24, 29, 48, 66, 72, 79, 104, 107, 157, 160, 161, 167, 174, 217, 255, 260. peter, 151. revelation, 260. apocrypha, 253–62. tobit, 257–60. wisdom of solomon, 256, 257, 258, 261, 262. ecclesiasticus, 253, 256, 257, 261. maccabees, 7, 253, 254. esdras, 254, 256. boredom, 236. chatter, 188–90. Christendom, 44, 72, 74, 96, 97, 148, 149, 154, 155, 157, 161, 232, 245–7. Christianity, 49, 50, 60, 74–9 passim, 89, 92, 95, 98, 102, 145, 149, 152, 155, 157, 159, 163, 167, 175, 181, 211, 239, 245, 246. communication, indirect, 180, 181. contradiction, the principle of, 187. Corsair, the, 150. creatio ex nihilo, 4, 7, 8, 10, 16, 26, 33, 35, 39. creation, 13–15, 39. crowd, 180, 190, 191.

272

Kierkegaard and the Bible

death, 9, 13, 25, 27, 48, 52, 67, 73, 79, 94, 101, 158, 167, 169, 171, 173, 201, 240, 257. deism, xii. demonic, 36, 257, 259. despair, 58, 110, 116, 183, 192, 213. docetism, 158, 159. double-mindedness, 184, 191. doubt, 11, 25–9, 37, 64, 116, 147, 213. doxology, 115. edification, 123, 128. enlightenment, x, 179, 232, 233. eternity, 77, 78, 156–9, 182, 186, 187, 192, 231. every good gift, 26, 27, 29, 32, 37, 39. evil, 4, 8, 9, 12, 17–23, 36, 40, 60, 115, 118, 119, 127, 169, 175, 201. exception, 136. faith, xii, 26, 29, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44–53 passim, 58, 64–80 passim, 93, 94, 97, 116, 130, 148–55 passim, 177, 213–17 passim, 234, 240–2, 246, 247, 259, 260, 262. Fall, the, 5–15 passim, 18, 19, 23–25, 29, 30, 33, 36, 39, 119, 152, 213. felix culpa, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16, 19, 21, 27, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40. Flood, the, 4. freedom, 4–8 passim, 11–21 passim, 28–40 passim, 133, 164. gnosticism, 118, 157. good samaritan, the, 219, 220. governance, 96, 97. grace, xi, 4, 15, 26, 67, 95, 111, 136, 150, 170, 173, 177, 214, 215, 232. grief, 25, 123, 137, 151, 179–94 passim. guilt, 30, 31, 37, 101–13 passim, 123, 136, 147, 148, 152, 153, 201, 222, 255, 258. hegelianism, 22, 58, 62, 64, 92. holy spirit, 9, 28, 29, 43.

hope, 8, 37, 46, 52, 54, 102, 139, 140, 161, 177, 180, 184, 186, 187, 192, 201, 231, 246. humility, 13, 14, 24, 27, 29, 37, 39, 96, 130, 163, 164, 259, 262. imitation, 15, 79, 148, 261. incarnation, 8, 15, 92, 136, 158, 159, 163, 164. innocence, 18, 23, 24, 27, 30–3, 36–9, 107, 126, 136, 138, 259. inwardness, 32, 73, 169, 188, 190, 200, 201, 244. irony, 51, 162, 164. islam, 90–2. isolation, 57, 66, 103. law, 232. leap, 14, 31, 32, 37, 39, 52, 59. liberum arbitrium, 35. lilies and birds, 4, 108, 176. logos, 15. love, 44, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 63–72 passim, 115, 136, 139, 148, 151, 152, 158, 159, 162, 170, 174, 177, 207–12 passim, 232, 261. manichaeism, 8. marriage, 103, 109, 165, 198, 237, 238. martyrdom, 66, 79, 80. mediation, 14. melancholy, 110. miracles, 97, 197. moment, the, 33–5, 63, 76, 156–8, 162. monotheism, 90, 92. nihilism, 57, 183. nothingness, 4, 12, 13, 16, 23, 26, 34–36, 39, 40, 168. offense, 124. paradox, 52, 65, 71, 75, 123, 163, 164, 170, 215, 240, 247, 259. passion, 64, 65, 67, 187, 222.

Index of Subjects patience, 29, 160, 164, 215, 218, 223. pelagianism, 6. pietism, 179, 232, 241, 255, 260, 261. poetry, 141, 142. possibility, 17, 20, 31–9 passim, 52, 109, 163, 164, 200, 201, 216, 244. predestination, 6, 11. providence, 19, 23, 27, 29, 36–8, 44, 53, 56, 57, 63, 159, 162. psychology, 29, 30, 32. purgatory, 254. reconciliation, xii, 19, 60. redemption, 15, 27, 36, 70. reformation, 232. religiousness a and B, 136. repentance, 71, 72, 106, 136, 169, 185, 186, 187, 201, 220. repetition, 109, 122–7 passim, 137, 138. resignation, 53, 66–9, 117, 213, 214, 246. resurrection, 67, 221, 238. revelation, 21, 126, 136, 169, 176, 177, 224, 241. romanticism, xii, 236, 237. salvation, 9, 10, 26, 46, 66, 80, 92, 153, 173, 192, 232, 253, 260. second adam, 4, 7, 9, 14–16, 28, 33, 37, 39. self-consciousness, 19, x, 11, 122, 146. self-examination, 111, 147, 148, 151, 154, 177, 214, 217, 223, 226.

273

selfhood, 24, 37, 38, 122. The Shepherd of Hermas, 8. sickness, 127. silence, 163, 188–90, 200, 215, 248. sin, 4–18 passim, 21, 22, 25–40 passim, 70, 71, 116, 121, 123, 126, 135–7, 151–3, 160, 163, 167, 172, 185, 201, 219, 223, 226, 241. subjectivity, 23, 29, 31, 34, 40, 119, 122, 144, 155, 164, 176, 216. suffering, 4, 7–10, 23, 25, 27, 28, 35, 36, 39, 44, 53, 56, 57, 63–6, 70–80 passim, 115–40, 148, 149, 152, 155–60 passim, 163, 165, 177, 186, 222, 232, 261. supernaturalism, x. suspension of the ethical, 52. temporality, 156–8, 165, 187, 192. theodicy, 4, 40. transfiguration, 94. trinity, 43. vanity, 179–92. without authority, 181, 223, 224. witness, x, 24, 51, 74, 76, 79, 92, 97, 109, 111, 119, 129, 138–40, 176, 213.