Reading Scripture with Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard's Upbuilding Hermeneutic of Scripture in the Discourses 1433194864, 9781433194863

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Reading Scripture with Kierkegaard

This book is part of the Peter Lang Humanities list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Kevin Storer

Reading Scripture with Kierkegaard Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Hermeneutic of Scripture in the Discourses

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress CatalogingCataloging-​inin-​Publication Publication Control Number: 2022001987

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http:// http://​dnb.ddnb.d-​nb.de/ nb.de/​.

ISBN 978978-​11-​43314331-​94869486-​3 (hardcover) ISBN 978978-​11-​43314331-​94879487-​0 (ebook pdf ) ISBN 978978-​11-​43314331-​94889488-​7 (epub) DOI 10.3726/ 10.3726/​b19339 b19339

© 2022 Kevin Storer Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 80 Broad Street, 5th floor, New York, NY 10004 www.peterl www.peterl​aang.com ng.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations Introduction I. Discourses as a Constructive Response to Scriptural Misuse A. The Blocked Path of the Historical Critical Method B. The Blocked Path of “Orthodoxy” and the Danish State Church C. Kierkegaard’s Constructive Response: Upbuilding Discourses II. Purpose and Structure of the Book Chapter One:  From Ordinary to Actual Reading: Metaphor and Tropology in Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Scriptural Hermeneutic I. Introduction II. Actual Reading and Scriptural Language as Metaphor A. Illustrating the Movement from “Ordinary” to “Actual” Reading B. Implications III. Kierkegaard and Ricoeur: Metaphor and the Surplus of Meaning IV. Kierkegaard and de Lubac: Spiritual Reading and Tropology A. De Lubac and Tropological Reading B. Kierkegaard as Modern Tropologist V. Conclusion Chapter Two:  Hermeneutical Assumptions and Techniques of the Discourses I. Introduction

ix 1 2 3 7 9 16 29 29 30 33 36 37 41 42 44 53 55 55

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II. Hermeneutical Assumption 1: Meaning is Generated at the Level of the Whole Canonical Context Rather than at the Level of the Immediate Context 56 A. Technique 1: The Development of an Upbuilding Argument Arises from the Creation of a Dialogue between Two Scriptural Texts from Different Contexts 57 B. Technique 2: Word Association: Interpreting a Particular Word through the Use of the Same Word in Another Passage 60 III. Hermeneutical Assumption 2: Meaning Occurs at the Level of the Word or Phrase Rather than at the Level of the Sentence or Paragraph60 A. Technique 1: Technical Phrases which Carry an Established Meaning 62 B. Technique 2: A Scriptural Image, Phrase, or Statement is Used to Drive the Logic of the Discourse 63 C. Technique 3: Grammar of the Phrase is more Important than the Immediate Context for Generating an Upbuilding Meaning 64 D. Technique 4: Switching the Referent of a Phrase to Multiply the Meaning of the Phrase 66 IV. Hermeneutical Assumption 3: Universalizing the Text Makes the Reader Contemporary with the Subject Matter 67 A. Technique 1: Universalizing a Phrase Originally Given in a Particular Context to Make It a Norm for Salvation 68 B. Technique 2: Everything Written by an Apostle or Spoken by Jesus Can be Appropriated by the Individual for Upbuilding 69 V. Hermeneutical Assumption 4: Changing the Text Enables Readers to Envision Appropriation 70 A. Technique 1: Mistranslation and Incorrect Citations 71 B. Technique 2: Conflating or Recreating Biblical Narrative for a Contemporary Audience 73 VI. Hermeneutical Assumption 5: Spiritualizing a Narrative Detail Provides Deeper Meaning for Contemporary Readers 74 A. Technique 1: Reinterpreting a Narrative Detail to Communicate a Spiritual Truth 75 VII. Techniques that Add to the Text for Emphasis 78 A. Technique 1: Adding an Argument from Silence 78 B. Technique 2: Disagreeing with a Scriptural Statement for Further Emphasis 79 C. Technique 3: Changing, Intensifying or Explaining a Scriptural Command by Focusing on the Purpose of the Command 80

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VIII. Conclusion Chapter Three:  Development of Rhetoric and Use of Scripture in Upbuilding and Christian Discourses I. Introduction II. Rhetoric and Scripture in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses A. Introduction B. Structure and Development of the Argument C. Universal Upbuilding Meaning D. Conclusion III. Rhetoric and Scripture in the Christian Discourses A. Introduction B. “The Gospel of Sufferings” C. “The Cares of the Pagans” D. “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” E. “Thoughts That Wound from Behind—​For Upbuilding” F. “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” IV. Conclusion and Assessment Chapter Four:  Assessing the Relationship Between Upbuilding and Christian Discourses I. Introduction II. Distinctive Feature 1: Shifts in Scriptural Content A. Areas of Change in Scriptural Content B. Continuity in Scriptural Use: Doctrinal Principle Texts C. Conclusions about Continuity and Change in Scriptural Content III. Distinctive Feature 2: Change in Presentation of Scriptural Authority A. Inherent Authority in the Upbuilding Discourses B. Presented Authority in the Christian Discourses IV. Conclusions about the Relationship between Discourses Conclusion I. Achievements and Remaining Questions II. Reading the Discourses as Situational Religious Communication A. The Theory of Stages and Its Problems B. Discourses as Situational Religious Communication C. Implications III. Kierkegaard as Tropologist: His Hermeneutic in the Present Age A. Resolving the Tensions in Authority: Metaphorical Reading in the Service of Christian Concepts

80 83 83 85 85 86 90 94 94 94 95 101 105 110 115 119 125 125 126 128 134 141 143 144 146 158 161 161 164 164 167 171 172 173

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B. Kierkegaard as Tropologist: Articulating Criteria of Interpretive Adequacy for Regulating Interpretation

Bibliography Index

177 185 195

List of Abbreviations

BA The Book on Adler, KW XXIV CA Th  e Concept of Anxiety, trans. by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, KW VII CD Christian Discourses, KW XVII CI The Concept of Irony, KW II CUP1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, KW XII,1 CUP2 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, KW XII,2 EO1 Either/​Or, Part I, KW III EO2 Either/​Or, Part II, KW IV EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, KW V FSE For Self-​Examination, KW XXI F T Fear and Trembling, KW VI JC Johannes Climacus, or or De omnibus dubitandum est, KW VII JP S  øren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk, vols. 1–​6, vol. 7. Index and Composite Collation, Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1967–​78. KJN K  ierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–​11, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse,

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George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007 ff. KW K  ierkegaard’s Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, vols. I–​XXVI, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978–​98. P Prefaces/​Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, KW IX PC Practice in Christianity, KW XX PF Philosophical Fragments, KW VII PV Th  e Point of View including On My Work as an Author and The Point or View for My Work as an Author, KW XXII SUD The Sickness Unto Death, KW XIX TDIO Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, KW X UDVS Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, KW XV WA W  ithout 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, KW XVIII WL Works of Love, KW XVI

Introduction

This book is a study of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in his discourses, and consequently it is a study of the structure, arguments, and rhetoric of the discourses themselves. While Kierkegaard is better known for his pseudonymous works, over the course of his authorship he published a series of signed writings called “discourses” [Taler] (perhaps better translated “talks”) simultaneously with the publication of his pseudonymous works. These discourses function as a form of religious communication, with their arguments being advanced primarily as reflections upon Scripture, and they are intended to be “upbuilding” as they aim to turn the reader inward in appropriation of Scriptural truth to become rightly related to God.1 1 There are 69 discourses analyzed in this project, drawn from the following published books: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses (1844): 18; Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845): 3; Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847): 11; Christian Discourses (1848): 28; Without Authority (1849–​1851): 9. (Excluded from this project are the 15 discourses which make up Works of Love and the three discourses which make up For Self-​Examination, because they were written as chapters of self-​contained works, and therefore are different from the more loosely organized collections of discourses which are part of this study.) These 69 discourses selected for analysis contain 1323 Scriptural allusions which will provide the data for an analysis of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses. All Scriptural allusions were taken from the citations provided in Howard and Edna Hong’s English translation. In those instances where this author disagreed with the Hongs, the Hongs’ citation was corrected, and this has been noted. These differences do not affect the results of the project in any significant way.

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In 1953 Paul Minear and Paul Morimoto wrote that “coming generations will increasingly reckon [Kierkegaard] not so much as a philosopher, as a poet, as a theologian, or as a rebel against Christendom, but as an expositor of Scripture.”2 Indeed, Kierkegaard at times seems to have thought of himself as primarily an interpreter of Scripture, noting both in 1847 and in 1851 that his whole authorship is unified by the desire “once again to read through, if possible in a more inward way, the original text of individual human existence-​relationships, the old familiar text handed down from the fathers” (WA, 165, referring back to CUP1,: 629–​30). Recently a number of authors have recognized the central place of Scripture in Kierkegaard’s work, yet although “discourses” are a genre of Kierkegaard’s writing dedicated specifically to reflection on the Scriptures, no full study has examined Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in them. This project will show that much can be learned about Kierkegaard’s understanding of the Bible, as well as his strategies for religious communication, by studying Scriptural use in the discourses.

I. Discourses as a Constructive Response to Scriptural Misuse Kierkegaard’s discourses are, in many ways, a constructive response to what Kierkegaard saw as errors in Scriptural reading both in historical critical scholarship and in the Danish state church. In the discourses, Kierkegaard provides an interpretive practice which seeks to move beyond the dominant methods of Scriptural reading in his day in order to encourage upbuilding in the reader. To understand the hermeneutical presuppositions and techniques which Kierkegaard employs as a biblical expositor, it is important to examine briefly the context in which Kierkegaard wrote his discourses. In 1835, still early in his student years, Kierkegaard wrote in his journal, It appears to me that on the whole the great mass of interpreters damage the understanding of the New Testament more than they benefit an understanding of it. It becomes necessary to do as one does at a play, where a profusion of spectators and spotlights seeks to prevent, as it were, our enjoyment of the play—​one has to overlook them, if possible, or manage to enter by a passage which is not yet blocked ( JP1, 202).

Kierkegaard appears to believe that fruitful reading of Scripture had been “blocked” both by historical critics and by “orthodox” defenders of Christianity, 2 Paul S. Minear and Paul S. Morimoto, Kierkegaard and the Bible: An Index (Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1953), 7–​8.

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as both reduce the existential requirements of Scripture to academic knowledge. It is as Kierkegaard tries to move through a “passage […] not yet blocked” that he develops a distinctive method of Scriptural use which requires readers to exercise “personal, infinite, impassioned interestedness” (CUP1:27), by making a resolution in faith to appropriate Scripture. Below, we will explore the reasons why Kierkegaard thought both historical critical reading and “orthodox” Lutheran reading proved reductionistic, and we will see why Kierkegaard develops his religious discourses as an alternative approach.

A. The Blocked Path of the Historical Critical Method Kierkegaard’s deep concern about the historical critical method can be seen by observing that it forms the first topic of discussion in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. The main argument against such reading in the Postscript is that when scientific inquiry (a study of natural objects) is granted the authority to provide religious conclusions about religious texts (which make claims about the supernatural), a category error has been introduced into biblical studies. As Paul Holmer writes, Kierkegaard is “contending that the sources of religious beliefs, whether these beliefs are about Scripture, the figure of Jesus, or God, do not lie in the discernment of the facts as defined by historical study.”3 Consequently, the approach of the historical critical scholar is both inadequate for and detrimental to the study of Scripture. Scientific inquiry is inadequate for ascertaining the truth of any religious claim because it could “never arrive at anything more than an approximation” (CUP1:24). Scientific scholarship can only render conclusions about Scripture which are more or less probable, and this can never achieve the decisiveness required by faith. As Mogens Müller puts it, Kierkegaard sought to “demonstrate […] the hopelessness implicit in this process of approximation to historical certainty because of its unending nature. Approximation can never produce the desired certainty because faith belongs to another category.”4 Scientific inquiry is detrimental to the study of Scripture because the continual deferral of certainty prevents the action necessary for faith. Critical scholarship “holds us in suspenso” until “finished,” and then “it concludes: ergo, now you can 3 Paul L. Holmer, On Kierkegaard and the Truth, ed. David J. Gouwens and Lee C. Barrett (Cambridge: James Clarke and Company, 2012), 63. 4 Mogens Müller, “Kierkegaard and Eighteenth-​and Nineteenth-​Century Biblical Scholarship: A Case of Incongruity,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, ed. Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 314.

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build your eternal happiness on these writings” (CUP1:26). Critical scholarship causes “personal, infinite, impassioned interestedness […] [to] fade […] away more and more because the decision is postponed” (CUP1:27). And, because of this postponement, critical scholarship can easily become an excuse to avoid the existential challenge of Scripture. Kierkegaard suspects that much of what persons “honor with the laudatory name of scholarly and profound and serious research and pondering” (FSE, 26) is often really an attempt to “defend oneself from God’s Word” (FSE, 34). Critical scholarship may well be valid within its own immanental sphere of authority (CUP1:25), yet Kierkegaard’s concern is what he sees as an encroachment by critical scholarship on religious faith, and his solution is to keep faith and scientific inquiry in completely separate domains in order to preserve the place of faith. For Kierkegaard, “ ‘[F]‌aith’ […] has its home in, the existential, and has absolutely nothing to do with knowledge, either in the comparative or the superlative sense” (KJN9, NB30:57). In the Postscript, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus presses this claim even further, suggesting that even if, on the one hand, the Christian apologist were able to prove “every dogmatic affirmation about Scripture,” the unbeliever would not “come a single step closer to faith” because, “Faith does not result from straightforward scholarly deliberation” (CUP1:29). On the other hand, even if “enemies have succeeded in demonstrating what they desire regarding the Scriptures, with […] certainty” such things as that “these books are not by these authors, are not authentic, are not integri [complete],” Climacus still thinks that “the believer is still equally free to accept it […] because if he accepted it by virtue of a demonstration, he would be on the verge of abandoning the faith” (CUP1:30). Initially on this account, it would seem that any finding made by critical scholars that could be seen as evidence supporting the truth of Christianity would not only be indifferent, but would actually prove detrimental to genuine faith commitment. Yet perhaps Climacus is making a much more qualified argument; namely that because “the very concept [“God”], does not correlate in the Scriptures with ‘objects’ or ‘facts,’ ” it is “a serious fault in construing the Scriptures in that way.”5 On this account, Climacus’s point would be that even to enter into discussion with historical critical scholarship about matters of faith is already to fail at Scriptural reading, because the substitution of “facts” for spiritual realities, or approximation knowledge for faith, is precisely what the reader cannot do if he/​ she wants to read the Bible as Scripture. Despite this strong denunciation of the encroachment of the historical critical method onto religious faith seen in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works, 5 Holmer, On Kierkegaard and the Truth, 69.

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Kierkegaard rarely engages directly the work of historical critical scholars in his signed writings. This absence of direct engagement, along with Kierkegaard’s seeming unwillingness to incorporate insights from the historical critical method into his own reflection on Scripture have caused Mogens Müller to declare that Kierkegaard was “remarkably unaffected by developments in contemporary biblical scholarship,” and to suggest that Kierkegaard responded to the historical critical method by “merely disregard[ing] it.”6 In terms of direct engagement, Müller is right: Kierkegaard is much more directly engaged with contemporary philosophers, speculative theologians and Danish church leaders than he is with biblical scholars. Instead, Kierkegaard’s engagement with historical critical scholars works in a more indirect way: Kierkegaard seeks to find the central presupposition in the scholar’s methodology upon which the entire trajectory of the scholar’s Scriptural interpretation depends, and then seeks to expose the weakness of that underlying presupposition without mentioning the scholar who held that view. Jamie Turnbull has suggested that the center of Kierkegaard’s project could be described as an “attempt to ensure that Christianity remains on a transcendent and supernatural basis in the face of (what he takes to be) the threat of Hegelian theological naturalism.”7 Seen in this light, Kierkegaard’s interaction with biblical scholars can be seen as an attempt to expose naturalistic presuppositions and to overcome such reductionism in his own use of Scripture. This indirect approach can be seen in the way that Kierkegaard engages the work of the two most significant biblical scholars among the Left-​Hegelians, Bruno Bauer and David Strauss. Kierkegaard identifies a pivotal presupposition of each of their respective methods and exposes its inherent reductionism, without ever showing interest in their biblical scholarship for its own sake. While the work of both Strauss and Bauer typifies precisely the reductionism that Kierkegaard wants to overcome, neither are mentioned directly in any of Kierkegaard’s published writings (although each author gets one indirect reference in the published works).8 Furthermore, the extent to which Kierkegaard read the work of either is 6 Mogens Müller, “Kierkegaard and Biblical Scholarship,” 314 and 323, respectively. Müller (ibid, 314) is certainly correct in his assessment that Kierkegaard flatly rejected the “relativization of the content of the Bible and the contextualization of its concepts in a past world which was a consequence of the historical-​critical project.” 7 Jamie Turnbull, “Saving Kierkegaard’s Soul: From Philosophical Psychology to Golden Age Soteriology,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2011, ed. Heiko Schultz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 302. 8 In The Concept of Anxiety, the Hongs (CA, 251, n.44) suggest that Bauer is in view as Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Vigilius Haufniensis, refers to “a freethinker” who “applies all his acumen to prove that the New Testament was not written until the second century,” and has lost “inwardness”

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unclear.9 Yet if Kierkegaard does not appear to be particularly interested in analyzing the exegetical work of either thinker, Kierkegaard is nonetheless extremely concerned about the theological claim of both that Christ functions as “a symbol for universal humanity’s identity with the divine,”10 both on account of the inherent Christological reductionism of the claim (it reduces the divine to the human), and on account of the inherent anthropological reductionism of the claim (it reduces individual human existence and freedom into the collective whole of the “human” species).11 Kierkegaard likely had not read Strauss himself at this point, but Kierkegaard’s notes on his interaction with Julius Schaller (a more conservative Hegelian scholar who wrote a strong critique of Strauss) show that Kierkegaard is more interested in the philosophical presuppositions which have led to the positing of “myth” than he is about Strauss’s concrete interpretation of Scripture. While Kierkegaard agrees with Schaller that Strauss’s understanding of the Incarnation depends on Strauss’s inadequate understanding of human (CA, 142). In the Postscript, Climacus may refer to Strauss as promoting a “modern mythical allegorizing trend [which] summarily declares Christianity to be a myth” (CUP1:218). 9 With regard to Bauer, there is only direct evidence that Kierkegaard read one of Bauer’s articles (KJN2, KK:8), although Kierkegaard owned three volumes of the journal edited by Bauer, Zeitschrift für speculative Theologie. With regard to Strauss, there is direct evidence that Kierkegaard read Julius Schaller’s critique of Strauss (see KJN2, KK:2), shortly after it was published in the summer of 1838 (see Julius Schaller, Der historiche Christus und die Philosophie. Kritik der Grundidee des Werks: das Leben Jesu von Dr. D.F. Strauss, Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1838). Kierkegaard does not seem to have read Strauss’s The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835) by this time, since he does not reference it directly. 10 Timothy H. Polk, “Kierkegaard’s Use of The New Testament: Intratextuality, Indirect Communication, and Appropriation,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 241. 11 Kierkegaard sees the observations of Bauer and Strauss as leading to essentially this same reductionism. With regard to Strauss, George Pattison, “D. F. Strauss: Kierkegaard and Radical Demythologization,”in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 6: Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries: Tome II: Theology, ed. Jon Stewart (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 250–​1, notes, “For Strauss it is precisely an article of faith that the individual consciousness must perish […] whereas for Kierkegaard the aim is to help the individual to raise that very same question in such a way as to make it the pivot of his whole existence.” With regard to Bauer, David James and Douglas Moggach, “Bruno Bauer: Biblical Narrative, Freedom and Anxiety,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 6: Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries: Tome II: Theology, 14–​16, note that Bauer’s argument, while it opposes Strauss’s mythical account that the biblical texts were “collective myths,” nonetheless understood the Incarnation “to occur in each human individual singly, to the extent that the person is capable of self-​transformation in light of a universal ideal,” with the result that, “The absolute is, in infinite self-​consciousness, when we act with ethical awareness.”

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nature (KJN2, KK:2), Kierkegaard nonetheless spends a great deal of energy criticizing Schaller for maintaining a form of Hegelianism while Schaller seeks to show that Strauss’s mythical view of the New Testament was not convincing.12 In the Postscript, Climacus will later note that positing the Hegelian notion of the “eternal-​historical” constitutes “a playing with words” which “is a changing of the historical into myth, even if in the same paragraph one combats the mythologizing endeavor” (CUP1:579). Kierkegaard seems to think that Hegelianism is the fundamental problem, and that troubling conclusions about Scripture are merely symptoms which flow from reductionistic presuppositions. Müller is correct, then, in his assertion that Kierkegaard is more interested in exposing fundamental presuppositions which prevent fruitful reading of Scripture than in engaging the exegetical work of biblical scholars. Kierkegaard’s own Scriptural use does not appear to be undertaken with the intent to engage with the historical critical method. Instead, Kierkegaard provides his own approach to reading which resists the fundamental presuppositions of critical scholarship, and it is this alternative approach to Scriptural reading that is the subject of this book.

B. The Blocked Path of “Orthodoxy” and the Danish State Church Another Scriptural path that Kierkegaard sees blocked is that of “orthodoxy.” Formally, the term “orthodoxy” refers to the Lutheran scholastic movement surrounding and following the Formula of Concord, when doctrinal definitions were systematized to impose order on Lutheranism.13 Yet Kierkegaard usually uses the term more broadly to refer to theologians who attempt to defend Christian faith through an emphasis on dogmatic accuracy and apologetic evidence. Orthodoxy is accused of a series of closely linked errors in Scriptural reading which include “literalism,” the creation of a “system,” and a lack of “inwardness.” Orthodoxy is accused of “literalism” because it misses the existential aspect of Scripture and focuses on “getting it right” instead of being confronted by God.14 Orthodoxy is accused 12 See Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Carl Henrik Koch, “Explanatory Notes,” in KJN2, KK:2,n.1,597. Specifically, Schaller (a moderate Hegelian who had just been appointed professor of philosophy at Halle) is criticized by Kierkegaard for not describing adequately the unique content of revelation, the condition of human sin, or the experience of reconciliation with “the wrathful God” (KJN2, KK:2). 13 The Formula of Concord was written in 1577 as an attempt to specify the doctrinal stance of the Lutheran congregations. Kierkegaard characterizes this movement to systematize doctrine as a “whole dogmatic trend” which moved Lutheranism toward being a religion of the head (see KJN1, DD:125). 14 “Literalism” emphasizes adherence to doctrine and creed to such an extent that it restricts the elasticity of Scripture and distracts from appropriation (see KJN2, KK:3, EE:68).

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of creating a “system” by subordinating Scripture to philosophy and imposing a dogmatic structure on Scripture (KJN1, DD:125). Orthodoxy is accused of “lack of inwardness” because it focuses on defending the content of Christian faith as objective data rather than reading Scripture as truth which must be appropriated (CA, 142). In fact, all three criticisms are really parts of one larger criticism, namely that those in Danish Christendom are more interested in being “right” in their knowledge of Scripture than in being changed by their encounter with Scripture. As Kierkegaard quips, orthodoxy is “not so much concerned about […] understanding the Bible passage as about having a Bible passage to quote” (CUP1:603). It is especially useful for understanding Kierkegaard’s approach to notice that Kierkegaard criticizes orthodoxy for using the term “inspiration” as a response to the historical critical method. This argument at first seems odd, because it would seem like Kierkegaard would affirm the doctrine of inspiration precisely to inject a response of faith against the historical critical method. Yet Kierkegaard insists that because scientific conclusions and dogmatic affirmations are incommensurate, they should not be used in the same discussion (CUP1:24). For Climacus, “The misrelation between inspiration and critical research is like that between eternal happiness and critical deliberations, because inspiration is an object only of faith” (CUP1:25n.). Kierkegaard’s concern seems to be twofold. First, Kierkegaard is concerned that orthodox biblical scholars will attempt to support the doctrine of inspiration on scientific grounds, and thereby implicitly cede a doctrine of faith to scientific inquiry. Kierkegaard insists that if the scientific method could be used to lead one to the conclusion that Scripture is inspired, this would again demonstrate a category error between scientific inquiry and religious faith.15 Any apologetic defense of a doctrine of inspiration based on scientific observations would forfeit a doctrine of faith to human reason. Second, Kierkegaard seems to think that, in Christendom, resorting to a doctrine of inspiration may shortcut the dialectical process of choosing between faith or offense.16 Kierkegaard thinks that orthodoxy necessarily began to overemphasize 15 Climacus suggests that even if scholars could “say that it is as if every letter was inspired,” such a conclusion could not move any individual closer to faith (CUP1:28 and CUP1:25n.). On the other hand, if scholars were to argue that Scripture is “not inspired,” such a conclusion would not pose any serious challenge to faith, as “this cannot be disproved, since it is an object of faith” (CUP1:30). 16 At bottom, Climacus thinks that “Christians” living in Christendom desire “objectivity” because they wish to avoid the responsibility of “subjectively” appropriating the truth of Christianity. Climacus suggests that, “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” (CUP1:35,n.).

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a doctrine of inspiration precisely so that it could make Scripture into a storehouse of doctrine. Such heightened focus on inspiration became an “indirect attack on Christianity” because it shifts focus from the subject matter of Scripture to an idea about Scripture, and because it eliminates the “dialectical,” the choice between faith and offense (KJN7, NB16:78). Paul Holmer suggests that Kierkegaard is worried that the doctrine of inspiration has become “a pseudo-​religious belief in itself; instead of substantiating belief in sentences about God, the inspiration doctrine itself must be believed.”17 In this way, Holmer suggests that the doctrine of inspiration “introduces another and alien consideration, namely, whether there is such a thing as inspiration that finally becomes more fundamental than the truth of what is said about God.”18 When a doctrine of inspiration becomes the focus of orthodoxy, more energy will be spent on articulating and defending the doctrine of inspiration than on making an impassioned choice between faith and offense and on appropriating Scriptural truth in one’s own life. This criticism of inspiration seems to be more a critique of orthodoxy than a statement of Kierkegaard’s own theological position. As we will see, Kierkegaard himself held an extremely high view of Scriptural authority, seeming even to view Scripture “as a form of first-​person address from God” in which “God addresses each dearly beloved through the biblical text.”19 Kierkegaard’s rejection of the term inspiration appears to operate as a corrective to a Lutheran state church which is using the doctrine so unhelpfully that it would be better if the term “inspiration” were dropped altogether.

C. Kierkegaard’s Constructive Response: Upbuilding Discourses In Kierkegaard’s interaction with both the historical critical method and orthodoxy, we have seen two key elements of his thought. First, Kierkegaard is much more concerned about the fundamental presuppositions by which a reader approaches Scripture than he is in the concrete details of Scriptural interpretation. Second, Kierkegaard’s primary concern in Scriptural reading is to safeguard the transcendent and the illumine individual’s responsibility to the transcendent (the “God-​relationship”). Viewed from this perspective, historical critical scholarship and orthodoxy really appear for Kierkegaard to be two sides of the same coin, as 17 Holmer, On Kierkegaard and the Truth, 66–​7. 18 Holmer, ibid, 67. 19 Joel D. S. Rasmussen, “The Pitiful Prototype: Concerning Kierkegaard’s Reflections on the Apostle Peter as a Model for Christian Witness,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2007, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 274–​5.

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they both tend to overemphasize the role of human reason and underemphasize the existential requirements of faith (faith becomes merely an intellectual affirmation of a definite content of truth). Whatever good intentions the scholars who represented each position may have held, Kierkegaard viewed both methods as being inherently tilted toward reductionism in their approach to the transcendent and away from the concrete responsibilities of the individual who approaches the transcendent. Yet if he views historical critical scholarship and “orthodoxy” as two blocked paths to Scriptural reading, Kierkegaard will need to provide a constructive approach to Scriptural reading which moves beyond their weaknesses. It is this constructive approach that is represented in Kierkegaard’s religious “discourses.” While Kierkegaard’s criticisms of historical critical scholarship and orthodoxy occur mostly in the pseudonymous works, Kierkegaard simultaneously published sets of religious discourses, in which he practices a particular approach to Scriptural reading which challenges the reader to make a resolution of faith. The discourses were written to be “upbuilding,” and this means that Kierkegaard writes less to persuade scholars (whether historical critics or orthodox), than he does to encourage individuals to appropriate Scripture for themselves. A brief overview of the concept of “upbuilding” and the literary category of “discourses” will be useful for understanding Kierkegaard’s aims in his use of Scripture. The Aim of Upbuilding: The term “upbuilding” was common in a number of contexts which became important for Kierkegaard’s authorship. Kierkegaard may have drawn the term from the “edifying literature” of Pietism ([Erbauungsliteratur] translates to “opbyggeligt” literature in Danish).20 Kierkegaard may also have become familiar with the term from the preaching of his pastor Bishop Mynster, who claimed that the phrase, “upbuilding discourses” [“Opbyggelige Taler”] is the phrase “most suited to describing the nature of the contemporary sermon.”21 Kierkegaard may also have acquired the phrase directly from the Bible, particularly from the

20 Christopher B. Barnett “Should one Suffer Death for the Truth?: Kierkegaard, Erbauungsliteratur, and the Imitation of Christ,” Journal for the History of Modern Theology 15 (2008): 234–​40. As early as 1835 Kierkegaard speaks favorably of Pietist “upbuilding writings” [Opbyggelsesskrifter], which describe individuals who draw back from the world to follow Christ (KJN1, AA:14). 21 George Pattison, “The Art of Upbuilding,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003), 80 and 85, respectively, notes that Bishop Mynster uses the phrase in his “Remarks Concerning the Art of Preaching” [Bemærkninger om den konst at prædike] of 1810, and suggests that Kierkegaard “likely” was enough acquainted with Mynster’s sermons to have been familiar with the phrase from Mynster.

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writings of the Apostle Paul.22 Finally, Kierkegaard may use the word as a refutation of Hegel’s prioritization of speculative discourse over edifying discourse, as Kierkegaard emphasizes that “edification is thought as the original essence of truth.”23 It seems likely that all of the sources above served as significant inspiration for Kierkegaard’s use of this word which stands at the very center of Kierkegaard’s authorship. In this project, the term “Upbuilding” will be defined as the inward appropriation of truth, by which the individual becomes rightly related to God, as the individual engages in the dialectical struggle toward existence. Each part of this definition is significant for understanding Kierkegaard’s discourses, and will be explained further. Upbuilding is Inward Appropriation of Truth: In the Postscript, Climacus claims that “inwardness is truth,” that “truth as inwardness […] is upbuilding” (CUP1:258), and that making truth one’s own comes about through “the self-​ activity of appropriation” (CUP1:242). The close association between “truth” (here “subjective” truth, or truth about one’s existence), “inwardness” and “appropriation” means that truth about one’s own existence must be appropriated before that truth can be “truth for” the individual (EO2:354). Kierkegaard is not saying that subjective truth is relative, or that such truth should be regarded as untrue until it is appropriated; rather, he is saying that such truth can only be recognized or affirmed as true when appropriated by the individual. As Kierkegaard puts it in the Christian Discourses, when an individual has lived consistently according to Scriptural truth, that individual has “made true that which is indeed eternally true […] by doing it” (CD, 98). Subjective truth must be communicated as universal truth because such truth always deals with “a common human concern,” but it must be addressed to the single individual as particular truth for that individual 22 Hugh Pyper, The Joy of Kierkegaard: Essays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014), 131–​2. Pyper’s suggestion has plausibility since there are 24 uses of the term “upbuilding” in the Danish New Testament (19 of which are Pauline), and one of Kierkegaard’s most detailed discussions of the term “upbuilding” occurs as an interpretation of the Pauline phrase “love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1; WL, 209–​24). 23 David Kangas, “The Logic of Gift in Kierkegaard’s Four Upbuilding Discourses (1843),” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2000, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 108. See G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 6, who suggests that philosophy “must beware of the wish to be edifying,” since “mere edification” serves to “shroud in a mist the manifold variety of [the observer’s] earthly existence and of thought.” Kierkegaard provides evidence that he intends to write upbuilding discourses as a response to Hegel, noting in 1840, “It is strange what hate, conspicuous everywhere, Hegel has for the upbuilding, but that which builds up is not an opiate that lulls to sleep; it is the amen of the finite spirit and is an aspect of knowledge that ought not to be ignored” ( JP2, 1588).

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because “each participant is essentially alone with himself ” in considering and appropriating that truth (UDVS, 106). Upbuilding is becoming rightly related to God: The aim of upbuilding is the actualization of the individual’s existence in the image of God. In the discourse, “To Know God …,” Kierkegaard claims, “Wherever God is in truth, there he is always creating. He […] wants to create in [the person who becomes nothing] a new human being” (EUD, 325; see also EUD, 226, 309–​10). The process of becoming nothing and being remade is described in a variety of ways, yet the terms “transparency,” “worship” and “imitation” perhaps best approach the essence of this inverted relation. Kierkegaard discusses “transparency” by using the analogy of the ocean reflecting the sky to explain the way in which an individual reflects the image of God. Kierkegaard states, “When the ocean is exerting all its power, that is precisely the time when it cannot reflect the image of heaven, and even the slightest motion blurs the image; but when it becomes still and deep, then the image of heaven sinks into its nothingness” (EUD, 399; also UDVS, 121). In this image, transparency is not passivity, but rather is the conforming of one’s will to the recognition that God is everything, and that any capability the human being may offer is first received as a gift from God.24 “Worship” is the outward expression of inward transparency, as the individual acknowledges his/​her own nothingness and God’s infinite greatness. In the Postscript, Climacus writes, “Worship is the maximum for a human being’s relationship with God, and thereby for his likeness to God,” as “worship signifies that for him God is absolutely everything” (CUP1:413). Worship allows the inverse relation between God and human beings to be appropriated to its fullest extent, and precisely “when God has become the eternal and omnipresent object of worship and the human being always a worshipper, only then do they resemble each other” (UDVS, 193).25 Finally, while Kierkegaard never uses the word “imitation” in the discourses to discuss the reader’s need to follow Christ or other

24 In The Sickness Unto Death, Anti-​Climacus describes the “self ” free from despair as a self which “in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself […] rests transparently in the power that established it” (SUD, 14). 25 Anti-​Climacus, likewise, claims that “to worship, which is the expression of faith, is to express that the infinite, chasmal, qualitative abyss between them is confirmed” (SUD, 129). Steven Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Language, and the Reality of God (Burlington: Ashgate, 2001), 189, notes that, “There is a sense in which the difference between God and humanity has to be re-​ made or repeated by each individual. Worship is not the eradication of difference, but its confirmation and repetition.”

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prototypes ( Job, Paul, Peter, Anna), Kierkegaard often stresses the importance of following prototypical figures in order to develop submission to God.26 Upbuilding occurs through the process of the dialectical struggle toward existence: For Kierkegaard, all development in existence (and therefore all upbuilding), is dialectical. Here it is important to distinguish between “conceptual dialectic” and “existential dialectic.”27 “Conceptual dialectic” is the intellectual and reflective method of “bringing opposite concepts together in the realm of thought,” in order to achieve “objective knowledge containing a greater or lesser degree of probability.”28 While conceptual dialectic is a part of philosophical and theoretical inquiry, Kierkegaard is interested in developing a dialectic of existence. This “existential dialectic” is, in the words of Sylvia Walsh, a “dialectic of inwardness” in which the individual becomes aware of a “qualitative contradiction between one’s present condition and one’s ethical or ethical-​religious telos, and […] of the potential qualities, capacities, or conditions that may be realized in human existence.”29 Growth in existence is dialectical because “the structure of each person contains two opposing poles (e.g. freedom/​necessity, knowing/​doing, actuality/​ possibility, spiritual/​material) that must both be integrated within one’s relation to the world.”30 Readers come to recognize the need for God by recognizing their own inadequacy before God, and they are upbuilt dialectically by imagining possibilities for being remade in the likeness of God, and resolving to participate in this process of becoming. As Peder Jothen puts it, this process of becoming “is a relational art, one that demands that each person consciously imagine an existential or ontological possibility, as in an idea of being human, will it, and passionately strive to embody it within one’s existence.”31 This means that knowledge, imagination, and commitment to appropriation are all essential elements of the dialectic of upbuilding. Gregor Malantschuk shows that the priority of the question “what” is replaced by the priority of the question “how,” so that one can only understand 26 The word “imitator” in the discourses is only used of Peter (CD, 182, 278), referring to him as imitator of Christ. However, Kierkegaard’s insistence on following the example of Christ, apostles, and other biblical prototypes is central to the discourses. 27 For more on this distinction, see Sylvia Walsh, Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 6–​ 7, and Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 305–​6. 28 See Walsh, Living Christianly, 7, citing Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, 305. 29 Walsh, Living Christianly, 6–​7. 30 Jothen, 48. 31 Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 48.

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“what” existence is by asking “how” it is to be lived.32 Progress in existence is made as the individual appropriates truth in order to move closer to the telos which the individual recognizes as ultimately Good. In the discourses, struggle or suffering is usually viewed as an indispensable experience for upbuilding. Suffering will always be present in the process of upbuilding because the essence of the religious life is suffering. Climacus states, “Just as the faith of immediacy is in fortune, so the faith of the religious is […] that life lies precisely in suffering” (CUP1:436), and emphasizes suffering’s “essential continuance and […] essential relation to the religious life” (CUP1:445). For Climacus, suffering seems to arise because the “absoluteness of the religious [is] placed together with the specific” (that is, the temporal, finite, particular existence of the human being), and this creates a “combination that in existence is the very basis and meaning of suffering” (CUP1:483). This means that if the individual comes into a “relationship with God,” then the individual “also remains in suffering” (CUP1:445). Kierkegaard states this universal function of suffering perhaps best in “The Gospel of Sufferings,” where Kierkegaard states that suffering “turns a person inward,” and suggests that the “school of sufferings is a dying to and quiet lessons in dying to” (UDVS, 256–​7). This function of suffering remains fairly consistent throughout the discourses.33 Upbuilding, then, is the inward appropriation of truth, by which the individual becomes rightly related to God, as the individual engages in the dialectical struggle toward existence. Upbuilding is the goal of the discourses, and each discourse seeks to draw the reader into this dialectical process in specific ways. Scripture serves as the primary source of content for the discourses, as it is Scripture which presents the process and goal of upbuilding in a privileged way.34 Religious Discourses as the Medium of Upbuilding: Kierkegaard’s project of upbuilding occurs in the form of discourses which are usually structured as 32 Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, 307. 33 To be sure, there is development as well, as each set of discourses advances beyond the previous. “ ‘The Gospel of Sufferings’ […] left suffering unspecified” (KJN4, NB4:23), while “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” distinguishes “innocent suffering” (by which upbuilding occurs), from the suffering which accompanies sin (which “is a human being’s corruption”) (KJN4, NB4:23; CD, 103), and “Thoughts That Wound From Behind” makes a further distinction between the suffering of human life in general and suffering as a Christian. However, the consistent theme is the role of suffering in bringing about upbuilding. 34 As we will see, Kierkegaard will employ a dialectical reading of Scripture that is much like Martin Luther’s dialectical reading between Law and Gospel, except that Kierkegaard changes the dialectic from an emphasis on knowledge content (recognizing my sin through Law and becoming aware of good news in Christ) to one of existential appropriation (envisioning and choosing possibilities for authentic existence).

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reflections on Scripture. These discourses often present an imagined situation in which addressed readers are envisioned as being “assembled” at a liturgical service (a Sunday church service, a Communion service, a wedding or a funeral). Furthermore, the discourses often begin with a prayer, cite a main Scriptural text which will be discussed, provide an introduction which considers a topic drawn from human experience, and proceed to analyze the main Scriptural text through the use of further Scriptural texts, theological claims, and philosophical reflection. The discourses can be said to form a single category of Kierkegaard’s authorship, as they can be characterized by a particular set of features. First, the discourses are signed by Kierkegaard, and therefore can typically be said to represent Kierkegaard’s own position on various topics.35 Second, nearly all of Kierkegaard’s discourses are presented as a form of religious communication. Third, nearly all of Kierkegaard’s discourses begin by posing a particular Scriptural text or Scriptural idea for exploration, and they advance by recalling additional Scriptural texts or ideas which bring the argument to its upbuilding conclusion. These features provide a fairly stable structure to the discourses as a whole, and provide a foundation from which to begin to analyze the different uses of Scripture. The discourses always seek to address “that single individual” [hiin Enkelte] as an individual before God. While the significance of the “single individual” develops throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship (KJN7, NB20:89), several aspects will be useful for understanding Kierkegaard’s address to his readers. First, the phrase indicates the equality of all persons before God in that “it […] absolutely abolishes differences as illusions and establishes the essential equality of eternity” (KJN4, NB:129; see also KJN4, NB:115). Second, the phrase is used as “the category of awakening” in “Christendom.” In an age when “security prevails,” the category is used “to make people (the Christians) into Christians,” as “the missionary’s category within Christendom itself, to deepen inwardly what it is to be and become a Christian” (KJN4, NB3:77). Yet in an age of “commotion” the category “will be a rescue action of drawing attention away from externality […] and to strengthen inwardness” ( JP2, 2013). These comments about the “single individual” show us that Kierkegaard will structure the discourses as an appeal to individuals within Christendom to appropriate Scriptural truth. While the upbuilding truth will be one which applies to every person equally, the discourses will seek to make this upbuilding truth specific to the “single individual” (EUD, 276). Scriptural truths “are not indifferent to the single individual’s 35 The word “typically” is important here, since although Kierkegaard presents his discourses as “direct communication” (KJN8, NB22:17), the discourses still contain a good deal of “indirect communication,” and advance more by exploring possibilities rather than by stating propositions.

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particular condition […] because this determines for them whether they are to be truths for him” (EUD, 233), and the goal of the discourses will be to enable Scriptural truths to become truth for the individual. Consequently, the discourses will employ a variety of maieutic techniques to enable the individual to “becom[e]‌a Christian” or to “strengthen inwardness.” Because “the explicit task [of upbuilding] is precisely to develop deeper and deeper the need that everyone ought to have” (EUD, 474), upbuilding will always be terrifying before it can be comforting (EUD, 330; also EUD, 239, 346; UDVS, 106; CD, 96–​7; WA, 176–​7). Kierkegaard, then, will be practicing a particular kind of persuasion, that of terrifying the reader in order to comfort the reader through the process of inward renewal. Because Kierkegaard seeks to address the “single individual” in his/​her specific situation, different discourses present challenges to readers in different ways. Kierkegaard’s discourses fall into four categories (which we will call genres): Upbuilding discourses, written to address concerns common to all persons; Occasional discourses, written for the specific occasions of a confession, a wedding, and a funeral; Christian discourses, written to explore the realities and requirements specific to Christian existence; and Communion discourses, written as imagined sermons to be preached just before the Communion meal on Friday mornings.36 In each genre, Kierkegaard works to structure a somewhat different kind of challenge to readers, and this leads him to use Scripture somewhat differently as well. One important part of this project will be to examine the ways in which Kierkegaard uses Scripture differently to provide different kinds of upbuilding challenges to readers.

II.  Purpose and Structure of the Book Books on Kierkegaard’s Use of Scripture and Discourses: This book seeks to illumine the overarching hermeneutical approach to Scripture that allows Kierkegaard to construct the discourses as a way forward in reading the Bible. In recent years several books have been published relating to Kierkegaard’s discourses, and several others relating to Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, yet very little research has been done specifically on Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses. Of those 36 This project will use the phrase “Upbuilding discourses” to designate that category of discourses which includes the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and the Occasional discourses. The project will use the phrase “Christian discourses” to designate that category of discourses which includes Christian and Communion discourses from various works. Where the project refers specifically to the book, Christian Discourses, the phrase will be capitalized and italicized.

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works which attempt to provide an overview of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, most focus has been placed on Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works, leaving the discourses (the genre in which Kierkegaard explicitly develops reflections based on Scripture) largely unexamined. Essays and articles at times examine particular Scriptural themes or characters in the discourses, yet these works are typically quite narrow in scope and do not seek to examine Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses as a whole. Several books on Kierkegaard’s Use of Scripture have been useful dialogue partners to this present study.37 The most thorough treatment of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture (and the closest parallel to the present project) is Jolita Pons’s Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible.38 Providing an analysis of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the pseudonymous works through the lens of quotation theory, Pons evaluates the role the quotation plays in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work and compares all Scriptural “quotations” in the pseudonymous writings with the text of the Danish Bible in order to identify changes in Kierkegaard’s employment of the Scriptural text. This analysis shows how the Bible forms an “invisible omnipresence” in Kierkegaard’s philosophical writings, as it identifies the ways in which Kierkegaard creatively uses the Scriptural text to challenge readers.39 However, much of Pons’s thesis hangs on her assumption that Kierkegaard utilizes certain hermeneutical techniques in his analysis of Scripture 37 We might also mention, in passing, two other works on Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture which receive little attention in this book, yet are useful in articulating certain aspects of Kierkegaard’s Scriptural interpretation. One is Hugh Pyper’s The Joy of Kierkegaard: Essays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014), a collection of eleven essays (nine previously published) on various aspects of Kierkegaard’s authorship in which Pyper seeks to cast new light on Kierkegaard’s philosophical questions by teasing out the implications of Kierkegaard’s Scriptural exegesis. Also worth noting is L. Joseph Rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), the first major work devoted specifically to Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, and the only attempt to survey the entire range of Kierkegaard’s authorship. Subsequent scholarship has surpassed every aspect of this work except its breadth, and unfortunately it is precisely the ambitious breadth of the project which serves as the book’s greatest weakness, since any attempt to overview Kierkegaard’s entire corpus in a mere 155 pages necessarily reduces discussion of complex issues to broad generalizations. 38 Jolita Pons, Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible (New York: Fordham, 2004). 39 Pons, ibid, xiv–​xv. For the present project, the most significant of these observations emerges from Pons’s evaluation (ibid, 69–​122) of alternative renderings of Scriptural narrative and misquotations, where Pons shows that important philosophical and theological arguments at times lurk behind even the smallest changes of detail in Scriptural quotation. Pons shows that much can be gleaned from a very precise examination of Scriptural quotation, as Kierkegaard’s changes to the text reveal strategies of (1) mistranslation to make an argument, (2) choosing to translate from either Latin, Greek or Hebrew in order to render the most useful sense of the text,

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precisely because he is constructing indirect communication, and it will be important to observe in this present work the extent to which Scriptural use changes in those writings which Kierkegaard calls his “direct communication.”40 Another useful dialogue partner for the present work is Tim Polk’s The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith,41 which is grounded on the assumption that Kierkegaard’s hermeneutic shares many of the presuppositions about intratextuality and canonicity promoted by Postliberal theology.42 The present work agrees with Polk that Kierkegaard’s discourses might well be classified as a work of Postliberal theology, since Kierkegaard employs “a speech-​act hermeneutic that grounds itself non-​foundationally in the canon,” and which requires the “passionate subjectivity” of the reader.43 However, while Polk suggests that the concrete practice of love described in Works of Love stands as the “epitome of Kierkegaard’s biblical hermeneutic,” and argues that Kierkegaard would agree in principle with Augustine’s interpretation of the rule of faith: that whatever interpretation leads to love is a correct one,44 the present project will suggest that (3) purposefully fusing several different texts together to create a new reading, and (4) mimicking biblical language to create alternative possibilities for the reader. 40 Pons herself recognizes that further work needs to be done on the discourses, since the discourses are clearly a genre to themselves, and since they have their own distinct structure and form of argument, and depend on the use of Scripture for their existence as a genre. For example, Pons (Stealing a Gift, 152, n.28), chooses to exclude examination of the pseudonymous work Practice in Christianity because, structured as a set of discourses, “[T]‌he mode of employing the biblical text is quite markedly different from other pseudonymous works, [and therefore] it would need to be the subject of a separate study.” 41 Timothy Houston Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997). 42 Postliberal theology is also referred to as the “Yale” school, of which Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, David Kelsey, and biblical scholar Brevard Childs are its best known proponents. See Hans Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975) and George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984). 43 Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, 4 and 2, respectively. 44 Polk, ibid, 2, 8–​10 (for Augustine’s rule of faith, see Christian Doctrine, 1.26.40). The principle is framed in dialogue with Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge: Harvard, 1980). Throughout the book, Polk will show that much more specificity is needed for the rule of faith, and appeals to Kierkegaard to supply it. Polk (ibid, 78–​ 90) shows that Kierkegaard’s own employment of the rule of faith is considerably more complex than Augustine’s, being built around four themes: “distinctive categories” (Scripture provides a distinctive way of thinking about God and the world which is often contradictory to human experience, and therefore the Bible must supply the conception of love); “intratextuality” (the interpretation of one part of Scripture depends on the interpretation of the others, and the reader is incorporated into the story so that performance is part of the interpretation); “instruction/​

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only when a concept such as “upbuilding” or “becoming nothing before God” is given hermeneutical priority is the concept of “love” able to be discussed with sufficient specificity. Further, while Polk argues that Kierkegaard’s “intratextual approach serves to check the tendentious eclecticism of promoting congenial texts and dismissing uncomfortable ones,”45 we will attempt to deal more fully with Kierkegaard’s own dismissal of uncomfortable texts (in particular, the immediate context of Kierkegaard’s chosen Scriptural text is quickly dismissed if it has potential to pose a challenge to Kierkegaard’s interpretation), and will suggest that Kierkegaard often interprets individual Scriptural texts through the lens of what he calls “Christianity” rather than the Scriptural canon itself. Finally, among the essays contained in the two-​volume set edited by Lee Barrett and Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome I and Tome II (which are devoted to the Old and New Testaments, respectively), two have special importance in this project.46 In the volume on the Old Testament, Iben Damgaard’s “Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text,” focuses on an “interesting tension between proximity and distance” in Kierkegaard’s rewritings of Scripture, in which Kierkegaard attempts to force the reader to “play stranger” with the biblical text (WL, 210), so that the constructive distance between reader and text will create a “spiritual contemporaneity” between reader and Scriptural events.47 Damgaard usefully suggests that the two most useful metaphors for illumining Kierkegaard’s creative retelling of biblical narrative are that of Jacob’s wrestling with God (Gen. 32) and that of a mirror ( James 1:23), since it is through an “existential struggle with the text” that readers are able to see themselves “in the mirror of the word.”48 Particularly helpful in the New Testament volume is Joel Rasmussen’s “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics: Imitation, Imaginative Freedom, and

45

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edification” (Scripture provides the categories for religious thinking and performs upbuilding as it is passionately engaged); and “vision” (a hermeneutical circle in which practiced reading leads to moral transformation which in turn enables more engaged reading). Polk, ibid, 83. Polk, ibid, 148–​94, argues that Kierkegaard resists the typical Danish Lutheran “canon within the canon” which privileges justification by faith alone, and instead creates a “ ‘canonical harmony’ that seeks not to obliterate the different voices in the ensemble, but to hear their full range while penetrating to a grasp of the subject matter that allows them all to cohere.” Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart, eds., Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome I: The Old Testament, and Tome II: The New Testament (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010). Iben Damgaard, “Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives: The Mirror of the Text,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome I: The Old Testament, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 207–​30. Damgaard, ibid, 220.

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Paradoxical Fixation,”49 in which Rasmussen suggests that Kierkegaard “operates with multiple interrelated biblical hermeneutics,” so that his “hermeneutics of imitation” is developed through the poles of a “hermeneutics of imaginative freedom” and a “hermeneutics of paradoxical fixation” in such a way that “freedom” continues in “paradox” and both continue in “imitation.”50 While most of Rasmussen’s evidence is drawn from Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works, the present study will further Rasmussen’s insights in light of evidence from the discourses. There are three books devoted exclusively to Kierkegaard’s discourses, and all focus primarily on the Upbuilding Discourses. The most comprehensive study of the discourses is George Pattison’s Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Theology, Literature,51 in which Pattison argues that (1) the reader can appreciate Kierkegaard’s philosophical insights on human existence without necessarily accepting their underlying religious presuppositions, and (2) the discourses provide the best viewpoint for understanding the unity of Kierkegaard’s authorship. Because “upbuilding is quite distinct from doctrinal exposition,” and because “ethical communication […] is necessarily indirect,” Pattison contends that Kierkegaard, by his own criteria set forth in The Point of View, should have placed the Discourses in the category of indirect communication.52 Against Climacus’s claim that the early Discourses are grounded in human experience while the Christian discourses grounded in dogmatic principles, Pattison argues that all Kierkegaard’s discourses depend upon a Kantian regulative understanding of the transcendent, in which “moral and religious principles […] give measure and direction to living but […] do not presuppose any general ontology or any particular world-​view.”53 Pattison contends that “even the most radical Christian works” can be understood within the more general category of upbuilding, and suggests that the increased presence of Christian concepts in the later discourses simply shows that the early discourses “create a context in which the ‘above,’ the perspective of transcendence, first becomes meaningful.”54 For Pattison, even the event of Christ can be understood as an event that has meaning “generated by the needs and exigencies of the human condition.”55 From this perspective, Pattison’s work provides a useful 49 Joel D. S. Rasmussen, “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics: Imitation, Imaginative Freedom, and Paradoxical Fixation,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 249–​84. 50 Rasmussen, ibid, 253. 51 George Pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Literature and Theology (New York and London: Routledge, 2002). 52 Pattison, ibid, 19 and 21, respectively. 53 Pattison, ibid, 9. 54 Pattison, ibid, 12 and 33, respectively. 55 Pattison, ibid, 33.

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alternative view to the present project, which suggests that Kierkegaard is primarily a religious writer whose discourses are always (even in the early Upbuilding Discourses) attentive to the particular claims of creedal Christian faith. The second book devoted specifically to Kierkegaard’s discourses is David Kangas’s Errant Affirmations: On the Philosophical Meaning of Kierkegaard’s Religious Discourses.56 Writing to clarify Kierkegaard’s philosophical understanding of “upbuilding” in the discourses, Kangas argues that upbuilding is not, primarily, a theological or religious or even moral concept, but instead is an awareness of “the self ’s being entrapped in itself, riveted to itself, absolutely incapable of an assertion of power vis-​à-​vis its being and therefore absolutely in-​capable.”57 Such fundamental incapability of the self means, for Kangas, that “everything idealism thought of as ‘the subject’—​the power to posit itself, to project itself and realize itself and ultimately to create itself—​is shown to be derivative upon this more radical structure” of incapability, and upbuilding can occur only when “the ‘subject’ explicitly discerns, attends to, and undergoes the ultimate situation of being in-​ capable,” and “relinquish[es] ‘the wish.’ ”58 Upbuilding occurs when the awareness of human incapability leads to what Kangas calls, “Errant Affirmations,” the “affirmation of […] existence simultaneously with infinite sorrow and unconditioned joy” as the individual recognizes life as gift, or a “surplus of being.”59 The role of the “edifying discourse,” then, is not to “instruct,” but to “bring […] the surplus of being forward as the measure of human existence,” and thereby to lead the reader to “affirmation” of the sheer givenness of life.60 Because Kangas’s analysis is primarily philosophical, Errant Affirmations provides another useful study of the discourses which complements the primarily religious focus of this present project. At the same time, a study of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses could add much to Kangas’s analysis, since while Kangas at times recognizes the central importance of Scripture in the discourses, he rarely examines the contribution of Scriptural allusion to the argument of the discourses.61 The religious approach provided in this work will argue that Kierkegaard did intend upbuilding to aim toward

56 David J. Kangas, Errant Affirmations: On the Philosophical Meaning of Kierkegaard’s Religious Discourses (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). 57 Kangas, ibid, 7. 58 Kangas, ibid, 7. 59 Kangas, ibid, 6 and 4. 60 Kangas, ibid, 4–​5. 61 For example, Kangas (ibid, 97) acknowledges that the discourses ordinarily proceed as “commentary on [a]‌specific biblical text,” yet Kangas almost never gives attention to this aspect of the discourses.

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a particular telos, that of relationship with God, and that use of Scripture is a primary way in which Kierkegaard envisioned such upbuilding being accomplished. In the third book, Anders Kingo’s Den Opbyggelige Tale: En Systematisk-​ Teologisk Studie over Søren Kierkegaards Opbyggelige Forfatterskab,62 Kingo argues that the discourses are all essentially Christian works which take paradox as their point of departure. For Kingo, the whole focus of Kierkegaard’s authorship (and specifically the discourses) is to show the “transition” [Overgangen] from immanence to Christianity, and understanding that this transition is at the center of all the discourses provides a point of departure for reading the pseudonymous works.63 The pseudonymous works enable “existence to stand out as the concrete composition of actuality and Christianity,” yet the signed works are needed to lead readers to the essentially Christian.64 This means that “Aesthetic production is […] a conscious deception,” while in the discourses Kierkegaard “communicate[s]‌” what he “actually means.”65 Kingo’s thesis, so different from that of Kangas and Pattison, is based on several arguments. First, Kingo assumes that Kierkegaard is consistent in his claim that his goal from the beginning has been to show what it means to be a Christian in Christendom (PV, 8).66 Second, Kingo emphasizes the authority of “apostolic” language.67 Third, Kingo argues that the Upbuilding discourses assume the perspective of revelation, since Kierkegaard’s given solution for human problems (whether sin, inequality, lack of love), could not arise from the realm of immanence.68 Kingo’s perspective is very close to the one presented in the present project. However, whereas Kingo may see too clear a strategy in Kierkegaard’s earliest discourses, this project will seek to show how a variety of strategies develop in the discourses over the course of Kierkegaard’s authorship. 62 Anders Kingo, Den Opbyggelige Tale: En Systematisk-​Teologisk Studie over Søren Kierkegaards Opbyggelige Forfatterskab (København: G.E.C. Gad, 1987). 63 Kingo, ibid, 137. 64 Kingo, ibid, 15. 65 Kingo, ibid, 17, 19. 66 Kingo, ibid, 10. 67 Kingo, ibid, 98. Because the Upbuilding discourses typically open with an apostolic (Scriptural) statement, and proceed by analyzing a situation in the world through the lens of the apostolic speech, they can be assumed to provide a directly Christian perspective. 68 Kingo, ibid, 138. Only from the perspective of revelation, says Kingo (ibid, 99–​103) can “difference in equality before God” be established, since all persons are equal because they are all sinners before God (see EUD, 145). Especially interesting is Kingo’s focus (ibid, 102), on Kierkegaard’s repeated claim in the Upbuilding discourses that God gives both the gift and the “condition” for receiving the gift, as Kingo suggests that because in Philosophical Fragments the “condition” is understood to be forgiveness and new creation, the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses must assume the perspective of Christianity.

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Through an analysis of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, it will be shown that the theological perspective of the Upbuilding and Christian discourses do stand in continuity with each other, and consequently that the Upbuilding discourses are, in fact, a form of Christian communication. Overall, then, greater emphasis has been placed in Kierkegaard scholarship on the Upbuilding discourses than on the Christian discourses. This is understandable since both Pattison and Kangas are seeking to show that Kierkegaard’s religious discourses have a lasting philosophical value outside of their religious context, and since Kingo is seeking to show that the Upbuilding discourses are really a form of Christian communication. Yet here it will be suggested that Scriptural analysis has the potential to open new ways of reading the discourses, and to provide new insights about the relationship between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses. Structure of the Book: This study, then, will focus on Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses as an instance of theological interpretation of Scripture, examining the way in which the Bible functions as a resource for upbuilding individuals in their relationship with God. The book will focus primarily on identifying general hermeneutical principles which guide Kierkegaard’s thought, and on describing the development of Kierkegaard’s Scriptural interpretation chronologically across his discourses, in order to understand better how and why his use of Scripture in religious communication progressed throughout his career. The study is developed in the following way. In the first chapter, we begin with an analysis of Kierkegaard’s understanding of spiritual language, in order to describe the movement from “metaphorical” reading to “actual” reading which Kierkegaard understands to be at the center of Scriptural interpretation. Here we will focus on Kierkegaard’s expectation that the reader approach the text with a commitment of faith and resolution to appropriation as the means by which the reader becomes upbuilt. Kierkegaard will be placed in discussion with Paul Ricoeur, to show how Kierkegaard’s move to “actual” reading is similar to Ricoeur’s move from first-​order to second-​order reference. Kierkegaard will also be placed in discussion with Henri de Lubac, in order to show how Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture is very close to tropological reading in the traditional fourfold Christian hermeneutic. It will be suggested that Kierkegaard works to create and exploit the metaphoric nature of Scriptural language to bring out its upbuilding potential, and that this closely resembles what has been called tropological reading. In the second chapter, we will examine the common patterns in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture throughout his various discourses, and will present a catalog of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses which categorizes Kierkegaard’s

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various techniques under broader hermeneutical assumptions. Broad hermeneutical assumptions about Scriptural language which drive Kierkegaard’s project include the assumption that (1) the broader context is more important than the immediate context for determining Scriptural meaning; (2) meaning usually occurs at the level of the phrase; (3) universalizing a text makes it contemporary with the present reader; (4) changing a text creates a surplus of meaning; and (5) spiritualizing a text provides a deeper meaning for the reader. Within each of these categories of broad hermeneutical assumptions will be placed a list of specific techniques, those observed patterns of repeated use which depend upon the hermeneutical assumption. This overview will illumine the shape of Kierkegaard’s interpretive strategy by showing how metaphor is created and tropological reading is employed. In the third chapter, we will explore the differences in Scriptural use in each of Kierkegaard’s various sets of discourses, in order to determine how and why Kierkegaard adapts his Scriptural use to specific kinds of upbuilding arguments. We will categorize the discourses into the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and then into the five individual sets of Christian discourses from 1847 to 1848 (“The Gospel of Sufferings”; “The Cares of the Pagans” “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” “Thoughts That Wound From Behind” and “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays”), in order to identify what is distinctive about Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in each set. Through this analysis, it will be shown that Kierkegaard’s changing rhetorical strategies in different sets necessitate new hermeneutical techniques to present and interpret Scripture differently. This analysis of differences in Scriptural use will enable us to provide some initial conclusions about what Kierkegaard intended each of these various sets of discourses to accomplish. Between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses, we will suggest that the shifts in tone and Scriptural content reveal more a shift in Kierkegaard’s rhetoric of upbuilding than in the content of upbuilding. Between the sets of Christian discourses themselves, we will suggest that some discourses are intended more as explorations of a paradoxical Christian truth for committed Christians, while others are intended more as challenges to nominal Christians. The chapter will conclude with a hypothesis about why Kierkegaard begins to write his Christian discourses along these different trajectories. In the fourth chapter, we will more closely assess the relationship between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses through the lens of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture. To do this, we will examine two of the most important changes in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture which we uncovered in Chapter Two. First, we will examine Kierkegaard’s shift in Scriptural content from the general religious to the essentially Christian. This section on Scriptural content will argue that the discourses present Kierkegaard’s move from general religiousness

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to Christianity as a deepening specificity in the same process of upbuilding rather than a different kind of upbuilding. Second, we will examine Kierkegaard’s shift in the presentation of Scriptural authority from the Upbuilding discourses to the Christian discourses in order better to understand how this shift in emphasis affects the relationship between these two kinds of discourses. This section will show that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on Scriptural authority in the Christian discourses corresponds to his understanding of the paradoxical content of Christian truth claims, and that Kierkegaard emphasizes authority in the Christian discourses in order to enable Christian readers to find freedom in obedience, and to challenge esthetic readers to begin to act upon the claims of Christianity. In the conclusion, we will clarify the purpose and limits of Kierkegaard’s interpretive project and will attempt to provide a criterion of interpretive adequacy for assessing Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture. It will be suggested that because Kierkegaard’s interpretive project is best described as a form of tropology, interpretive adequacy must be evaluated primarily theologically, and only secondarily textually. We will then make some suggestions about the lasting importance of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses, while recognizing ways in which his interpretive approach might need to be changed to provide effective upbuilding communication in the present age. Several additional clarifications about the structure of the book should be noted. First, readers who approach this work primarily out of an interest in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture will benefit from reading the chapters in the order presented, so as to move from a general hypothesis to particular analysis to conclusions. Beginning with the general thesis and noticing patterns of use will allow for greater illumination of the differences in the various discourse sets in subsequent chapters. On the other hand, readers who are most interested in analyzing the structure and rhetoric of the discourses will benefit from beginning with the conclusion, which provides a critique of the “theory of stages” and suggests an alternative approach for understanding the discourses as situational religious communication. Beginning with conclusions about the rhetorical development of the discourses will allow such readers to see with more clarity the rhetorical effect of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the earlier chapters. Second, it has not been possible here to provide analysis of every Scriptural allusion in the discourses. Instead, priority of analysis has been developed in the following ways. First, the focus of analysis has been on the way in which Kierkegaard uses Scripture to advance his upbuilding argument. This means that Scriptural allusions have not been analyzed in great depth when they do little to advance the argument of the discourse. Further, the project has not provided a great deal of analysis to the character portrayal of Biblical persons (a topic which

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could merit another full study), but has analyzed them only insofar as they advance the upbuilding argument. Second, special attention has been given to those instances where Kierkegaard interprets (rather than merely presents) a Scriptural text. The attempt has been to observe patterns of interpretation and to assemble these repeated uses into categories of interpretive techniques. These categories of interpretive techniques have been organized under a set of larger hermeneutical assumptions which guide (either consciously or unconsciously) Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Scripture in the discourses. The results of this step are seen in the “Specific Techniques of the Upbuilding Hermeneutic” in Chapter Two. Third, special attention has been given to Kierkegaard’s use of particular Scriptural texts in different kinds of discourses, with the goal of observing similarities and differences between the discourses as a whole. This analysis has been undertaken in the following steps. Where Kierkegaard uses the same Scriptural texts in the Upbuilding and Christian discourses, we have examined Kierkegaard’s interpretation to determine whether Kierkegaard provides a more distinctly “Christian” interpretation of those texts in the Christian discourses than in the Upbuilding discourses, or whether the text is interpreted in the same way in both genres. Where Kierkegaard uses a Scriptural text only in either the Upbuilding discourses or in the Christian discourses, we have sought to observe why a particular text may have been considered fitting for one kind of discourse but not for the other. The results of this analysis can be seen in Chapters Three and Four. Third, one specific note about terminology is necessary. The project will refer to each instance of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture as a Scriptural “allusion,” whether the Scriptural language is a direct citation or a less directly worded Scriptural reference (what is ordinarily called an allusion). Here the assessment of Jolita Pons regarding the pseudonymous works appears to be equally true in the discourses. Pons writes, [I]‌t seems that there is no explanation for the presence or absence of quotation marks or accompanying introductory words such as, “as it is said in Scripture,” and the like. In any case, there is substantial evidence that these devices are not connected to the level of accuracy. It is, of course, a debatable issue whether they are quotations, allusions, references, paraphrases, or other devices, but it is not fruitful to try to determine that at a general level, and certainly not for the purposes of a hermeneutical analysis of the biblical quotations in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works.69

69 Pons, Stealing a Gift, xix. What Pons (ibid) calls “quotation” (the “ ‘foreign elements’ in Kierkegaard’s texts”), this project will call “allusion.”

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In the discourses, it seems likewise impossible to identify patterns in the use of direct citation as opposed to allusion. There may be (rare) instances in which Kierkegaard inserts quotation marks either to secure more Scriptural authority for his argument or to compare a particular wording to a cross-​referenced passage, and where such instances occur, comments will be made about the possible importance of the quotation marks. In the vast majority of cases, however, the term “allusion” will be sufficient as this word is capacious enough to cover all uses of Scripture in the discourses.

CHAPTER ONE

From Ordinary to Actual Reading: Metaphor and Tropology in Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Scriptural Hermeneutic

I. Introduction In response to the historical critical method and orthodoxy, Kierkegaard sought to help readers retrieve aspects of Christian Scriptural interpretation that he thought had been lost, including a commitment of faith to read the Bible as revealed truth, and a commitment to appropriate immediately the Scriptural text. In this chapter, we will suggest that the central aim of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding use of Scripture is to produce a movement in the reader from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, in which the reader is upbuilt into the image of God as the reader makes a resolution to appropriate the Scriptural text. To explore this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, we will first consider Kierkegaard’s claim that Scriptural language is “metaphorical” in view of his understanding of the communication of objective and subjective truth. Then we will analyze two of Kierkegaard’s discussions about the movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading in order to specify how the transition is made. Finally, we will place Kierkegaard in dialogue with Paul Ricoeur and Henri de Lubac in order to explore how understanding spiritual language as metaphor might provide resources for understanding the upbuilding function of Scriptural language. Once we understand this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, we will be better

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able to understand the underlying coherence of Kierkegaard’s many hermeneutical techniques and assumptions which we will examine in the next chapter.

II.  Actual Reading and Scriptural Language as Metaphor Kierkegaard’s theory of spiritual language and his theory of human existence are deeply intertwined. In the opening discourse of the second part of Works of Love, Kierkegaard makes the claim that “all human speech, even the divine speech of Holy Scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført, carried over] speech” (WL, 209, Danish and translation given by Hongs). To explain his meaning of metaphor, Kierkegaard uses the illustration of a human being who is born both physical and with spirit, yet does not become conscious of being spirit until later in life. The individual was always spirit, but at a certain point in life becomes aware of his/​her spiritual dimension, and is able to recognize this dimension of life as existing in the self. Language also, Kierkegaard notes, begins as “sensate-​psychical,” yet can be “taken over by the spirit” so that a deeper level of meaning is understood by the one who uses language (WL, 209). Because “the metaphorical words are of course not brand-​new words but are the already given words,” all spiritual communication in Scripture comes through the human words (WL, 209–​10). Spirit (and here Kierkegaard means the spiritual dimension of a human being) speaks through the words of Scripture to those who have prepared themselves to become receptive to the spiritual content. Because “the spirit is invisible, [and] also is its language a secret,” “the spirit’s manner is the metaphor’s quiet, whispering secret—​for the person who has ears to hear” (WL, 209–​10). In Scripture, the same words can be read in different ways depending on the spiritual capacity of the reader. In human life, self-​reflection and attention to one’s “inner being” (or “inwardness”) is the mark of the movement from spiritual childhood to adulthood. Kierkegaard’s analogy of the transition from childhood to adulthood recalls Kierkegaard’s discussions of immediacy and reflection, where childhood is characterized by immediacy, and adult existence is characterized by a reflection transcended by a resolution toward existence. Remaining a “child” spiritually, Kierkegaard emphasizes elsewhere, is a morally reprehensible situation. There Kierkegaard describes “the life of childhood and youth [as] a dream-​life, because the innermost being, that which in the deepest sense is the person, is sleeping” (CD, 108). Kierkegaard goes on to note, “If […] this [dream] life continues into

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adulthood […] his life has miscarried […]. [H]‌is life is much poorer than the youth’s […] he has become an unfruitful tree or like a tree that has died” (CD, 109). The analogy between the metaphorical nature of language and the human capacity for spirit is useful, because it shows that two individuals may be able to say the same spiritual words, yet one individual is able to understand and engage with the words at a much deeper level than the other individual. Kierkegaard explicitly connects the word “metaphor” [overført] to the ability of the reader to shift his/​her mind from secular topics to spiritual ones when reading Scriptural words. In one of his first Christian discourses, Kierkegaard notes, ‘To deliberate’ [overveie] is a transferred expression [overført], but a very suggestive one, and therefore has the advantage a figure of speech [overført] 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 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 (UDVS, 306).

In this passage, the word “deliberate” serves as a focused example of the way in which Kierkegaard claims in Works of Love that all spiritual language functions: the reader of faith who resolves to appropriate the words finds in “ordinary” words a meaning which is deeper than the meaning found by one who reads those words in a merely “ordinary” way. On the one hand, this spiritual reading is brought by the reader to the text. In a claim that can be applied to Scriptural reading, Kierkegaard claims, “It does not depend, then, merely upon what one sees, but what one sees depends upon how one sees; all observation is not just a receiving, a discovering, but also a bringing forth, and insofar as it is that, how the observer himself is constituted is indeed decisive” (EUD, 59). The reader grasps the “actual” meaning of the spiritual language to the extent that the reader’s own spiritual “actuality” is capable of understanding that meaning. On the other hand, Scriptural language is inherently capable of providing a vision of spiritual things to the reader, so long as the reader approaches the text with a willingness to be changed. What Kierkegaard is saying is that the one who understands Scriptural language more deeply in fact exists more deeply, and that Scriptural language is understood “actually” when it engages the full commitment of the individual in the process of appropriation. Scriptural language becomes “actual” through appropriation because Scriptural language presents a kind of truth which must be appropriated in order to be truth for me. With objective truth (scientific truth which can be ascertained by disinterested reflection), it is possible that disinterested reflection could lead to a sufficient, if yet “approximate,” conclusion (CUP1:24, 38). Yet truth about

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existence eludes reflection,1 and therefore because an individual can never reach a sufficient “conclusion” [Slutning] (through an act of the mind), the individual must make a “resolution” [Beslutning] (through an act of the will) (PF, 84).2 Resolution then “transforms” truth “into a desideratum [something wanted] and everything is placed in the process of becoming” (CUP1:189). Because truth about existence “is conscious of its limits and admits paradox in existence,” it “regards faith, which is the highest passion in existence, as the way to approach truth.”3 Every “beginning” in existence must “occur [not] by virtue of immanental [i.e. reflective] thinking but is made by virtue of a resolution, essentially by virtue of faith” (CUP1:189). With Scripture, then, the individual’s resolution to appropriation changes both the reading and the individual: as Kierkegaard will describe it, the reading becomes “actual” in the reader (i.e. the reader grasps the spiritual dimension of the text) as the reader becomes “actual” through appropriating the text.4 In this way, the reader achieves “the highest a person is capable of,” which “is to make [gjøre] an eternal truth true, to make it true that it is true—​by doing [gjøre] it” (CD, 98). As we have seen, this remaking of the reader is the goal of upbuilding, and therefore leading the reader to make a resolution to appropriation serves as the indispensable aim of an upbuilding hermeneutic of Scripture.

1 Existence, Climacus claims, is like “motion […] a very difficult matter to handle,” since “If I think it, I cancel it, and then I do not think it” (CUP1:308–​9). Consequently, “To conclude existence from thinking is, then, a contradiction, because thinking does just the opposite and takes existence away from the actual and thinks it by annulling it, by transposing it into possibility” (CUP1:317). An existing person “thinks momentarily; he thinks before and he thinks afterward. His thinking cannot attain absolute continuity” (CUP1:329). 2 Kierkegaard notes that, “Belief is the opposite of doubt. Belief and doubt are not two kinds of knowledge that can be defined in continuity with each other, for neither of them is a cognitive act, and they are opposite passions. Belief is a sense for coming into existence, and doubt is a protest against any conclusion that wants to go beyond immediate sensation and immediate knowledge” (PF, 84). 3 Zizhen Liu, “Immediacy/​​Reflection,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome III: Envy to Incognito, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel and William McDonald (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014), 218. 4 Steven M. Emmanuel, “Actuality,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome I: Absolute to Church, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 11, notes that Kierkegaard usually uses the term “actuality” to “describe the process of moral and religious development leading to authentic selfhood.” For Climacus, the term “actuality,” when used of human becoming, means “an interiority in which the individual annuls possibility and identifies himself with what is thought in order to exist in it” (CUP1:339). Consequently, in upbuilding, “actuality” in becoming is a prerequisite and effect of reading the Scriptural text “actually.”

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With Scriptural truth, then, a reader may read the same text either in an “ordinary” (spiritless) way, or in an “actual” way which develops the “actuality” of the reader. Yet if one is to read a Scriptural passage in an “actual” way, how might the individual develop the spiritual receptivity necessary to understand the passage “actually?” We will look at two examples in Kierkegaard’s writings to see how this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading occurs.

A. Illustrating the Movement from “Ordinary” to “Actual” Reading From “Ordinary” to “Actual” Reading in Upbuilding: With this framework in mind, we can now see how Kierkegaard makes this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading. In his exegesis of the word “upbuilding” [Greek: οἰκοδομεῖ; Danish: opbyggelige] (1 Cor. 8:1), Kierkegaard makes his transition from what he calls “ordinary speech” [ligefrem Tale] (WL, 210) to the “actual” sense (called here the “spiritual sense” [aandeligt forstaaet] (WL, 212)) in the following steps.5 First, he begins with the “ordinary speech” [ligefrem Tale] of the “metaphorical expression” [overført Udtryk] (WL, 212) by analyzing the common contemporary Danish usage of the word “upbuild,” and concludes that to “upbuild” (in contemporary Danish) means to build “from the ground up,” on a foundation that has already been laid (WL, 211).6 (We should notice that Kierkegaard’s discussion here is somewhat misleading, since Kierkegaard is discussing only the word “upbuild” [opbyggelige] in its “ordinary speech”—​in reality, the phrase “love builds up” is the metaphor, and it is the transition from the word “upbuild” to the phrase “love builds up” which constitutes the Scriptural metaphor. Yet as we will see, the “ordinary sense” is merely a secular reading which must be surpassed, and Kierkegaard’s aim to do so is clear enough.) Second, Kierkegaard makes the transition to the “spiritual sense” of the phrase “love builds up” as he inserts the theological principle: “It is God, the Creator, who must implant love in each human being, he who himself is Love” (WL, 216). This inserted theological principle provides the new meaning of the metaphorical phrase, “Love builds up,” as it provides the claim that God is the foundation of all love, that God implants love into every human being, and that 5 The expression “ordinary speech” [ligefrem Tale] (WL, 210) refers to the secular or spiritless way of reading the text, and this is contrasted with the ““the spiritual sense” [aandeligt forstaaet] (WL, 212), the meaning of the text when it is read through a commitment of faith. Reading the “spiritual sense,” then, is equivalent to what we have called “actual” reading. 6 The Greek (οἰκοδομεῖ) has “to build up from the ground” as one of its meanings, as does the Danish “opbygge” [to build up]. However, all of the following discussion about common usage of upbuilding comes from Kierkegaard’s contemporary Danish context, not the Scriptural context (see Pyper, The Joy of Kierkegaard, 133–​5).

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every human being has a responsibility before God to build on this love in others. This theological claim (or set of claims) is not immediately present in the text, yet its insertion places the phrase “love builds up” on a whole new level of meaning. Third, the reader moves from “ordinary speech” to the “spiritual sense” as the reader resolves to act in love toward others. While “[l]‌ove builds up by presupposing that [God’s] love is present” in others, one is only able to see God as the “foundation” when one makes a resolution in faith to love others (WL, 218). Only when the Scriptural language becomes self-​involving for the reader through a resolution of faith will the Scriptural meaning emerge for that reader. Notice, then, that both step two (the insertion of a theological presupposition) and step three (an existential commitment to appropriation) are necessary for the reader of 1 Cor. 8:1 to understand the phrase “Love Builds Up” in an “actual” way. In this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, theological and existential commitments serve as the transcendental ground for “actual” reading. This discussion in Works of Love provides perhaps the clearest example of a pattern that is repeated from Kierkegaard’s earliest works to his latest.7 From “Ordinary” to “Actual” Reading in Naming God “Father”: These same steps can be seen in Kierkegaard’s more complicated discussion about Scripture’s naming God as “Father” in two of his earliest Upbuilding discourses. Here again, Kierkegaard insists that the same Scriptural words can be read in different ways depending on the spiritual capacity of the reader. Although Kierkegaard uses different terms, his discussion of Scriptural language remains essentially the same as his discussion of 1 Cor. 8:1. First, Kierkegaard distinguishes the “ordinary” reading from the “actual” reading. Kierkegaard notes that the term “father” is a “metaphorical” [overført] expression insofar as it is drawn from ordinary human language (EUD, 99), yet is able to refer in a more “actual” [virkelige] way to God. Kierkegaard is, of course, committed to showing that God is the more “actual” Father than are human fathers, since Kierkegaard’s selected Scriptural text states that God is “the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name” (Eph. 3:13–​21; EUD, 80). Here Kierkegaard’s use of “metaphor” [overført] works in the same way as it did in Works of Love: the “ordinary” human referent is the lesser usage, the meaning accessible to everyone (just as “upbuilding” was attributed to physical construction on a foundation in Works of Love, so here “father” 7 The example below will show the pattern in Kierkegaard’s early writings. Kierkegaard’s distinction between “reading and reading” in For Self-​Examination, in which Kierkegaard distinguishes between the “reading” of interpretation and the “reading” of delighting in and acting upon a love letter from the beloved (FSE, 27), provides a good example of the same movement in his late work.

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is attributed to earthly fatherhood), and the spiritual referent is the more “real” or “actual” usage, the higher spiritual meaning accessible only through a resolution of faith (as “upbuilding” was attributed to building upon God’s love in Works of Love, so here “father” is attributed to Divine Fatherhood). Second, Kierkegaard inserts a theological principle to move to the “actual” referent. Kierkegaard insists it is by reading Scripture through the lens of faith, thereby understanding God’s Fatherhood as the standard for all fatherhood, that the “metaphor” [overført] becomes for the reader “the truest and most literal expression” [det egentligste og det sandeste] (EUD, 99) and “the only real [“actual”] and true expression” [det eneste virkelige og sande] (EUD, 134).8 Kierkegaard argues that the reason the term “Father” becomes “most true” [sandeste] or “actual” [virkelige] for the one who sees inwardly is because “God gives not only the gifts but himself with them in a way beyond the capability of any human being who can be present in the gift” (EUD, 99). Consequently, one can only know God as “Father” when one in faith asserts that all God’s gifts (life’s circumstances) are “good” because God gives Godself with the gifts (EUD, 99, 134). Using the familiar image of “milk” and “solid food” (1 Cor. 3:1–​2), Kierkegaard suggests that, on the one hand, God’s Fatherhood could be read in a spiritless way (called “milk” in 1 Cor. 3, and called “metaphorical” language by Kierkegaard) which recognizes only a comforting analogy between divine and human gift-​giving, and on the other hand, this Scripture could be read in a spiritual way (called “solid food” in 1 Cor. 3, and called “actual” language by Kierkegaard) which accepts God as good and perfect Giver in contrast to human beings (EUD, 129). Third, Kierkegaard posits a requirement to existential commitment. Kierkegaard claims that the reader becomes aware of God’s Fatherhood in this actual way only when the reader becomes committed to the practice of accepting that God’s “knowing is not something other than his giving,” and therefore that all of life’s circumstances are good and perfect gifts (EUD, 134). It is precisely with this commitment that the “metaphor […] vanishes” and “the words say what the apostle says—​that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (EUD, 134). For those readers who base their understanding of God’s Fatherhood upon 8 The Hongs have translated a number of phrases such as “most true” [sandeste], “taken according to the word” [tages efter Ordet], and even “ordinary” [ligefrem] using the term “literal,” thereby obscuring the differences between these phrases. This discussion will attempt to provide the Danish words. Furthermore, while a number of scholars have suggested that reading for appropriation could be called Kierkegaard’s “literal sense,” we will use the term “actual” reading instead of “literal” because the term “actual” (1) avoids the difficulties of the term “literal” in literary studies; (2) draws attention to Kierkegaard’s more precise terminology; and (3) draws attention to the process of upbuilding before God.

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“external” judgment by “demonstrating” which of life’s circumstances are really God’s gifts, the truth of God’s Fatherhood “becomes figurative” [billedligt] (EUD, 99), as they evaluate God’s Fatherhood in the same way that they evaluate human fatherhood. Yet readers who decide in faith that “the giver is primary” and do not make the “human distinction” between what is called “gift” (i.e. good things) and what is called “not gift” (i.e. bad things) (EUD, 99) are able to know God as Father in a “most true” [sandeste] or “actual” [virkelige] sense. Consequently, it is the actual practice of accepting as good and perfect all circumstances of life which enables an actual reading of the term “Father” as it refers to God. This “actual” reading, Kierkegaard claims, must begin with a “great upheaval” in the individual, as it originates from a “new beginning” in faith (EUD, 136).

B. Implications Both of these examples show the transition from “metaphorical” or “ordinary” reading to “actual” reading as the process of upbuilding. Here we will notice some implications which arise from the movement which occurs in the examples above. First, in both cases, the Scriptural claim is necessarily “metaphorical” because its most “actual” referent (God and the God relationship) can only be approached through a resolution of faith and a corresponding reorientation of the individual into the image of God. The “most real” (EUD, 99) or “actual” (EUD, 134) interpretation of the Scriptural text is gained through the commitment and practice of faith. Second, in moving from “ordinary speech” to “actual” meaning, the reading becomes “actual” in the reader’s understanding (i.e. the reader grasps the spiritual dimension of the text) as the reader becomes “actual” (becomes rightly related to God) through appropriating the text. An “actual” reading of a text requires the development of the reader’s “actuality” (movement in the process of existence) and only a reader striving for authentic existence will be able to understand this level of the text. Third, Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic will inevitably lead to a surplus of meaning. This surplus of meaning emerges for several reasons. For one thing, the reader’s progress from secular awareness to spiritual awareness, just like the child’s growth to adulthood, provides increasingly new capacities for reading Scripture in a “spiritual” or “actual” way. The “actualization” of meaning in a Scriptural text is never complete, as the reader always continues to “make an eternal truth true” in the reader’s own existence (CD, 98). For another thing, because “eternal truth” is made “true” in the individual (CD, 98), the Scriptural truth contains flexibility of meaning so that different individuals may appropriate that truth in somewhat different ways, and so that the same individual may appropriate this truth in different ways at different times.

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III. Kierkegaard and Ricoeur: Metaphor and the Surplus of Meaning We can better understand Kierkegaard’s claim that spiritual language is metaphorical by comparing his thought to the work of Paul Ricoeur, whose theory of metaphor opens space in language for a surplus of meaning in which existential possibilities emerge for the reader. For Ricoeur, a metaphor is “a kind of category mistake, a calculated error. In so far as it strikes the reader as logically absurd, it creates a situation where the reader must choose either a literal rendering […] and hence conclude that the statement is absurd, or attribute a new meaning to the configuration so that the sentence as a whole makes sense” at a non-​literal level.9 This means that a metaphor creates a “split reference” (a first-​order referent and a second-​order referent), and it is the contradiction inherent in the metaphor at the level of the first-​order referent that causes the reader to seek to understand the metaphor in terms of its second-​order referent.10 These insights about metaphor are important for Ricoeur because they provide a way of articulating this same kind of split reference which Ricoeur finds in poetic (and therefore religious) discourse. Ricoeur argues, “My deepest conviction is that poetic language alone restores to us that participation-​in or belonging-​to an order of things which precedes our capacity to oppose ourselves to things taken as objects opposed to a subject.”11 With regard to Scripture (which Ricoeur regards as poetic language), Ricoeur “invites [readers] to place the originary expressions of biblical faith under the sign of the poetic function of language; not to deprive them of any referent, but to put them under the law of split reference that characterizes the poetic.”12 When a reader attempts to understand Scripture (as a poetic text), the reader finds both an ostensive reference (e.g. the historical referent of the Gospel narrative) and a non-​ostensive reference (a way of being-​in-​the-​world which reorients the expectations of the reader).13 9 James Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics: Paul Ricoeur and the Refiguring of Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 157–​8. 10 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-​Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny, et al. (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 6. 11 Paul Ricoeur, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” The Harvard Theological Review 70 (1977), 24. For Ricoeur, the prototypical example of a text creating non-​ostensive reference occurs in the parables of Jesus (which, for Ricoeur, can be most fully understood in light of Jesus’s Person and work), which create new possibilities for the reader’s existence. 12 Ricoeur, ibid, 25. 13 Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976, 87.

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Kierkegaard’s claim that “all human speech […] is essentially metaphorical [overført] speech” (WL, 209) seems quite similar to what Ricoeur will describe as the possibility of poetic language to disclose existential possibilities through a second-​order referent. In Ricoeur’s theory of metaphorical and poetic language, both first and second-​order reference remain true at the same time, yet the plain or “descriptive” meaning is “suspended so that a second-​order reference may be attained.”14 It is by shifting emphasis from first-​order reference to second-​order reference that readers are enabled to (re-​)consider new possibilities for existence. Kierkegaard shows precisely this process by moving from what Ricoeur would call first-​order referent (the child-​like reading) to second-​order referent (the adult reading), as the spiritual referent supervenes on the direct referent. Ricoeur’s description of revelation is able to shed light on Kierkegaard’s claim that God is “Father.” As we saw above, Kierkegaard notes that Scriptural language which refers to God as “Father” is a “metaphor” [et overført] (EUD, 99) insofar as it is drawn from ordinary human language and creates an analogy with human realities. However, Kierkegaard, acting as theologian (not simply as philosopher, as Ricoeur), declares that when the individual reads Scripture through the lens of faith, thereby understanding God’s Fatherhood as the standard for all fatherhood, this “metaphorical” language of Scripture becomes for the reader “the truest and most literal [i.e. true] expression” [det egentligste og det sandeste] (EUD, 99). In this claim, Kierkegaard makes two Ricoeur-​like moves. First, Kierkegaard is claiming that what Ricoeur calls the second-​ order referent (attributing “Fatherhood” to God), is the “truest […] expression,” since the second-​order referent (God’s “Fatherhood”) is the more ‘real’ and reorienting referent for human existence. Kierkegaard is, of course, following the Pauline proclamation that God is the prototype of Fatherhood, from whom all earthly fatherhood is named (Eph. 3:14). Yet the point remains that God’s fatherhood is quite clearly the second-​order referent, since Kierkegaard has stated that the ordinary usage (the first-​order referent) of the term “father” is drawn from the human realm (i.e. earthly fathers) (EUD, 100). For Kierkegaard, revelation is understood precisely in the process of becoming able to see that the second-​order referent is the more “real” or “true” referent. Second, Kierkegaard makes the reception of this revelatory claim dependent upon a stance of faith which reorients the reader’s existence. Kierkegaard argues that the reason the term “Father” becomes “most true” is because “God gives not only the gifts but himself with them in a way beyond the capability of any human being who can be present in the gift” (EUD, 99). It is precisely the reader’s recognition of identity between the Good, the Giver, and the Gift which establishes the 14 James Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 221.

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“expression” of calling God “Father” as being “not a metaphor but the only real and true expression” [ikke et Billede, men det eneste virkelige og sande] (EUD, 134). Read through Ricoeur’s terminology, Kierkegaard’s discussion of a metaphor becoming “not a metaphor” but a “most true expression” is precisely the disclosure of revelation to the individual who, through “letting […] be” (here by coming to accept all life’s circumstances as good and perfect gifts), has become capable of receiving the revelatory claim that God is “Father.” This event Ricoeur describes as “manifestation.”15 Both writers, then, appear to show the second-​order referent to be the “most true” or “actual” referent because it discloses the deeper level of meaning for human existence. And this second-​order referent becomes capable of disclosing a reality which exceeds language only as the individual accepts the claim’s “manifestation” in faith and becomes reoriented by this new reality. Further, it is important to notice that both Kierkegaard and Ricoeur agree that spiritual/​poetic/​metaphorical language carries a “surplus of meaning.” Making an analogy with Christ’s feeding of the 5000, Kierkegaard compares Scripture’s ability to “describe the highest with this simple word [“love builds up”] and to do it in the most inward way” with “the miracle of that feeding with the limited supply that by being blessed stretched out so exceedingly that there were leftovers” (WL, 210). Kierkegaard does not say what the “leftovers” might be, but the clue to interpretation comes in Kierkegaard’s praise of the reader who “humbly manages to be satisfied with the scriptural word instead of busily making new discoveries that will busily displace the old, when someone gratefully and inwardly appropriates what has been handed down from the fathers and establishes a new acquaintance with the old and familiar” (WL, 210). New meanings occur when the reader “establishes a new acquaintance with the old and familiar” (the development of spiritual capacities with which one can reencounter “the old and familiar”) rather than by “busily making new [intellectual] discoveries that will busily displace the old.” For Kierkegaard, additional layers of meaning are more like “layers of involvement” which draw readers ever closer to “actual” existence, than additional intellectual insights which could be known about the text.16 To again use Ricoeur’s terminology, the “multiplication” of meaning occurs at the level of second-​order referents which disclose possibilities for existence, rather than at the level of first-​ order knowledge about the text. Kierkegaard’s “multiplication” of meaning, then, refers primarily to the multiplicity of ways in which the text opens second-​order 15 Ricoeur, “Toward A Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” 20, 25. 16 The term “layers” is taken from Rasmussen, “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics,” 474, who speaks of Kierkegaard’s “metaphorical layers” which “involve the reader in such a way as to focus one’s reading in terms of a ‘subjective’ appropriation of the text as ‘God’s word.’ ”

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existential possibilities for “mak[ing] an eternal truth true” in the reader’s own life (CD, 98). Nonetheless, there remains a difference in emphasis regarding the surplus of meaning which will lead to significant differences in defining boundaries for Scriptural interpretation. For Ricoeur, the surplus of meaning is a basic feature of any written text. Writing produces a surplus of meaning through distanciation between the author and the text (a written text stands on its own apart from an author and therefore has a greater meaning than was envisioned by the author), and through distanciation between the original audience and the contemporary audience (readers at a later time may see a meaning in the text that was not seen by the original audience).17 Stanley Porter and Jason Robinson criticize Ricoeur in this regard, claiming that Ricoeur is not able to “provide a means of arbitrating the constraints on meaning of the sentence, nor does he provide a means of testing the surplus of meaning of a text.”18 This criticism may be valid, but it is incomplete. Ricoeur did attempt to provide constraints on the surplus of meaning, and these constraints were located in the step of reflection which occurs between the first naivety and the second naivety. All interpretations may go beyond the original meaning (and therefore be part of the surplus of meaning), yet Ricoeur believed it was possible to reach a relative consensus about which interpretations are more and less adequate. For Kierkegaard, by contrast, the surplus of meaning occurs as spiritual truth becomes truth for the individual through the individual’s development of additional spiritual capacities. Kierkegaard seems less interested in the surplus of meaning as a textual phenomenon, but instead focuses his interest on the “multiplication” of meaning as it regards the “actuality” of the reader, as “eternal truth” becoming truth for the individual. That is, Kierkegaard’s constraints on the multiplication of meaning lie not so much in the adequacy of the interpretation to its immediate context, but in the adequacy of the interpretation to the goal of upbuilding into the image of God. Kierkegaard’s constraints are primarily theological and existential, not textual. Practically, this means that Kierkegaard will feel quite free to create metaphors in Scriptural language by bringing together two texts from different contexts, by rewriting Scriptural narrative, and by employing Scriptural phrases in tension with their contexts to enable the upbuilding of the reader. In fact, it appears that one central aim for Kierkegaard in Scriptural interpretation is to highlight and even create metaphorical language in Scripture so that readers 17 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 28–​33. 18 Stanley E. Porter and Jason C. Robinson, Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2011), 125.

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will be forced to reflect on texts that they may previously have considered only as “objective truth.”19 Kierkegaard is attempting to produce what Jamie Ferreira calls a “metaphoric activity” in the reader, in which “the actual is put imaginatively in tension with the potential in another domain, and they interact so as to achieve a transfer [in which] the self is carried through imaginative involvement with a potential self […] to achieve a new self-​understanding.”20 This aim to produce a metaphoric activity in the reader highlights the distinctiveness of Kierkegaard’s project, as Kierkegaard’s criteria of adequacy are grounded primarily in the correspondence of the interpretation to the telos of upbuilding in Christian tradition. One point of clarification should be added. By saying that Scriptural language is metaphorical, Kierkegaard is not saying that Scriptural language consists only of metaphors. Much of Kierkegaard’s focus will be on direct commands which cannot be linguistically described as metaphor, but which nonetheless can be read in either an “ordinary” or an “actual” way. For example, Jesus’s command to, “Love […] your neighbor as yourself ” (Lk. 10:27) is a straightforward command which cannot be regarded as a metaphor. Yet to understand the requirements of Jesus’s command, the parable of the Good Samaritan is needed (Lk. 10:30–​7), as is the actual practice of giving one’s resources to an enemy who is in need. There is little doubt that the spiritual language (even if a direct command) means something different to the one who has practiced self-​giving love than it does to the one who has not. It is the process of envisioning this command as a command to me (perhaps through the parable of the Good Samaritan) and the actual practice of obeying this command which move the reader from “ordinary” to “actual” reading.

IV.  Kierkegaard and de Lubac: Spiritual Reading and Tropology Precisely because Kierkegaard’s constraints on the “surplus of meaning” are primarily theological and existential rather than textual, we must go beyond Ricoeur to describe Kierkegaard’s multiplication of meaning. This section will suggest that the best description for Kierkegaard’s approach to interpretation can be found in

19 Notice Kierkegaard’s claim that because Scriptural passages can be “carried off ” or turned into “riddles” (EUD, 329), the interpreter must enable the text to speak for itself by giving it an interpretation that leads to appropriation. 20 M. Jamie Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 80.

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an analysis of tropology, one of the Medieval fourfold senses of Scripture.21 The claim here is that what Kierkegaard calls “concerned truth” (or at times “subjective truth”), is very close to what the Medievals called “tropology,” and that it is precisely when Scripture is read for me that the reader makes the transition from “ordinary” to “actual” reading.

A. De Lubac and Tropological Reading The Medieval distich presents the fourfold reading of Scripture in its most concise formulation: “Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quid speres anagogia” [“The literal meaning teaches what occurred, the allegorical meaning teaches what should be believed, the moral meaning teaches what should be done, the anagogic meaning teaches what we should hope for”].22 Yet Henri de Lubac, the modern writer who has done more than anyone else to articulate the logic of the Medieval fourfold sense, shows that for the Medieval tradition, these four senses really constitute two senses of Scripture, the literal sense and the spiritual sense.23 The literal sense stands as the indispensable foundation for the spiritual sense, since the literal sense provides the plainly narrated events of salvation history.24 The spiritual sense of Scripture is the transformed meaning of the plainly narrated events of salvation history viewed in light of the event of Christ, who stands as Scripture’s Object (the “endpoint and fullness of Scripture”), and Scripture’s Subject (Scripture’s living present “exegete” who interprets Scripture).25 Allegory is the Christological meaning of history, and is distinct from pagan allegory insofar as Christian allegory is based on the event of Christ and reads all

21 Martin Andic, “The Mirror,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 21: For Self-​ Examination and Judge for Yourself, 336, is the only writer that this author has found who mentions Kierkegaard in relation to the Medieval fourfold sense of Scripture, yet Andic does not elaborate on the way in which Kierkegaard’s project may fit into the logic of this pattern of reading. 22 Translation is by Manfred Oeming, Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics: An Introduction, trans. Joachim Vette (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 13. 23 Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, Volume II, trans. E. M. Macierowski (Grand Rapids and Edinburgh: Eerdmans and T &​T Clark, 1998), 26. 24 De Lubac, ibid, 44. Of course, not all Medieval theologians used the term “literal sense” in precisely the same way, and the term could also refer either to the plain sense of the text (ibid, 41–​4), or the “mere letter” of Scripture read without reference to Christ (ibid, 51, 53–​4, 60). What the Medieval theologians shared was a belief that the literal sense provided the events of salvation history. 25 De Lubac, ibid, 237–​8.

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biblical history in light of the event of Christ.26 The need for allegorical interpretation arose in the Church as the Old Testament needed to be reread in light of Christ, and the usefulness of all ongoing allegorical interpretations must be determined by their adequacy to Christological presuppositions. It is precisely because Christ exists as Scripture’s unique Subject and Object that Scripture must contain a spiritual sense, and allegory, tropology, and anagogy are really three intrinsically united aspects of the singular spiritual sense. Tropology, then, is not a separate sense of Scripture, but is one essential aspect of allegory: It is the interiorization of Christ into the individual soul.27 The word tropology means a “turning” and became known as the continual process of “conversion” or “transformation” into the image of Christ.28 As de Lubac puts it, “in this Christian soul, it is each day, it is today, that the mystery, by being interiorized, is accomplished.”29 It is important here to notice that tropology is not simply the moral instructions of Scripture, as these are part of the literal sense.30 Rather, tropology is an aspect of the spiritual sense because it is the meaning of the Christological sense of Scripture for me, the transformation of the human being into the image 26 Paul Ricoeur, “Preface to Bultmann,” in Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. Lewis S. Mudge (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 51, notes that, in traditional Christian terminology, “The word ‘allegory’ […] has only a literary resemblance to the allegory of the grammarians, which, Cicero tells us, ‘consists in saying one thing to make something else understood.’ Pagan allegory served to reconcile myths with philosophy and consequently to reduce them as myths. But Pauline allegory, together with that of Tertullian and Origen, which depend on it, is inseparable from the mystery of Christ.” 27 We should also note here that because the New Testament is already the spiritual interpretation of the Old, tropology is a first step from the plain sense of the New Testament. As de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 129, puts it, “But since the allegorical sense of the Old Testament is no other than the New Testament […] and since Christ’s deeds in truth, in the depth of the mystery […] when one takes one’s point of departure from within these actions of Christ one will no longer have to count three steps but only two, and from history—​which is now already more than mere history one will pass directly to tropology.” This means that in reading the New Testament (where Kierkegaard spends most of his time in the discourses), spiritualizing the text (as we will see Kierkegaard do), is the step to tropology. 28 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 129, notes that the word “tropology” means a “figure,” or a “turn of phrase,” yet shows that the word began to take on the sense of “a speech turned […] toward our ways of behaving.” 29 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 138. 30 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 70, claims that all “[h]‌istory was […] [already understood to be] a moral science, which was studied with a view to improving morals,” and therefore Scripture in its “literal sense” was already understood to provide moral lessons. What distinguishes tropology from literal reading is that it focuses on the interiorization of the mystery of Christ in the believer.

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of Christ through the appropriation of Christological truth. This process of transformation is precisely what Kierkegaard is pursuing in his discourses, and as we will suggest, both Kierkegaard’s discussions about the movement from “ordinary” to “actual” Scriptural reading and his imaginative interpretive practice function as a form of tropology. It is also significant to notice that de Lubac believes that a separation between allegory and tropology developed in the twelfth century as a result of a division between scholastic theology and preaching, which led to the impoverishment of both. In this division, allegory became the domain of professional theology (monastics and university theologians) and was made “the object of theological speculation,” and tropology became the domain of preachers and inevitably was used “more to regulate external activity than to nourish the inner life.”31 As a result, doctrine became more abstract and speculative, and preaching became focused more on the promotion of natural morality.32 De Lubac’s ideal is a Christological reading of Scripture which will keep academic (doctrinal) Scriptural reading relevant to existential concerns, and will keep Scripture’s existential demands (and therefore preaching) closely tied to Scripture’s Christological center. As we will see, this is precisely what Kierkegaard is seeking to achieve as well, as Kierkegaard’s upbuilding project is equally concerned with the growing divide between academic speculative theology and practical morality in preaching, which he believes has resulted in the loss of a distinctly Christian vision of existence.

B. Kierkegaard as Modern Tropologist In light of the discussion above, we should immediately notice that Kierkegaard’s movement from what he calls the “ordinary sense” of Scripture to the “actual” sense of Scripture follows a pattern that looks very much like the Medieval fourfold sense. First, just as the Medieval tradition used the term “literal sense” to designate either the secular sense (the “mere letter” read without Christian presuppositions), or the plain sense (the historical events of salvation history), so also Kierkegaard’s “ordinary sense” at times designates the secular sense (the meaning of a word or phrase as it would be used in a secular setting), and at other times the plain sense (the basic Scriptural narrative).33 Second, just as the Medieval tradition described 31 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 176. 32 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 209. 33 For the “ordinary sense” as the secular sense, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of “upbuilding” in 1 Cor. 8:1 where the word “upbuild” (in contemporary Danish) means to build “from the ground up,” on a foundation has already been laid (WL, 211). For the “ordinary sense” as the plain sense, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of Christ’s “desire” to eat the Passover with his disciples (Lk. 22:15) as

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the necessary movement from the literal sense to the spiritual sense as occurring as the reader reads (1) theologically, in light of the Mystery of Christ (allegory), and (2) with the goal of interiorizing this Mystery (tropology), so also Kierkegaard describes the necessary movement from the “ordinary sense” to the “real” or “most true” reading as occurring as the reader reads (1) in light of specific theological presuppositions which must be held in faith, and (2) with a commitment to appropriation. Kierkegaard’s move from “ordinary” to “actual” does not mean that Kierkegaard advocates a distinction between what the text “meant” and what the text “means.” Rather, for Kierkegaard, the “ordinary” sense of the text is often the “what” of the Christian faith or the “what” of a particular Scriptural passage—​the datum of revelation preserved within the Christian tradition. The “ordinary” sense is already more like the doctrinal sense of Scripture read within the boundaries of the Christian creeds and the Rule of Faith.34 Rather, for Kierkegaard, the shift is a shift from an “objective” datum of God’s self-​revelation to human beings to a “concerned” appropriation of that truth to the reader’s own life. What Kierkegaard calls “concerned truth” (or at times “subjective truth”) is very close to what de Lubac calls “spiritual interpretation,” and the transition from “ordinary” to “actual” reading is much like the transition from historical and theological “content” reading (the “what” of Scripture) to “tropological” reading (reading Scripture is read for me). As Kierkegaard will put it in his later writing, it is the “lover [who] distinguishes between reading and reading, between reading with a dictionary and reading the letter from his beloved” (FSE, 27). The move from interpretation reading to committed reading is what establishes the difference between reading the Bible as an ancient text to reading the Bible as Scripture. To see how Kierkegaard’s move from “ordinary” to “actual” reading is best understood as spiritual interpretation, we should return to Kierkegaard’s claim that “all human speech, even the divine speech of Holy Scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført, carried over] speech” (WL, 209). There Kierkegaard claimed that because the “spirit is invisible, [and] also is its language a secret,” “the spirit’s manner is the metaphor’s quiet, whispering secret—​for the in “a more profound sense” [en dybere Forstand] referring to the desire that God gives believers to partake in Communion (CD, 252). 34 By the Rule of Faith, we utilize the definition by Robert W. Wall, “Reading The Bible From Within Our Traditions: The ‘rule Of Faith’ In Theological Hermeneutics,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology, ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 88, that the Rule of Faith is “the grammar of theological agreements which Christians confess to be true and by which all of Scripture is rendered in forming a truly Christian faith and life.”

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person who has ears to hear” (WL, 209–​10). Frances Maughan-​Brown notes that for Kierkegaard, this metaphoric reading is closely related to being “spiritually awakened”.35 And, Maughan-​Brown argues, “Kierkegaard does not explain any mechanism for transfer from one meaning to the next, but he just stipulates that the condition for speaking—​and hearing—​metaphorically, is spiritual awakening.”36 And while we have suggested that a “mechanism for transfer” can be discerned, we can agree that “awakened” reading does not occur naturally, but occurs as a theological presupposition is inserted and as an existential resolution to appropriation is undertaken. Awakened reading is, in short, the process of conversion. If this interpretation is correct, then Kierkegaard’s whole process of movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading is precisely what de Lubac calls the movement from “literal” to “spiritual” reading—​the movement to a kind of reading that is both gift and task (illumined by the Holy Spirit and oriented toward conversion and transformation into the image of Christ).37 For Kierkegaard, such reading is a decidedly existential movement, focused on the will and directed toward appropriation. At the same time, several differences in emphasis between Kierkegaard and de Lubac should be noted, as they highlight key features of Kierkegaard’s unique project. Because Kierkegaard is critical of allegory, and because Kierkegaard’s existential project continually berates the abstract speculative approaches to Scriptural reading which seem to characterize many Medieval contemplative and scholastic approaches, it may initially seem odd to suggest that Kierkegaard’s work could be located within the Medieval fourfold sense. However, the differences highlight both close similarities in approach to Scripture, and unique emphases in Kierkegaard’s work. 35 Frances Maughan-​Brown, “Metaphor,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome IV: Individual to Novel, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), 148. Maughan-​Brown (ibid, 147) suggests that to read Scripture in an overført way, through the “secret” and “invisible” “language” of the “spirit” (WL, 209), means in the end simply “to comply” with Scripture, noting Kierkegaard’s distinction between interpretation “reading” from “reading a love letter” (see FSE, 27). 36 Frances Maughan-​Brown, “Metaphor,” 145. 37 When Kierkegaard claims that, “Just as the spirit is invisible, so also is its language a secret” (WL, 209–​10), it is unlikely that Kierkegaard intends to speak of the “Spirit” as the Holy Spirit (even though this is a “Christian” writing), but rather that Kierkegaard is simply discussing the human spirit supervening on the “sensate-​psychical.” However, when we theologically ask how spiritual movement is made from “ordinary” to “actual” reading through an overført, it has always been affirmed that the conversion work of the Holy Spirit creates this capacity and facilitates the transition. This is how the Medievals moved from “literal” to “spiritual” reading, and we will see that as Kierkegaard describes the transition, it looks very much like what they were saying.

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One key difference between Kierkegaard and the Medieval fourfold sense is that Kierkegaard is usually interested in developing only the tropological sense. Kierkegaard utilizes the Scriptural phrase without extensive analysis of the context, and he usually interprets the Scriptural phrase through the lens of a doctrinal principle without extensive theological analysis of the doctrinal principle. To use the Medieval terminology, both “literal” sense (the phrase, word, or symbol) and “allegorical” sense (the doctrinal lens) are assumed, and Kierkegaard devotes all his attention to developing the way in which the text provides an opportunity for resolution and transformation in the contemporary reader. In this sense, Kierkegaard is providing something of a focused retrieval of a part of traditional Scriptural reading which he believes has been lost. A second difference between Kierkegaard and de Lubac is a difference in emphasis only. While the Medieval spiritual reading tends to focus on Scriptural reading for contemplation, Kierkegaard tends to focus on Scriptural reading for transformation. The Medievals envision Scriptural reading as becoming acquainted with the Scriptural narrative (the literal sense), then understanding the Christological/​ doctrinal sense (allegory), and then contemplating how the Christological sense transforms the believer (tropology). Kierkegaard’s rhetoric, conversely, is developed for those who think they already understand the Scriptural story, yet do not recognize that the Scriptural story must be lived in order to be understood. Kierkegaard, then, works to enable readers to envision their own existence in light of the Scriptural story, without allowing them to become sidetracked by endless contemplation. Because existence does not proceed directly from disinterested reflection, movement from the “ordinary” to the “actual” sense of Scripture requires making a willed “resolution” [Beslutning] without waiting to find an intellectually sufficient “conclusion” [Slutning] (PF, 84). Consequently, while the Medieval order of senses must proceed logically from literal to allegorical to tropological reading, Kierkegaard shows that tropology carries a certain priority for the reader acting in existence, since viewing one’s own existence before God is both the starting point and telos for interested reading. Understanding the focused nature of Kierkegaard’s project enables us to recognize his work as a form of spiritual interpretation in spite of his rather strident criticisms of allegory. Kierkegaard’s upbuilding project, as we have seen, is concerned with the growing divide between academic speculative theology and practical morality in preaching (which Kierkegaard believes has resulted in the loss of a distinctly Christian vision of existence), and it is from just this perspective that we should view Kierkegaard’s criticism of allegory. In an important journal entry from 1850 Kierkegaard writes,

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Previously, the Holy Scriptures reflected themselves imaginatively in the imagination: that is where the entire allegorical interpretation is situated. It is really an expression of the fact that people cannot get it into their heads how the infinite has taken place simply, historically. Allegory as the primary mode of interpretation is really an indirect attack on Christianity: that Christ was an individual human being, the apostle an individual human being, who in a prodigious effort dashed off a few words on a scrap of paper for a congregation …. (KJN 7, NB16:84).

Beyond the hyperbole, Kierkegaard is making an important point about the reader’s continual temptation to employ a distanced, reflective (what Kierkegaard here calls “imaginative”) method of interpretation which either reduces the Christian paradox to human categories or avoids the existential requirements of the text. Kierkegaard believed that allegorical interpretation had become abstract and fanciful, and that in this abstraction interpreters were enabled to avoid the demands of faith and appropriation. Yet in this journal entry Kierkegaard is even more concerned that the Protestant emphasis on the literal sense (combined with a form of verbal plenary inspiration) has likewise eliminated interpretive concern about existence. Kierkegaard adds in the margin, In the 17th century, which is where the understanding of Holy Scripture as doctrine really began, there appeared an equally imaginative notion of inspiration that corresponded to what allegory had been in its time, when every word, every letter had been allegorical. But […] precisely this imagining is an indirect attack on Christianity. People do not want to let Christianity be the paradox and be satisfied with that, so they think of substituting imagination which, be it noted, is not the Christianity that always is situated in inverse dialectic […]. This is a fundamental confusion that continually recurs. People refuse to be satisfied with simply positing the absurd […] [and] then Christianity is indeed paganism (KJN 7, NB16:84,n.).

Kierkegaard’s argument is that both Medieval Christianity and contemporary Protestant Orthodoxy have sought to evade the existential requirements of Scripture by moving interpretation to the realm of abstract contemplation. Kierkegaard here praises the Medievals for at least remembering “that the Bible was Holy Scripture,” whereas that too has been “quickly forgotten” in the present age (KJN7, NB16:84). It appears, then, that when Kierkegaard criticizes allegory, he is criticizing what the Medievals would have called the separation of allegory (the doctrinal or Christological reading of Scripture) from tropology (the relation of that doctrinal meaning to one’s own life). This, we have seen, is a concern that de Lubac has documented as well. For Kierkegaard, allegory became “imaginative” when it was separated from immediate concerns about appropriation of Christian truth, allowing theological speculation to become a way of avoiding

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the requirements of faith and the interiorization of Scriptural truth in the actual life of the individual. And for Kierkegaard, the remedy is the commitment to reunite a theologically governed reading of Scripture (i.e. reading through the lens of Christian concepts) with the existential requirements such reading places on the individual. Against Kierkegaard’s protests to the contrary, examination of Kierkegaard’s actual practice will show that Kierkegaard does engage in allegory-​like interpretation. The difference of emphasis (if there is one) between Kierkegaard’s approach and traditional allegory seems to be that Kierkegaard’s interpretation is relentlessly oriented toward immediate appropriation by the individual, while Medieval allegory is often focused on presenting spiritual truth for contemplation. This observation provides additional support for locating Kierkegaard as a tropologist. What Kierkegaard seems to dislike about allegory are those interpretations which cannot demonstrate their relevance in the immediate appropriation of the individual (this is true both with regard to allegory’s imaginative excesses, and with regard to its often highly speculative approach). So long as a textual interpretation remains focused on the existential concern of the individual, and grounded in Christian concepts, Kierkegaard seems to think that the interpretation is appropriate. It is here, with regard to tropological reading, that the importance of Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic for Scriptural interpretation can most clearly be seen. It should be here noted that in many ways, Kierkegaard’s movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading mirrors Martin Luther’s own articulation of the movement from “letter” to “spirit” in Luther’s early writings, which Luther developed into a dialectical movement between “Law” and “Gospel” in his later writings. In his early writings, while Luther discusses the literal, allegorical, and tropological senses of Scripture, what is most crucial is whether the interpreter approach the text from a stance of faith, or from a stance of non-​faith.38 Luther’s primary concern in his early discussions of the Psalms, Siegfried Raener argues, is, “How does Christ become effective in man?,” and interestingly, Luther answers this question through the use of what Luther calls “tropological” interpretation.39 For Luther, “Who wants to understand the Apostle and the other Scriptures reasonably, has to understand all this tropologically […]. All that is Christ literally, and the faith in Christ is all that in the moral sense.”40 We see here that Luther’s understanding of 38 Siegfried Raener, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther,” in Hebrew Bible/​ Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. II, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003), 372. 39 Raener, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther,” 372. 40 See the Works of Martin Luther (WA 55II, 440, 184–​8), cited in Raener, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther,” 372.

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tropology here is very similar to that of de Lubac: tropology is not bare morals, but the transformation into the Mystery of Christ. As Luther develops his dialectic of Law and Gospel, Luther begins to move away from the language of the Medieval fourfold sense, and speaks simply of “letter” (reading without faith) and “spirit” (reading with a stance of faith). Thus Luther’s dialectic between Law and Gospel, which becomes so central to his reading of Scripture, really emerges as a development of his earlier hermeneutic of Scripture as “letter” and “spirit,” in which he explains the transformation of the believer into Christ through “tropology.” There is, of course, little evidence that Kierkegaard had any exposure to Luther’s exegetical work when Kierkegaard develops his own focus on a movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading.41 Rather, it seems that Kierkegaard’s concern about “inwardness” and “upbuilding” led him to interpret Scripture in a manner very similar to Luther, except with a different emphasis: where Luther had developed a theological dialectic of “letter” and “spirit” (Law and Gospel), to emphasize the need for authentic inward conviction of sin and trust in the Gospel, Kierkegaard will develop an existential dialectic of “ordinary” to “actual” (inauthentic and authentic existence), to emphasize the need for authentic Christian existence to become active through choice. Put another way, where Luther had developed a theological dialectic in his own situation to help individuals who struggled with grace and merit, Kierkegaard will develop an existential dialectic in his situation to help individuals who need to be roused from religious apathy. Naturally, as Luther’s theological dialectic focused on “spiritual /​allegorical” reading (as defined by de Lubac and Luther above), Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic will focus on “tropological” reading, and this will reveal Kierkegaard as a modern tropologist. Kierkegaard’s tropological approach becomes even clearer in comparison to certain interpretive trends in Pietism. Overall, it seems that the religious milieu of Pietism provided the impulse for Kierkegaard’s movement beyond the “blocked paths” of historical critical reading and Orthodox Lutheranism discussed in the last chapter.42 It is possible to see in the great Pietist interpreter August Hermann 41 Kierkegaard, KJN4, NB3:61, admits, “I have never really read anything by Luther,” even as Kierkegaard rejoices to find that his own “category ‘for you’ ([i.e.] subjectivity, inwardness) […] is exactly Luther’s.” 42 See the useful essay by Lee C. Barrett, “Kierkegaard And Biblical Studies: A Critical Response To Nineteenth-​ century Hermeneutics,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 148–​54. Among the general similarities in the use of Scripture between Kierkegaard and Pietism noted by Barret (ibid, 151–​2) are: (1) the use of a “canon-​within-​the-​canon” which emphasized the new Testament over the Old, the book of James, the Synoptic Gospels, and “the parts of Paul that outlined Christian virtues”; (2) a theological focus on “new life in Christ” rather than “forensic justification”; and (3) a focus on the imitation of Christ.

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Francke (1663–​1727), several moves that are similar to, and will further illumine, Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic.43 First, while Francke admits only literal reading, he nonetheless distinguishes two forms of the literal sense: an initial study of the “letter” (i.e. “grammatical,” “historical,” and “analytical” study) which is to be regarded as mere prolegomena (described as Scripture’s “husk”) and can be performed by an “unregenerate” person, and a deeper literal sense called the “Literal Sense purposed by the Holy Spirit,” which can only be accessed by a believer seeking to appropriate the text.44 In Franke’s own example, anyone can read and understand the Ten Commandments, yet only the “regenerate” reader can experience “genuine love to our neighbor flowing from faith.”45 This deeper literal reading always requires what Francke calls “A Disposition to reduce the Doctrines of Scripture to practice,” since Jesus claimed that only those who seek to do the will of the Father would know him ( Jn. 7:17).46 Second, Franke urges an attentiveness to the “affections” of the biblical authors, contending that “the same words, pronounced under the influence of different emotions, convey very different meanings.”47 Francke argues that affections “are so intimately connected with all language … [that] they are closely united with the language of Inspiration”; and as a result “the Sacred Records cannot be adequately expounded, by those who […] never enter into the feelings of the Inspired Penmen.”48 Yet Francke’s attentiveness to the author’s affections is ultimately aimed at the reordering of the reader’s affections. For Francke, “When we read the Scriptures we are bound to see that our natural Affections be amended and corrected; and that our hearts under the influence of the Holy Spirit, overflow with gracious Affections.”49 The point, 43 See Augustus Herman Francke, A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scriptures, trans. William Jaques (Philadelphia: David Hogan, 1823). There is no evidence that Kierkegaard ever read Francke directly, yet the influence of Francke’s text makes it likely that principles of Francke’s method were utilized by later Pietist congregations, and therefore that this book would have had an indirect influence on Kierkegaard. Clearly in 1851 Kierkegaard incorporates directly ideas from Francke in his For Self-​Examination, after reading the biography of Francke by Heinrich Ernst Guericke, August Hermann Francke. Eine Säcularfeier seines Todes [A Secular Celebration of his Death] (Halle: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1827). 44 Francke, A Guide to Reading Scripture, 50, 65. 45 Francke, ibid, 66. 46 Francke, ibid, 88. 47 Francke, ibid, 75. 48 Francke, ibid, 126. Francke, ibid, 129, so closely identifies the affections of the sacred writers with the process of inspiration that he reinterprets 2 Pet. 1:21 so say that the sacred writers’ “minds were illumined by the Spirit, and their wills inflamed with pious, holy, and ardent Affections, so that they wrote as they felt, and as they were ‘moved by the Holy Ghost.’ ” 49 Francke, ibid, 125. It is important to notice that unregenerate interpreters can discern the “natural Affections,” but cannot understand the “spiritual Affections” (132). For Francke, ibid, 137,

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then, is that the Scriptural author’s affections show the way to reorienting and purifying the reader’s affections, and attending to these affections is the process of appropriated reading. These points of similarity between Kierkegaard and Francke are, of course, striking. Francke’s distinction between the mere letter (accessible to anyone) and the deeper literal sense (accessible only to those who possess a commitment to appropriation) is clearly similar to the distinction between “ordinary” and “actual” reading in Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic. And certainly for both, the transformation of the reader’s affections is the primary aim of Scriptural reading. Yet while Francke’s shift to the affections does begin to create a dialectical approach (where the reader recognizes an ideal affection in the Scriptural author and pursues that affection), Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic focuses on the process of making that transition from “ordinary” to “actual.” Overall, we might suggest that it is really Kierkegaard’s combination of dialectic (as found in Luther) with the aim of reading as the transformation of the reader’s affections (as found in Francke) that allows Kierkegaard’s own tropological project to reach its full strength and uniqueness. Certainly the very move from the theological dialectic (as found in Luther) to existential dialectic is facilitated by the kind of attention to the affections proposed by Francke. Nonetheless, Kierkegaard is much more focused than Francke on the process of change that produces upbuilding, and this focus enables Kierkegaard’s attention to the passions to become a fully dialectical tropology. Kierkegaard’s vision of the existential dialectic, in turn, allows him to use Scripture in creative ways to enable his readers to make the “metaphoric” upbuilding movement to “actual” reading. Ironically, it may be that the Enlightenment separation of the traditional senses of Scripture into distinct interpretive disciplines actually enabled Kierkegaard to provide a clearer vision of the importance of tropological reading. In Kierkegaard’s day, optimism for the historical critical method had given the literal sense to the historian, optimism for human reason had given the doctrinal sense (traditional “allegory,” and what Luther calls the “spiritual” sense) to the speculative theologian, and optimism for secular progress had reduced tropology to moralistic preaching. It is in this setting that Kierkegaard was able to focus on articulating the process by which an individual is upbuilt into the image of God, and this allowed him

spiritual affection (1) has “for its Source, the Holy Spirit, and is the fruit of His influence,” (2) “tends to a holy End,” and (3) “is engaged on Objects that are divine, eternal, spiritual, and invisible.” This opposition makes the reading of Scripture a qualitatively different experience for believers and nonbelievers.

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to develop a Scriptural reading that looks very much like traditional Christian tropology.

V. Conclusion Overall, the movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading appears to stand at the center of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutics from his earliest discourses (1843) to the latest (1851). “Ordinary” Scriptural language is made “actual” (upbuilding) by a resolution to appropriation. In the end, Kierkegaard knew that the only guard against the reduction of Scriptural language to “ordinary” (spiritless, child-​like) reading is the continual progress in the reader’s attitudes and practices toward becoming rightly related to God. As Kierkegaard puts it in Works of Love, “There is no word in the language that in itself is upbuilding, and there is no word in the language that cannot be said in an upbuilding way and become upbuilding if love is present” (WL, 213). This statement apparently could apply to any claim in Scripture, as there is no external guarantee that Scriptural language will be used in an “actual” way.50 Even when the reader begins to read with resolution, Scripture’s “actuality” is never complete, because the human being remains in a continual process of becoming. Scriptural language can never be read completely in “actuality” because the reader never fully achieves “actuality” in upbuilding, and therefore Scripture is always understood by the individual somewhere between its “ordinary” and “actual” meaning.51 This chapter has attempted to illumine this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading by showing its similarity to Paul Ricoeur’s development of metaphor and second-​order reference, and Henri de Lubac’s development of Medieval tropological reading. We suggested first that Kierkegaard understands metaphor in much the same way as Ricoeur, utilizing viewing Scripture as “poetic” language in order to establish second-​order reference. Yet we also suggested that Kierkegaard goes beyond Ricoeur as he seeks to create and exploit metaphor in the Scriptural language so that readers will be more deeply challenged to envision and 50 See Pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses, 136. 51 This claim stands in strong contrast to the position of Jamie Lorentzen, Kierkegaard’s Metaphors (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001), who suggests that metaphor ceases when the reader reaches the stage of religiousness B. Consequently, Lorentzen, ibid, 149, suggests that, “Religious metaphor is a paradoxical agent in that its mission is to cancel itself upon the advent of faith.” Yet the following chapters will show that even while Kierkegaard is writing to committed Christians, he still emphasizes the movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, and he still seeks to create metaphor in the Scriptural language in order to move readers toward more “actual” readings.

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appropriate Scriptural truth. Consequentially, we suggested that Kierkegaard is practicing a form of what de Lubac calls tropology, encouraging readers to view the appropriation of Scriptural truth as transformation into the image of Christ. Yet we also suggested that Kierkegaard is more focused than is de Lubac on the priority of appropriation as a beginning for understanding, and that Kierkegaard therefore focuses almost exclusively on the tropological sense of Scripture in his spiritual interpretation. In the next chapter, we will move from broad hypothesis to close analysis, as we identify the rich variety of ways in which Kierkegaard employs and interprets Scripture in the discourses. As we will see, many (if not all) of the techniques listed there can be explained as Kierkegaard’s attempts to create or illumine the metaphorical language of Scripture so that readers will be able to envision and appropriate new possibilities for their own existence before God. By having explored this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading as the center of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic, we are now in a better position to understand why Kierkegaard employs the various hermeneutical techniques listed below.

CHAPTER TWO

Hermeneutical Assumptions and Techniques of the Discourses

I. Introduction We saw in the last chapter that Kierkegaard’s upbuilding use of Scripture is intended to move the reader from an “ordinary” toward an “actual” reading of the Scriptural text in which the reader is remade in the image of God through a commitment of faith and resolution to appropriation of that Scriptural text. Kierkegaard uses Scripture as the basis of his maieutic appeal to the reader, and, as we have suggested, Kierkegaard works to create and illumine Scriptural language as “metaphorical” in order to create a “metaphoric activity” in readers. Yet that discussion remains largely theoretical, as it has not yet explored the variety of techniques Kierkegaard uses in his reading of Scripture to encourage this “metaphoric activity.” This chapter will show how Kierkegaard facilitates movement from “ordinary” (metaphorical) to “actual” reading as he advances his upbuilding argument by identifying central hermeneutical assumptions and using them to categorize Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical techniques. The catalog below is organized around a set of “hermeneutical assumptions,” under which Kierkegaard’s particular “hermeneutical techniques” are categorized.1 “Hermeneutical assumptions” refer to interpretive rationale which lead to several 1 The categorization is comprehensive in that every use of Scripture should be able to be identified with at least one of the categories listed below. (It is certainly possible that further sub-​categories

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similar techniques. Kierkegaard nowhere states that the assumptions listed here are his central hermeneutical presuppositions; rather, they have been developed by classifying Kierkegaard’s specific hermeneutical techniques into organized categories. “Hermeneutical techniques” refer to repeatedly observed interpretive moves, whether or not they were consciously employed by Kierkegaard.2 Specific techniques are classified under the hermeneutical assumption which best accounts for their existence. The logic is that if we see Kierkegaard interpreting Scripture in “X” ways (specific techniques), then it seems that Kierkegaard assumed “Y” about Scriptural interpretation (hermeneutical assumption). At times a specific technique could be classified under more than one assumption, yet the goal is to place individual techniques under the most fitting assumption. This organization is intended to show variety and coherence among the interpretive techniques used by Kierkegaard as he works to facilitate movement from ordinary to actual reading.3

II.  Hermeneutical Assumption 1: Meaning is Generated at the Level of the Whole Canonical Context Rather than at the Level of the Immediate Context For Kierkegaard, the canonical context of Scripture serves as the normative context for the development of an upbuilding insight, and he freely selects texts from almost anywhere in the Bible to support his interpretation of a particular Scriptural text. In fact, Kierkegaard often seems to see the normative context as extending even beyond the canon of Scripture to include all of what might be called creedal or confessional Christianity. Kierkegaard at times defends an upbuilding interpretation of Scripture by stating something that “Christianity says” (or some equivalent could be established, and this would provide additional clarity to Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical project.) 2 It seems certain that Kierkegaard did not have a list of such “techniques” on hand from which he consciously selected one each time he interpreted a Scriptural passage. As such, other terms may be preferable. Alexander Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 11–​12, uses the word “resource” to describe a repeated interpretive move, describing it more as “an energy than like a tool,” and noting that, “One can draw on a resource one did not know one had.” This project will retain the word “technique,” while recognizing that “techniques” are the present author’s interpretive reconstructions, based on an attempt to articulate repeatedly observed interpretive moves. 3 Many more examples could be provided for each hermeneutical technique, yet the few examples provided were chosen for their clarity in exhibiting the technique.

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statement such as “the Gospel says,” or “Christianity has always taught,” etc.), and he is often quite willing to judge the interpretation of a particular text based on this criterion.4 We must, then, take a very broad understanding of “canonical context” in order to make sense of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding aims, and to identify boundaries about what counts as a legitimate upbuilding interpretation. The main point here, however, is that Kierkegaard often favors Scriptural insights drawn from elsewhere in Scripture (or from “Christianity”) over insights drawn from the immediate context of the selected text. In fact, Kierkegaard rarely gives interpretive priority to the immediate context of his selected text, but rather views the immediate context as merely one influence among others as he works out his upbuilding interpretation. Because Kierkegaard’s goal is upbuilding rather than knowledge, it is not surprising that Kierkegaard prefers the broader canonical context over the immediate context. Kierkegaard is specifically working to provide a universal insight which serves as an occasion for human resolution to upbuilding, and the effectiveness of the insight will regularly be enhanced by drawing on insights outside the immediate context. This assumption is seen through the following techniques.

A. Technique 1: The Development of an Upbuilding Argument Arises from the Creation of a Dialogue between Two Scriptural Texts from Different Contexts This technique of interpreting one Scriptural text through the lens of another Scriptural text (or texts) is almost always used at the level of the discourse as a whole, where a main text will open a discussion, and then will be interpreted through the lens of a doctrinal principle text (discussed below). The technique is often repeated in smaller sections of the discourse to establish further aspects of the argument. This technique results in a creative reinterpretation of both texts, as the argument is developed out of a “conversation” between two texts. In this technique, preference is given to the broader canonical context over the immediate context of the main text, as the incorporation of a text from elsewhere in Scripture expands the possibilities for creative interpretation. 4 For example, in the discourse “The Care of Loftiness,” Kierkegaard acknowledges that “Scripture […] speaks” about Jesus being “literally” [bogstavelige] lowly, yet judges this “literal” claim by stating that “Christianity has never taught that literally to be a lowly person is synonymous with being a Christian, nor that there is a direct and inevitable transition from literally being a lowly person to becoming a Christian” (CD, 54–​5). Here “Christianity” guides the interpretation of the “literal” statement.

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The normative way in which Kierkegaard begins a discourse is by placing a “main text” at the beginning of the discourse, which will normally be interpreted through the lens of another Scriptural text. The chief function of the main text is to introduce a topic for discussion which will produce an inward reading, and the argument of the discourse usually advances on the promotion of a particular interpretation of this main text. For example, we have already seen this in Kierkegaard’s exegesis of 1 Cor. 8:1, as the “ordinary” sense of the phrase “love builds up” is interpreted through the theological presupposition that God “who himself is Love” (1 Jn. 4:16) must implant love in each human being (WL, 216). Kierkegaard appears to select main texts based on their perceived ability to open a topic for discussion: where they continue to facilitate new discussions they are repeated in other discourses; where their potential to facilitate new discussions has been exhausted they cease to be utilized.5 Once the main text has been presented and the topic of the discourse introduced, Kierkegaard then typically interprets the main text by appeal to a particular doctrinal principle which provides a lens through which to view this main text (as we just saw, 1 Jn. 4:16 supplies this doctrinal principle in the discussion on 1 Cor. 8:1). In this project, we will define a “doctrinal principle” as that theological/​ philosophical lens through which a main text is interpreted. Often, but not always, the doctrinal principle is presented through a particular Scriptural text. In this project, we will define a “doctrinal principle text” as a particular Scriptural text which is used to present or substantiate a doctrinal principle. In the discussion of 1 Cor. 8:1 above (“love builds up”), 1 Jn. 4:16 is the “doctrinal principle text” which supplies the “doctrinal principle” that “It is God, the Creator, who must implant love in each human being, he who himself is Love” (WL, 216). To cite another example, in an early Upbuilding discourse, the “main text,” James 1:17 (“every good and perfect gift is from above”), is interpreted through the “doctrinal principle texts” of 1 Tim. 4:4 (“Everything created by God is good if it is received with thankfulness”) and Rom. 8:28 (“all things serve for good those who love God”), to yield the “doctrinal principle” that all life’s circumstances are God’s good and perfect gifts and must be accepted with thanksgiving (EUD, 42). The identification of these doctrinal

5 Fourteen of the “main texts” (roughly one fourth of the stated main texts in the discourses) never appear again in any form in Kierkegaard’s discourses, while nine main texts are repeated and account for 31 (roughly one half ) of the discourses’ main texts. Several main texts (particularly the claims of James 1:17 and Mt. 6:24–​34 and the examples of Lk. 7:37–​50 and Lk. 18:9–​14), become foundationally important for Kierkegaard’s work everywhere, yet these are exceptions which are developed into “doctrinal principle texts.”

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principle texts is usually of primary importance for understanding the development of the upbuilding argument of each discourse. The following observations should be made about doctrinal principle texts: First, (as we just saw) Kierkegaard will usually present a doctrinal principle by means of a doctrinal principle text. He appears to do this because the Scriptural text (1) is expected to be already familiar to the reader, (2) carries an inherent authority as Scripture, and (3) typically provides a condensed phrase which compactly expresses that doctrinal principle.6 Second, doctrinal principle texts are presented as universal statements, and are stated axiomatically in the discourse, at times with an introduction such as “as Scripture […] teaches us” (EUD, 19), “The Apostle […] says” (EUD, 42), or simply as if it were self-​evident to all readers that the Scriptural allusion were universally true (see the use of 1 Cor. 10:13 in EUD, 111). At times, Kierkegaard selects as a doctrinal principle text a phrase which appears to be a personal example or a limited admonition. In these instances, Kierkegaard must first intensify and universalize the phrase to make it normative for all individuals (this technique will be discussed below). Third, a doctrinal principle text usually assumes and carries with it additional interpretive assumptions from doctrinal principles which have been added in each previous discussion in which the doctrinal principle text has already been used.7 Once a Scriptural text has become associated with a particular doctrinal meaning, the doctrinal presuppositions will normally continue to be associated with that Scriptural text in later discourses. Fourth, after the doctrinal principle text has been used to establish the doctrinal principle, the doctrinal principle may continue to guide the argument of later discourses, even without the explicit use of the doctrinal principle text. This point will be developed further in Chapter Four, as it will help to show the continuity of theological perspective among the discourses (particularly between Upbuilding and Christian discourses), even when the Scriptural allusions are changed. This technique of interpreting a “main text” by means of a “doctrinal principle text” is extremely important, as it provides the structure in which a great number of the discourses advance. Furthermore, this technique is often repeated in smaller steps to the argument within the discourse. In each case, readers are asked to think about the Scriptural text in a different way, as it is viewed through the lens of another text drawn from the broader canonical context.

6 For the condensed phrase, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of the interpreter “using the scriptural expression in all its brevity as the clear and complete interpretation of the much he has said” (EUD, 327). 7 See the discussion of James 1:17 in the next chapter.

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B. Technique 2: Word Association: Interpreting a Particular Word through the Use of the Same Word in Another Passage In certain instances Kierkegaard draws further insights about a particular Scriptural term from another context where that same word is used. For example, in a discussion of James 1:19–​21, Kierkegaard’s main technique is to explain each phrase by recourse to some other Scriptural text which uses the same key word. James’s command to be “slow to anger” [Vrede] is illustrated by Paul’s command to “not let the sun go down upon his anger” (Eph. 4:26); the danger of damage to one’s own soul [Sjel] is expressed in the warning against losing one’s own soul (Mk. 8:36); the command to “put away all filthiness and all remnants [Levning] of wickedness” is connected to the “remnants” collected after the feeding of the 5000 to show that wickedness, too, multiplies (Mt. 15:33–​7 and Mk. 8:1–​8); and the command to “receive with meekness [Sagtmodighed] the Word” is associated with a promise that “meekness discovers hidden things” (Sirach 4:18) (EUD, 139).8 It is unclear whether Kierkegaard is using a concordance to make such word associations, or whether his memory is drawn to other parts of Scripture with the same words.

III. Hermeneutical Assumption 2: Meaning Occurs at the Level of the Word or Phrase Rather than at the Level of the Sentence or Paragraph For Kierkegaard, Scriptural meaning often occurs at the level of the phrase rather than at the level of the sentence or paragraph, and this (like the previous hermeneutical assumption) leads to a relative disregard for the surrounding context. Kierkegaard’s stated preference for a single phrase in religious communication can be seen in a journal entry from 1849, where Kierkegaard declares, “The words from Philippians could be the text for a Friday sermon: ‘For me, living is Christ’; but no more, not the next phrase, ‘and dying is gain’ ” (KJN5, NB10:65). In this entry, Kierkegaard specifically removes the context in order to focus only on one spiritually illuminating observation. Further evidence for Kierkegaard’s appreciation 8 This technique can also be seen in Kierkegaard’s exploration of the claim that Christ “learned” obedience from suffering (Heb. 5:8). Wanting to make a theological point that Christ, though omniscient (as God), nonetheless “learned” (as man) through obedience, Kierkegaard looks to the word “obedience” in Paul and concludes, “The obedience belongs to his abasement, as it says: He abased himself and became obedient” (Phil. 2:8; UDVS, 263). By understanding Heb. 5:8 in light of Phil. 2:8, Christ’s learning obedience is understood as Christ’s becoming obedient to the point of death.

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for the single phrase can be seen in the discourse, “The Thorn in the Flesh,” as Kierkegaard suggests that one “appropriate” way to interpret Scripture is to “use […] the scriptural expression in all its brevity as the clear and complete interpretation of the much he has said” (EUD, 327). This suggestion seems to mean that the brief “scriptural expression” (i.e. the phrase, “The Thorn in the Flesh”), comes to stand for the entire upbuilding meaning of the discourse and its Scriptural foundation in 2 Cor. 12 (EUD, 327). A short phrase can capture an entire discussion and meaningfully present it to the reader. There is evidence that Kierkegaard views Scripture as being unique in this regard, as Kierkegaard claims that “no one is as capable of being potent in brevity as an apostle” (EUD, 145), and notes that “apostolic speech is essentially different in content from all human speech, so it is also in many ways different in form” (EUD, 69). Apparently only “apostolic speech” (i.e. Scripture) can be read in this way.9 Locating meaning at the level of the phrase allows Kierkegaard to shift the balance of interpretation from an intellectual discussion about how a phrase relates to other phrases within the immediate context, to an affective discussion in which a particular phrase grips the reader’s imagination and enables the reader to recognize the importance of the Scriptural requirement for upbuilding. Locating meaning at the level of the phrase does not necessarily establish a deeper meaning for the text, but it does allow the phrase to take on a meaning unrestricted by the context, and therefore allows Kierkegaard to provide more imaginative freedom in interpretation. The development of the discourse through a particular phrase keeps the focus on the appropriation of a Scriptural claim rather than on merely providing an intellectually satisfying interpretation of the verse in its context. This assumption can help us make sense of certain statements that appear almost absurd in their immediate claims. For example, Kierkegaard makes an exaggerated claim about Christ from Heb. 5:8, suggesting, “Holy Scripture speaks of [Christ] as of the lowliest of men, says nothing about who he was, about what he was, about what he was able to do, about what he accomplished, nothing about his work, which is beyond all human thought—​it only says: he learned obedience from what he suffered” (UDVS, 253). Now it is quite obvious that that “Holy Scripture” (and indeed the book of Hebrews) develops all of these themes in great 9 Kierkegaard’s understanding of the Scriptural phrase seems in this regard to be very close to that of rabbinic interpretation. Alexander Samely, Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), has noted about rabbinic interpretation that, “The biblical meaning of Scripture tends to be identified with the meaning of its wording in the sense of short, quotable chunks,” and suggests that, “Biblical meaning is actually conceived of as arising from fragments of Scripture” which are “treated as if they could contain the divine author’s meaning to the same degree as the whole of Scripture.”

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detail, and Kierkegaard’s statement appears to be a gross exaggeration. Yet here Kierkegaard is extracting one phrase (Kierkegaard cites, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8)” (UDVS, 250)), from its broader context, and examining the phrase as a closed statement. Only by isolating this phrase from its broader context is it possible to make this kind of a claim about “Holy Scripture” (which here clearly refers only to the selected main text). Quite expectedly, the upbuilding phrase, when considered by itself without its immediate context, often generates a meaning that stands in tension, if not direct contradiction, with the immediate context. For example, in the discourse, “The Lord Gave, and the Lord Took Away; Blessed Be the Name of the Lord” (taken from Job 1:21), Kierkegaard establishes Job as a prototype for all humanity because of Job’s statement of this phrase alone. As the discourse develops, Kierkegaard makes statements about Job which seem directly to contradict other descriptions of Job. For example, Kierkegaard notes that Job’s “soul remained quiet until the Lord’s explanation again came to him” (EUD, 118). However, the full verse of Job 7:11 specifically notes Job’s complaint before God, as Job actively declares, “I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” Later, Kierkegaard tells us that because Job “cast [his sorrow] upon the Lord (1 Peter 5:7) that “the Lord took that [ Job’s sorrow] away from him also, and only praise was left and in it his heart’s incorruptible joy” (EUD, 122). However, the broader context of the book shows that God did not take Job’s sorrow away, and it does not present Job as being left with “only praise” and “incorruptible joy.” Here the confession of Job 1:21 (as often occurs with an image or phrase), has developed a meaning independent of the original context, and now stands in tension with that original context from which it was taken. This assumption is seen in the following techniques.

A. Technique 1: Technical Phrases which Carry an Established Meaning Kierkegaard uses some phrases so frequently that they attract a relatively stable theological meaning independent of the meaning the phrase previously held in its original context.10 These technical phrases often function axiomatically, reminding a reader of a truth that has been well developed in a previous discussion. While it is difficult to specify precisely when a particular phrase has solidified a technical meaning through repeated use, all of the examples listed below should be uncontroversial. The phrase “this very day” (Lk. 23:43), originally a promise by 10 These phrases occur so frequently that citations of Kierkegaard’s work will not be added in this section.

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Jesus to the thief on the cross that “this very day” the dying thief would be with him in paradise, becomes a declaration of God’s gift of the present moment, and an encouragement to use the opportunities available in that present moment. The phrase “the one thing needful” (Lk. 10:42), drawn from Mary’s choice to sit at Jesus’s feet and listen while Martha provided hospitality, becomes a designation of one’s top priority, which should be attentiveness to the God relationship. The phrase “cannot repay one in a thousand” ( Job 9:3), Job’s recognition of the distance between God and human beings, serves as a recognition that because all persons stand guilty before God, acknowledgment of one’s guilt is foundational to the God relationship. The image of “fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12), Paul’s command to his readers about one’s disposition toward the Christian life, becomes the universal disposition required for salvation. The phrase “take God’s kingdom by force” (also “take the gain by force”) (Mt. 11:12) comes to stand for human resistance to God’s providential giving of gifts in an attempt to force God to act. The understanding of life as a “dark saying” (1 Cor. 13:12 or Ps. 49:5) describes the inability to perceive one’s direction in life without faith. The return of “seven demons” (Mt. 12:24; 29–​32) provides a graphic picture of the confusion that arises when one attempts to order one’s life without orienting it toward the God relationship. The “seventy times seven times” (Mt. 18:22) provides an image of the high requirement to forgive others. Each phrase in this list will carry its technical meaning into whichever discussion it is used.

B. Technique 2: A Scriptural Image, Phrase, or Statement is Used to Drive the Logic of the Discourse Often Kierkegaard places a Scriptural image, metaphor, or example as the focal point of the discourse, with the result that this Scriptural allusion drives the argument of the discourse. Perhaps the clearest example of this usage occurs in “The Thorn in the Flesh,” where the image of running (used there eleven times) sets the tone for the rest of the discourse. At four different places in the discourse Kierkegaard speaks of running or provides a Scriptural allusion to Paul’s running (1 Cor. 9:26; EUD, 332, 334; Phil. 3:14; EUD, 343; and Rom. 9:16; EUD, 345). This theme of running provides an enduring image of the dialectic between struggle and comfort that Kierkegaard desires to explore. Running, by itself, accomplishes nothing: “There is no security in time so that a person can say with worldly composure, ‘peace and security,’ unless he finds comfort in thoughtlessness. The thing to do, then, is to run—​alas, one would so like to run faster and faster, but as long as one is running in time one does not run past time” (EUD, 343). Yet, human running submitted to God builds active trust, because “it depends not upon him

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who wills or upon him who runs but upon God, who shows mercy (Romans 9:16)” (EUD, 345). Running, then, characterizes the structure of human religious life as it shows both the need for human action and the inability of human action without God’s active assistance (grace). An image directs the discourse “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” (I) in a somewhat different way. Kierkegaard’s central argument in the discourse is that “one sees what one is,” and this claim is drawn from a combination of two Scriptural images, the “evil eye” which “comes from within” (EUD, 60; Mk. 7:22) and the image of the eye as lamp of the body (Mt. 6:22–​3; EUD, 60).11 This image of the evil, inner eye allows Kierkegaard to suggest that with inner transformation toward the Good, the reader will be able to see the good in others and thereby hide (i.e. not see) the multitude of sins.

C. Technique 3: Grammar of the Phrase is more Important than the Immediate Context for Generating an Upbuilding Meaning Kierkegaard often places great importance on the grammatical details of the Scriptural texts, at times basing his argument on a single adverb (like “therefore”), or cross-​referencing passages to expose and resolve differences in the accounts. Yet it should be noted that close grammatical analysis does not mean close dependence upon the immediate context. Jolita Pons’s observation is useful, that Kierkegaard “often wants us to do several things on different levels at the same time: (1) not read literally; (2) read literally in the sense of an immediate acting on what we understand the text to mean; (3) read literally in the sense of paying scrupulous attention to grammatical, stylistic, etymological details.”12 When Kierkegaard desires his readers “not [to] read literally,” this usually means ignoring the immediate context, while nonetheless paying close attention to an upbuilding point generated in grammatical analysis. Kierkegaard’s interpretation often appears to occur in the following levels of priority: (1) Kierkegaard establishes meaning at the level of the phrase, usually by interpreting the phrase through another Scriptural text or doctrinal lens; (2) Kierkegaard adds a grammatical analysis of the phrase to strengthen his upbuilding point; (3) if it is deemed useful, Kierkegaard draws further support from the immediate context while ignoring those details of the context which would create tension with the interpretation. Perhaps the clearest example of these 11 The 1830 Danish translation (as the King James Version) has “evil eye” among the list of impure things that come “from within” (EUD, 508). 12 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 65.

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interpretive steps occurs in the discourse, “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience.”13 In what initially appears to be a first step, Kierkegaard selects Lk. 21:19, “In your patience you will gain your souls” as his text (EUD, 159), and makes the foundational claim that because “in patience” and “gaining” are synonyms, one only gains one’s soul in patience. Kierkegaard’s argument appears to be based on the grammar of Lk. 21:19, in which “patience” and the “gaining” of one’s soul form a “redoubling repetition” which “admonish[es] one to gain one’s soul ‘in patience,’ and […] admonish[es] one to ‘gain’ it” (EUD, 169). Patience, then, is not simply a means to gaining and possessing one’s soul, but is the very process of gaining and possessing the soul. However, we should notice that Kierkegaard’s focus on the grammar is not the beginning of his interpretation. Instead, Lk. 21:19 has already been interpreted through the language of losing the world to gain the soul in Mk. 8:35, and we see that the need for grammatical analysis of Lk. 21:19 arises from the prior interpretive decision to interpret this Lucan passage in light of Mk. 8:35. Finally, Kierkegaard selects certain details from the immediate context (ignoring that Jesus is instructing a particular group of followers about how to respond to a particular upcoming persecution), in order to suggest that Jesus is providing a general warning about personal judgment, so that Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Lk. 21:19 will work. This interpretation has arisen from (1) a previous interpretive decision (Lk. 21:19 interpreted through Mk. 8:35), (2) grammatical analysis (the “redoubling repetition” of gaining and patience), and (3) only finally (and quite selectively), details from the context, are being used to develop the argument. Kierkegaard at times appears even to choose the language which he will use for examination of the grammar (the original Greek or Hebrew, or the Danish translation), based on his ability to make a grammatical point from that particular language.14 For example, in the discourse, “Think About Your Creator in the Days 13 Beyond this example, see also “The Care of Self-​Torment,” where Kierkegaard emphasizes the future tense in Jesus’s statement that “Tomorrow will worry about itself ” (CD, 72; Mt. 6:34), in order to develop a theology of evil and divine action in which God actively apportions troubles in the lives of individuals for their own good. 14 Kierkegaard on certain occasions makes his argument on the basis of the Danish translation, while at other occasions uses the original Greek or Hebrew to make his point. We have seen that Kierkegaard emphasizes the “up” of opbyggelig to make a theological point about the importance of foundations, even while the Greek word (οἰκοδομεῖ) has no such etymology (WL, 215). For Kierkegaard’s selection of Greek, Pons, Stealing a Gift, 65, notes an intriguing example in which Kierkegaard (CUP1:594), makes his argument based on the Greek word “Toioutoi” in Mt. 19:14 by emphasizing that “Christ is not speaking about children or literally to children, but […] is speaking to the disciples,” because, “Literally understood, a child is not toioutos” (such) since “toioutos implies comparison.” Here the grammar is being used to combat a literalistic reading, and only the Greek could be used to facilitate such an argument.

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of Your Youth,” Kierkegaard argues that the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a model Upbuilding Discourse which seeks to reveal that “all is vanity and pernicious toil” (Eccl. 1:14; EUD, 236), in order subsequently to demonstrate that thinking about the Creator is the only activity that is not vanity. This understanding of the book is based, it appears, on Kierkegaard’s (not the biblical author’s) emphasis on a “therefore” (derfor) instead of “so” (saa) in the grammar of Eccl. 12:1.15 The preacher, Kierkegaard claims, “does not say, as he usually does—​so rejoice in your youth, so put away sorrow—​where the very expression, by indifferently tossing out what is said, suggests that what he is speaking about is a matter of indifference. He has omitted this casual little word” and instead uses the therefore in order to “halt the vanity by the specific expression of the admonition: Think, therefore, about your Creator” (EUD, 237). In Kierkegaard’s rhetoric, the whole argument of the discourse rests on this grammatical decision.

D. Technique 4: Switching the Referent of a Phrase to Multiply the Meaning of the Phrase At times Kierkegaard isolates a phrase from its immediate context and applies that phrase to a different referent, thereby creating a new interpretation. The clearest example of this technique occurs with regard to the phrase, “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” (1 Pet. 4:8), in which Kierkegaard applies the phrase to three different referents to create three different discourses: (1) the requirement for love to hide the sins of others (EUD, 55–​68); (2) the need for love to cover one’s own sins in the judgment (EUD, 69–​78); and (3) love as Christ atoning for sin (WA, 181–​8). Kierkegaard explains that multiple referents are appropriate because there are two kinds of love, human love (which covers the sins of others even while one’s own sins are being covered), and Christ’s love (which only covers the sins of others, as Christ “did not need love”) (WA, 181–​2). Further, Kierkegaard calls the application of the phrase to each referent a “literal” reading, noting in the Upbuilding discourses that the phrase “must be taken literally” [maa tages efter Ordet] (more precisely “must be taken according to the word”) (EUD, 59), and in the Communion discourses that referring the phrase to Christ is the most “literal” [bogstavelige] reading. Consequently, several universally applicable upbuilding meanings are established by changing the referent of the phrase.

15 This word “derfor” [therefore] and subsequently the phrase “think therefore about your creator” is simply an “and” in the Masoretic text [‫ ֙]רֹכְזּו‬, and in the Greek Septuagint [καὶ μνήσθητι τοῦ κτίσαντός], and neither can it be supported by the Latin [memento creatoris tui in diebus iuventutis].

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At times Kierkegaard switches the referent from a distinctly Christian reality in the original Scriptural context to a general human insight to create an upbuilding point. In the discourse, “He must increase; I must decrease” ( Jn. 3:30; EUD, 275–​89), this title phrase is applied to the universal human situation of giving up significance as another individual rises in significance. Kierkegaard makes it clear that he is using the passage in its secondary sense (the primary sense is John the Baptist’s unique announcement of Jesus), as Kierkegaard wishes to make the discourse “upbuilding” by allowing it to speak of a situation applicable to every human experience (EUD, 278). This secularization of the phrase might initially appear to be just the opposite of moving to the “actual” reading, since John’s witness about Christ is being muted in favor of common human experience. However, here Kierkegaard generalizes the Scriptural phrase so that readers can actualize the phrase through appropriation.16

IV. Hermeneutical Assumption 3: Universalizing the Text Makes the Reader Contemporary with the Subject Matter Because upbuilding is necessary for all persons equally, upbuilding Scriptural interpretation must, for Kierkegaard, provide a meaning which is universally available for appropriation. Kierkegaard emphasizes that upbuilding is “in the highest and most comprehensive sense” the “common human concern” (UDVS, 106), and insists that Scriptural “discourse” is “addressed to every human being” (EUD, 240). The universality of upbuilding interpretation, as Sylvia Walsh shows, is based upon the “equality of all human beings before God,” and “takes its point of departure in the universally human or that which applies to every person without regard to individual differences of sex, class, age, education, and spiritual cultivation.”17 Kierkegaard notes that the “explicit task [of upbuilding] is precisely to develop 16 A similar example of secularizing a phrase occurs in Kierkegaard’s use of the phrase, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35; EUD, 156), as Kierkegaard states that, “The words express the difference that prevails in earthly existence […] that it is better […] to be able to give than to be obliged to receive” (EUD, 156), thereby turning Paul’s words (which Paul attributes to Jesus), from an instruction about generosity into a general description about the way the world works. 17 Sylvia Walsh, “Comparing Genres: The Woman Who Was a Sinner in Kierkegaard’s Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays and An Upbuilding Discourse,” Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2010, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 73, noting EUD, 240, 470, 473–​4; UDVS, 106.

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deeper and deeper the need that everyone ought to have,” and argues that this need exists in both the “simpler people” and the “cultured” people, whom “the upbuilding wants to unite, if possible […] in essential truth” ( JP5, 609).18 The recognition that all Scriptural truth can and should be “truth for me” is the fundamental starting point for an upbuilding use of Scripture, as universalization frees Scripture from being regarded merely as a historical record, or a set of stories and wisdom sayings from a past age, and places it firmly in the present upbuilding address to all concerned readers. As Tim Polk puts it, Kierkegaard’s “refusal to specify anything of the reader’s social context” is simultaneously “universalizing” and “individualizing.”19 Because universality of interpretation is one of the fundamental tenets of upbuilding, a series of hermeneutical techniques branch out from this central supposition. We should note here as well that the universal principle drawn from the Scriptural text must be appropriate to the kind of upbuilding discourse Kierkegaard is writing. Kierkegaard often develops a secondary universal meaning of a Scriptural text which is appropriate to the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, and he often develops a “deeper” Scriptural meaning of a Scriptural text which is appropriate to the Communion discourses. These specific uses are discussed elsewhere.20 The point here is that “universal” must be understood within the level of upbuilding that Kierkegaard is trying to achieve in the particular genre of discourse.

A. Technique 1: Universalizing a Phrase Originally Given in a Particular Context to Make It a Norm for Salvation In a number of instances, Kierkegaard extracts a phrase from a Scriptural text which appears to be a personal example or a limited admonition, and makes the phrase normative for all persons. This use of Scripture is particularly important, since the extracted phrase becomes a universalized requirement for salvation and 18 Kierkegaard claims that “Something that is supposed to serve for upbuilding must never contain a split, as if there were one kind of upbuilding for the simple and another for the wise […]. [S]‌ince to be more educated, more developed, is still something accidental—​the upbuilding is essentially the same for all” (EUD, 470). 19 Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, 109. 20 For universalization in the Upbuilding discourses, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of “secondary sense” of the phrase, “He Must Increase, I Must Decrease” (EUD, 278). For universalization in the Communion discourses, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of the “deeper sense” of Christ’s action of blessing while departing is universalized as the mode of Christ’s risen presence to the communicant (Lk. 24:51; CD, 296), or the above discussion on 1 Pet. 4:8, where levels of deepening allow the verse to be applied to different referents.

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becomes central to the argument of the discourse. For example, in the discourse, “To Preserve One’s Soul in Patience,” Kierkegaard employs Phil. 2:12 to claim that “a person is never saved except by ‘working in fear and trembling’ ” (EUD, 183). This use of Phil. 2:12 establishes as a fundamental premise that “fear and trembling” is an essential component of salvation, going well beyond Paul’s admonition to the Philippian believers to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling.” In the discourse “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience,” Kierkegaard makes the phrase from Lk. 21:19, “In your patience you will gain your souls,” into the universal process of salvation for all persons. He does this in two steps. First, Kierkegaard argues that the words “patience” and “gain” form a “redoubling repetition” which establishes them as synonyms (EUD, 169), so that all persons who wish to gain their souls must do so through patience. Second, Kierkegaard defines patience as the process of untangling the soul from its illegitimate possessor (the world) and receiving the soul as gift from its legitimate possessor (God). Consequently, patience, quite simply, is this process of gaining and possessing the soul, and this verse, originally written for the disciples in a time of future persecution, is intensified to a universal process of salvation. The same technique occurs in several discourses where suffering is made a necessity for the religious life through the use of Acts 14:22. Paul had encouraged his fellow believers to rejoice because, “It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22), yet in “The Thorn in the Flesh,” Kierkegaard strengthens Paul’s claim from self-​testimony (Paul’s “we” refers to his missionary party) to a standard for authentic Christianity by stating that “no one enters the kingdom of heaven without suffering” (EUD, 331). This changes Paul’s testimony about what God required for Paul into a general requirement of suffering for all persons of authentic faith. The use of Acts 14:22 to universalize suffering is repeated in the Christian discourse, “Hardship Is the Road,” where Kierkegaard uses the verse to claim that it is “Scripture’s universal teaching that along the road of perfection we walk in hardships” (UDVS, 292).

B. Technique 2: Everything Written by an Apostle or Spoken by Jesus Can be Appropriated by the Individual for Upbuilding In the discourses, Kierkegaard claims that the individual has the responsibility to appropriate everything written about Jesus or written by the Apostles. While it seems clear that Kierkegaard did not attempt to employ such a hermeneutical principle consistently (he regularly selects those examples that will best fit his own argument), the principle could be viewed as a kind of telos for Christian reflection: all of the New Testament is written for me to act upon. This section will note

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one example about Paul and one about Jesus. In the discourse, “The Thorn in the Flesh,” Kierkegaard uses 1 Cor. 9:22 to argue that “[a]‌n apostle who is trying to be all things to all people” would not have written about his thorn in the flesh unless it were an experience that applies to every concerned individual (EUD, 335). Consequently, Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” must be interpreted as an example of the dialectic of internal struggle and internal comfort that every religious person will experience. Following Kierkegaard’s logic, every detail of Paul’s instruction (and perhaps Paul’s own personal experience!) found in Scripture would appear to require the same level of attention and appropriation by the Christian. In the discourse, “The Joy of It: That the Poorer You Become the Richer You Are Able to Make Others,” Kierkegaard states that Jesus’s “life never expresses anything accidental” (CD, 122), and therefore every detail about Jesus has significance for Christians. In this discourse, the fact that Jesus was poor means that Jesus was certainly not “poor in the accidental sense,” but rather because “his life is the essential truth,” he “therefore showed that in order to make others rich one must oneself be poor,” a “divine thought, different from what arose in a human being’s heart” (CD, 122). Christians have the obligation, then, to work to appropriate every detail of Jesus’s earthly life so as to become followers of the prototype. Again, it is important to note that this seems more to be Kierkegaard’s claim than his practice, and the value in identifying this technique lies more in its illumination of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the potential of the biblical text than in its illumination of Kierkegaard’s consistent interpretive activity.

V. Hermeneutical Assumption 4: Changing the Text Enables Readers to Envision Appropriation21 Because Kierkegaard’s goal is to utilize the text to create a “metaphoric activity” in the reader through which the reader will resolve to be upbuilt, Kierkegaard’s aim of enabling appropriation in the reader decisively overshadows any aim of reconstructing the original meaning of the text in its original context. This interpretive priority means that Kierkegaard is willing to alter or re-​write the Scriptural text so that it is more capable of creating a point of contact between God and

21 Jolita Pons, Stealing a Gift, 69–​123, has developed two chapters on examples of Kierkegaard’s alterations of Scripture which are drawn from the pseudonymous works. Those chapters, while developed differently from this catalog, will be valuable for readers seeking to compare Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture between the pseudonymous and signed writings.

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reader.22 Kierkegaard is worried that his readers have become complacent with the biblical texts, and Kierkegaard suggests that it is at times necessary to “establish […] a new acquaintance with the old and familiar” (WL, 210). Changes in the text disturb the reader’s familiarity with the text, so that the reader may see the text in a new and challenging way. Changes to the text can occur in a number of ways, as seen in the list of techniques below.

A. Technique 1: Mistranslation and Incorrect Citations In this technique, Kierkegaard intentionally mistranslates a Scriptural word or phrase in order to create a textual reading that benefits Kierkegaard’s upbuilding point. In the discourse, “What Meaning and What Joy There Are in the Thought of Following Christ,” Kierkegaard makes Christ’s human prototypical example more accessible to believers by mistranslating Phil. 2:7. Where Paul had said that Christ “emptied himself ” [forringede sig selv], Kierkegaard changes the text to claim that Christ “humbled himself ” [fornedrede sig selv], thereby making Christ’s action the imitable work of humility.23 In the discourse “All Things Must Serve Us for Good—​When We Love God,” Kierkegaard changes the wording of Rom. 8:28 to create a subjective “when we” [naar vi], which challenges readers to consider if they do, in fact, love God. Neither the Greek [ὅτι τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν τὸν Θεὸν] nor the Danish [som elske Gud] carries the causal/​temporal sense of “when” [naar], and therefore the insertion of the “when” goes beyond the original grammatical possibilities of the verse. Kierkegaard does not attempt to hide the fact that the “when” is his own addition, since he quotes the verse one page later without the “when,” noting that “all things must serve 22 We should be alert to the possibility that some Scriptural changes are mistakes. Pons, ibid, 105, usefully notes a tension between Kierkegaard’s “meticulous and scrupulous reading of the Bible,” and his “quoting it by heart,” with the result that this careful reading is lost. The examples given here appear to be intentional and theologically motivated, since they are passages which Kierkegaard uses on a regular basis. 23 It is clear that Kierkegaard is changing the word “forringede” [emptied] of Phil. 2:5 rather than citing the word “fornedrede” [humbled] of Phil. 2:7, since Kierkegaard quotes the passage with citation, urging the reader to have, “»dette Sindelag, som var i Christo Jesu, han, som ikke holdt det for et Rov at være Gud liig, men fornedrede sig selv og blev lydig indtil Døden, ja indtil Døden paa Korset« (Phil. 2, 5 o. ff.)” [“this mind that was in Christ Jesus, he who thought it not robbery to be equal with God but humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even to death on the cross”] (UDVS, 221). David R. Law, Kierkegaard’s Kenotic Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 98, suggests that “Kierkegaard […] eliminated precisely those elements of the text which speak of the incarnation” in order to change the text into “a statement of the incarnate Christ’s self-​denial.” Kierkegaard’s point is to emphasize further Christ’s role as Prototype.

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for good those who love God” [“alle Ting maae tjene dem til Gode, som elske Gud”] (CD, 189). Yet even this supposed “correct” quotation of Rom. 8:28 (Kierkegaard himself supplies the quotation marks) adds a “must” [maae] to the original Danish, and is therefore also an example of Kierkegaard’s free emendation. Through this alteration of Rom. 8:28, Kierkegaard makes the promise of God’s faithfulness dependent upon the reader’s faith, arguing that the individual will become convinced that all things work for good when the individual begins to love God. Often in mistranslation, Kierkegaard intends his covert change to “trick” readers into accepting his theological point. In these instances, Kierkegaard makes a subtle alteration to the text which he intends readers not to recognize. Pons has suggested that “[q]‌uite a few alterations, even the significant ones, are difficult to identify, because Kierkegaard creates a kind of a pseudo-​biblical language that allows an invisible and unobtrusive manipulation of his subject.”24 This alteration is intended to cause readers to think that the text itself is making Kierkegaard’s point. For example, referring to Christ’s temptation (Mt. 4:1), Kierkegaard adds the detail that “the evil spirit” led Christ into the wilderness, a detail which is intended to enable readers to see that Jesus has been tempted as they have (Heb. 4:15). Kierkegaard claims, “If you are tempted in solitude—​so also was he, whom the evil spirit led out into solitude in order to tempt him” (WA, 121). However, the insertion of the word “evil” is not exegetically defensible.25 Likewise, in the discourse, “To Need God …,” Kierkegaard suggests that because “few possessions with contentment is already a great gain,” an individual might learn to trust in God even more if those few possessions were taken “away from him” (1 Tim. 6:6–​8; EUD, 299). The Scriptural phrase says that “godliness [not ‘few possessions’] with contentment is great gain,” yet this subtle change allows Kierkegaard to imply, with the aid of Scripture, that godly persons will normally have “few possessions.” These subtle changes invest Kierkegaard’s own upbuilding points with the authority of Scripture.

24 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 115. 25 The use of “the Spirit” does not allow for the possibility that it was “the evil spirit” who led Jesus into the wilderness. The Hongs cite Mt. 4:1 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil,” but also possible is Mark 1:12: “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Lk. 4:1 specifically notes the Holy Spirit: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit […] was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.” Yet none allow that it was an “evil” spirit which led Christ into the wilderness.

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B. Technique 2: Conflating or Recreating Biblical Narrative for a Contemporary Audience Kierkegaard at times reimagines a biblical story taking place in a different setting, and develops the story in such a way that contemporary readers could envision themselves as participants in the story. In these instances, the story is retold freely with less regard for the particular details of the original story than for the opportunities for appropriation by the contemporary audience. Iben Damgaard suggests Kierkegaard rewrites Scripture as an attempt to “deconstruct the reader’s familiarity with the text” by making the reader “play stranger” with the biblical text (WL, 210), so as to open again the Bible’s “challenging potential” so that the reader may achieve “spiritual contemporaneity” with the biblical text.26 The classic example is Kierkegaard’s retelling of Nathan’s confrontation of King David, in which Kierkegaard suggests, “Let us make the situation really contemporary and modernize it a bit” (FSE, 37), and describes David as a cultured bourgeoisie listening “attentively” to Nathan’s story, suggesting “a detail he thought could be different […] a more felicitously chosen phrase […] the way we cultured people today tend to judge a sermon” (FSE, 38). Kierkegaard’s goal is to find an upbuilding point in the original story, and then, if necessary, to restructure the biblical narrative so that it challenges the contemporary reader. Conflation and re-​creation of biblical narrative can be seen in the following examples. Kierkegaard at times purposely conflates two narratives in order to create a more fitting story through which to convey the upbuilding point.27 For example, in “There Will Be the Resurrection of the Dead …,” Kierkegaard conflates two of Paul’s defense accounts, drawing together statements by Paul in two different defense speeches to create a new defense speech. From Paul’s defense before Felix, Kierkegaard extracts the idea that Felix became “frightened” as Paul spoke of “justice, self-​control, and the coming judgment” (Acts 24:24–​25), and imports this idea into Paul’s earlier defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 23:6–​7), in which Paul started a theological dispute about the resurrection to shift attention away from his own inappropriate action (cursing the high priest). By creating this conflation, Kierkegaard is able to claim that Paul’s insistence to speak about judgment along 26 Damgaard, “Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives,” 216. 27 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 112, calls this technique “splicing” and extends this technique beyond the conflation of two narratives to include the combination of two allusions of any kind into one sentence. We will be more precise here, as we have already dealt with the juxtaposing of different texts above under the second “hermeneutical assumption” that “the development of an upbuilding argument usually arises from the creation of a dialogue between two scriptural texts from different contexts.”

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with immortality made it “very likely [that] both the Pharisees and the Sadducees became equally enraged at him” (CD, 203). Of course, Acts 23 specifies that the Pharisees agreed with Paul’s theological position and defended him against the Sadducees, thereby flatly contradicting Kierkegaard’s new story. Nonetheless, the conflation strategy proves tremendously effective, since few readers would recall these stories well enough to recognize Kierkegaard’s conflation, and thereby would follow Kierkegaard’s claim that the uproar in the Sanhedrin was created by Paul’s commitment to the foundational claim that “immortality and judgment are one and the same” (CD, 205–​6). Kierkegaard at times recreates a story through which to convey the upbuilding point. In a different use of Scripture from the same Christian discourse, “There Will Be the Resurrection of the Dead …,” Kierkegaard develops a counter-​factual retelling of Paul’s defense speeches in Acts 23 and 24, in which the Sadducees are equated with theologically interested Danes of Copenhagen. “If,” Kierkegaard suggests, Paul had “invited people to a meeting” (an ironic possibility for a prisoner!), and had “proposed to deliver some lectures on the evidence of the immortality of the soul,” the Sadducees would have attended, since they were a “scholarly, cultured,” and “broad-​minded” group, who would have been interested in hearing a good argument “for the other side” (CD, 204). Paul’s trial before the Sanhedrin (Acts 23) is changed into a “pleasant hour” of intellectual banter with contemporary Danes about whether souls “will recognize one another again” in the afterlife, how souls will “pass the time” in eternity, etc. (CD, 204). At just this point, Kierkegaard imports the reference to Felix becoming frightened as Paul talked (Acts 24), to destroy the Danes’ pleasant evening and confront each individual with the prospect of personal judgment.28

VI. Hermeneutical Assumption 5: Spiritualizing a Narrative Detail Provides Deeper Meaning for Contemporary Readers While Kierkegaard is dismissive of allegorical interpretation, accusing it of being “imaginative” and of failing to grasp the value of history or the paradox of Christ (KJN7, NB16:78), Kierkegaard’s practice was often much closer to allegory than he would have admitted.29 For example, Kierkegaard writes, “When Paul said, ‘I 28 For another example of free retelling, see “On the Occasion of a Confession,” where Kierkegaard retells the story of the “widow’s mite,” in terms of “a public fund drive” (UDVS, 84–​5). 29 Kierkegaard is concerned that allegory under-​appreciates both the actual event of Christ in history and the actual requirements of Scriptural appropriation. Yet Kierkegaard seems not to

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am a Roman citizen,’ the governor did not dare put him in prison but placed him in open custody. If a person dares to say: I am a free citizen of eternity, then necessity cannot imprison him—​except in open custody” (Acts 22:27–​30; 24:23; UDVS, 120). Here Paul’s Roman citizenship, which provides him with political rights, is used as a symbol of the believer’s spiritual rights and freedom.30 The kind of spiritualizing of narrative here looks very much like what the Medieval theologians would call allegory.

A. Technique 1: Reinterpreting a Narrative Detail to Communicate a Spiritual Truth Spiritualizing is seen as Kierkegaard uses a narrative detail or Scriptural image to describe a deeper spiritual reality. It must be noted that Kierkegaard does not suppose textual details (especially narrative events) to be mere symbols of some deeper spiritual reality, but instead wants to preserve the historical reality of the Scriptural narrative, while at the same time drawing a “deeper meaning” [dybere Forstand] for present readers. So far as this author can tell, in the discourses Kierkegaard always assumes the narrative event to have occurred in history, yet he never attempts to defend the historicity of the story. Further, Pons seems correct in suggesting that “Kierkegaard is opposed to excessive figurative reading because such a reading loses the element of the imperative, just as he is against too scholarly an approach,” and therefore we should reemphasize that any spiritualizing will be undertaken in order to illumine requirements for appropriation.31 Spiritualizing occurs in the following ways. Spiritualizing a geographical location to develop a theological theme: In two instances, Kierkegaard draws a theological insight from the geographical location of the Sermon on the Mount. These two references are especially significant because Kierkegaard draws attention to a different geographical location in each instance to make a different theological point. In “But It Is Blessed—​to Suffer understand that allegory was developed by the Church precisely for the purpose of reading the Old Testament Scriptures in light of the event of Christ. As such, allegory took seriously the historical event of Christ, and, as we will see in the conclusion, tropological reading (a form of allegory) took very seriously the contemporary appropriation of Scripture. 30 On the other hand, a number of uses which look at first like allegory are better classified as graphic images which are used as descriptions of internal struggle. Examples include the graphic image of a “smoking wick” as a symbol for the weakness of despairing life (Isa. 42:3; EUD, 46); the experience of being “abandoned by the bridegroom and by joy” (Mk. 2:20; EUD, 82); or having one’s soul “vanish […] like a mist” ( James 4:14; EUD, 85). 31 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 59.

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Mockery for a Good Cause,” Kierkegaard states that Jesus’s sermon “was delivered on a mountain, afterward called Mount of the Beatitudes—​because blessedness, compared with all earthly goods, is solid and unshaken like a mountain, and similarly blessedness, compared with all earthly goods, is elevated like a mountain over the low-​lying regions” (CD, 222). In this case, the “elevated” location of the sermon is meant to show that blessedness is higher than earthly goods. Interestingly, Kierkegaard contradicts this description in the introduction to “The Cares of the Pagans” by claiming that “the Sermon on the Mount is preached […] at the foot of the mountain” to show that “the heavenly” has come “down on earth. It is at the foot of the mountain; so mollified is the Gospel, so close is the heavenly that comes down, now on earth and yet even more heavenly. It is at the foot of the mountain” (CD, 9).32 In this case, the lowly location of the sermon is meant to show God’s condescension to human beings in the Christian Gospel. By locating Jesus’s teaching in different places, Kierkegaard is able to develop different theological points. Spiritualizing a detail from a narrative to develop a theological theme: In a technique seen regularly in the Communion discourses, Kierkegaard at times spiritualizes a narrative detail to make it into an upbuilding point.33 For example, in the first Communion discourse, the main text, “I have longed with all my heart to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk. 22:15; CD, 251), highlights Jesus’s disposition of desire to eat the meal with his disciples before he is arrested. Kierkegaard spiritualizes this disposition of desire and makes it the paradigmatic example of the desire that should be present in every individual who partakes of communion by suggesting that longing “belongs essentially to Holy Communion […] in a more profound sense, both inwardly and in an exemplary way and not merely in the way it belongs historically to the sacred account” (CD, 252). Therefore, it is “for every single individual the true devout introduction or entrance: to come with heartfelt longing” (CD, 252). In this move, Kierkegaard claims to go beyond the “historical” sense to get to the “essential” or “profound” sense of the verse (CD, 252). 32 Interestingly, Kierkegaard does not comment on Luke’s account of the same sermon (which Kierkegaard cross-​references later) in which Luke states that Jesus “came down with them and stood on a level place” (Lk. 6:17). 33 This technique of spiritualizing a narrative detail is common in the Communion discourses. See Kierkegaard’s insistence that “in the moment of decision we still remain—​accomplices” to the death of Christ (CD, 278) by universalizing complicity in the betrayal of Christ through the phrase, “On the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11:23). See also Kierkegaard’s claim that blessing is the very mode of the risen Christ’s existence to believers (CD, 296–​7), based on the narrative detail of Christ’s blessing in his ascension (Lk. 24:51).

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Spiritualizing a detail from a miracle to develop a theological theme: Kierkegaard certainly takes miracles seriously, suggesting that “when there are no longer any miracles Christianity no longer exists” (KJN9, NB30:17). Yet Kierkegaard is uninterested in the miracle as direct evidence of Christianity, and in his interpretation he usually focuses on a spiritualized reading of the miracle to develop an upbuilding insight.34 This turn to the “spiritual sense” is perhaps seen most clearly in the discourse, “Patience in Expectancy,” where Kierkegaard uses the image of the Pool of Bethesda being stirred up by an angel ( Jn. 5:4) to describe the importance of being “moved and stirred” in the inner being. Kierkegaard states, This is easier to understand in the spiritual sense, because if a person’s soul comes to a standstill in the monotony of self-​concern and self-​preoccupation, then he is bordering on soul rot unless the contemplation stirs and moves him. Then, if he is moved […] [it] will always be a blessing for him that he was moved and stirred, since only in this is there redemption, sometimes at once, sometimes gradually (EUD, 207).

In this passage, Kierkegaard does not dispute the historical reality of the stirring of the waters to initiate a healing. Kierkegaard clearly specifies that he is providing a “spiritual” interpretation of the passage, and seems to designate it a secondary (even if more useful) meaning. This “spiritual reading” of Scripture provides a graphic image of God’s action in the life of an individual. Perhaps the most interesting spiritualizing of a miracle occurs with the Feeding of the 5000 (and the 4000). In most discussions on this miracle, Kierkegaard focuses on the “remnants” [Levning] and says little about the miracle itself. On the one hand, the “remnants” often serve as a warning. Kierkegaard uses the “remnants” as a warning to the individual who might “sin even more in order to make the forgiveness even greater” (Rom. 6:1–​2, 15; CD, 295), arguing that even though “through a miracle a superabundance was created […] Christ commands that everything left over be carefully collected” (CD, 294). This shows that “God is and can be just as scrupulous as he is great and can be in showing mercy” (CD, 294), and that an individual “scarcely has the slightest idea of how scrupulous God can be” (CD, 295).35 On the other hand, the “remnants” often serve as a blessing. Kierkegaard uses the “remnants” to emphasize God’s gracious ability to restore to a person everything that was lost through an unfortunate childhood. Here Kierkegaard states that “there is no youth so godforsaken but that the fragments, if collected 34 Further, see Jolita Pons, “Jesus’ Miracles: Kierkegaard on the Miracle of Faith,” in Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, 17–​32, for ways in which miracles function as indirect communication. 35 See also the discussion of “remnants” in the Upbuilding discourses ( James 1:21; EUD, 139).

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so carefully that nothing was wasted, would not by the blessing of God become an overabundant compensation” (EUD, 250).36 This use of the term “remnants” to glean a number of different upbuilding insights provides an excellent example of Kierkegaard being “satisfied with the scriptural word […] gratefully and inwardly appropriate[ing] what has been handed down from the fathers and establish[ing] a new acquaintance with the old and familiar” (WL, 210).

VII. Techniques that Add to the Text for Emphasis Several techniques seem not to fit neatly into any of the categories above and must be added in a final section. The commonality between techniques in this category is that Kierkegaard’s upbuilding point does not proceed in a straightforward way from the text itself, but instead, the text is used as an occasion for Kierkegaard to make his upbuilding point. In this category, Kierkegaard does not alter the text itself, but adds his own commentary to the text in such a way that he generates an upbuilding point beyond, or in tension with, the text’s immediate context.

A. Technique 1: Adding an Argument from Silence Kierkegaard at times exploits a “silence” in the text to add a theological point. These inserted theological points range from the addition of something a particular biblical character might have been thinking to the addition of details which stretch the text to the limits of its own logic. What is important is to note that these additions are invented for the text, rather than drawn out of the context. Sometimes the addition of an internal dialogue by a biblical character provides the theological point. In the discourse, “To Need God …,” Kierkegaard exploits the repetition in Paul’s command, “Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4), to incorporate his own theological point and give it Paul’s approval. Kierkegaard ponders “why, do you suppose, does [Paul] pause; why, do you suppose, does [Paul] stop before once again bidding the believer to be happy?” Kierkegaard answers that Paul “in an interlude […] took time to listen” to the “terrible thought” that a person is “capable of nothing at all,” and then commanded readers again to rejoice especially 36 The “remnants” are also a blessing in that they show the greatness and mercy of God. In several journal entries, Kierkegaard notes that, “The human way is to be unable to work miracles and at the same time to waste the leftovers [Levninger]. The divine way is miraculously to create the abundance and then to gather up the crumbs [Smulerne]” (KJN4, NB:176). Further, Kierkegaard notes that although Jesus “can perform a miracle at any moment […] he has the crumbs collected; he does not distain the crumbs” (KJN4, NB2:218).

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in that realization (EUD, 321). The claim that a person is “capable of nothing at all,” of course, finds no immediate place in this list of Pauline admonitions, yet is presented as the reason for Paul’s repetition. Likewise, in the discourse, “To Need God …,” Kierkegaard invents a story by combining an imagined internal dialogue by Moses as he draws water from a rock with a counterfactual result of his actions. Kierkegaard suggests that Moses, being urged by the people to strike the rock, might think, “ ‘I am capable of nothing at all, but since the people are asking for it and since I myself cannot bear the sight of the misery of this languishing people, I will strike the rock, even though I myself do not believe that water will spring from it’—​and the rock did not give water” (EUD, 311). In this imaginative scenario, Kierkegaard invents both Moses’s inward deliberation and the counter-​ factual outcome to show that because God acts in Moses’s nothingness, Moses does not know the results of his actions until he performs them.37

B. Technique 2: Disagreeing with a Scriptural Statement for Further Emphasis In these instances, Kierkegaard makes an alteration that he expects his readers to recognize, and this alteration draws additional attention to Kierkegaard’s upbuilding insight. For example, in “The Care of Lowliness,” Kierkegaard uses Mt. 10:29 to state that the Christian “believes that the person who ruled over all of humanity […] is not the least bit more important to God than […] the sparrow that falls to the ground” (CD, 51). Kierkegaard repeats this axiom of unimportance a few sentences later: “To God [the Christian] is not more important than the sparrow that falls to the ground—​neither he, this most powerful person who has ever lived, nor the wisest person who ever lived, nor any person” (CD, 51). Kierkegaard’s subtle change directly contradicts Jesus’s point that human being are “of more value than many sparrows,” yet Kierkegaard’s repeated use of this verse elsewhere (see EUD, 214; TDIO, 68; UDVS, 202; CD, 15, WA, 25) indicates that Kierkegaard here expects his readers to recognize the intentional alteration as part of Kierkegaard’s rhetorical argument.

37 It remains unclear whether Kierkegaard is thinking of Ex. 17 (where Moses is commanded to strike the rock and draw water) or Num. 20 (where Moses is commanded to speak to the rock but instead strikes the rock and draws water). Both biblical stories claim that the rock did give water, the first in Moses’s obedience, and the second in Moses’s disobedience. Furthermore, in neither story is Moses’s inward deliberation described.

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C. Technique 3: Changing, Intensifying or Explaining a Scriptural Command by Focusing on the Purpose of the Command When discussing direct commands or teachings from Scripture, Kierkegaard often focuses on the reason for the command rather than on the command itself. This allows Kierkegaard to reconstruct the command, even in the Christian discourses where Kierkegaard emphasizes the direct authority of the command. For example, in “The Care of Presumptuousness,” Kierkegaard claims that the main text, “No one can add one foot to his growth” (Mt. 6:27, implying the command “do not worry” of Mt. 6:25), is really an admonition against presumptuousness, not worry, even though Jesus’s command is not to worry about things over which one has no control. Kierkegaard has identified “presumptuousness” as the originating disposition from which worry is only one visible manifestation, and therefore looks behind the command (do not worry), in an attempt to reveal and diagnose the spiritual condition (presumptuousness) that necessitated the command in the first place.

VIII. Conclusion In this chapter we have developed a catalog of hermeneutical assumptions and techniques that Kierkegaard used in the discourses, and it is anticipated that all Kierkegaard’s Scriptural allusions could be categorized within the schema above. The hermeneutical assumptions above provide a way of categorizing the many specific techniques used by Kierkegaard in the discourses to facilitate upbuilding in the individual. It should be clear that each technique is used with the aim of enabling readers to move from an “ordinary” reading to an “actual” reading of Scripture, a reading that reshapes the individual through the individual’s resolution to appropriate the Scriptural text. In view of Kierkegaard’s claim that “all human speech, even the divine speech of Holy Scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført, carried over] speech” (WL, 209), we have suggested that Kierkegaard is purposely illumining or creating metaphor in Scripture so that readers become aware of the “actual” meaning and pursue this meaning in the development of their own “actuality.” Kierkegaard creates this second-​order reference by (1) placing a text in dialogue with another text from a different context; (2) isolating a particular phrase for discussion; (3) universalizing a Scriptural point; (4) changing or adding to a text so that readers can envision appropriation from a new perspective; and (5) spiritualizing the text to bring out a deeper upbuilding point.

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The assumptions and techniques further reveal that Kierkegaard’s focus is not so much on determining what the text meant (the meaning of the text in his original context), as much as it is on enabling readers to imagine and appropriate Scriptural truth for themselves. In all of these hermeneutical moves, Kierkegaard demonstrates only a secondary concern for the context, as his primary concern is challenging readers to pursue the “actual” or appropriated meaning of the text. This focus on appropriated reading provides evidence that Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture may be best identified as a form of tropology, as Kierkegaard seeks to show how the text might lead the reader to upbuilding moral action before God. We suggested in the introduction that Kierkegaard’s vision of upbuilding provides the interpretive telos for Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, and in this chapter we have seen that Scripture can be used quite flexibly to bring about this upbuilding telos. However, this use of Scripture raises the question about how we might understand Kierkegaard’s project as a genuine activity of interpretation, and how we might determine a criterion of interpretive adequacy to govern such interpretation.38 In the final chapter we will consider how interpretive boundaries might be established around Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical project. The assumptions and techniques also reveal that Kierkegaard’s Scriptural use must be considered to be situational, in the sense that Kierkegaard uses Scripture to persuade particular readers to consider the Scriptural vision of human existence in relationship with God. Scriptural reading is done by the “single individual,” and Christian communication is directed to the “single individual.” Unfortunately, while this chapter has provided a broad overview of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions and techniques, this method of categorization has prevented us from viewing the development in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture as he appeals to his readers in specific ways. In the next chapter, we will examine shifts in Scriptural use and interpretation which occur across Kierkegaard’s various sets of discourses. This focus on the development of Scriptural use will allow us to explore how the various techniques presented in this chapter are utilized within specific kinds of upbuilding arguments, and this will enable us to understand better how Kierkegaard uses Scripture to lead readers toward the appropriation of upbuilding truth. 38 Rasmussen, “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics,” 262, asks whether, given Kierkegaard’s fixation on appropriation, “[I]‌t is not possible to appropriate the Bible in just about any fashion one likes. And then we might also wonder whether there is any point to talking about hermeneutics at all (where the goal is to arrive at the most fitting interpretation—​one where it makes sense to say interpretation X is better than Y), and say instead that “interpretation” is nothing but free and imaginative play and deferral.” Rasmussen himself suggests that the boundaries of interpretation should be fixed around imitation of Christ. Yet we will explore this problem more fully in the final chapter.

CHAPTER THREE

Development of Rhetoric and Use of Scripture in Upbuilding and Christian Discourses

I. Introduction In the previous chapters we have seen that Kierkegaard uses and interprets Scripture in the discourses to create a second-​order reference which will enable readers to become upbuilt as they move from an “ordinary” to an “actual” reading of Scripture. An “actual” reading of Scripture requires the reader to take a stance of faith and a commitment to appropriation, and “actual” reading results in the “actuality” of the reader’s existence in upbuilding before God. Within this framework, we attempted to categorize Kierkegaard’s techniques (repeated patterns of use and interpretation) under several hermeneutical assumptions, in order to gain clarity about how Kierkegaard works to bring about the upbuilding of the reader through Scriptural language. Yet Kierkegaard’s focus on crafting Scriptural use and interpretation to the upbuilding of the particular reader means that Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical techniques will be closely related to Kierkegaard’s mode of argument, and we will see in this chapter that Kierkegaard will adapt his hermeneutical approach to provide specific challenges to readers in different situations. As a result, an analysis of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture across specific sets of discourses will be important for understanding his upbuilding hermeneutic. This chapter will explore the structure, content, and techniques of Scriptural use in individual sets of discourses, in

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order to illumine shifts of emphasis in Scriptural use in these various writings.1 The discourse sets analyzed here will be the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and the first five sets of Christian discourses, as these provide an opportunity to view the major shifts in emphasis in Kierkegaard’s work.2 In this analysis, we will seek to observe particular patterns of Scriptural use and interpretation which are unique to each set of discourses, in order to see how Scriptural use has shaped, and has been shaped by, specific rhetorical strategies employed in the discourses. These observations will, in turn, enable us to make conclusions about how Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture has contributed to the development of Kierkegaard’s argument throughout these discourses as a whole. In this chapter, we will find that there are several significant differences in the use of Scripture between the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and the Christian discourses. These differences are centered around a shift in emphasis on authority (from a maieutic appeal to human reason in the Upbuilding discourses to an emphasis on the reversed [omvendt] perspective of Christianity as revealed truth in the Christian discourses), and around a shift in Scriptural use (from texts which focus on attitudes, virtues and actions which orient a reader toward the Good in the Upbuilding discourses to texts which focus on explicitly Christian concepts in the Christian discourses). Observing these differences will prepare us for a more focused exploration of the similarities and differences in the use of Scripture between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses in Chapter Four, with the goal of understanding how better to read the discourses as religious communication. We will also find that there are further differences in the use of Scripture between the sets of Christian discourses themselves, and we will suggest that the Christian discourses should be further divided into sets of “challenge” discourses (those which focus on challenging readers to live consistently with the Christian faith they claim to hold) and sets of “exploration” discourses (those which focus on exploring Christian concepts from their reversed perspective). These observations about the unique emphases in the various sets of Christian discourses will enable 1 The hermeneutical techniques discussed in this chapter are drawn from patterns observed in each particular set of discourses, and therefore will not be discussed in precisely the same categories used in the last chapter. While the goal in the previous chapter was to identify common patterns across the discourses, the goal in this chapter is to identify distinctive patterns in each set of discourses. 2 Discourses not analyzed in this chapter include the Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), the discourse, “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing,” three discourses “What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air” (UDVS, 3–​212), three “devotional” discourses “The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air” (WA, 1–​45), “Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” (WA, 109–​44), “An Upbuilding Discourse” (WA, 145–​60), and “Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” (WA, 161–​88).

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us to provide a theory about why Kierkegaard developed his discourse sets as he did as he develops his own understanding of religious communication.

II.  Rhetoric and Scripture in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses A. Introduction Between 1843 and 1844, Kierkegaard published six sets of discourses, two sets each of “Two,” “Three,” and “Four,” Upbuilding Discourses. While it may seem desirable to examine each set individually, any division between the Eighteen discourses (either by topic or by date of publication) proves artificial, and as a result, we will examine these Eighteen discourses as a unified whole.3 Yet despite their broad range of topics and extensive use of Scripture, several hermeneutical techniques can be identified which are foundational, and in some cases unique, to these discourses. The hermeneutical techniques foundational to the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses are (1) the overall structure and development of an upbuilding argument, and (2) the production of a general, universal, and at times secondary meaning applicable to all individuals. Structure and Development of the Argument: The Eighteen discourses advance in the following ways: (1) nearly all open with a stated “main text” which is to be read before the discourse is read; (2) each begins with an introduction which aims to draw the reader into a contemplation of the subject, and (3) the body of the discourse focuses (however loosely) upon producing an upbuilding interpretation of the main text through the lens of other Scriptural texts and human reflection. Furthermore, the Eighteen discourses are focused roughly on a series of topics, each of which presents two or more discourses constructed on the same Scriptural text. These are two discourses on love hiding sins (both use 1 Pet. 4:8), five on receiving God’s gifts (three use James 1:17), four on patience (two use Lk. 21:19), and five on needing God (two use 2 Cor. 12:7–​9, though only one states this text). Within this pattern, the following specific hermeneutical techniques can be observed. First, a main text is typically used to introduce a topic for reflection which will be resolved 3 The Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses flow from theme to theme with no overt organization. This means that the discourses cannot be divided into the sets of Two, Three, and Four discourses from 1843 to 1844 (the way they were originally published), nor can they be divided on the basis of topics (such as “patience” or “love”), the repeated use of a main text (such as James 1:17 or 1 Pet. 4:8), or date of publication (i.e. a contrast between discourses from 1843 to 1844). As a result, we will treat all 18 discourses as a literary whole.

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in the discourse. Second, interpretation of the main text is guided by the use of a doctrinal principle text (another Scriptural text which provides a doctrinal lens through which the main text is analyzed).4 Third, when a main text of an earlier discourse is used in a later discourse, that main text now carries with it all of the interpretive meaning given to it in the previous discourse. Universal upbuilding meaning: Perhaps Kierkegaard’s most distinctive and comprehensive hermeneutical commitment in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses is his insistence on creating a general upbuilding meaning that is universally applicable. This hermeneutical commitment to general upbuilding meaning generates a set of techniques which are seen throughout the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and which will be examined below. First, Kierkegaard extracts a phrase from a Scriptural text which appears to be a personal example or a limited admonition, and makes the phrase a universalized standard of salvation for all believers. Second, Kierkegaard at times intentionally provides a general, secondary meaning to a specifically Christian text in order to adapt that text to a universal upbuilding situation. Third, Kierkegaard often simply ignores specifically Christian content when utilizing a Scriptural passage, in order to focus on a general upbuilding point. Fourth, when Kierkegaard does use Christian content, he uses it subtly, so that readers may choose whether to interpret the discourse in a general or Christian way.

B. Structure and Development of the Argument Discourses with repeated main texts account for nearly half of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses.5 This repetition makes it possible to compare how Kierkegaard advances his argument in different discourses which begin with the same main text. In this section, we will examine Kierkegaard’s use of one main text, James 1:17, in order to observe the following interpretive techniques. First, main texts are typically used to introduce a discussion which will be resolved in the discourse. Second, the main text is typically interpreted through the lens of a “doctrinal principle text” which guides the discussion toward an upbuilding conclusion. Third, the repeated use of the same main text in a later discourse will allow that main text to carry all of the meaning attached to it in the previous discourse. 4 For a discussion of “main texts” and “doctrinal principle texts,” see Chapter Two. 5 Besides those considered below, it would be possible to include “The Thorn in the Flesh” and “To Need God,” which both use 2 Cor. 12 (although the latter has no stated main text), and “The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation,” which shares a main text (2 Cor. 4:17–​18) with the Christian discourse, “Eternal Happiness Outweighs Suffering.” If those are included, 10 of the 18 discourses would share a main text with another discourse.

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Analysis of the four discourses which center on receiving God’s Good and Perfect Gifts provides an opportunity to explore the way in which Kierkegaard develops his upbuilding argument. The discourse, “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift” (I), provides a particularly clear example of the main text being employed to open an interpretive debate. Kierkegaard begins the discourse by exposing the inadequacy of three kinds of readings of the main text (EUD, 33–​41) which “change […] the apostolic, authoritative saying into empty talk” (EUD, 41). The complacent person fails to recognize gifts as coming from God, the troubled person fails to reconcile discomforting gifts with God’s good and perfect nature, and the defiant person insists on blaming God for gifts that do not seem good. The common problem with all these interpretations is that they allow the individual to “be able to decide either what it is that comes from God or what may legitimately and truly be termed a good and a perfect gift” (EUD, 41), thereby making the individual into a judge over God’s governing action. “Doubt” (personified) stands as the arch-​enemy of the “apostolic, authoritative saying” (EUD, 41–​2), by suggesting that the individual must sift through the various experiences of life and decide which ones are indeed good and perfect gifts from God. Kierkegaard refutes doubt by interpreting James 1:17 in light of Paul. Doubt’s argument fails because it cannot incorporate two fundamental Pauline texts, 1 Tim. 4:3 (“Everything created by God is good if it is received with thankfulness”) and Rom. 8:28 (“all things serve for good those who love God”) (EUD, 42). These Pauline texts function as the imported doctrinal principle texts which guide the discussion, as they allow Kierkegaard to argue that only through a stance of faith can one receive all life’s circumstances with thanksgiving and joy because God is the unchanging good and perfect Giver. In the next discourse, “Strengthening in the Inner Being,” James 1:17 serves as the doctrinal principle text which interprets the main text, Eph. 3:13–​21, to show that faith must trust that all life’s circumstances are good gifts because God gives Godself with all life’s circumstances. It is particularly important to notice that James 1:17, having been interpreted through the lens of Rom. 8:28 in the discourse above, now begins to function as a doctrinal principle text which will provide a decisive lens of interpretation for the main text of Eph. 3:13–​21. ( James 1:17 will, as we will see below, now continue to function as a doctrinal principle text even in future discourses in which it is used as a main text. As such, it will bring the full theological complex established here into the next discourse.) Kierkegaard imports the language of God’s good and perfect gift ( James 1:17), and harmonizes it with Paul’s use of “witness” (Eph. 3), to suggest that “the witness itself is a gift from God […] the most glorious gift of all, a gift from the Father in heaven, from whom all fatherliness in heaven and on earth derives its name” (EUD, 98, emphasis his). Here it is the correspondence of “Father” and “gift” in both Eph. 3:13–​21 and

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James 1:17 which prompts Kierkegaard to read Eph. 3:13–​21 through James 1:17. Kierkegaard concludes that “God gives not only the gifts but himself with them” (EUD, 99), so that the witness is none other than God’s presence to the believer. In the next discourse, “Every Good Gift and Every Perfect Gift is From Above” (II), James 1:17 (positioned as a main text but functioning as a doctrinal principle text) provides the guiding interpretation of Mt. 7:11 to show that because God is simultaneously the Good, the Gift, and the giving of the gift, trust in God’s self-​gift is the remedy to doubt and the means by which God makes the human into a “firstfruit of creation” ( James 1:18). Mt. 7:11, “If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” is presented in order to show the extreme dissimilarity between human gift-​giving and divine gift-​giving. Because human beings are evil, humans cannot give truly good gifts. Yet God does give good gifts (EUD, 129). This allows Kierkegaard to show, through the meaning given to James 1:17 in the previous discourse, that God’s gift is God’s Self, and that the only way to escape doubt is through the acceptance of God’s self-​gift by faith. This use of James 1:17 as the main text presents a problem for the claim above that the main text is used to open a topic which will be resolved by the use of doctrinal principle texts. Because James 1:17 clearly functions as the doctrinal principle text which interprets Mt. 7:11, it would seem that Mt. 7:11 should function as the main text of the discourse. Interestingly, Kierkegaard seems to recognize this abnormality, and reflecting on this discourse shortly after its publication, he states that this “sermon could also be set up differently. It could have begun with the words: If you who are evil know how to give your children good gifts, how much more should not God know how to do it” (KJN2, JJ:108). This provides evidence that Kierkegaard recognizes that, based on his usual method, Mt. 7:11 should have been used as the main text, and James 1:17 used as the doctrinal principle text. Consequently, this exception provides further evidence for the rule. The final discourse, “Every Good Gift and Every Perfect Gift is From Above” (III), extends the discussion of gift-​giving and receiving by arguing that because every good and perfect gift is from above, human gift-​giving and gift-​receiving establishes a fundamental equality between persons as it causes both giver and receiver to recognize their mutual insignificance before God, and therefore to share equally in the good and perfect gift of God’s love as they share love with each other. In this discourse, it is the broader context of James 1:17 which opens the discussion, as James 2:8 (the “royal law” to love one’s neighbor as oneself ) is contrasted with Jude 16 (the law of flattery and advantage). The main text, James 1:17, is then used as a doctrinal principle text to establish the ground-​rules for a discussion on equality, as it shows that: (1) because of the sheer givenness of all

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reality, human beings cannot ultimately claim merit for their apparent advantages over others; (2) because all “gifts” are really the one singular “gift” of God’s self-​gift, all human love has its origin in God (EUD, 157); (3) God’s “good and perfect gift” is linked to the admonitions about ethical behavior in James 2. Here again, because James 2:8 opens the discussion, it might seem as if James 1:17 should not be the main text. However, this leads us to an additional point about main texts used in subsequent discourses: In a subsequent discourse, the main text now carries with it all of the meaning attached to it in previous discussions, and its continued use as main text shows that the theological presuppositions of the earlier discourse must be presupposed in the later discourse.6 (This principle works not only for main texts, but for all Scriptural texts that have received sustained attention in a discourse.) In any subsequent discourse using the same main text, readers will do well to remember the theological conclusions of previous discussions. In this third discourse on James 1:17, Kierkegaard’s further connection of the “royal law” of love in James 2:8 with Paul’s command to owe only “the debt of loving one another” (Rom. 13:8; EUD, 158), as well as his division of humankind into givers and receivers with the assignment of Scriptural responsibilities to each, depends on the conclusion of the previous discourse that God gives Godself with the gift. For example, Kierkegaard’s instruction to receivers through 1 Jn. 4:20 that “if [one] is not willing to thank the benefactor he sees, how would he truly thank God, whom he does not see?” (EUD, 152), is clearly grounded on the assumption that reception of the human gift is reception of God’s self-​gift. It is the continued use of the main text throughout the three discourses which allows each new discussion to build upon the previous. Together, these discourses provide valuable insights about the development of an upbuilding argument in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Through the use of James 1:17, it has been possible to see how “main texts” are used to open a discussion, how imported “doctrinal principle texts” are used to “guide the interpretation” of the discussion to its upbuilding outcome, and how the subsequent use of a main text is used to carry the theological conclusions of a previous discourse into a new argument as theological presuppositions for a new discussion. This same structure can be discerned in the discourses on love hiding sins (1 Pet. 4:8), on patience (Lk. 21:19), and on needing God (2 Cor. 12:7–​9). As we will see, 6 This presupposition of previous discussions is not unlike what Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, 320, calls the “law of repetition,” in which “all the preceding levels are seen in the light of that which the person has most recently attained.” Malantschuk is describing categories of existence, yet the suggestion here is that Kierkegaard’s theological understanding of particular Scriptural texts also builds with each subsequent discussion about it.

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Kierkegaard will continue this structure as he begins writing Christian discourses; although the specifically “Christian” form of communication will cause him to develop discourses in different ways.

C. Universal Upbuilding Meaning Kierkegaard’s commitment to establishing a general and universal upbuilding meaning from the Scriptural text gives the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses a distinctive approach to Scriptural interpretation (see EUD, 240, 278). Kierkegaard’s most complete discussion about this hermeneutical commitment is found in the discourse, “The Thorn in the Flesh,” where Kierkegaard explains that “letting the text speak for itself ” means providing a “general explanation” which, in “pertaining to one single individual, it pertains to all” (EUD, 346). In this discourse, Kierkegaard makes it clear that he does not regard the interpreter’s task in “letting the text speak for itself ” to be the same as the task of “ferreting out what Paul may have […] had in mind” (EUD, 346). Analysis of authorial intent may “fascinate a reader” or “lead a reader to admire the speaker,” but it would only distract from upbuilding, and “it would […] be despicable if the speaker wanted to interfere in this way with the upbuilding” (EUD, 346). Instead, Kierkegaard gives his general interpretation of 2 Cor. 12:7 as follows: “[T]‌hat the highest life also has its suffering, has the hardest suffering; that no one is to desire light-​mindedly anything from which he mendaciously omits the danger; that no one is to become discouraged by being placed in the danger of which he may have been ignorant; that no one is spiritlessly to prize the cozy and easygoing days of his life” (EUD, 346). Here it is clear that “letting the text speak for itself,” for Kierkegaard, means unleashing the universal upbuilding capacity of the text for every individual reader. Presenting the universal meaning of Scriptural texts can be seen in several specific techniques which will be listed below. First, Kierkegaard often universalizes a phrase originally given in a particular context to make it a norm for salvation. This technique always occurs at a central point in the discourse, as the universalized Scriptural text is now invested with absolute importance for the reader. Two discourses which share the same main text (Lk. 21:19) show how Kierkegaard universalizes two different Scriptural texts, Lk. 21:19 and Phil. 2:12. The discourse, “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience,” provides a creative philosophical and exegetical analysis of the short phrase, “In patience you will gain your souls” (Lk. 21:19; EUD, 159), which explains this phrase as the universal process of salvation. The philosophical move (motivated by Mk. 8:35) is to show that the soul is a “contradiction between the external and the internal, the temporal and eternal” because “it belongs to the world as its illegitimate

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possession; it belongs to God as his legitimate possession; it belongs to the person himself as his possession […] as a possession that is to be gained” (EUD, 166–​7). Here Mk. 8:35–​6 establishes the logic of losing to gain which will allow Lk. 21:19 to be interpreted as a universal axiom of salvation. The exegetical move occurs as Kierkegaard turns to the grammar of Lk. 21:19 to justify his interpretation, emphasizing that the words “patience” and “gaining” form a “redoubling repetition,” and therefore to be patient is to gain one’s soul (EUD, 169). Consequently, the repetition of “gaining” and “in patience” shows a “kind of picture of the whole process of gaining” one’s salvation (EUD, 170). The next discourse, “To Preserve One’s Soul in Patience,” advances without any substantive discussion of the main text (again Lk. 21:19) or its context, but simply assumes the previous discussion and builds upon it by using Phil. 2:12 to establish that urgency is an essential disposition for salvation. In this discourse, Kierkegaard intensifies Phil. 2:12 to a universal axiom of salvation by claiming that “a person is never saved except by ‘working in fear and trembling’ ” (EUD, 183). The result is a somewhat paradoxical claim that patience must be pursued with urgency. Just as patience was established as the universal norm for salvation, so now also urgency is established as a universal norm as well.7 Second, Kierkegaard at times establishes a general, secondary meaning of a specifically Christian text. Kierkegaard explains this principle using Gen. 17:20, showing that his use of a New Testament passage will often necessarily take on a secondary meaning. Justifying his use of the phrase, “He must increase; I must decrease,” as a general human maxim for upbuilding, Kierkegaard claims, “Therefore, even though the observation does not dwell on that event itself, it and the way the words are applied can nevertheless be upbuilding, just as the concubine’s son was not without Abraham’s blessing, even though he was not in the distinctive sense the child of promise” (EUD, 278). Just as God has a plan for Ishmael even though he is not the child of promise, so also the application of these Scriptural words to general human situations is also upbuilding even though not the primary sense of the passage. Third, Kierkegaard at times simply ignores the Christian content to make a text generally upbuilding. In a number of instances, Kierkegaard refers to a text of Scripture that is overtly Christian in content, but utilizes only those portions which 7 Universalized axioms of salvation continue to appear in the Christian discourses, yet they have already been established in the Upbuilding discourses (compare, for example, the use of Acts 14:22 in EUD, 331 and UDVS, 301). This shows again that ideas established in early discourses continue to be used in later ones, even where such a general universalization (i.e. not attached to distinctly Christian concepts) may initially seem out of place in the Christian discourses.

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he deems to be generally upbuilding. This is most noticeable with main texts, since they are usually longer passages which are presented as a whole, with only certain parts being discussed in the discourse. In the first discourse, “The Expectancy of Faith,” the main text, Gal. 3:23–​9, presents a classic statement about the content of Christian faith in terms of a new dispensation inaugurated in salvation history by Christ, yet the discourse is about the experience of faith in general, and therefore does not refer to the content of this passage at all. In fact, the only explicit link between Gal. 3:23–​9 and the discourse is Kierkegaard’s claim that the failure of the individual’s “wish” for the good acts as a “disciplinarian” which, in its failure, reveals the need for faith (EUD, 12). Just as the Law in Gal. 3:24 functioned as a “disciplinarian” to lead persons, through the failure to obey, to recognize their need for a Savior, so inevitable failure of the “wish” is intended to cause readers to recognize their need for faith. Similarly, in the discourse, “Strengthening in the Inner Being,” Kierkegaard selects Eph. 3:13–​21, a classic Christian text in which Paul prays for spiritual development of the members of the church. Yet, as is fitting for an “Upbuilding Discourse,” Kierkegaard focuses on the phrase “strengthened in your inner being” (v. 16) and ignores the specifically Christian phrases “with power through his Spirit,” “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (v. 16–​17), and that the believers may “know the love of Christ” (v. 19). The rest of the discourse focuses on Paul’s inner “witness,” a concept that appears to have been gleaned from Acts 14:17 (which speaks of an external witness available to all persons), even when the internal witness of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16), seems more appropriate to the context of Eph. 3. Fourth, when Kierkegaard does use specifically Christian content, he refers to it subtly, so that readers may choose whether to interpret the discourse in a general or Christian way. Kierkegaard provides a number of tantalizing Christian allusions which readers in Christendom are invited to recognize as distinctly Christian, yet which are capable of being interpreted meaningfully outside the framework of Christianity. Because of the subtlety of the argument, these will be explored in more detail. In the two discourses “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins,” the first discourse concludes with Jesus’s pronouncement to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” ( Jn. 8:1–​11; EUD, 68). In this discussion, Kierkegaard begins by discussing Jesus as a “he” as Jesus writes on the ground, yet in the next sentence Kierkegaard switches the pronouns to the neuter, noting “love stooped down and did not hear the accusation […] it wrote with its finger in order to erase what it knew” (EUD, 67, emphasis mine). “Love” is now personified, inviting readers to make the connection between the action of

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Jesus to the action of “love.”8 The next discourse begins with the personification of “love” (EUD, 74), as the adulterous woman is “granted the grace to weep herself out of herself […] into the peacefulness of love” (EUD, 76). Who or what is this personified “love?” Readers are invited to recognize that (1) their own sins must be covered by “love” on the day of judgment (EUD, 71–​2); (2) “love” must make “victorious” what is incomplete in human love (EUD, 77); (3) “love” is personified and identified with Christ through a grammatical turn (EUD, 67). In the discourse, “Patience in Expectancy,” Kierkegaard concludes his three discourses on patience with an expectancy for the historical revelation of Christ (EUD, 207). While the story has been about Simeon and Anna, Kierkegaard turns the discourse toward the reader, asking “who would deny that […] there was only one expectancy in the world, the expectancy of the fullness of time […] precisely the object of Anna’s expectancy?” (EUD, 219). Kierkegaard has just announced that “the object of expectancy, the more glorious and precious it is, [will] form the expectant person in its own likeness” (EUD, 219), and now Kierkegaard turns a tribute to Anna into a tribute to the present reader who “expects and sees the expected one” (EUD, 219). Only as the practice of “patience” is developed will the present reader be in a position to “see” the “expected one.” In the discourse, “He Must Increase; I Must Decrease,” Kierkegaard uses the phrase generally to describe the experience of loss at the increase of another, yet suggests that there are persons “who would not need the lighter food” (EUD, 278, an allusion to 1 Cor. 3:1), because they were “lost in joy over the gloriousness of the one who must increase” (EUD, 278). Because the singular one who gloriously “must increase” must be the primary Scriptural referent ( Jesus), Kierkegaard seems to be indicating that the secondary sense of the text (rejoicing in one’s decrease) has the goal of leading the reader to the primary sense of the text (becoming nothing before Christ), as the reader appropriates this truth. At the end of the discourse, Kierkegaard asks, “He must increase—​who is this ‘he’?” (EUD, 289), and invites readers to recognize that Christ, the “expected one,” the “glory of God,” is he who must “increase” (EUD, 286–​7). In the final discourse, “One Who Prays Aright,” Kierkegaard invites readers to associate the experience of “losing to gain” (Mk. 8:35) with the disciples’ experience of Christ’s departure and the sending of the Comforter (see EUD, 396). While the story is told as a general example of the struggle of waiting in faith for what God has promised, Kierkegaard turns the historical story into a present promise to 8 We have further evidence that Kierkegaard is thinking of Christ as God who forgives sins, since Kierkegaard writes in his journal at this time, under the heading, “God’s Love Hides a Multitude of Sins,” that, “In Christ everything is revealed—​and everything is hidden” ( JP3, 2397).

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the reader who has faith by concluding that when “the Comforter comes with the explanation,” he “makes everything new” and “gives [the sufferer (now the present sufferer!)] a new heart and an assured spirit” (EUD, 396).9 It seems significant that the final discourse in each of the Two, Three, and Four discourses published as individual sets in 1844 provides an argument which orbits around Christ, causing each little book of discourses to conclude with a Christological allusion (the last three examples above). This may indicate that Kierkegaard has developed in these discourses a particular strategy for inviting readers to move beyond the general meaning to the specific Christian meaning in the text. Yet readers are never required to make this connection in order to read these discourses as upbuilding, and this allows a measure of interpretive freedom about religious content.

D. Conclusion This survey has only attempted to describe those hermeneutical techniques which are foundational to the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses or which show them to be different from the Christian discourses in their approach to Scripture. While the Eighteen discourses are far from exhibiting a unified approach to Scripture, they together can be seen to provide a coherent and distinctive approach to Scripture when compared to the Christian discourses. In the following sections, these unique features will become clearer in contrast to the distinctive features of the Christian discourses that we will now examine.

III. Rhetoric and Scripture in the Christian Discourses A. Introduction Soon after he began writing Christian discourses, Kierkegaard penned two journal entries which announce a new kind of writing. Kierkegaard states that while in the Upbuilding discourses the argument had been developed “with the assistance of thought,” in the Christian discourses “the argument is strictly based on 9 Kierkegaard’s corresponding journal entry discussing the invisibility of Christ as God is decidedly Christian paradoxical in approach, showing that Kierkegaard is thinking of specifically Christian categories as he writes this Upbuilding discourse (EUD, 464). Kierkegaard will return to this story in the first of his distinctly Christian discourses (see UDVS, 219).

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the apostolic word” (KJN4, NB:134–​5). In this statement, Kierkegaard claims to change his use of Scripture (or at least his mode of presentation), to meet the needs of a new genre of discourse. Yet to readers of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses who are familiar with Kierkegaard’s repeated appeals to apostolic authority and his more than 700 uses of Scripture throughout that work, this may seem a curious claim. The Christian discourses clearly continue to use philosophical reflection and maieutic appeal, and the number of Scriptural allusions in the Christian discourses decreases significantly (from about 1.67 citations per page of the Hong’s English translation in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses to .92 citations per page in the book Christian Discourses). When readers approach the discourses looking for Kierkegaard’s stated turn to the “apostolic word,” what should they expect to find? In this section, we will analyze Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the Christian discourses in order to see what can be learned from his actual practice of Scriptural interpretation and use. Kierkegaard, it seems, originally intended his Christian discourses to consist of five sets of seven discourses, written between late 1846 and early 1848, which include “The Gospel of Sufferings” (completed Mar. 1847), “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays: Christian Discourses” (completed Oct. 1847), “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” (completed Nov. 1847), “The Cares of the Pagans” (completed Jan. 1848), and “Thoughts That Wound From Behind—​For Upbuilding: Christian Addresses” (completed Feb. 1848). In this section, we will examine Kierkegaard’s approach to Scripture in each of these sets of discourses. With regard to the form of the Christian discourses, it will be shown that the Christian discourses should be regarded less as a unified genre of discourses, and more as individual discourse sets aimed at specific audiences. We will see that each set is distinguished from the others by a different rhetorical style which necessitates different appeals to Scriptural authority and the use of human reflection. With regard to content, it will be shown that while the Christian discourses are intended to operate on the basis of a reversed [omvendt] perspective accessible only through revelation, in practice many of the Christian discourses make little or no advancement in specifically Christian content beyond the Upbuilding discourses. Through this analysis of form and content of the Christian discourses, we will seek to understand better Kierkegaard’s communicative strategies in the discourses as a whole.

B. “The Gospel of Sufferings” Introduction: In late 1846 Kierkegaard provided a journal entry about his interest in writing a series of Christian discourses. In this entry, Kierkegaard claims,

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I would like to compose a collection of sermons. Some of the texts ought to come from the story of Christ’s passion, some from powerful words such as those of the Apostles after they had been flogged, when they went away joyfully, thanking God that it been granted them to suffer something [Acts 5:40–​41], or when Paul calls his chains a matter of honor [Phil. 1:7–​13], or when he says to Herod Agrippa: I could wish that every one of you were such as I am, except for these chains [Acts 26:29]. Or the many passages in the letters to the Corinthians where there is one oxymoron after another: poor ourselves, we make everyone rich [2 Cor. 6:10]; or rejoice and again I say, rejoice [Phil. 4:4]. Item the passage in the epistle of James, that we should be joyful when we are tried by all sorts of suffering (KJN4, NB:49).

The original plan is useful in showing that Kierkegaard began his writing of Christian discourses with the explicit goal of interpreting specific Scriptural passages (all of the texts above are discussed in the Christian discourses, although not all appear in this first set, “The Gospel of Sufferings”). Furthermore, the entry shows that Kierkegaard is particularly interested in paradoxical claims, most of which are used to formulate key arguments in these discourses. These paradoxical statements indicate that Kierkegaard is beginning to think in terms of what he will later call the omvendt [“reversed” or “inverted” or “turned around”] perspective which will come to characterize his Christian discourses. With regard to form, “The Gospel of Sufferings” closely resembles the Upbuilding discourses, as discourses in this Christian series advance on the familiar structure of main text interpreted through a doctrinal principle text. This is Kierkegaard’s first set of Christian discourses, and it will only be in later Christian discourses that Kierkegaard will begin to alter the structure of the discourses in order to deepen his exploration of paradoxical truths and sharpen his challenge to readers. With regard to content, many of the discourses are distinctively Christian in their emphasis on the need for revelation, their heightened dialectic of sin and forgiveness, their presentation of Christ as prototype, and their emphasis on the authority of Scripture. Still, several of the discourses in this series do not advance in content beyond the Upbuilding discourses, and here it is their rhetorical sharpness and emphasis on obedience to divine authority which causes them to be categorized as being distinctively Christian. With regard to Scriptural use, these discourses present several distinct techniques. First, Kierkegaard uses Scriptural requirements to intensify the requirements of discipleship for Christians. Kierkegaard will often add requirements from parallel passages in order to build the strongest requirement possible, to show that specifically Christian discipleship requires a commitment to obedience. Second, Kierkegaard uses Scripture in order to present and explain

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an inverted [omvendt] logic.10 Kierkegaard selects texts which seem to make a claim that is only accessible through revelation, and he will proceed to explain Christian truths as if they are only intelligible to one who is willing to accept the inverted claim in faith.11 (Kierkegaard has already discussed a number of topics in the Upbuilding discourses which require a perspective of faith to be understood, yet here the focus is usually on distinctively Christian realities which must be accepted as revealed truth.) Third, Kierkegaard will employ and interpret Scripture with a heightened sharpness in tone to emphasize Scriptural authority and the requirements of obedience. It is primarily Kierkegaard’s emphasis on authority in presenting a Scriptural text that will cause Kierkegaard to classify particular discourses in this series as “Christian,” even when the content of those discourses is not explicitly Christian. Techniques: First, this series of Christian discourses is intended to provide an intensification of Scriptural requirements. Intensification is accomplished by combining various Scriptural requirements from different Scriptural discussions and adding them to the text under discussion. In the discourse, “What Meaning and What Joy There Are in the Thought of Following Christ,” the main text, Lk. 14:27, “Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (UDVS, 217), is first strengthened by adding the word “daily” from Lk. 9:23, and by showing that Christ’s command in Mk. 10:21 to “sell one’s property” is a distinct and merely preliminary step to “take up the cross [tag korset op] and follow Christ” (UDVS, 222). The command to “carry one’s cross” is intended as a “protracted continuation” so that “there must not be anything […] that the follower would not be willing to give up in self-​denial” (UDVS, 222). In this first discourse, then, Kierkegaard supplements the requirement of the main text by adding requirements from the other Gospels. Second, Kierkegaard’s appeal to an inverted logic and content of Christianity, made known only through revelation, leads to a creative exploration of paradoxical claims. For example, the discourse, “The Joy of It That the School of Sufferings Educates for Eternity,” focuses on Heb. 5:8 in order to explore the seemingly paradoxical claim that Christ (whom Kierkegaard assumes possessed omniscience) learned. Kierkegaard reasons that if an omniscient Being is able (and required) 10 See Sylvia Walsh, Living Christianly, 7, who shows that during Kierkegaard’s “second authorship” (the period between 1847 and 1851), Kierkegaard became convinced that the essentially Christian required an “inverse dialectic” [omvendt Dialektik], given by revelation, in order to be lived and understood. 11 Steven M. Emmanuel, Kierkegaard and the Concept of Revelation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 37, succinctly characterizes revelation as “God’s free self-​disclosure, the unveiling of an eternal, transcendent truth which otherwise remains hidden from us.”

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to learn obedience, obedience must be eternally valuable for two reasons. First, if Christ’s existence in “the eternal harmony of his will with his Father’s will” (UDVS, 263) was not sufficient for learning obedience in his human nature, so much the more must all other human beings, who do not exist in the unity of will with God, learn obedience from suffering. Kierkegaard states, “Obedience is so closely related to the eternal truth that the one who is Truth learns obedience” (UDVS, 255). Second, Christ’s uniqueness allows him to reveal the necessity of obedience in suffering. Being God, Christ is the only human being who has ever freely chosen the path of suffering, a “wish that never arose in any human heart” and a wish which could “never occur to the natural man” (an allusion to 1 Cor. 2:9; UDVS, 250). Only followers of Christ, with the assistance of “divine guidance,” are now enabled to “grasp the thought of suffering,” to “endure the suffering and actually […] benefit from it,” and even to “choose suffering” and to “believe that this is wisdom leading to eternal happiness” (UDVS, 250). This discourse, then, heightens the inverted dialectic to show that a Christian understanding of suffering is only intelligible in light of the revelation of and “divine guidance” to follow the perfect example of Christ. Significantly, as Christ is the revelation of God, the example of Christ becomes a doctrinal principle which operates as a lens for interpreting particularly the main text.12 Third, the turn to the essentially Christian occurs at times through an additional emphasis on authority, not always through a change in the content to specifically Christian material. Two of the last three discourses in “The Gospel of Sufferings” illustrate this point, as their content remains limited to that of the Upbuilding discourses, yet they are called “Christian” precisely because they emphasize the authority of Christ’s command or the authority of the apostolic word. In the discourse, “The Joy of It That It Is Not the Road That Is Hard but That Hardship Is the Road,” the main text is Jesus’s declaration that “The road is hard

12 See also the discourse, “But How Can the Burden Be Light If the Suffering Is Heavy?” where Kierkegaard interprets the main text, Mt. 11:30 “My yoke is beneficial, and my burden is light,” through Christ’s example, which acts as the doctrinal principle in this discourse (UDVS, 232). Here again Kierkegaard’s inverted dialectic is on display, as rest is found precisely as an individual bears burdens. In fact, Kierkegaard claims that Christ placed on the believer a special “light” burden, the “consciousness of forgiveness” in place of the “consciousness of sin” (UDVS, 246). Christ’s role as prototype and as redeemer establishes a continual burden for the Christian, since “heaven’s forgiveness […] depends on [the believer’s] forgiveness [of ] […] his enemy” (UDVS, 245). This discourse, then, demonstrates the observation of Sylvia Walsh, Living Christianly, 155, that for Kierkegaard, “The formula of the relation of law and gospel is […] law—​grace—​renewed earnestness, although grace is operative throughout the process of striving.”

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that leads to eternal happiness” (Mt. 7:14; UDVS, 301), yet Kierkegaard intensifies the main text to read “hardship is the road” in two steps. First, Kierkegaard claims that it is “Scripture’s universal teaching that along the road of perfection we walk in hardships” (UDVS, 292), and provides three Scripture quotations which “all say the same thing,” namely that hardship is inevitable in the Christian life (Sir. 2:1; Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:3–​4; UDVS, 292). Second, with this “universal teaching” established, Kierkegaard completes his exegesis grammatically by equating subject and predicate: If the road is hard (Mt. 7:14), then “hardship is the road.” It is certainly not the content of this discourse that makes this discourse Christian (the doctrinal principle texts, Acts 14:22; Rom. 8:37; 1 Cor. 10:13, have already been utilized in the Upbuilding discourses to make quite similar arguments); rather, it is the intensification of authority. In a journal entry, Kierkegaard insists, “The point of the 5th of the Christian discourses and what is specifically Christian about it is precisely the fact that what is emphasized is the authority of the Bible, that this is not something someone has thought up, but something commanded […] with authority: that the task is adversity […]. In an edifying [upbuilding] discourse, I would not be able to insist in such strong terms that this is what the Bible says” (KJN4, NB:134). The “essentially Christian” here is the emphasis on “the authority of the Bible,” and Kierkegaard’s insistence on “obedience” throughout the discourse is what, in his mind, establishes this discourse as “Christian.” With regard to the main text, Kierkegaard claims that knowing that “[t]‌hese are the Lord’s own words” is “certainly the best safeguard against doubt, because in obedience to believe has much more security than the security that in thought’s understanding it is impossible for thinking to doubt it” (UDVS, 301). Kierkegaard gives the example of the child who is told to go to sleep—​and goes to sleep (UDVS, 293–​4), and the coachman’s power to command a team of horses (UDVS, 295). Apparently, it is the directness with which Kierkegaard confronts his readers with the authority of Scripture which sets this discourse apart from previous Upbuilding discourses. Comparison of one discourse from “The Gospel of Sufferings” with another from the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses will help to illustrate Kierkegaard’s shift in the presentation of authority. The Upbuilding discourse “The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation” (EUD, 253–​73), and the Christian discourse “Eternal Happiness Outweighs Suffering” (UDVS, 306–​20) provide a particularly useful comparison, since they share the same main text (2 Cor. 4:16–​17), yet belong to different genres. Quite significantly, it was while writing this Christian discourse that Kierkegaard specifies that what makes the Christian discourse “Christian” is that “the presentation is strictly from the apostolic word” and therefore the Christian discourse will rely less on “the aid of reflection” than does an Upbuilding discourse (KJN4,

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NB:134–​5). Because we know that Kierkegaard is deliberating about the role of authority as he writes, differences between the two discourses will be illuminating. Interestingly, the two discourses are quite similar in both form and content in that (1) neither presents specifically Christian content; (2) both use statements by Jesus as the doctrinal principle texts (Mt. 6:33 and Lk. 14:28, respectively) to interpret the main text (2 Cor. 4:16–​17); (3) both use Paul as their primary example, focusing on his ability to live with hope in his difficulties because he had chosen the eternal over the temporal. Yet despite the strong similarities, two differences enable us to understand Kierkegaard’s claim about presented authority. First, the Upbuilding discourse devotes a great deal of the argument to showing the futility of the human attempt to establish a criterion of salvation for oneself and for others, and highlights the existential benefits of uncertainty of salvation in the Christian life (EUD, 265–​70). This weighty theological and psychological discussion, absent from the Christian discourse, could be said to advance based on the “aid of reflection.” Second, and more important, the Christian discourse provides a sharper Scriptural warning than is found in any of the Upbuilding discourses. Early in the Christian discourse, Kierkegaard provides an indirect image about being found “wanting” on eternity’s scales, claiming that when a person “weighs” his troubles and finds them to be very heavy, “eternity” will “weigh […] him” and “will surely find him to be too light” (Dan. 5:27; UDVS, 311). At the end of the discourse, Kierkegaard concludes with a direct statement of judgment from Hebrews: “What is this generation’s greatest guilt, what else but that it does not esteem the happiness of eternity! I wonder how people are going to escape the penalty; does not Scripture say, ‘How shall we escape (the penalty) if we neglect so great a salvation’ ” (Heb. 2:3; UDVS, 320). This move from indirect (Daniel) to direct (Hebrews) challenges the sufferer to “deliberate” whether or not he/​she has appropriated Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 4:17 in a way similar to Nathan’s indirect/​direct confrontation of David (2 Sam. 12:7). It is perhaps this direct Scriptural challenge which could be characterized as the “presentation […] strictly from the apostolic word.” The warning about judgment is directed specifically to the esthetic person who claims to be a Christian, as direct confrontation prevents the reader from endlessly deferring responsibility through abstract reflection. Conclusions: As the first Christian discourses, this series presents certain important features of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, nearly all of which will continue in future Christian discourses. The three features noted here, intensification of requirement, inverted understanding, and an emphasis on authority, will all be seen in future sets of Christian discourses, and the importance here is in showing how these assumptions guide Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the Christian discourses. Interestingly, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on authority is at times employed to insert

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new knowledge from revelation (see UDVS, 250), and is at other times employed in order to provide the most direct challenge possible to readers about something that they already presume to know (see UDVS, 320). The first approach seems to accord with Kierkegaard’s claim in his unpublished “Lectures on Communication” that “religious (Christian) upbringing must first of all communicate a knowledge” and “must be the communication of a little knowledge first of all—​but then the same relationship as in the ethical enters in” ( JP1, 650). The second approach seems to accord with Kierkegaard’s claim in “On My Work as an Author” that indirect communication does not stand alone, but “must sooner or later end in direct communication” so that the truth is presented to the individual who can now see it (PV, 7). As Kierkegaard’s Christian discourses continue, it will be Kierkegaard’s choice between these two approaches (new paradoxical knowledge or direct challenge) that will lead the Christian discourses in two very different directions. Some discourses will place greater emphasis on the direct communication of Christian “knowledge” (paradoxical truths at the essence of Christianity) so that the implications of this knowledge may be explored for appropriation. Other discourses will place greater emphasis on the turn from indirect appeal to direct confrontation of esthetic readers in Christendom. These two trajectories will begin to emerge more overtly in the following discourse sets.

C. “The Cares of the Pagans” Introduction: In the first part of Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard provides a set of seven discourses on the Lilies and the Birds. All of the seven discourses use the same main text (Mt. 6:24–​34), and have the same structure: A particular worry is stated, readers are told that the bird is free from it, the Christian is free from it, and the pagan is enslaved to it. The terms “Christian” and “pagan” function as ideal images (perhaps the image of each individual in his fixed eternal state), established to allow comparison between the reader’s actual life and the ideal Christian or pagan.13 As the Christian and pagan are shown to exist at an infinite distance from one another in their formative attitudes, the lily and the bird establish a mid-​point between these two ideal images. Thus the lily and the bird enable a form of indirect discourse: they are teachers without authority who do not judge anyone (CD, 9), yet who reveal quite clearly that paganism still exists in Denmark, since if the reader discovers that the “pagan’s cares” are present, the reader might conclude that 13 Merold Westphal, “Paganism in Christendom: On Kierkegaard’s Critique of Religion,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2007), 22.

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“this Christian country is pagan” (CD, 11). The “Christian,” on the other hand, is the pure type of what a Christian should be—​one who resembles the prototype, Christ, completely in outlook, attitude and behavior. With regard to content, this set of discourses is distinctively “Christian” in comparison to the other sets of discourses on the lilies and the birds (UDVS, 157–​212; WA, 1–​45). Besides the continual contrast between Christian and pagan which allows no room for a general religiousness, Kierkegaard’s key move to the essentially Christian occurs in the third discourse (and really only there), in which “Lowliness” is discussed through the lens of Gen. 1:27. Kierkegaard claims, “As a human being he was created in God’s image [Billede], but as a Christian he has God as the prototype [Forbillede]” (CD, 41). Whereas an individual can be said to be a “human being” precisely when he/​she accepts that he/​she exists “before God,” (CD, 40–​1, 46), the Christian is defined as one who “has God as the prototype” (CD, 41, emphasis his), so that the Christian may “continually grow to resemble it more and more” (CD, 42). (The term “prototype” occurs 29 times in this discourse, and only six other times throughout the entire book of 28 Christian Discourses.) This move from the religious to the Christian makes the God-​relationship more definite and intimate, as Kierkegaard claims that the individual “believes that this prototype, if he continually struggles to resemble him, will bring him again, and in an even more intimate way, into kinship with God, that he does not have God only as a creator, as all creatures do, but has God as his brother” (Heb. 12:17; CD, 43). Throughout this set of discourses, Kierkegaard typically states his main text, and then interprets that text through the lens of a particular doctrinal principle text. Because only one main text (Mt. 6:24–​34) governs the whole set of discourses, it is possible in this set to observe how different doctrinal principle texts guide the main text in different ways. Overall, the doctrinal foundation of “The Cares of the Pagans” appears to be remarkably similar to the doctrinal foundation in the earlier Upbuilding discourses, as “The Cares of the Pagans” utilizes many of the same doctrinal principle texts as the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses: individual verses of Mt. 6, James 1:17, Acts 17:28, 2 Cor. 12:9, Lk. 23:43, and Mk. 12:30, as well as implicit doctrinal principle texts: 1 Tim. 6:6, 9 and 1 Cor. 7:19–​21. With regard to Scriptural use, several techniques characterize this set of discourses. First, as Kierkegaard interprets the main text, he often works to go beyond the plain meaning of the text by looking for the underlying issue behind the command of the text. This technique is used quite frequently throughout Kierkegaard’s work, but it is more apparent in this series because Kierkegaard writes these discourses as pairs of opposites, and will therefore need to read the same main text (Mt. 6:24–​34) as a warning against opposite characteristics (i.e. “Poverty” and “Abundance” or “Lowliness” and “Loftiness”). This causes Kierkegaard to stretch

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the main text in order to establish his point. Second, Kierkegaard often uses the phrase “Christianity says” (or “teaches”), to provide an authoritative lens through which to interpret a particular Scriptural text. In this series, Kierkegaard repeatedly adds an appeal to the authority of Christianity’s Lære [“doctrine” or “teaching”] to his appeal to the authority of Scripture.14 Kierkegaard ends each of the first four discourses with the claim that “Christianity’s teaching” (or some form of this phrase) quite decisively affirms the argument of the discourse (CD, 22, 36, 47, 59). Kierkegaard’s appeal to “Christianity” to support his doctrinal principle is unique to the Christian Discourses. Nonetheless, this appeal signals merely a difference in tone, and not a difference in interpretive method, as Kierkegaard has always practiced the technique of inserting a doctrinal principle which guides the interpretation of a particular passage. In other kinds of discourses, the doctrinal principle is at times introduced with the phrase, “the apostle says” or “Scripture says,” and here Kierkegaard is simply adding “Christianity says,” as a more effective means of presenting the essentially Christian. Techniques: First, Kierkegaard often looks behind the Scriptural command to find the underlying cause of the command. This technique is seen in nearly every discourse in the series. Perhaps the clearest example is found in the discourse, “The Care of Presumptuousness,” where Kierkegaard interprets the main text (Mt. 6:27)—​“No one can add one foot to his growth,” as a command against “presumptuousness” (CD, 60). There is nothing in this text that would necessitate a discourse on “presumptuousness,” since the context simply emphasizes the futility of worrying about things over which one has no control. The “presumption” Kierkegaard wants to expose is the attempt to manipulate with creaturely hands something that God determines. Worry, on this account, is a symptom of the disease of dissatisfaction with God’s ordained plan. Kierkegaard’s doctrinal principle is the command to be satisfied with God’s grace (drawn from 2 Cor. 12:7; CD, 64–​5). Kierkegaard’s 14 As we will see throughout this project, Kierkegaard assumed a stable foundation of Christian “doctrine” [Lære] upon which his Scriptural use is built. This word [Lære] is notoriously difficult to translate, as it can be translated as “instruction” (or “teaching”) (CD, 10), or “doctrine” (CD, 22). Both senses of the term are used positively by Kierkegaard in this set of discourses, yet while the Lily and the Bird are qualified to give “instruction,” only “Christianity” is capable of presenting “doctrine.” David R. Law, ”Kierkegaard as Existentialist Dogmatician: Kierkegaard on Systematic Theology, Doctrine, and Dogmatics,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Boston: John Wiley and Sons, 2015), 266, has argued that, “Dogmatics understood as the core beliefs of the Christian faith is unproblematic for Kierkegaard,” yet Kierkegaard consistently insisted that “dogmatics should reproduce the paradoxical character of Christianity and not seek to explain it away in the manner of speculative philosophy.” This preservation of the paradoxical character of Christian “doctrine” is a distinctive emphasis throughout the Christian discourses.

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interpretation, then, looks behind the command (do not worry), in an attempt to reveal and diagnose the spiritual condition that necessitated the command in the first place (presumptuousness). Interestingly, Kierkegaard recognizes the exegetical difficulty created by his interpretation, as he admits that if the real admonition is against presumptuousness, the command not to “worry” would be of secondary importance (CD, 62). Kierkegaard therefore suggests that worry is an additional “curse upon the presumptuous person” (CD, 60), thereby changing worry into one of the inner effects of disobedience (i.e. it is a form of God’s punishment—​see CD 66–​9). Yet Kierkegaard insists on interpreting the primary concern of the text to be “presumptuousness,” likely because he believes presumptuousness is the underlying cause of worry.15 Second, Kierkegaard often interprets a particular Scriptural text using the authoritative lens of something that “Christianity teaches.” This is most clearly seen in the discourse, “The Care of Loftiness,” in which Kierkegaard claims that “Holy Scripture” states that it is “more difficult for the eminent person to become a Christian […] than for the lowly person” (CD, 54). Readers, of course, remember Jesus’s claim that “[i]‌t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mk. 10:25). Furthermore, Kierkegaard acknowledges that Christ “literally was the lowly person” (CD, 54). Nonetheless, Kierkegaard insists that “Christianity has never unconditionally required of anyone that he must literally give up external advantages” (CD, 55). Kierkegaard’s claim about what “Christianity says” becomes the doctrinal principle through which Mk. 10:25 is interpreted. Kierkegaard resolves the apparent tension between what Christ says and what Christianity says by arguing that Christ and Scripture “speak” implicitly about internal lowliness by speaking explicitly about external lowliness. They speak by the use of symbols to get at the real. Of course, this presents a problem: If the warning against wealth and the example of Christ are merely symbols, then why should anyone resolve to participate in the symbol (i.e. to give up material wealth) to get to the reality (internal lowliness)? To answer this question, Kierkegaard provides 15 The same move can be seen in the discourse, “The Care of Abundance,” to argue that the rich Christian must become “ignorant” of his/​her wealth. Because the “art” of “becoming ignorant” about wealth is what is required, Kierkegaard spiritualizes the claim of 2 Cor. 8:9, that Christ who “possessed all the world’s wealth gave up everything he possessed and lived in poverty,” to mean that “the life of holiness is lived in poverty, and thus in turn in ignorance of all the wealth that is possessed” (CD, 32). Again the move can be seen in the discourse, “The Care of Indecisiveness, Vacillation, and Disconsolateness,” in which the main text is Mt. 6:24: “No one can serve two masters,” is interpreted to show that no individual can consistently serve any master other than God (CD, 83).

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two analogies, one from grammar and the other from geometry. True, Kierkegaard admits, “Christianity has never unconditionally required of anyone that he must literally give up external advantages,” just as reading has never “unconditionally required” spelling or sounding out words, or just as geometry has never “unconditionally required” the drawing of lines. Yet help-​lines, spelling, and material poverty are all vitally important to the education of the individual. If Christianity is more important than these skills, why not give up loftiness immediately in order to become a Christian? Unwillingness to give up loftiness reveals that the individual does not believe that “the real is the eternal” and is living in “nonreality” (CD, 53). Christ’s willingness and admonition to give up external advantages is a “literal” symbol, a “precautionary measure,” which enables the individual to become spiritually lowly (CD, 54). Conclusions: This series reveals an important interplay between authority (here the authority of what “Christianity says”) and the free, creative interpretation of Scripture for upbuilding. Kierkegaard’s commitment to explore the depths of Scriptural commands and statements in order to illumine the deeper reality which has led to the command highlights Kierkegaard’s interest in understanding the depth of Christian “teaching” [Lære] in Scripture and tradition. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s willingness to reinterpret Scriptural claims in light of what “Christianity says” reveals Kierkegaard’s implicit understanding that “Christianity” is the rightful interpreter of Scripture, as well as Kierkegaard’s confidence that he can speak adequately on behalf of Christianity. By placing Christ, the “Christian,” and what “Christianity says” in contrast to the “pagan,” and by placing the bird (and sometimes the lily) on the side of the Christian, the rhetoric of this set of discourses tends toward the direct challenge of esthetic readers. Kierkegaard does not so much explore distinctly Christian realities (content rarely moves beyond the content of the Upbuilding discourses), but rather challenges readers who believe themselves to be Christian to rethink the quality of their faith. This focus on challenge distinguishes “The Cares of the Pagans” quite clearly in tone from “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” (the set located immediately after “The Cares of the Pagans” in Christian Discourses), to which we will now turn.

D. “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” Introduction: This second set of the Christian discourses is again dedicated specifically to the theme of suffering, and there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard saw it as an extension of his earlier set, “The Gospel of Sufferings.” Kierkegaard’s concept of “Inverted Dialectic,” which seems to have developed from Mk. 8:35–​6,

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makes its full appearance in these discourses. In a journal entry specifying this approach, Kierkegaard states, “If you believe that you ‘gain everything,’ then not only do you lose nothing […] but the loss itself is a gain […]. The everything that you lose must indeed be the false everything […] but the everything that you gain is the true everything […]. In the straightforward sense, to lose is to lose; in the inverted sense, to lose is to gain” (KJN4, NB4:11). The key word employed in this set of discourses is the word “omvendt” (“reversed,” “inverted, or “turned around”), and is used by Kierkegaard to emphasize that true joy will be found if suffering, hardship, poverty, weakness, loss, and adversity are “turned around” and examined from a Christian perspective. This reversed perspective is given by revelation as a gift from God and is seen in Christ, the prototype of the virtues described. All the discourses in this set exhibit the same pattern: Each begins with the title, “The Joy of It …,” and then explores a topic that is terrifying from a worldly perspective in order to show that comfort or joy exists in dialectical relationship to the terrifying.16 The central focus of this set, then, is to extend the implications of the Christian inverted dialectic. With regard to form, these discourses most closely resemble two of the Upbuilding discourses, “To Need God …,” and “One Who Prays Aright …,” in that none of the discourses has a main text, and some discourses provide almost no Scriptural allusions at all. This is initially surprising, given Kierkegaard’s previous claim that his Christian discourses would place additional emphasis on the “authority” of Scripture and would proceed “strictly from the apostolic word” (KJN4, NB:134–​5). Furthermore, we find that “human reflection” plays an essential role in these discourses, as Kierkegaard works to explain how the inverted dialectic can be comprehended by human experience. The crucial difference from the Upbuilding discourses is that these discourses advance on the basis of truths which are assumed to have been received by revelation (Scripture), and it is assumed that only by accepting this claim to revelation can one begin to grasp the logic of the inverse dialectic. The very use of inverted dialectic assumes the authority of Scripture, and here the absence of overt reference to Scripture actually demonstrates the assumed authority of Scripture. Kierkegaard is drawing out the implications of this reversed perspective so that, having accepted the revelatory claim by faith, it can be holistically appropriated.17 16 Walsh, Living Christianly, 113, claims that the dialectical relationship of joy and suffering has often been neglected by interpreters, and therefore the negative, suffering, has been emphasized without the dialectical relationship. 17 Rosas, Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard, 118, is correct to note that Scriptural use “declines” when Kierkegaard discusses the “paradox,” yet we will suggest that the reason for this

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With regard to content, the discourses can be classified as Christian Discourses for several reasons. First, Kierkegaard typically (but not in every discourse) presents a retelling of the life of Christ as prototype. Second, each discourse ends with some variation of the “cunningly concealed” line, “only sin is a human being’s corruption,” specifying that sin, not suffering, leads to the corruption of the human being.18 (In the following analysis, the mere presence of the short phrase “sin is a human being’s corruption” will not be considered adequate in itself to categorize a discourse as “Christian,” and only further internal analysis of each discourse will reveal to what extent the content should be considered specifically Christian.) Third, the discourses seek to present a claim which can only be understood through the acceptance of an omvendt (inverted) perspective. With regard to Scriptural use, we notice the following strategy. First, each discourse typically advances as a sustained reflection on an (often unstated) Scriptural text. The assumption seems to be that once revealed truth is received by faith, the logic of the inverse dialectic becomes accessible to human experience, and must be developed intellectually so it can be appropriated existentially. Second, explicit Scriptural use is quite infrequent. The absence of Scriptural use in these discourses seems to reveal that (1) Kierkegaard is reusing important Scriptural texts from previous discourses in order to explore further their omvendt (inverted) claims; and (2) Kierkegaard is seeking to explain the implications of a single claim available only by revelation. The examples below will illustrate these points. Techniques: Both the sustained reflection on one Scriptural idea and absence of explicit Scriptural use will be shown together in the following examples. In the discourse, “The Joy of It That One Suffers Only Once but is Victorious Eternally,” 1 Pet. 3:18 (or Heb. 9:25, 28), in which Christ is declared to have “suffered once” is used to show that because Christ’s whole life was a “once” of suffering, the Christian must consider this brief life of suffering as a “one time” in comparison to the length of eternity. (Both Heb. 9:25 and 1 Pet. 3:18 appear to be speaking specifically of Christ’s crucifixion as the “once” of suffering, yet Kierkegaard may have Christ’s self “emptying” (Phil. 2:8) in view, although he does not refer to this verse.) Kierkegaard’s logical argument about the “once” of suffering is developed in three further points, each based on a Scriptural claim. First, the “one time of decrease in use is that Kierkegaard has already introduced these paradoxical ideas by means of Scripture in earlier discourses, and now is proceeding to deeper exploration of their meaning. 18 See CD, 103, 113, 123, 133, 143, 149, 159. In an early 1848 journal entry, entitled “Instructions for ‘States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering,’ ” Kierkegaard claims that he “cunningly concealed” the phrase that “sin is the human being’s corruption” in this set of discourses (KJN4, NB4:23), yet it seems that precisely this tactic shows that the content does not always plainly transcend that of the Upbuilding discourses.

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suffering” must be viewed as one single “moment” in comparison with eternity (CD, 97). Here the parable of the vineyard owner who hires employees throughout the day for the same wage (Mt. 20:1–​16) provides the authority for the claim that “once” extends to the whole duration of life. Second, the “one time of suffering” must be viewed as “no time” since the effects of suffering in temporality will be entirely erased in eternity (CD, 101). Here the promise that God will “wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17; 21:4), is used to show that “[i]‌t will be altogether impossible to perceive on the sainted ones that they have suffered” (CD, 101). Third, the “one time of suffering” must be viewed as “a transition, a passing through,” in which the individual is purified for eternity (CD, 101). While sin corrupts the soul, suffering focused on the eternal “cleanses the soul” as fire purifies gold, and the image of God’s judgment as a “refiner’s fire” (Mal. 3:3) and God’s reward to those who have suffered will be the joy of eternal “blessed recollection” (Mt. 5:11). Notice, then, that Scripture’s “authority” functions in this discourse by enabling readers to understand Kierkegaard’s claim that the “once” of temporal existence is nothing compared to the “once” of eternity, when this claim has been accepted by faith. The discourse, “The Joy of It That Hardship does not Take Away but Procures Hope,” operates with the theological background of James 1:17; Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 10:13, and James 1:3–​5, yet no direct allusion to these verses is given in the discourse. This discourse is closely linked thematically to the fifth discourse in “The Gospel of Sufferings,” “Hardship Is the Road,” as both present suffering as the instrumental cause of preparation for eternity (see UDVS, 302). The nearly complete absence of Scriptural allusion in this discourse (only four allusions can be seen, and these are used as illustrations) illustrates the way in which discourses in this series presuppose a previously developed Scriptural argument and present it as a paradoxical axiom which must simply be believed. If Kierkegaard understands the fifth UDVS discourse to be linked thematically to this discourse in the manner suggested here, then Kierkegaard is assuming that “Scripture’s universal teaching” (UDVS, 292) and “the Lord’s own words” (i.e. Mt. 7:14; UDVS, 301) have already established his point, and that this discourse can now provide a further exploration which seeks to show that the inverted dialectic provides the most fitting categories for human existence. From beginning to end, the discourse, “The Joy of It That the Weaker You Become the Stronger God Becomes in You,” remains focused on God’s promise to Paul that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Yet in contrast to Kierkegaard’s discussion of Paul’s experience in “The Thorn in the Flesh” (EUD, 327–​46), neither Paul nor 2 Cor. 12 is ever mentioned in this discourse. The main

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argument of this discourse is that because God has created the human being for relationship with God, God lovingly allows the human being to choose either to become strong in his/​her own eyes and make God weak, or to submit his/​her will to God and live in the joy of wonder, admiration and worship, as God is allowed to be powerful in him/​her. As soon as an individual submits his/​her will to God, the individual finds that the “relationship is […] turned around” so that the individual can “stand at the joy of it” (CD, 129). The individual who refuses to boast in his/​her own strength but rejoices in the strength of God (CD, 132), recognizes that an individual can only be strong when God is strong in him/​her, and therefore that he/​she has now become truly strong in his/​her weakness (CD, 130). As the content is not uniquely Christian, this discourse could fit entirely within the Upbuilding discourses. Yet it appears that this discourse is intended to fit into this series because 1 Cor. 12:9 provides a central image for the omvendt (reversed) perspective, and Kierkegaard wants to intensify the inverted perspective of this text first explored in the Upbuilding discourses to encourage individuals to rejoice in becoming weak. Conclusions: This series of discourses appears to build upon the logic of previous discourses by developing the implications of the omvendt (reversed) dialectic. First, only the first three discourses of this series decisively transcend the content of Upbuilding discourses in the sense that they present specifically Christian content. However, the goal in all of the discourses of this set is to explore an inverted dialectic, dependent upon revelation, through which the whole Christian life must be understood. These discourses are, then, intended to be grounded on the authority of Scripture, even when they do not mention Scripture. Second, the doctrinal foundation of Part II of Christian Discourses appears to be based on James 1, Mt. 6:33, 2 Cor. 12:9, Mk. 12:30 and Mk. 8:35–​6, texts which also play a predominant role in the Upbuilding discourses (2 Cor. 8:9 is new, as it is a Pauline statement specifically about Jesus, as is 1 Pet. 3:18, to the extent that it can be said to function as a doctrinal principle text). In these Christian discourses, which do not use main texts to initiate a discussion, the doctrinal principle texts simply function as the argument. It appears that Kierkegaard takes these foundational doctrinal principles from previous discussions in the Upbuilding Discourses and examines them once again through the lens of a heightened dialectic of paradox, allowing him to provide a deeper analysis of these realities than he was able to provide in the Upbuilding discourses.

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E. “Thoughts That Wound from Behind—​For Upbuilding” Introduction: The discourses of Part III of Christian Discourses are not, technically, Christian discourses, but “Christian Addresses […] For Upbuilding” (CD, 161).19 Kierkegaard states in the preface to Part III that “[t]‌he essentially Christian needs no defense […] it is the attacker; to defend it is of all perversions the most indefensible, the most inverted, and the most dangerous—​it is unconsciously cunning treason. Christianity is the attacker—​in Christendom, of course, it attacks from behind” (CD, 162). In a journal entry from 1847, Kierkegaard explains how he plans to use Scripture as he lays out his “attack” of Part III. He states, “In the following discourses the text is to be chosen in such a way that it appears to be a Gospel text, and is that also, but then comes the stinger” ( JP5, 6096).20 It is this indirect-​direct approach, reminiscent of Nathan’s parable to David in which a direct confrontation occurred at the end of an innocent-​sounding parable, which will characterize these discourses. With regard to form, these discourses are unique in that while each discourse has a clearly stated main text, the doctrinal principles which provide a lens of interpretation are much less visible. Instead, Kierkegaard selects a main text which is capable of producing a “stinger,” and he crafts his argument to maximize the challenge of the main text on readers. Doctrinal principles are not as important as they were in previous discourses (especially the last series), since Kierkegaard’s goal is to challenge readers to reconsider their initial relation to Christianity rather than to explore the paradoxical realities of Christian faith.21 Furthermore, these discourses make frequent reference to the authority of “Christianity”: Christianity “promises” (CD, 176–​ 7); Christianity “proclaims” (CD, 223); Christianity’s “doctrine” is … (CD, 227, 232); Christianity’s “view” is … (CD, 227); Christianity’s “intention” is … (CD, 230); Christianity’s “meaning” 19 The Hongs, “Historical Introduction” (EUD, xv), note that, “ ‘For upbuilding’ pertains to the nature of the content of a work as well as to Kierkegaard’s own relation to that content,” and suggest that the designation is intended to show that the “content of that work is more rigorous and more authoritatively Christian,” and that the designation “bears out Kierkegaard’s distinction between levels of content and the presence or absence of authority.” This project will show that while the Hongs may be correct with regard to authority, the discourses do not themselves show this distinction with regard to content, as many of these discourses do not present distinctively Christian content. It is more likely that this designation has to do with the sharpness of argument from this stage of Kierkegaard’s authorship (see the next chapter). 20 It is clear that the word “Gospel” is used generally to mean “good news” rather than to refer to one of the Gospels, as several discourses are based on Pauline texts (Rom. 8:28 and 1 Tim. 3:16). 21 Where doctrinal principle texts are present, they closely resemble the doctrinal principle texts which guide interpretation in earlier discourses (Phil. 2:12, Rom. 8:28, and Mt. 6).

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is … (CD, 230). Kierkegaard’s self-​description as one who is without authority is missing from the preface to this series (and all other sets of Christian discourses), and here he interprets Scripture with the authority of “Christianity.” Kierkegaard’s freedom to alter and rewrite the text in these discourses seems to require his use of Christianity as a parallel standard of authority to Scriptural authority. The very presence of such a parallel standard of authority allows Kierkegaard creatively to shape the Scriptural texts to confront readers in the greatest way possible, while showing that his interpretive moves illumine the essentially Christian. With regard to content, this series reveals a change of strategy from the previous set, in that the deep exploration of the logic of Christian faith seen in the last section is changed to a direct challenge to readers. With the exception of perhaps the second and sixth discourses, these discourses provide very little new Christian information. Besides Peter, no prototype is developed in this series. The discourses are presented as being specifically Christian, yet they generally do not provide deeper explorations about the nature of Christian faith. Instead, they function as an “attack […] from behind” (CD, 162) to challenge readers to begin to appropriate the “essentially Christian.” Overall, we might notice three distinct but overlapping techniques used by Kierkegaard to bring out the “stinger” in these discourses. First, Kierkegaard at times employs a text which provides the stinger in its plain wording. These discourses are unique in that Kierkegaard focuses on the plain sense of the main text in order directly to challenge the “Christian” reader about something that the reader claims to believe to be true.22 Second, Kierkegaard freely alters a text to create the stinger. In these discourses, Kierkegaard does not advance beyond the plain sense of the text in constructing his challenge, yet he does take great liberty to interpret (and at times rewrite) the main text in such a way that the challenge is brought out most forcefully. Third, Kierkegaard interprets a text to place emphasis on a secondary element which could become the stinger. Kierkegaard creates his challenge by shifting emphasis from a statement in a text that all readers would affirm to a statement which forces them to choose faith or offense. These techniques can be observed in the following examples. Techniques: First, Kierkegaard employs a text which provides the stinger in its plain wording. The discourse, “Watch Your Step When You Go to the House of the Lord,” uses Eccl. 5:1 as a main text because it includes the stinger. With the 22 The phrase “plain sense” will be used here to designate the most straight-​forward meaning of the words within their immediate context; in essence, the basic Scriptural narrative, instruction, etc. (this is to distinguish it from the difficulties of words like “ordinary,” “literal,” “actual,” “spiritual,” used in Chapter One).

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use of an Old Testament wisdom passage (Eccl. 5:1–​5) as the main text, it becomes clear that the intent is challenge, not exploration of Christian truth. Just as the “Preacher” has advised readers to “Watch Your Step …” (CD, 163), so Kierkegaard advises his readers to enter the church “with fear and trembling” (CD, 165 ff ), eventually arguing that they are complicit in the killing of Christ (CD, 174). The discourse is developed around the theme “the house of the Lord” (no ecclesiology is discussed) for two reasons. First, it appears that Kierkegaard’s readers assume the church to be an inherently sacred space, and Kierkegaard utilizes this assumption as an opportunity for confrontation. Second, Kierkegaard finds in Eccl. 5:1–​5 exactly the kind of warning about hypocrisy in worship that he wishes to develop, and utilizes the text to confront an attitude which was important both to the “Preacher” and to himself. The real theological center of the discourse is Phil. 2:12, as “fear and trembling” functions as a heightened parallel to the common Old Testament wisdom admonition to live in the “fear of the Lord.” Faith is defined in this discourse as “the blessed conviction, which is in fear and trembling” (CD, 175), similar to the Old Testament claim that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Pr. 1:7). Just as fear of the Lord included awe and the joy of covenant relationship, so Christian faith, when seen from the “heavenly” side, appears as “only the reflection of eternal salvation,” and when seen from the “merely human” side, appears as “sheer fear and trembling” (CD, 175). In this discourse, Kierkegaard provides a very direct discussion of sin, in which those who enter the church must recognize themselves as being complicit in the rebellion of the human race against God which culminated in the crucifixion of the Messiah (CD, 173). Recalling Pilate’s ecce homo ( Jn. 19:5), Kierkegaard suggests that the image of Christ in church (“See what a man”) should turn “one’s eyes fixedly on oneself ” as the “horror” of the past event is transformed into “something present, and you are present, and I […] as—​accomplices in guilt” (CD, 174). Christ, then, is not presented as prototype, but rather as the innocent One whom the reader killed. The house of the Lord is also the place where “deliverance,” “the most blessed comfort,” and “grace in Jesus Christ” is offered (CD, 174), but this can only come through the recognition of sin and the act of repentance. It is in the direct confrontation with sin (through recognition of Christ) that the discourse is deepened to the essentially Christian. Yet this is clearly a different kind of deepening than the deepening involved in the previous set of discourses, in which exploration of paradox guided the discussion.23 23 The same technique of exposing a stinger in the plain sense can be seen in a very different way in the discourse, “But It Is Blessed—​to Suffer Mockery for a Good Cause,” in which Kierkegaard

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Second, Kierkegaard freely alters a text to create the stinger. As we saw in Chapter One, in the discourse, “All Things Must Serve Us for Good—​When We Love God,” Kierkegaard changes the main text to create a subjective “when,” which enables readers to consider if they love God. Kierkegaard’s intentional rewriting of the passage is evident as (1) Kierkegaard changes the title of the verse from the third person to the first person (“us” is inserted and “those” is changed to “we”), signaling Kierkegaard’s own focus on the necessary change from objective understanding to subjective understanding; (2) Kierkegaard’s insertion of the “when” goes beyond the original grammatical possibilities of the verse (neither the Greek nor the Danish carries the causal/​temporal sense of “when”); and (3) Kierkegaard quotes the verse one page later without the “when” but adds a “must” [maae] thereby showing that the “when” is his own addition (CD, 189). Yet the whole discourse works on the assumption of “divine authority” (here, the authority of Scripture), as Kierkegaard emphasizes, “Christianity was proclaimed with divine authority: its intention was not that a single moment should be wasted on demonstrating that it is true, but that each one individually should turn to himself and say: How do you relate yourself to Christianity?” (CD, 189). This combination of direct appeal to the authority of Scripture and intentional free rewriting of the very Scripture to which appeal is made shows that a Scriptural text can be emended to emphasize the challenge of “Christianity.”24 In the discourse, “There Will Be the Resurrection of the Dead, of the Righteous—​and of the Unrighteous” (again noted in Chapter One), Kierkegaard freely conflates two of Paul’s trial speeches about resurrection (one before Felix in Acts 24, and another before the Sanhedrin in Acts 23) to show that immortality is inseparable from judgment. The outcome is a counterfactual retelling of the trial narratives which is intended to make the topic of immortality into a “task for action” instead of a “question for thought” (CD, 205) among cultured Danes. In this presents a straight-​forward reading of the beatitude (writing out the whole beatitude (with quotation marks) and later cross-​referencing it with Luke’s corresponding beatitude (complete with quotation marks, chapter and verse), to show that the two are in harmony (CD, 230)), so that the individual will be more likely to take seriously the plain sense of the text. Here Kierkegaard provides a meticulous analysis of the grammar of a text and its parallel account to uncover an ignored stinger. 24 The discourse appears to be “Christian” precisely because of its emphasis on authority. The content of the discourse does not extend beyond the content of an Upbuilding discourse, as neither Christ nor sin are mentioned directly, and the discussion of Rom. 8:28 does not extend beyond previous discussions in the Upbuilding discourses (see EUD, 199, 325, 331), except perhaps for the unique reference “God’s Spirit” bearing witness with a “person’s spirit that he loves God” (Rom. 8:16; CD, 194).

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discourse Kierkegaard has fastened upon one key point from the narrative of Acts (Paul’s frightening of Felix by equating judgment with immortality; Acts 24:25), and has rewritten the different narratives of Acts 23 and 24 together to show that the recognition of judgment enables the believer to begin to work out his/​her salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). Kierkegaard’s re-​written narrative, then, allows the Scripture to provide a more direct challenge to readers. Third, Kierkegaard interprets a text to place emphasis on a secondary element which could become the stinger. Two discourses illustrate Kierkegaard’s focus on a seemingly secondary word or phrase in order to expose the stinger in a well-​known text. In the discourse, “He Was Believed in the World,” Kierkegaard argues that this single phrase was added by Paul in order to cause the reader to question his/​ her own relationship to Christianity (1 Tim. 3:16; CD, 234–​6). Kierkegaard claims that Paul specifically intended (CD, 239) to use a technique of indirect discourse which Kierkegaard calls “placing a question on someone’s conscience” (CD, 235), so that “now it is left up to you yourself, to your conscience, to answer for yourself ” (CD, 235). This shift in emphasis is also seen in the fifth discourse, “We Are Closer to Salvation Now—​Than When We Became Believers,” as Kierkegaard focuses on the phrase “When We Became …” to ask his readers if they have indeed become believers. Readers are asked to “test” themselves “with the help of these words” (Rom. 13:11; CD, 221). Kierkegaard provides no doctrinal principle except the claim that “[t]‌he essentially Christian is precisely [that] […] the [individual’s] relation to Christianity is what is decisive” (CD, 215). Throughout these examples, the guiding motivation seems to be to show that an indifferent attitude toward one’s own God relationship has caused the individual to miss the plain sense of Scripture. Only by developing concern for one’s own salvation will it be possible to read fully the plain sense. Here the plain sense does not need to be transcended, but taken seriously, in order for “actual” reading to occur. Conclusions: Kierkegaard’s strategy of presenting a “stinger” provides a unique use of Scripture, as it causes Kierkegaard to create Scriptural interpretations which shift the reader’s focus so that a text which has previously been read in a disinterested manner (an “objective” reading), may be interpreted as a self-​involving challenge to the reader (a “subjective” reading). Because Kierkegaard’s goal is to challenge the reader with the plain sense of the text, he does not spiritualize the text, but rather exegetes the plain sense, at times freely emending wording, conflating stories, or drawing selectively from the context of the main text in order to strengthen the challenge. Furthermore, these discourses do not deepen the exploration of fundamental elements of Christian faith, but rather urge readers to reassess their relationship to the basic claims and requirements of Christian faith.

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F. “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” Introduction: The “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” were completed by the end of October 1847, seven months after the publication of “The Gospel of Sufferings” and one month before the completion of “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering.” Yet although this series was written between the two sets on suffering, it utilizes Scripture quite differently from those two sets. Much of the uniqueness of this set is related to its envisioned “occasion,” the Friday morning Communion service.25 With regard to form, these discourses return to the familiar structure of main text interpreted through the lens of a doctrinal principle. However, because these discourses are written for an audience of knowledgeable and faithful Christians who simply “know” these truths, doctrinal principles are often presented as axiomatic truths without a specific Scriptural citation. Instead, a doctrinal truth is illustrated indirectly through a fitting narrative, psalm, etc. These doctrinal truths include the claim that all are sinners (illustrated in Mk. 2:17 “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick”) the claim that human beings exhibit a universal tendency to betray the Savior (illustrated in Peter’s betrayal); the principle of inverse relation between God and human beings (illustrated in Ps. 51:17 “a broken and contrite heart”); and the claim that Christ’s presence is Christ blessing (illustrated in Ps 127:1 “unless the Lord builds […] those who build it labor in vain”). With regard to content, this series reaches the highest level in a Christian dialectic of inwardness, as it is written specifically for committed believers who attend the Friday Communion. Because of their occasional nature (the Communion Service), these discourses do not emphasize the external responsibilities of Christian living to the extent that discourses in say, Works of Love discuss. In this dialectic of inwardness, the following focuses emerge. First, this series places a central focus on the risen present Christ. This focus allows Kierkegaard to see the central significance of every historical narrative in light of the gracious action of the risen Christ to believers. Second, these discourses provide a shift in emphasis from Christ as prototype to Christ as redeemer. Christ’s role as prototype is not absent, but Kierkegaard places less focus on the outward imitation of the prototype, and more focus on the exploration of how to embrace inwardly the risen present Christ 25 For an excellent discussion of the setting and themes in the “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays,” see the “Introduction” by Sylvia Walsh, in Søren Kierkegaard, Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, ed. and trans. Sylvia Walsh (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011), esp. 15–​33.

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who has accomplished redemption and extends the offer of forgiveness. Third, Kierkegaard places much more emphasis on the “comforting” aspect of particular texts than he has done in the Upbuilding and other Christian Discourses. This emphasis on comfort may also be tied to the “occasional” nature of these discourses, as the post-​confessional setting for the Communion sermon makes comforting words more liturgically appropriate.26 Still, it is most clear in these discourses that the terrifying aspect of upbuilding is intended to lead to comfort. With regard to Scriptural use, Kierkegaard’s focus on a committed Christian audience allows Kierkegaard to change his use of Scripture in particular ways. First, Kierkegaard regularly moves quite freely from historical narrative to a spiritualized universal principle. Kierkegaard has previously established the hermeneutical principle that every detail in the life of Christ is provided for upbuilding (see CD, 122), and it is in these discourses that we can see the principle being used to interpret specific details in Christ’s earthly ministry. Kierkegaard has also previously quite freely made the move from a detail in Christ’s earthly life to a universal spiritual principle (see, for example, Christ’s ascension, UDVS, 219), yet it is only here that this move becomes a standard technique. Second, Kierkegaard more regularly focuses on the inadequacy of human language to describe spiritual realities. This inadequacy of language is caused both by the infinite qualitative difference between God and the human being, and by human sinfulness (see CD, 275). Both of these techniques cause Kierkegaard to use the phrase, the dybere Forstand [more profound sense] to move from the Scriptural narrative to a principle for contemporary upbuilding. Throughout Kierkegaard’s discourses, the phrase always signifies the development of a greater inwardness in the God relationship, yet in this set it takes on technical significance as a hermeneutical technique for the interpretation of Scripture.27 Techniques: First, Kierkegaard regularly moves quite freely from historical narrative to a spiritualized universal principle. A clear example of this occurs in the first Communion discourse, where Kierkegaard, in light of the theological principle that longing for Christ is a gift given by God, suggests that the main text, 26 Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, “Søren Kierkegaard at Friday Communion in the Church of Our Lady,” trans. Brian Söderquist, in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 10: Without Authority, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2006), 279, shows that after the ordained priest pronounced absolution of sin on the communicants, either an ordained priest or a non-​ ordained candidate would preach a sermon at the communion table, and then the communicants would go forward to receive Communion. 27 The phrase dybere Forstand is used 11 times in the Christian Discourses (CD, 28, 156, 224, 252, 253, 264, 275, 289, 294), and 7 times in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses (EUD, 93, 164, 218, 312, 313, 321, 366).

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Lk. 22:15 (“I have longed with all my heart to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”), “[B]‌elongs to the Lord’s Supper in a more profound sense [dybere Forstand], both inwardly and in an exemplary way, and not merely in the way it belongs historically to the sacred account” (CD, 252). Here Jesus’s historical longing is transferred through the “more profound sense” to the longing of the believer celebrating Communion with the risen Jesus. Kierkegaard’s use of the word “exemplary” (better “prototypical” [forbilledligt]) indicates that Christ’s longing on this particular night is the prototypical model for human longing. Because this longing is a gift from God, it becomes a universal principle at the center of the Communion meal and of the whole Christian life. The “profound sense” then universalizes a “historical” detail as requirement and gift for all believers by describing Christ as present in the communion meal both as prototype of desire and as giver of desire. This technique of extracting a detail from the historical narrative and universalizing it for the present reader constitutes a central theme in other discourses as well. In the second discourse, Mt. 11:28 (“Come here to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest”), Kierkegaard claims that the “more profound sense” [dybere Forstand] of the passage is that the “invitation” includes a “requirement […] that the invited person labor and be burdened” about “guilt and the consciousness of guilt, or even heavier, sin and the consciousness of sin” (CD, 264). Kierkegaard accomplishes this “deeper sense” by showing that because Jesus’s invitation is universal yet is only applicable to persons burdened by sin, the experience of the burden of sin is a universal requirement for salvation. In the fourth discourse, 1 Cor. 11:23 (“ … the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed”), Kierkegaard begins by praying that God would remind “us” of sin “who so very much wish to remain in the deeper sense ignorant of the horrors” (CD, 275). Kierkegaard then takes the narrative detail of Jesus’s betrayal and spiritualizes it into a universal disposition, in order to emphasize the human constancy of depravity and to show that human beings are always fundamentally “accomplices” in the crucifixion ( Jn. 18:37; CD, 278). In the seventh discourse, Lk. 24:51 (“And it happened, as he blessed them, he was parted from them”), Kierkegaard takes the narrative detail of Christ’s blessing to be a universal principle which shows that Christ’s presence is always a blessing presence (CD, 296), and then shows that receiving the blessing means committing oneself to Christ no matter what the earthly results. Second, Kierkegaard persistently focuses on the inadequacy of human language to describe spiritual realities. This inadequacy of language is caused both by the infinite difference between God and human beings and by human sinfulness. The discourse, 1 Cor. 11:23 (“The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed”),

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discusses the “strange language” which human beings must use in prayer to God, and this is grounded in the sinful human “wish to remain in the deeper sense [dybere Forstand] ignorant of the horrors” of sin and guilt (CD, 275). Here it is clearly sinfulness, and not just human finiteness, which necessitates “strange” language about God. It is the inverse relation to God that will bring together both of these reasons for the inadequacy of human language. Nonetheless, in this series, the limits of human language (even Scriptural language) are transcended by the gracious presence of the risen Christ to the believer (see CD, 268). In the discourse, Jn. 10:27 (“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”), Kierkegaard begins with a discussion of the “language difference” in the phrase “this very day” (Lk. 23:43) as it applies to God or to human beings. Kierkegaard explains, “That phrase, which when you say it, O God, is the eternal expression of your unchanged grace and mercy, that same phrase, when a human being repeats it in the right sense, is the most powerful expression of the most profound change and decision—​yes, as if everything would be lost if this change and decision did not take place this very day” (CD, 268). The phrase “this very day” is used to interpret Jn. 10:27, so that the words are both a statement of Christ’s faithfulness and a demand for human response. This allows Jn. 10:27 to be read not as a statement about the status of Christ’s believers, but as the fundamental activities of Christ’s believers both as they attend communion and as they live each day. The “profound sense” of Scripture and the inadequacy of language to describe spiritual things are closely connected, and in the discourse, 1 Jn. 3:20 (“ … even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts”), Kierkegaard specifically connects the themes. Beginning with a prayer that “we know you [God] only as in an obscure saying and as in a mirror,” Kierkegaard anticipates that in church it will be possible to recognize God’s “greatness in a deeper sense [dybere Forstand]” (CD, 289). Kierkegaard begins his exegesis of the main text (1 Jn. 3:20) with the disclaimer: “All our language about God is, naturally, human language. However much we try to preclude misunderstanding by in turn revoking what we say—​if we do not wish to be completely silent, we are obliged to use human criteria when we, as human beings, speak about God” (CD, 291). With this precaution about the metaphorical nature of human language about God, Kierkegaard begins to discuss “human greatness” with the aim of saying something about divine greatness (CD, 291–​2). Yet in a sudden reversal, Kierkegaard suggests that because “God and the human being resemble each other only inversely,” the individual does not “come closer and closer to God by lifting up his head higher and higher, but inversely by casting himself down ever more deeply in worship” (CD, 292). Consequently, 1 Jn. 3:20 is read through the lens of Ps. 51:17 to show that the individual who

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continually confesses his sin is the one who most resembles God, as God is inversely greater than this individual’s heart. After developing the principle of inverse relation in order to describe the relationship between human language and divine greatness, Kierkegaard returns to a discussion of the “deeper sense” of Scripture’s historical narrative in order to show how God (now Christ) is greater than the human heart. Discussing the story of the woman caught in adultery ( Jn. 8:1–​11), Kierkegaard claims, Then Christ alone remained with her—​but there was no one who condemned her. Just this, that he alone remained with her, signifies in a far deeper sense [dybere Forstand] that there was no one who condemned her. It would have been of only little help to her that the Pharisees and Scribes went away; after all, they could come again with their condemnation. But the Savior alone remained with her: therefore there was no one who condemned her. Alas, there is only one guilt that God cannot forgive—​it is to refuse to believe in his greatness (CD, 294).

Here the “deeper sense” is again a narrative detail transformed into a universal spiritual principle, namely that Christ is present to the one who continually “cast[s]‌himself down ever more deeply in worship” and allows Christ to be greater than the individual’s heart. The presence of the historical Jesus in the story is made “more profound” by being presented as the risen Christ present to the believer who is aware of his/​her sin. Conclusions: This set of discourses leads readers from the Scriptural narrative to the dybere Forstand (more profound sense) of the text by taking a Scriptural detail (both narrative detail and apostolic address are used) and universalizing it through the use of a theological principle. This “more profound sense” will both more clearly recognize the limits of human Scriptural language, and will recognize the potential for moving beyond those limits in faith by gratefully receiving the forgiveness and presence of the risen Christ. This series, then, quite clearly illustrates the heightened Christian dialectic of inwardness, as it is written specifically for committed believers (those who attend the Friday Communion Service).

IV. Conclusion and Assessment Analysis of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in each set of discourses reveals that Kierkegaard uses Scripture somewhat differently in each set as he develops different kinds of challenges for his readers. In the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Kierkegaard develops a foundational structure in which the following characteristics are fundamental. First, main texts are typically used to introduce a topic for

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reflection which will be resolved in the discourse. Second, interpretation of the main text is guided through the lens of other Scriptural texts (doctrinal principle texts) which lead to the discourse’s upbuilding conclusion. Third, when a main text of an earlier discourse is used in a later discourse, that main text now carries with it all of the meaning given to it in the previous discourse. Yet while these techniques are foundational to the Eighteen discourses, they are not exclusive to them, and all will be utilized to some extent in the Christian discourses as well. It is Kierkegaard’s development of new interpretive moves in the Christian discourses which will highlight shifts in rhetorical emphasis. What is unique to the Eighteen discourses is Kierkegaard’s commitment to establishing a general upbuilding meaning which is applicable to all persons. In view of this hermeneutical commitment, it has been possible to notice several techniques. First, Kierkegaard often extracts a phrase from a Scriptural text which appears to be a personal example or a limited admonition, and makes the phrase a universalized standard of salvation for all persons. Second, Kierkegaard at times intentionally provides a general, secondary meaning to a specifically Christian text in order to adapt that text to a universal upbuilding situation. Third, Kierkegaard often simply ignores specifically Christian content in order to focus on a general upbuilding point. Fourth, Kierkegaard at times presents specifically Christian content through subtle allusion so that readers are invited, but not required, to connect the upbuilding truth to specifically Christian claims. These characteristics are unique to the Eighteen discourses, and they highlight a central aim of the Upbuilding discourses; namely, to allow the Scriptures to appeal to all persons with the aid of human reason (KJN4, NB:134–​5). In the next chapter we will seek to determine whether they are really a species of “general religiousness” or “religiousness A,” or whether they are genuine Christian communication. As a whole, the Christian discourses advance beyond the Upbuilding discourses in the following ways. With regard to content, Kierkegaard (sometimes) seeks to develop an omvendt Dialektik [reversed perspective] which begins with revelation and understands comfort through the terrifying, grace through the consciousness of sin, joy through suffering, etc. This proposed starting-​point in revelation shifts the argument from being based in human reason to being based in a claim of Scripture, shifts the prototype from Paul (and others) to Christ, and shifts the content from suffering, resignation and guilt to awareness of sin in light of the present risen Christ who acts as prototype and mediator. This is most clear in “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” and “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays.” Yet an elevation of content to the essentially Christian is by no means a consistent feature of these discourses. Many Christian discourses do not transcend their Upbuilding counterparts in content, but instead provide a new analysis of the

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same Scriptural content through the lens of a sharper emphasis on the authority of Scripture. With regard to distinctively Christian content, the Christian discourses lie on a spectrum, with “Thoughts That Wound From Behind” at one end, adding little new knowledge about Christianity and only infrequently addressing the “essentially Christian,” and “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” at the other end, exploring distinctly Christian content at every turn. The significance here is that not all the Christian discourses use distinctly Christian concepts, and therefore not all would be able to be classified as Christian discourses by Kierkegaard’s own criteria of Christian communication. Yet in these discourses, it is the sharper focus on authority which allows them to be characterized as distinctly Christian. With regard to form, the familiar pattern of using a main text to open a discussion and then interpreting it through the use of imported doctrinal principle text at times gives way to a variety of techniques aimed at engaging the reader. Once again, these different interpretive techniques range on a spectrum from techniques suited to direct challenge to techniques suited for deep exploration of Christianity’s inverse dialectic. In the former, Kierkegaard uses Scripture to confront directly a reader about a truth which he/​she presumes to know. In the latter, Kierkegaard uses Scripture to present new knowledge which is then explored through reflection on human experience. Each of these techniques is employed to produce the upbuilding result in a somewhat different way. The significance here is that it seems when Kierkegaard composed these individual discourse sets, he wrote some primarily with an evangelistic aim (to lead the esthetic reader to the point of decision about the religious) and others with an instructional aim (to lead the religious reader toward further depth in the God relationship). Consequently, it appears that Kierkegaard has a somewhat different audience in mind for each set of discourses. The nominal “Christian” for whom “Thoughts That Wound From Behind” was addressed is not precisely the “sufferer” noted in the preface of “The Gospel of Sufferings,” nor the committed Christian who attends Communion on Fridays for whom the “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” were written. These two distinct groups of readers (esthetic nominal Christians and committed Christians) can perhaps be seen in one of the Communion discourses which Kierkegaard preached: “Today is not a holy day; today everyone goes routinely to his fields, to his business, to his work; only these few individuals came to the Lord’s house today” (CD, 269). In this statement, Kierkegaard distinguishes between those who are religious culturally (who attend church on holy days) and those who are committed to their Christian faith (those who attend Communion on Fridays). It would seem that the first group consists of those who need to be wounded from behind, and the second group consists of

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those committed believers who recognize the difference between Christ’s “word” and Christ’s “voice” (CD, 271). What we find, then, is that the Christian discourses begin to branch into two trajectories of religious communication: those that offer direct challenge to nominal Christians, and those that offer deep exploration of Christian concepts for committed Christians. At the time of publication of Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard (with great hesitation) juxtaposed sets of discourses with these different techniques in order to effect upbuilding, stating that he had intentionally set the challenge discourses of “Thoughts That Wound From Behind” next to the exploration discourses of “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” so that the contrast would be “as sharp as possible and very intense: first there is something like a temple-​cleaning celebration—​and then the quiet and most intimate of all worship services—​the Communion service on Fridays” (KJN4, NB4:105). This juxtaposition has had the unfortunate effect of making it seem that all the Christian discourses were written for the same audience. However, in the final chapter we will suggest that challenge and exploration discourses constitute two different trajectories of discourses, are intended for two distinct audiences (indifferent and committed Christians), and represent two distinct temporal phases of Kierkegaard’s work. Why do these two different trajectories of Christian discourses emerge, seemingly corresponding to two different audiences? It may well be that when Kierkegaard began writing “Christian” discourses in 1846, he agreed with Climacus’s articulation of a necessary movement from religiousness A to B in each individual’s development of existence. (Climacus was, after all, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Kierkegaard had designated himself the “editor” of Climacus’s Postscript, and Kierkegaard had published the Postscript just months earlier.) In Climacus’s presentation, an individual must endeavor first to live the inwardness of religiousness A, and only when that quest ends in failure is the individual prepared to receive as gift the paradoxical claims of religiousness B (see CUP1:558). In this schema “religiousness A is indispensable for religiousness B” because “[t]‌he individual must have developed the intensity of inwardness of religiousness A through resignation, suffering, and guilt, if he or she is to enter Christian religiousness.”28 And for Climacus, precisely because there is no “natural progression from religiousness A to religiousness B,” it is impossible to “bypass religiousness A and 28 David R. Law, “Resignation, Suffering, and Guilt in Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments’,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 12: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments’, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997), 288.

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go straight to religiousness B,” as such a bypass would “be to fall back into aesthetic Christianity.”29 Consequently, when Kierkegaard began writing Christian discourses, he may have intended to follow this trajectory himself and move from the communication of general religiousness (religiousness A) to the communication of the heightened dialectic of “Christian” inwardness (religiousness B). Yet as Kierkegaard begins writing Christian discourse, he realizes that he is addressing esthetic (nominal) “Christian” readers within Christendom, and that they need to be challenged to begin to appropriate their Christian faith before they can engage the heightened dialectic of “Christian” inwardness (religiousness B). Once Kierkegaard has started writing Christian discourses, Climacus’s insistence on beginning with religiousness A would now create an enormous problem for Kierkegaard’s theory of religious communication, since in Kierkegaard’s view, the “Christian” communicator must use specific Christian language and avoid the “aid of human reflection” when presenting distinctly Christian truth. Yet if religiousness A serves as the indispensable starting-​point for becoming a Christian, and if the Christian communicator cannot start there, then how does a Christian communicator challenge esthetic (nominal) “Christians” in Christendom to begin? Kierkegaard, of course, realizes that religiousness A is a philosophical construct which fails to get to the paradox of Christian faith, and that he must provide a different kind of discourse to provide essentially Christian communication. This is why he sets down rules for distinctly “Christian” communication, and why he endeavors to use more distinctly Christian language in his first Christian discourses (“The Gospel of Sufferings”) than he had in the Upbuilding discourses. Yet as he writes these Christian discourses, Kierkegaard recognizes that many of his readers remain esthetic “Christians” who have nominally embraced Christianity without ever having traveled through the experience of religiousness A. While Climacus stated that “[e]‌very Christian has pathos as in religiousness A” (CUP1:582), Kierkegaard’s problem is now how to begin with a professing “Christian” who has no religious pathos. In such situations, Christian concepts could never have the “Retroactive Effect” of developing the pathos from religiousness A into the “Sharpened Pathos” required for religiousness B, as Climacus envisions (CUP1:581). Instead, Kierkegaard needs to challenge the reader in such a way that the reader will initiate the pathos of existence. To accomplish a confrontation that would initiate the pathos of existence, Kierkegaard apparently realizes that in the Christian discourses he must move immediately to direct confrontation within the framework of Christian concepts (to challenge esthetic readers to recognize their need to develop a distinctly Christian form of resignation, suffering, and 29 Law, ibid, 288.

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guilt), without falling back on the abstract philosophical framework of religiousness A which he has deemed unacceptable for Christian communication. Nominal Christians, as Kierkegaard sees it, exist in the esthetic mode of existence, and must be coaxed (or challenged) out of the esthetic mode and directly into the Christian mode of existence without the help of religiousness A, since the philosophical language of religiousness A has no place in a Christian discourse. As a result, Kierkegaard’s Christian discourses must begin to address two kinds of readers in different ways: on the one hand, readers who are committed Christians must be invited into deeper exploration of Christian concepts so that they grow in a distinctively Christian pathos, while on the other hand, readers who are nominal Christians must be challenged to begin to appropriate Christian concepts so that they develop initial pathos. In this tension between two kinds of readers the two trajectories of Christian discourses will emerge, one with an instructional aim to explore deeper appropriation of Christian concepts, and another with an evangelistic aim to directly challenge the esthetic reader in Christendom. In the final chapter, we will show how these two distinct emphases emerge in Kierkegaard’s authorship. As this chapter has illumined distinct emphases in Scriptural use among the different sets of discourses, it has also opened the opportunity for us to focus more carefully on the differences in content and authority between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses. As we explore these differences in the next chapter, we will be able to observe more deeply the rhetorical strategies employed by Kierkegaard in his religious communication. It will be shown that there exists a deep continuity in Kierkegaard’s theological vision of upbuilding despite the diversity in Kierkegaard’s rhetorical appeals to readers. This continuity within diversity will further highlight the situational nature of the discourses, as Kierkegaard’s singular goal of upbuilding leads him to craft different kinds of discourses for readers at different stages of their existential journey.

CHAPTER FOUR

Assessing the Relationship Between Upbuilding and Christian Discourses

I. Introduction The previous chapter has shown that Kierkegaard’s changing rhetorical strategies have necessitated new hermeneutical techniques to present and interpret Scripture in different sets of discourses. Different hermeneutical techniques have both shaped, and have been shaped by, specific aims in writing each set of discourses. We saw that there are substantial differences even between the sets of Christian discourses, and that each set is written with a specific audience in mind. Nonetheless, there are still several shifts of emphasis between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses which set these two genres of discourses apart, and the purpose of this chapter is to assess the relationship between these genres through the lens of Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture. To do this, we will examine two of the most important differences in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses: shifts in Scriptural content and a shift in emphasis on the authority of Scripture. First, we will examine Kierkegaard’s shift in Scriptural content. Here we will examine shared texts (texts which are used in both the Upbuilding and Christian discourses) and unique texts (texts which are unique to either the Upbuilding or the Christian discourses), and we will examine doctrinal principle texts (texts which provide continuity of a theological foundation across the discourses), in order to specify areas of agreement and change

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between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses. This section on Scriptural use will show that, overall, the move from Upbuilding to Christian discourses is a deepening specificity in the same process of upbuilding rather than a different kind of upbuilding. Second, we will examine Kierkegaard’s shift in his presentation of Scriptural authority from the Upbuilding to the Christian discourses in order to understand better how this shift affects the relationship between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses. This section on authority will show that Kierkegaard emphasizes Scriptural authority in the Christian discourses in order to safeguard the paradoxical content of Christian truth claims, and thereby to enable Christian readers to find a freedom in choosing faith or offense, by beginning to act upon the demands of Scripture and to practice obedience out of duty to God. Furthermore, we will suggest that when Kierkegaard emphasizes Scriptural authority, he is really emphasizing the authority of “Christian concepts” which have been stabilized in tradition, and that it is this insistence on the authority of Christian concepts which enables Kierkegaard to use freely the Scriptural text to draw attention to those concepts. Throughout this chapter, it will again be useful to distinguish between Kierkegaard’s evangelistic aim (to lead the esthetic reader to the religious) and instructional aim (to lead the religious reader toward further depth in the God relationship), which we uncovered in the last chapter. These dual aims are seen in both Upbuilding and Christian discourses, and they create an inherent tension in the relationship between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses. It will be suggested that Kierkegaard’s instructional aim will provide continuity in the theological foundation from the Upbuilding discourses to the Christian discourses, while his evangelistic aim will necessitate the change in Scriptural content and the change in emphasis on Scriptural authority.

II.  Distinctive Feature 1: Shifts in Scriptural Content The analysis of hermeneutical techniques in the last chapter must be complemented by an examination of the way in which Kierkegaard selects and interprets specific Scriptural texts in the Upbuilding and Christian discourses. In this section, we will focus both on major shifts in Kierkegaard’s selection of Scriptural texts, and on areas of significant continuity between both genres of discourses. In order to analyze continuity and change in Scriptural use more adequately, it will be helpful to distinguish two categories of Scriptural texts. Shared texts are those Scriptural texts which are used in both the Upbuilding and Christian discourses (they are called “shared” because they occur in both genres). There are 119 different Scriptural texts

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which occur in both the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses (17 shared Old Testament allusions and 102 shared New Testament allusions).1 About 2/​3 of these 119 shared texts continue to be used in the same way in the Christian discourses as they were in the Upbuilding discourses, and this shows a significant continuity between the genres of discourses.2 About 20 texts show a change in interpretation between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses, and these texts are particularly useful for showing how often and in what ways Kierkegaard changes the interpretation of a text from the Upbuilding discourses to meet the needs of the Christian discourses.3 Unique texts are those Scriptural texts which are used only in the Upbuilding discourses or only in the Christian discourses. There are 358 different Scriptural allusions which are unique to the Upbuilding discourses, and 232 different allusions which are unique to the Christian discourses.4 Analysis of these 358 and 232 unique texts provides an opportunity to specify particular Scriptural content that Kierkegaard deemed important to each genre of discourses. 1 The calculation used to develop both shared and unique texts needs several clarifications. First, 119 different Scriptural verses have been specified: A verse is counted only once, no matter how many times it is used (for example, Phil. 2:12 is used numerous times in the discourses, yet it is counted only once). Second, the calculation assumes that for Kierkegaard, meaning in a Scriptural text occurs at the level of the phrase, and therefore that different phrases from a Scriptural story or instruction should be counted separately. This has meant recording more verses rather than fewer when in doubt. The calculation is dependent upon an interpretive decision about whether Kierkegaard intended his Scriptural allusion to apply to a whole story, or only to an individual verse or portion of a verse (For example, Kierkegaard refers to the temptation of Jesus nine different times, yet only five Scriptural allusions have been counted, because only five point to different elements of the account.) Third, this number excludes shared allusions from Mt. 6:24–​34 because they are used so frequently that they are difficult to classify in this way. 2 Instances of continued general use include, for the most part, Scriptural axioms, wisdom statements, stories, and instructions which identify or illustrate a fundamental truth about human existence. 3 These instances clearly shift the emphasis of a particular text toward the specifics of Christian faith in two ways. First, some texts which were used generally in the Upbuilding discourses are used in the Christian discourses to specify Christological content. Other texts intensify the dialectic of existence to meet the content of the essentially Christian. 4 Of the texts unique to the Christian discourses, a majority are not distinctively Christian in content or in intensification of the dialectic (the exception is the Gospels, which will be shown below). For example, about half of the texts from Paul and the General Epistles used only in the Christian discourses do not present a point that goes beyond what could be said in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Interestingly, about one fourth of Old Testament texts used only in the Christian discourses are given a distinctly Christian meaning. Many of these are references to sin (Ps. 19:12, CD, 287; Ps. 51:17, CD, 96,292; Gen. 4:10, CD, 258), and grace (Ps. 59:10; Ps. 23:6; CD, 66), which now can be understood in a distinctly Christian context.

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With this distinction between shared texts and unique texts firmly in mind, we will now turn to observations about James, Pauline literature, and the Gospels.

A. Areas of Change in Scriptural Content Overall, the most significant shifts in Scriptural use between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses can be seen in the Epistles and in the Gospels. Paul and James have been utilized extensively in the Upbuilding discourses to present the fundamental elements of general religiousness, and Kierkegaard’s shift to a focus on Jesus as prototype and redeemer naturally leads to a decrease in the use of the Epistles (from about 28% of total allusions in the Upbuilding discourses to 21% of total allusions in the Christian discourses) and an increase in the use of the Gospels (from about 38% of total allusions in the Upbuilding discourses to 51% of total allusions in the Christian discourses). This shift of Scriptural use raises important questions about continuity and change between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses which will be explored below. The Decreasing Role of James and Paul: The book of James dominates the 1843 discourses. In the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses as a whole, there are 29 allusions to James (28 of which come from 1843). Three discourses use James 1:17 as a main text, the argument of “Strengthening in the Inner Being” advances through the use of James 1:17 (EUD, 98), the two discourses on “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” are explicitly tied to James 5:20 (EUD, 63), and the discourse “The Lord Gave, The Lord Took Away,” presents Job as the example who best enacts the truth of James 1:17 (EUD, 116). However, in all the Christian discourses there are only four allusions to the book of James, and all are shared texts (used previously in the Upbuilding discourses) which continue to be interpreted generally.5 In fact, in the Christian discourses Kierkegaard cites Apocryphal books just as many times as he cites the book of James.6 By simply counting Scriptural allusions, it would appear that the book of James does not play any significant role in the Christian discourses. This leads to a number of questions. Has Luther’s criticism of the book of James been internalized by Kierkegaard? Do the Christian discourses operate with such a different theological perspective that they have little or no place for the book so central to the 1843 Upbuilding discourses? Or might the apparent absence 5 Two of these refer to the devil believing and shuddering ( James 2:19; UDVS, 239; CD, 131), one is an allusion to the phrase, “If God wills” ( James 4:15; CD, 132), and one is a passing allusion to James 1:17 which identifies the Christian as one who recognizes that God gives good gifts through him/​her (CD, 32). 6 Citations to the Apocrypha come from Wis. 7:10 (UDVS, 264); Sir. 2:1 (UDVS, 292); Sir. 30:23 (CD, 75); and Sir. 2:12 (CD, 87).

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of use show that the Christian discourses depend upon the theological foundation of the Upbuilding discourses and are intended to be read in light of the insights from the early discourses? In the Upbuilding discourses, no individual is as important in providing material for the process of upbuilding as the Apostle Paul. One-​third of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses use Pauline statements as their main texts, two discourses (“Strengthening in the Inner Being” and “The Thorn in the Flesh”) use Paul as the exemplar from beginning to end, and Paul’s self-​reflection about his religious experience provides the content for discussions in nearly every discourse.7 Significantly, the use of Pauline texts decreases from 199 total allusions (31% of total allusions) in the Upbuilding discourses to only 99 (25% of total allusions) in the Christian discourses. Of these 99 allusions to Paul in the Christian discourses, only about 30 Pauline Scriptural texts are used to discuss specifically Christian content (15 present distinctly Christian content such as sin and Christ, and 15 seek to intensify language concerning warnings, requirements, or the paradoxical perspective of Christianity).8 The decrease in use, along with the continuing number of general texts seems to suggest that the primary use of Pauline literature in Kierkegaard’s work is to present the content and experience of general religiousness. Yet the findings require us to ask further whether Paul has become less important for Christian discussions, or whether Kierkegaard simply assumes the Pauline theological perspective which has been established in the Upbuilding discourses. 7 The discourse, “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience” is the exception, having only one (indirect) allusion to Paul. 8 The 99 allusions to Paul in the Christian discourses can be further categorized into 30 different shared texts, 20 of which continue to be used generally in the Christian discourses, and 35 different unique texts (i.e. used only in the Christian discourses), of which 15 are general in content and 20 are distinctively Christian. Most of the texts which are distinctly Christian are warnings which describe sin and judgment (many of these are drawn from the early chapters of Romans: Rom. 1:32; 2:8–​9; 6:1–​2,15), while others emphasize forgiveness (Gal. 3:24). The texts used generally include axioms: “every mouth will be stopped” (Rom. 3:19), milk and solid food (1 Cor. 3:1–​2), God catches the wise in their craftiness (1 Cor. 3:19), God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7), without God in the world (Eph. 2:12), “peace and safety” and “a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2–​3), and “godliness with contentment is great gain” 1 Tim. 6:6); examples of Paul’s life and images of action in living the religious life: “running aimlessly” (1 Cor. 9:26), seeing “darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12), “the thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7); doctrinal statements: “all things work for good” (Rom. 8:28), “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:38–​9), “no temptation” is too great (1 Cor. 10:13), “momentary light affliction” not compared with the eternal (2 Cor. 4:16–​17), “godly sorrow produces repentance” (2 Cor. 7:10), “my grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9), “God is at work” and will “bring the completion” (Phil. 1:6 and 2:13), “fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12); and instructions: “remain as you are” (1 Cor. 7:21), “rejoice, again I say rejoice” (Phil. 4:4).

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The Changing Role of Matthew and John: John: Book of Axioms or of Jesus the Redeemer? The Gospel of John plays a much more significant role in the Christian discourses than it does in the Upbuilding discourses as usage increases from just 6% of total allusions (39 uses) in the Upbuilding discourses, to 15% of total allusions (45 uses) in the Christian discourses, and the Gospel is used quite differently in each genre. There are seven shared texts, three of which retain the same general use in both sets of discourses.9 Four shared texts are used differently, shifting focus from the presentation of literary images in the Upbuilding discourses to the presentation of specific Christian content and the intensification of the Christian dialectic in the Christian discourses.10 More interesting are the unique texts. There are 13 unique texts from John used in the Upbuilding discourses, all of which avoid contact with the Christological center of John’s Gospel. Kierkegaard focuses particularly on memorable phrases such as, “The time is coming when no one can work” ( Jn. 9:4; EUD, 69, 158); “When a woman is in labor, she has pain […]. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy” ( Jn. 16:21; EUD, 281); “He must increase, I must decrease” ( Jn. 3:29; EUD, 275–​89); and the question, “What is truth?” ( Jn. 18:38; EUD, 271). Five further uses discuss John the Baptist, and two use the miracles at Cana such as the claim that “truth serves the poor wine first and keeps the best until last” ( Jn. 2:1–​11; EUD, 306) and the example of the collection of the fragments after the feeding of the 5000 which portrays God’s careful restoration of a person’s life ( Jn. 6:12; EUD, 250), as images for general upbuilding. By shifting focus from Jesus’s statements about himself to general axiomatic phrases, and by shifting focus from miracles as signs of Jesus’s divinity to illustrations for general upbuilding realities, Kierkegaard has established a decidedly non-​Christological reading of John’s Gospel in the Upbuilding discourses. 9 Shared texts which retain their general usage include two axioms, the axiom that God is Spirit ( Jn. 4:23–​4), and the axiom that persons accept glory from men ( Jn. 5:44), and one example, the man who had been sick for 38 years ( Jn. 5:1–​9). 10 Shared texts which are used in a specifically Christian way in the Christian discourses are as follows: The language of Jn. 3:8 is used as a literary allusion to describe a the fortunate person who does not “care about whence it comes or whither it goes” (EUD, 33), yet later is used to describe the desire for God given by God (CD, 253). Jn. 8:1–​11 (the woman caught in adultery) is used to show the equality of all persons as guilty before God (EUD, 142; also 67,138); yet is later used to show the effect of Christ’s presence for forgiveness (CD, 289). Jn. 14:2 is used generally to show that “eternal love” goes ahead to prepare a place (EUD, 39), and that the “thought” of the eternally-​minded goes ahead to prepare a place (EUD, 256), while it is Christ who prepares the place in the Christian discourses (UDVS, 227). Jn. 16:7 is used to illustrate the psychological experience of waiting (EUD, 396), and then to explore the requirements of Christian discipleship (UDVS, 219).

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By contrast, of the 18 unique texts from John used in the Christian discourses, 15 describe Christ’s eternal glory ( Jn. 17:5; UDVS, 250), articulate Christ’s role as prototype ( Jn. 14:6; UDVS, 217; CD, 20,85), and redeemer ( Jn. 13:23; CD, 266), or emphasize Christ’s risen presence ( Jn. 10:27; CD, 268–​74; Jn. 12:32; CD, 254). In all these uses, Kierkegaard is singularly focused on the Person and Work of Christ.11 It is significant that 9 of these 15 uses occur in the Communion discourses, as Kierkegaard appears to be guided by Johannine Christology to emphasize Christ’s work as redeemer and Christ’s risen presence to believers (the Synoptic Gospels, by contrast, are usually used to highlight Christ’s suffering and his role as prototype). By focusing on those texts which are unique to each genre, we find ourselves engaging in two very different readings of the Gospel of John. If our only knowledge of the Gospel of John came through Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding discourses, we would likely consider the Gospel to be a collection of wisdom sayings and examples which would encourage a reader to think about the God relationship. Conversely, if our knowledge of John came only through the Christian discourses, we would see Christ as a risen and present redeemer whose existence forces readers to choose faith or offense, discipleship or judgment. Matthew: Jesus the Teacher or Jesus the Prototype? Matthew is certainly Kierkegaard’s preferred Gospel in the discourses, as attested by the 272 Scriptural allusions, plus the six additional discourses on Mt. 6:24–​34 which are not counted in this analysis (see UDVS, 155–​212 and WA, 1–​45).12 For this analysis, we will consider that there are 28 shared texts in Matthew between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses.13 While overall about three-​fourths of the shared texts drawn from elsewhere in the Bible retain their general use in the Christian discourses, half of the shared texts from the Gospel of Matthew yield different interpretations in the Upbuilding and Christian discourses. This shift of use in half of the shared 11 Two additional unique texts heighten the dialectic of Christian existence by describing the offense of Christ for those who hide from the light and are under God’s wrath ( Jn. 3:36; CD, 39), and by describing Christianity as a “difficult […] teaching” ( Jn. 6:60; CD, 136,174). It is the Person and Work of Christ which brings both the possibility of offense and judgment of sin. 12 Matthew has been selected from the Synoptic tradition because (1) Kierkegaard uses Matthew more than both Mark and Luke combined; (2) using all three Synoptic Gospels would lead to confusion about which Gospel is in view for a particular idea represented in several of the Synoptic Gospels. 13 This number could be much larger. First, the calculation has excluded Mt. 6:24–​34, because the high number of allusions to this Scriptural passage throughout the discourses makes the passage nearly impossible to analyze in the method established here. Second, certain allusions to stories (like the many references to John the Baptist; Mt. 3:1–​11) have been counted as one use when they refer to the individual or story in a similar way.

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texts seems to provide further evidence that Matthew is close to the center of Kierkegaard’s Scriptural focus, as Kierkegaard seems to be actively rethinking Matthew through the lens of the Christian paradox. Most significant, however, are the unique texts used in each genre. Excluding the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5–​7 would need to be analyzed separately), there are 41 unique Scriptural texts from Matthew in the Upbuilding discourses. Unique texts from Matthew in the Upbuilding discourses are used primarily to provide images or wisdom statements which will be useful for general upbuilding. Images account for 32 of the 41 unique texts employed in the Upbuilding discourses, as Kierkegaard draws repeatedly upon his reader’s recognition of Scriptural places, phrases, teachings, and narratives, in order to employ Scriptural imagery to upbuilding situations.14 In all of these instances, Kierkegaard seems to presuppose that the reader’s recognition that the phrase or image comes from the Bible will invest the image or phrase with an inherent authority for upbuilding. The remaining nine unique texts could be classified as axiomatic wisdom statements such as Jesus’s claim that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34; EUD, 128), or Jesus’s claim that “God is the only good” (Mt. 19:17; EUD, 133). From these 41 uses of Matthew unique to the Upbuilding discourses, the Gospel looks very much like a set of wisdom sayings and examples which turn the individual toward existential concerns. While Jesus is certainly portrayed as a wise teacher and as a model for human life, Jesus does not really attain the role of prototype in these Upbuilding discourses, since most of the unique Scriptural allusions actually shift focus away from Jesus and onto general human existence. By contrast, there are 36 unique Scriptural texts from Matthew in the Christian discourses, about 25 of which present Christ primarily as prototype.15 Especially 14 For example, Kierkegaard contrasts a false sense of courage, a courage that “stand[s]‌on the mount of transfiguration, rejoices in the danger, then dives into the sea, and in the same moment emerges with the victory” (Mt. 17:1–​2; EUD, 348), with the real courage of repeated resolution. Kierkegaard describes “experience” as having the ability to “partition and divide” so that “it […] gives Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” yet he argues that experience fails with eternal concerns (Mt. 22:21; EUD, 265). At certain times, the image is a story recalled through a well-​ known phrase, such as the crowd’s assessment that “no further evidence against him would be necessary” (an allusion to the High Priest’s condemnation of Jesus—​Mt. 26:65; EUD, 378), that one who loses to gain is a fool. 15 For example, Christ is fully obedient even when he had no place to “lay his head” (Mt. 8:20; CD, 266); Christ came “not to be served” (Mt. 20:28; UDVS, 117); but carried the burden of sin for others, Christ was “regarded as an enemy by sinners” while being “the friend of sinners” (Mt. 11:19; UDVS, 231). Various aspects of Christ’s life are used to highlight the picture of perfect obedience (Christ’s yielding of his will to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane seems to be the height of obedience (Mt. 26:38; CD, 266)), and virtue (Christ’s rejection of

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in the Communion discourses, the presentation of Christ as prototype leads to a further discussion of Christ as redeemer.16 The remaining 11 texts used uniquely in the Christian discourses focus on the intensification of requirements, concern, or comfort that attend distinctly Christian faith.17 Just as with the Gospel of John, isolating texts unique to either the Upbuilding or Christian discourses reveals very different uses of the Gospel. Reading only the allusions to the Gospel of Matthew used in the Upbuilding discourses would lead a reader to view Jesus as a wise teacher whose focus was to explain how an individual could best order his/​her priorities to develop authentic existence and general religious faith. Reading only the texts used in the Christian discourses would lead a reader decisively to connect the Teacher to the teaching, so that the reader would realize that only in following the Prototype would it be possible to understand the meaning of authentic existence. Conclusion: The near-​complete disappearance of James, the decrease of Paul, and the shift from non-​Christological to Christ-​centered reading of the Gospels lead to some important questions about continuity and change between the discourses. First, to what extent does the doctrinal framework of the Upbuilding discourses continue in the Christian discourses? Is Christian upbuilding a deeper and more specific appropriation of Scriptural truths which have been developed in the Upbuilding discourses, or is it a radically new process which rests on a new theological foundation? Certainly Kierkegaard changes his use of Scriptural texts, but is this because he is becoming more specific in the process of upbuilding, or because he is constructing a different kind of upbuilding? presumptuousness in his temptation establishes his perfect virtue (Mt. 4:6; CD, 61)), and these statements about Christ show how far human beings continually fall from this ideal (as “we are indeed accomplices in a present event,” the event of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion (Mt. 27:24; CD, 278)). 16 Really, three different ways of reading the Gospel are presented, as the Upbuilding discourses place emphasis on phrases and examples which provide material for general upbuilding, the Christian discourses place emphasis on following Christ as Prototype, and the Communion discourses place emphasis on receiving Christ as Redeemer. Kierkegaard seems to have planned this shift of emphasis from Christ as prototype to Christ as redeemer after writing “The Gospel of Sufferings” recognizing that his critics “will charge my Christian discourses with not containing the Atonement,” and claiming that he has a process for “how maieutically I proceed […].First what comes first and then what comes next” (KJN4,NB:160). This development may have provided one of the motivations for Kierkegaard’s first set of Communion discourses. 17 Here Kierkegaard emphasizes warning phrases such as “Blessed is he who is not offended” (Mt. 11:6; CD, 291); images such as the king’s banquet to show that self-​renunciation requires that the believer “does not go to his field; neither does he bargain and trade nor take a wife” (Mt. 22:5; CD, 269); and requirements such as to “hate” father and mother (Mt. 10:37; CD, 183).

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Second, and more specifically, to what extent does Kierkegaard’s Christian reading of the Gospels stand in tension with his earlier Upbuilding reading of the Gospels? The shift in Scriptural use in the Gospels provides a significant challenge for those who identify Kierkegaard’s overarching hermeneutic as “Christological.” Tim Polk, for example, bases his thesis that Kierkegaard’s reading of Scripture is “canonical,” at least partly on the assumption that Kierkegaard’s reading of Scripture is also Christological. Discussing Kierkegaard’s use of James in For Self-​ Examination, Polk concludes that “it is simply obvious to Kierkegaard […] that the words of James should be thus referred continually to Christ and that Christian scripture should be explained christologically.”18 Polk extends Kierkegaard’s Christological reading of James to the Upbuilding discourses, and even contrasts Kierkegaard’s supposed Christological approach to Luther’s inability to read James Christologically.19 However, if Kierkegaard in fact operates with a distinctly non-​ Christological hermeneutic in the Upbuilding writings, then we must ask how the earlier Upbuilding discourses relate to Kierkegaard’s explicit Christological focus in the Christian discourses.

B. Continuity in Scriptural Use: Doctrinal Principle Texts Kierkegaard clearly changes both selection and interpretation of Scriptural texts as he writes Christian discourses. Yet we must ask whether such changes are intended as a further specification of the upbuilding task, or whether Christian upbuilding stands in tension with the perspective of the Upbuilding discourses. In the discussion below, we will examine this question by evaluating those texts which serve as doctrinal principle texts in the Upbuilding discourses (those texts which serve as a lens to understanding other Scriptural texts, and which form the theological core of the discourses), to see how they are used in the Christian discourses. As we have seen, when a particular doctrinal principle becomes attached to a Scriptural text in the Upbuilding discourses, the text tends to retain that doctrinal meaning throughout the Christian writings. An examination of the four most frequently used doctrinal principle texts in the Upbuilding discourses reveals 18 Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, 58. Polk (ibid, 22) adds that for Kierkegaard, “What is decisive about [reading the bible] as scripture is that it is a unique occasion for contemporaneity with Christ, which itself is a unique revelatory event.” This assessment may describe the Christian writings, yet the non-​Christological approach of the Upbuilding discourses seems to stand in tension with this perspective. 19 See Polk, ibid, 58, n.11, and the subsequent discussion of the first Upbuilding discourse on James 1:17 (119–​52, especially 124 and 202), in which Polk seeks to read the Upbuilding discourse through the canonical, Christological lens.

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that while their use in the Christian discourses diminishes significantly, they still carry the same doctrinal presuppositions in the Christian discourses. Rom. 8:28, James 1:17, 1 Cor. 10:13, and Mk. 8:35–​6 are all used repeatedly in the Upbuilding discourses, yet each is cited explicitly only once in the Christian discourses. This evidence shows that Kierkegaard presupposes, rather than abandons, his earlier theological framework, even when his use of earlier Scriptural texts declines significantly. Because these Scriptural texts have been used to establish a theological foundation in the Upbuilding discourses, the theological foundation does not again need to be established in the Christian discourses, and these texts are merely presupposed. A brief overview of the use of each doctrinal principle text will show how it helps to establish Kierkegaard’s doctrinal claims, and how these earlier discussions are assumed in the Christian discourses. James and James 1:17: James 1:17, “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift is from Above,” is perhaps the most important Scriptural text in the Upbuilding discourses of 1843. It is the main text of three discourses, where it is used both to emphasize the changelessness of God and the perfect gift-​giving of God as Father (see EUD, 25,31–​48,98,116,125–​58,337). The verse establishes a web of doctrinal ideas, including the claim that God is present in all life’s circumstances (EUD, 42, 121), that God’s title as “Father” is linked to God’s self-​presence as gift-​giver (EUD, 98–​9), that God is simultaneously the Good, the Gift, and the giving of the gift (EUD, 134), that it is a human perfection to need God and God’s self-​gift makes the human into a “firstfruit of creation” (EUD, 136), and that because God’s love is the singular gift in which human beings share, both gift-​giving and gift-​receiving establish human beings in fundamental equality with each other (EUD, 145–​56). Having used this verse to establish such a strong theological foundation, it is striking that Kierkegaard only uses James 1:17 once in the Christian discourses. In “The Care of Abundance,” Kierkegaard states in passing, “The rich Christian believes that all good and perfect gifts come from above (something that seems to pertain more particularly to the receiver but, Christianly, pertains just as much to the giver); therefore if the gift he gives is to be good and perfect, it must be God who gives it through him” (CD, 32–​3). While James 1:17 by no means functions as the center of this discourse, Kierkegaard’s brief statement provides several important insights about how the theological assumptions attached to James 1:17 will function in the Christian discourses. First, the fact that the “Christian” is expected to “believe” this statement shows that the theological claims associated with James 1:17 remain foundational to the Christian discourses. Second, this Christian discourse expects readers to recall specific material from the Upbuilding discourses. Kierkegaard’s statement draws on a theme explored in “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift” (III), in which the rich Christian has “opportunity to learn to know

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God, who is indeed the actual […] benefactor” as the Christian gives to others in what Kierkegaard calls “blessed errands” (CD, 33). While Kierkegaard’s statement in “The Care of the Pagans” would still be intelligible without recalling the discussion in the Upbuilding discourses, it seems that in this Christian discourse Kierkegaard explicitly assumes the argument of the third Upbuilding discourse, “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift” (EUD, 141–​56). Therefore the verse and its web of theological claims remain implicitly present in these Christian discourses. With regard to the book of James as a whole, even though allusions to the book are quite rare in the Christian discourses, there are a number of reasons to think that James remains central to Kierkegaard’s thought. First, as Kierkegaard originally pondered writing his first set of distinctly Christian “sermons” (discourses), he states that he wants to use “the passage in the Epistle of James that we should count it all joy when we are tried in various sufferings” ( JP5,93). While there is no explicit allusion to James 1:2 anywhere in the discourses, all of the discourse titles in the series, “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering” begin with the title “The Joy of It,” a title that appears to be drawn specifically from James 1:2.20 If this is the case, then James 1:2 presents the Christian paradox for a distinctly Christian series of discourses. Second, in 1851 Kierkegaard preached and in 1855 published a sermon on James 1:17, “The Changelessness of God.”This sermon fits Kierkegaard’s requirements for being a Christian sermon in its content (Kierkegaard does move to the essentially Christian in stating that God “put on the visible world as a garment,” a subtle but clear reference to the Incarnation (TM, 271)), in its tone (God’s changelessness is presented as eliciting “fear and trembling” (TM, 272,276,278), as well as “reassurance and blessedness” (TM, 278,271)), and in its focus on submission to the authority of revelation (the apostle, in contrast to the world, understands “the thought of the changelessness of God [to be] simply and solely sheer consolation, peace, joy, blessedness” (TM, 271)). This shows that Kierkegaard is certainly capable of using James 1:17 for a specifically Christian discussion. Third, Kierkegaard’s book, For Self-​Examination, uses James’s command to be a “doer” of the Word ( James 1:22) as the main text. Here Kierkegaard reasserts the importance of James, stating, “The Apostle James must be drawn forward a little, not for works against faith […] but for faith […] to cause the need for grace to be felt deeply in genuine humble inwardness and […] to prevent grace […] from being taken totally in vain” (FSE, 24). With regard to James, then, we can conclude that the absence of explicit allusion does not mean the absence of theological presence. 20 It should be clarified that while five of the seven discourses in “The Gospel of Sufferings” also bear the title, “The Joy of It … ” in the English translation (see UDVS, 248,264,289,306,321), this title is not present in the original Danish.

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Pauline Texts: Rom. 8:28 and 1 Cor. 10:13: In many ways, Rom. 8:28, the promise that “all things serve for good those who love God,” is functionally equivalent to James 1:17 in the Upbuilding discourses.21 In the first two Upbuilding discourses, Rom. 8:28 operates as a doctrinal principle text which interprets the main text. Rom. 8:28 is the content of victorious faith, so that the “expectancy of faith” is “Victory” because “Scripture so earnestly and so movingly teaches us, that all things must serve for good those who love God” (EUD, 19). Rom. 8:28 (with 1 Tim. 4:4) then interprets James 1:17 to show that the individual who is confident that God is at every moment working for the good of the receiver by means of the gift, will receive all life’s circumstances with thanksgiving (EUD, 39–​40). After Rom. 8:28 has interpreted James 1:17 in this second discourse, both texts incorporate the meaning of the other, so that the promise that every good and perfect gift comes from above is equated with the promise that all things work together for good. Later a further layer of theological depth is added, as it is shown that reception of this promise is only possible when one becomes nothing before God (see EUD, 311,325). Significantly, Rom. 8:28 is used in the Christian discourses only once, when it serves as the main text for the “Attack” discourse “All Things Must Serve Us for Good—​When We Love God.” As we have seen, in this discourse Kierkegaard changes the wording of Rom. 8:28 to create a subjective “when,” in order to challenge readers to consider if they love God. Kierkegaard claims to establish his argument in this discourse based on the authority of Scripture (CD, 189), yet Kierkegaard’s emphasis on “divine authority” is flexible enough to allow Kierkegaard freely to alter the text to develop his own point. What is particularly interesting about this rewriting of Rom. 8:28 is that the free alteration of the text seems to be based on the previous uses of this verse in the Upbuilding discourses. Kierkegaard’s previous uses of Rom. 8:28 in discussions about faith enable readers to recognize immediately why the subjective “when” fits this verse, and why love of God makes everything “serve us for good.” This Christian discourse does not provide any specifically “Christian” content beyond Kierkegaard’s more explicit emphasis on the authority of Scripture, yet it signals that acceptance of Kierkegaard’s particular reading of Rom. 8:28 (established in the Upbuilding discourses) is essential for the Christian perspective.

21 In Kierkegaard’s notes on Clausen’s “Lectures on Dogmatics,” Rom. 8:28 is cited as the first example of “governance” [Styrelse] along with Mt: 6:32; 10:29; James 4:15; and Heb. 12:5 (see KJN3, Not.1:9). With the exception of Heb. 12:5, each of these verses is quite important to Kierkegaard in both genres of discourse.

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1 Cor. 10:13, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,” is almost always used in the Upbuilding discourses to show both that God is faithful to provide a way out of temptation, and (going well beyond what the text itself says), to restore an individual who fails the temptation. The verse is first used to present Job as the “guarantee” that “God […] proportions every temptation humanly,” so that “even though a person did not withstand the temptation,” and “even if the single individual loses in this struggle,” God will still make the “way out such that we can bear it” (EUD, 111). Later, Kierkegaard again focuses on God’s restoration, noting that “the outcome of the temptation is frequently the most dangerous temptation, whether we were victorious and were tempted to arrogance and thus fell after having been victorious, or we lost so that we were tempted to want to lose everything” (EUD, 202, italics mine). Both of Kierkegaard’s uses of the verse reveal the theological presupposition that God is apportioning all of life’s circumstances in such a way that they will work for good, even if human beings fail to accept them as good and perfect gifts (see also EUD, 331).22 In the Christian discourses, 1 Cor. 10:13 is only used once, yet it is used as an important argument which supports the claim that “Hardship is the Road.” After citing the verse, Kierkegaard argues, “God made the temptation bearable when he has from all eternity arranged it in such a way that the hardship is the road […]. And how can it be more sure that there is always a good way out of temptation than to have hardship itself as a way out, because then hardship is continually a way out […] of hardship” (UDVS, 303–​4). Kierkegaard’s argument is that because “hardship” is the way out of temptation, the individual who embraces the hardship will always overcome the temptation, and thus there can be no “suprahuman temptation.” By choosing hardship, temptation is always overcome. Within this “Christian” context, it is possible to understand better Kierkegaard’s consistent addition to the text in the Upbuilding discourses that God’s faithfulness will provide a way out even when the individual has failed. God’s faithfulness is always evident in God’s gift of hardship which, when embraced, is the overcoming of temptation, and this offer of “hardship” is continually given, regardless of whether the individual has passed or failed the temptation. This “Christian” discourse, “Hardship is the Road,” does not add any specifically Christian content, but it does presuppose and expand the meaning of the Upbuilding discussions on 1 Cor. 10:13 in a way 22 1 Cor. 10:13 is used alongside Rom. 8:28, as Rom. 8:28 provides the promise that external circumstances can only benefit the believer when received in faith, while 1 Cor. 10:13 provides the promise that internal circumstances (moods, temptations, desires, etc.) will never be greater than God’s gift of a will to do the good (EUD, 331). Consequently, James 1:17, Rom. 8:28, and 1 Cor. 10:13 all function as strands of the same theological position.

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that shows that the theological perspective attached to this verse must remain foundational to the Christian discourses. With regard to the use of Paul as a whole, it seems that Pauline theology continues to play a central, if less visible, role in the Christian discourses. As was seen above, Kierkegaard still uses about 30 different Pauline texts to present distinctly Christian concepts. There appear to be several practical reasons why Kierkegaard’s overt use of Paul decreases in the Christian discourses. First, Kierkegaard is able to use Jesus as a model of perfect consistency between Teacher and teaching in a way that he could not in the Upbuilding discourses. Kierkegaard seeks to heighten the dialectic of existence in the Christian discourses, and exhortation to follow the example of Jesus strengthens the earlier encouragement to imitate Paul. Second, while Paul’s open self-​reflection in his letters has made him an excellent resource for reflecting upon the psychological experience of religious faith, exhortation to follow Jesus the prototype fits better with Kierkegaard’s more direct emphasis on Scriptural command. Gospels: Mk. 8:35–​36 and Lk. 21:19: Mk. 8:35–​6, “[T]‌hose who […] save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life […] will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life,” functions specifically as a doctrinal principle text in two Upbuilding discourses.23 In the discourse, “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience,” Mk. 8:35–​6 provides the doctrinal lens for interpreting Lk. 21:19, as it establishes a choice between the “soul” and the “whole world” (EUD, 160). In this discourse, the soul is defined as the “contradiction” between temporal and eternal, being possessed legitimately by God and possessed illegitimately by the world, and patience is defined as the very process of gaining and possessing of the soul. One must “lose” the world to “gain” the soul. In the discourse, “One Who Prays Aright …,” Mk. 8:35–​6 presents the paradox that the only way to attain the Good is to venture the loss of everything (EUD, 381). In both of these discourses Kierkegaard provides substantial philosophical discussions about the experience and logic of losing to gain, in which the individual, through struggle with God, comes to yield his/​her finite and sinful will to God’s good and perfect will. Surprisingly, direct allusion to this verse occurs only in one place in the Christian discourses, a subtle statement in which “it is assumed that the sufferer himself is not guilty of damaging his own soul” (CD, 136). Yet despite the nearly complete absence of this verse in the Christian discourses, it is likely that no other verse is as central to the theological perspective of the Christian discourses as Mk. 8:35–​6. The verse is quite clearly the unstated main text of the Christian 23 Mk. 8:35–​6 is also used several times as a warning against certain priorities that would cause one to lose one’s soul (EUD, 138,147,160; see also UDVS, 86).

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discourse, “The Joy of It: That When I ‘Gain Everything’ I Lose Nothing at All,” where Kierkegaard states that “God’s Word does indeed promise the believer that he will ‘gain everything’ ” (CD, 144). Furthermore, the verse appears to provide the main idea behind this whole series of discourses, “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering,” which emphasizes the great reversal [omvendt] of perspective required by Christian faith. It could be said that the theme of losing the temporal to gain the eternal functions as the center of nearly all of Kierkegaard’s discourses. When Kierkegaard later claims that his readers must accept the claims of revelation in order to understand the reversal [omvendt] of perspective required by Christian faith, he seems to assume the arguments of earlier discussions from the Upbuilding discourses in which Mk. 8:36 is used frequently (EUD, 138,147,160,235,381; UDVS, 86). The absence of explicit reference to Mk. 8:35–​6 seems to show that when a Scriptural argument has been developed sufficiently, explicit Scriptural allusions are often no longer necessary, even though the theological framework remains. We could press these implications one step further. It was the interpretation of Lk. 21:19 in light of Mk. 8:35–​6 which established Kierkegaard’s understanding that the “soul is the contradiction of the temporal and the eternal” (EUD, 163). Interestingly, Lk. 21:19 is nowhere cited in the Christian discourses, even though there are many times in the Christian discourses when Kierkegaard refers to the soul or the human being in this way. For example, Kierkegaard claims, “The earthly and worldly care was made possible precisely by this, that the human being was compounded of the temporal and eternal, became a self, but in becoming a self, the next day came into existence for him” (CD, 71). Kierkegaard does not elaborate about why he understands the human being to be “compounded of the temporal and eternal,” and this idea is taken as self-​evident. The same is true for Kierkegaard’s discussion in the discourse, “What You Lose Temporally You Gain Eternally.” Here Kierkegaard argues that “sin essentially is: temporally to lose the eternal” (CD, 136). Kierkegaard adds again that the “sufferer […] is a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal” (CD, 141), and argues, “Because a human being has something eternal within him, he can lose the eternal, but this is not to lose, it is to be lost; if there were nothing eternal in the human being, he could not be lost” (CD, 137). Thomas Anderson is correct in noting that Kierkegaard “never explains how he knows that the self has these features” anywhere in the Christian discourses.24 On the contrary, Kierkegaard clearly states that “what is specifically Christian […] is precisely 24 Thomas C. Anderson, “The Opposition between Objective Knowledge and Subjective Appropriation in Kierkegaard and Climacus,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, 210.

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that there is no exposition to the effect that when eternity and temporality are juxtaposed, the concept of suffering results; rather, the argument is strictly based on the apostolic word” (KJN4,NB:135). Because Kierkegaard is emphasizing the “apostolic word,” he refuses to enter this discussion. Yet, as the Christian discourses show, the refusal to enter the discussion does not mean that Kierkegaard abandons his previous understanding of the human being or his interpretation of Lk. 21:19. Rather, the theological point continues even in the absence of discussion about it, and one might even conclude that the “presentation […] strictly from the apostolic word” in the Christian discourses now includes the interpretation which was attached to Lk. 21:19 and Mk. 8:36 in the Upbuilding discourses, an interpretation now presented with more authority and without discussion (or explicit Scriptural allusion) in the Christian discourses. Conclusion: While the number of texts examined in this section has necessarily been quite small, investigation of arguably the most important texts which provide a doctrinal lens for the interpretation of other texts has shown evidence of a shared theological foundation between the genres of discourses. While in the Christian discourses Kierkegaard inserts new content, and at times an intensified dialectic of existence, the theological foundation of the Upbuilding discourses remains in the Christian discourses. This shared theological foundation with the Upbuilding discourses seems to show that the “essentially Christian” is less a different form of religiousness than a growth in inwardness and specificity in the same religiousness.

C. Conclusions about Continuity and Change in Scriptural Content Kierkegaard’s use and interpretation of Scripture seems to show that the Christian discourses are continuous in theological perspective, even as they press toward greater specification in the distinctly Christian content of upbuilding. With regard to Kierkegaard’s instructional aims, the discourses exhibit a fairly stable progress from general religious experience (the Upbuilding discourses), to the requirement to follow Christ the prototype (the Christian discourses), to a deeper examination of Christ’s work as mediator (the Communion discourses). The continuation of Scriptural texts which function as a doctrinal lens provides evidence that the Christian discourses assume, rather than alter or abandon, the theological foundation of the Upbuilding discourses, even when they move on to new Scriptural texts. Doctrinal principle texts which are used in the Upbuilding discourses appear to acquire layers of additional theological presuppositions as they are utilized in subsequent discourses, and the cumulative theological edifice attached to the text appears to be assumed each time the text is used in a later discourse. As a result, it seems that the Upbuilding discourses provide a foundational aspect of

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upbuilding that is essential for the whole process and is developed only in those discourses. When the Upbuilding discourses are viewed from the lens of maieutic procession (“First what comes first, and then wh[at] comes next” (KJN4,NB:160)), the Upbuilding discourses can be seen to provide a layer of understanding about upbuilding which remains indispensable to the Christian arguments, about which Christians pursuing upbuilding must remain continually aware. In order to understand fully Kierkegaard’s Christian arguments, it is often necessary to trace their theological assumptions back to the Upbuilding discourses in which they were first presented. This assumption of doctrinal continuity appears to be one reason why Scripture is used much less frequently in the Christian discourses (a decrease from 1.67 allusions per Hong’s English page in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses to .92 allusions per page across the Christian discourses), even while Kierkegaard states that his Christian discourses will proceed “strictly based on the apostolic word” (KJN4,NB:135). Scriptural arguments which have already been established do not need to be continually re-​established, and therefore Kierkegaard proceeds to make his theological point without providing the same Scriptural allusions each time. Why, then, the determined non-​Christological reading of the Gospels in the Upbuilding discourses? Part of the answer might again be Kierkegaard’s pattern of maieutic procession, in which he wants to “first” explore human pursuit of the good, and “next” place human activity in the context of following Christ as prototype. Yet it would seem unlikely that we could account for such purposeful non-​Christological reading entirely in this way. Instead, the non-​Christological approach seems to be part of Kierkegaard’s evangelistic aim. In the Upbuilding discourses, Kierkegaard appears to withhold explicit Christian content in order to shift full attention onto the process of upbuilding, stripping away the nominal “Christian” reader’s ability to retreat to comfortable affirmations about Christian belief and the assumed assurance that he/​she is already a Christian. Removing overtly Christological content challenges the reader with the “how” of religious faith without recourse to the “what” of easy Christian confession that Kierkegaard finds to be all too common in Christendom. This theory agrees with Kierkegaard’s attempt “to play Stranger with the old and familiar” Scriptural texts that have been taken for granted (see WL, 210–​12), and it agrees with Climacus’s stated need for religiousness A before religiousness B (CUP1:556–​7). The non-​Christological reading of the Gospels allows the Upbuilding discourses to function as a “disciplinarian” which will bring readers to recognize their need for the essentially Christian. As Kierkegaard turns to writing Christian discourses, this evangelistic technique of hiding Christological content will become unavailable, and Kierkegaard’s continuing evangelistic aim will lead to the technique of directly confronting esthetic

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readers with the truths of Christianity. This shift of strategy to direct confrontation in the Christian discourses will be seen more clearly as we examine Kierkegaard’s emerging emphasis on Scriptural authority.

III. Distinctive Feature 2: Change in Presentation of Scriptural Authority It is clear that Kierkegaard intended his Christian discourses to provide a fundamentally new way of presenting the authority of Scripture.25 Soon after he began writing Christian discourses (1847), Kierkegaard stated that “what is specifically Christian about [“the fifth of the Christian discourses”] is precisely the fact that what is emphasized is the authority of the Bible, that this is not something someone has thought up, but something commanded […] with authority” (KJN4,NB:134–​5). In the next entry he adds that “what is specifically Christian […] is precisely that there is no exposition to the effect that when eternity and temporality are juxtaposed, the concept of suffering results; rather, the argument is strictly based on the apostolic word. An edifying discourse, which operates with the assistance of thought, could never be structured like this” (KJN4,NB:135).26 Here Kierkegaard claims to move from the “assistance of thought” to “strictly […] the apostolic word” which is “commanded […] with authority.” In this section we will show that Kierkegaard always assumed the inherent authority of Scripture in the Upbuilding discourses, yet Kierkegaard’s Christian discourses signal a change to a more direct presentation of Scripture’s authority as part of his rhetorical aim. We will then make some observations about how Kierkegaard’s emphasis on Scriptural authority functions in the Christian discourses in order to understand its role in Kierkegaard’s upbuilding appeal.

25 This shift of emphasis from “human reflection” to “Apostolic authority” has been often noted, but never fully examined. For example, see Sylvia Walsh, Living Christianly, 171, n. 19, and David Gouwens, “Kierkegaard’s Christian Discourses on Upbuilding, Mildness, and Polemic: ‘A Temple-​ Cleansing Celebration-​and then the Quiet’,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, 148. 26 Apostolic authority and Scriptural authority are used interchangeably in Kierkegaard’s discourses. In certain cases, Kierkegaard might make a distinction between Old and New Testament writings (see the discussion below on “Think On Your Creator”), but functionally he takes the whole of Scripture to be authoritative in a way that accords with his discussions of apostolic authority.

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A. Inherent Authority in the Upbuilding Discourses Kierkegaard explicitly says very little about the authority of Scripture in his early writings or journal entries, yet we can make the following observations about Scriptural authority in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. First, Kierkegaard envisions Scriptural authority as being closely tied to its status as apostolic speech. In an early discourse from 1843, “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift” (I), Kierkegaard makes it clear that apostolic authority, not esthetic authority, establishes the importance of Scripture. Even though James 1:17–​21 is said to contain an emotive power which arises from its aesthetic appeal (words that are “beautiful […] appealing […] moving”), Kierkegaard claims that readers should “dare to trust that [ James 1:17–​21] are not casual and idle words” precisely because these words came from “one of the Lord’s apostles” (EUD, 32–​3). In response to doubt (the chief opponent of apostolic authority) (EUD, 32–​3,41–​2), Kierkegaard validates his own particular interpretation of James 1:17 by appealing to “The Apostle Paul,” showing that doubt’s argument fails because it cannot incorporate two fundamental Pauline texts, 1 Tim. 4:3 (“Everything created by God is good if it is received with thankfulness”) and Rom. 8:28 (“all things serve for good those who love God”) (EUD, 42). Scriptural authority, then, rests inherently in apostolic presentation. Another early discourse, “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” (I), also advances on the basis of apostolic authority, as the word “apostle” is used 13 times in the discourse, often in rhetorical questions: “[A]‌re not the apostolic words a beautiful yet futile speech? Should we regard the apostolic words as inspired foolishness?” (EUD, 65–​7). Here the assumed authority of “apostolic speech” allows the rhetorical questions to have an effect on the reader. Scripture’s apostolic status makes Scripture “essentially different in [‘form’ and] content from all human speech” (EUD, 69), and the structure of Kierkegaard’s appeal shows that he expects his readers to share this assumption.27 Scripture’s authority allows Scripture to set the agenda for all upbuilding discussions. Second, Scriptural authority means that Scripture must be interpreted in an upbuilding way. If Scripture’s status as “apostolic speech” is the underlying reason for Kierkegaard that it bears divine authority (i.e. the reason Scripture is connected to God), then we should nonetheless notice that upbuilding, not correctly 27 It is important to clarify that Scripture’s inherent authority is not established or enhanced by the consistency of life and message of the apostle. While Kierkegaard often shows that the apostle’s life lends evidence toward the importance of the apostle’s message (see, for example, the discussion of Paul’s “witness” in “Strengthening in the Inner Being,” EUD, 80–​4), Kierkegaard does not say that the apostle’s consistency of life and message in any way establishes or strengthens the authority of Scripture in the Upbuilding discourses (See EUD, 32,69–​70,234–​5,329; KJN6,NB13:50).

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articulating the apostle’s meaning to his original audience, is Kierkegaard’s interpretive priority. Kierkegaard makes it clear that he does not regard the interpreter’s task in “letting the text speak for itself ” to be the same as the task of “ferreting out what Paul may have […] had in mind” (that is, of presenting the original meaning of the text in its original context), since an analysis of authorial intent may “fascinate a reader” or “lead a reader to admire the speaker,” but it would only distract from upbuilding, and “it would […] be despicable if the speaker wanted to interfere in this way with the upbuilding” (EUD, 346). The resulting interpretation will occur in such a way that, in “pertaining to one single individual, it pertains to all” (EUD, 346). In the Upbuilding discourses, Scripture’s inherent authority requires an interpretation that is “startling” (or “terrifying”), “clear,” “universal,” and “comforting” (see EUD, 239,240,250,278,346). Kierkegaard explains that the “importance of Holy Scripture is to be an interpreter of the divine to mankind” and that “its claim is to want to teach the believer everything from the beginning” (EUD, 327). Yet because Scriptural phrases can be “carried off ” and used lightly without concern for their sacred context (EUD, 327–​8), the interpreter must enable these texts to speak for themselves by giving them an interpretation that leads to appropriation. Kierkegaard suggests that there are two “appropriate” uses of Scripture. On the one hand, the “speaker” may “seek […] to interpret the Scriptural text by letting the text speak for itself ” (apparently the interpreter must provide an interpretation which enables appropriation) and on the other hand, the “speaker” may “use […] the scriptural expression in all its brevity as the clear and complete interpretation of the much he has said” (apparently an individual Scriptural phrase can be used to present the entire upbuilding meaning of the discourse and its Scriptural foundation) (EUD, 327). In both ways, the priority for the upbuilding interpreter is to bring forward the Scriptural text in such a way that it can be appropriated, and this aim is valued above all other interpretive aims. Third, the inherent authority of Scripture assumed in the Upbuilding discourses is never developed as an overt theme, as Kierkegaard’s goal seems to be that of enabling readers to recognize the reasonableness of Scriptural truth for existence with the “authority of experience” (EUD, 238) or “with the assistance of thought” (KJN4,NB:135). As we have seen, Kierkegaard’s approach in the Upbuilding discourses is focused more on maieutic questioning than on direct pronouncement of truth (for example, the discourse “Every Good and Perfect Gift” (I) contains 72 interrogative sentences, as compared to only 25 in the entire set of seven “Discourses At the Communion on Fridays”). Kierkegaard develops his discourse introductions as an invitation for discussion and appeals to readers through general human experience to recognize the importance of a Scriptural

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claim (for example, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of the “old saying” that “everyone would rather see the rising sun than the setting sun” (EUD, 275)), and Kierkegaard tries to persuade readers that pursuit of the Good is congruous to biblical truth (for example, see Kierkegaard’s discussion of “the good, the truly great and noble” (EUD, 359)). George Pattison has identified this open-​ended, non-​authoritative approach to the use of Scripture as being a key characteristic in the Upbuilding discourses. While Pattison admits that “[t]‌he values that are held for commendation are Christian values, and this is advertised in the texts by themselves by the appeal to Scripture in general and apostolic authority in particular,” Pattison argues that “the force of the appeal to scripture and the effectiveness of these various figures of faith is contextualised by the entire inner dialogue of the conscientious self-​questioning that the discourses set in motion in such a way as to undercut any purely heteronomous reading.”28 As a result, Pattison thinks that “whatever authority the scriptural word may have, it is circumscribed by the non-​authoritative nature of the discourses themselves.”29 As we will see, it is precisely the “non-​ authoritative” presentation which Pattison appreciates which began to trouble Kierkegaard, as Kierkegaard also began to believe that Scriptural authority was being “circumscribed” through his method of communication. Kierkegaard began to believe that he had not presented Scripture’s authority with enough emphasis, and changed to a more direct presentation of Scriptural authority in the Christian discourses.

B. Presented Authority in the Christian Discourses Based on the observations above, we see that Kierkegaard’s shift in emphasis on Scriptural authority is not based on a change in Kierkegaard’s attitude toward Scripture. Kierkegaard continues in the Christian discourses to discuss Scriptural authority in terms of apostolic authority, and he continues to understand his role in respecting Scriptural authority to be that of creating upbuilding interpretations instead of clarifying the meaning of the apostle’s words to his original audience. Instead, the turn to authority signals a change in his rhetorical approach, as well as an attempt to safeguard revealed, paradoxical truths given in Scripture. Interestingly, the word authority [Myndighed] is used quite infrequently in the discourses. In the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, there is really no sustained 28 Pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses, 164. Kierkegaard, as we will see, will seek to avoid Pattison’s dichotomy between “non-​authoritative” reading and “purely heteronomous reading” by emphasizing that a certain kind of freedom emerges from submission to a recognized authority. 29 Pattison, ibid, 164.

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reflection on authority aside from Kierkegaard’s disavowal of his own authority.30 In the Christian discourses, there are two discussions on authority, both of which will be discussed below.31 As a result of this lack of explicit discussion, it will be useful also to include insights from The Book on Adler, Kierkegaard’s unpublished “Lectures on Communication” and Kierkegaard’s journal entries as we examine the purpose and function of this shift of emphasis. We will suggest that within the Christian discourses, presentation of Scriptural authority is important for Christian communication as it (1) safeguards Christian concepts; (2) challenges esthetic readers with the choice between faith and offense; (3) makes Christian readers aware of their freedom to begin the task immediately, and (4) enables Christian readers to obey God for the right reason. Direct presentation of the authority of Scripture, then, has implications for both Kierkegaard’s instructional aim for religious readers and Kierkegaard’s evangelistic aim to confront esthetic readers. The Function of Authority: It appears that there are four distinct reasons why Kierkegaard emphasizes the authority of Scripture in his second authorship. First, recognition of Scriptural authority serves to safeguard Christian concepts (such as sin, the Incarnation, and the Atonement). It should be remembered that Kierkegaard originally intended to include The Book on Adler in the work that became known as Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, just before his first Christian discourses appear.32 In The Book on Adler, Kierkegaard seeks to establish a boundary line between immanence and transcendence, between the esthetic and the Christian.33 Between immanent and transcendent forms of authority lies an 30 Six of the twelve uses occur in the Prefaces in Kierkegaard’s disavowal of his own authority (EUD, 5,53,107,179,231,295). Two refer to apostolic authority (EUD, 70,329), and one to the authority of “the good” which makes a claim on the individual (EUD, 359). The others, from “Think About Your Creator,” discuss the “authority” of experience (EUD, 238,240). 31 The first discussion occurs in the discourse, “Hardship is the Way,” where Kierkegaard argues that recognition of authority allows the individual immediately to appropriate the command (UDVS, 293–​4). The second occurs in “There Will Be the Resurrection of the Dead,” where Kierkegaard argues that one is truly obeying if one obeys out of duty (CD, 206–​7). 32 See JP5,5954. Curiously, The Book on Adler was to be inserted between the discourse, “On the Occasion of a Confession,” and the three discourses on the Lilies and the Birds, rather than as a decisive break between the ethical-​religious discourses and the Christian discourses. 33 Kierkegaard’s primary focus is on sermons, which he believes have commonly become confused on precisely this point (BA, 183–​5). The sermon is “corrupting,” Kierkegaard tells us, “when […] orthodoxy is achieved by placing the emphasis on an entirely wrong place, when basically it exhorts believing in Christ, [yet] preaches faith in him on the basis of what cannot at all be the object of faith” (BA, 185). The minister confuses the realms of the transcendent and immanent when he attempts to establish the reasonableness of an apostolic or Scriptural argument through human reason.

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“eternal qualitative difference” (BA, 182), and any attempted use of immanental authority to judge transcendent authority is viewed as an attempt to erase this difference. Kierkegaard states that “basic Christian conceptual language” should be the “qualitative, unshakable criterion” by which one can “test whether [one’s] being deeply moved is a Christian religious awakening” (BA, 115). “Christian concepts” must be safeguarded so that they are able to force a free decision between faith and offense (BA, 49), give rise to the proper emotions (BA, 116), and thereby create a “metaphoric activity” in the reader through a “leap” of faith (BA, 286). To be able to initiate this “metaphoric activity,” Christian concepts must have a determinate meaning within the context of Christianity, and this determinate meaning must be safeguarded with a claim to transcendent authority.34 Second, recognition of Scriptural authority frees esthetic readers to choose faith or offense. Kierkegaard believes that persons often utilize intellectual doubt as a tool for evading God, and claims that “[p]‌eople want to make us believe that the objections against Christianity stem from doubt,” when in fact they “stem from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority” (KJN4,NB:121). A demand to choose between faith or offense enables readers to move from combatting “doubt intellectually” to “combating rebellion […] ethically” (KJN4,NB:121). Kierkegaard claims that when “divine authority is the category […]. The matter is very simple: will you obey or will you not obey; will you in faith submit to his divine authority or will you take offense—​or will you perhaps not take sides—​be careful, that also is offense (BA, 34).” This seems to be the primary way in which the emphasis on Scriptural authority functions in the series “Thoughts That Wound from Behind,” as those who think that they are Christians, yet who have never been confronted directly with the demands of Scripture, are asked to recognize Scriptural authority. The reason a demand to obey transcendent authority cannot limit one’s existential freedom is that transcendent authority can never be “demonstrated” through a criterion of immanence (on this account, a king or a police officer could exercise heteronomous authority over a human being, but God could not, for it is the individual conscience which must recognize the authority). As John Whittaker notes, “[O]‌ne can be commanded to accept the authority of God’s Word” without destroying human freedom “because the responsibility of conforming to it rests 34 As Steven Emmanuel, Kierkegaard and the Concept of Revelation, xii, puts it, “the most serious problem posed by the influence of speculative philosophy is not merely that it encourages an objective relationship to doctrine, but that it volatizes the language of Christian theology, and thereby threatens to make it impossible for individuals to be properly related to the object of Christian faith.”

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with each one of us, and not with an objective test of an authoritative claim’s credentials.”35 George Pattison suggests further that “apostolic communication operates” at one level as a “direct assertion of fact—​‘My message comes from God,’ ” and yet on another level the claim is “curiously indirect in the sense that the apostle is unable to offer any supporting evidence […] to prove that what he says is true.”36 It is this lack of demonstration which enables freedom to emerge in the act of resolution. Kierkegaard’s goal is to safeguard “Christian concepts” so that individuals have the freedom to embrace or reject this claim to authority in a “leap” of faith (BA, 286). Kierkegaard was clearly concerned about reconciling an emphasis on authority with a freedom for appropriation, and his deliberation on this topic is best seen in his unpublished “Lectures on Communication,” where he approaches the issue of authority through the lens of direct and indirect communication. In the “Lectures,” Kierkegaard moves from ethical to religious communication by working to reconcile two different conceptions of truth, the Greek view (in which truth is found within the individual and can be brought out exclusively through the maieutic method), and the Christian view (in which truth exists outside the individual and must be received by the subject to be understood).37 Kierkegaard states, The difference between upbringing in the ethical and upbringing in the ethical-​ religious is simply this—​that the ethical is the universally human itself, but religious (Christian) upbringing must first of all communicate a knowledge. Ethically man as such knows about the ethical, but man as such does not know about the religious in the Christian sense. Here there must be the communication of a little knowledge first of all—​but then the same relationship as in the ethical enters in. The instruction, the communication, must not be as of a knowledge, but upbringing, practicing, art-​ instruction ( JP1,650).

In this quotation, Kierkegaard makes it clear that religious discourse requires direct communication. Furthermore, Kierkegaard claims that in the communication of religious truth, the “communicator has authority with respect to the communication of knowledge, which here comes first” ( JP1,651). Still, Kierkegaard hesitates. On this model, direct communication and authority are closely linked. Yet, while necessary, they are still viewed as heteronomous impositions upon 35 John H. Whittaker, “Whence the Authority of God’s Word?,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 21: For Self-​Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002), 266. 36 George Pattison, Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image (London: Macmillan Academic, 1992), 85. 37 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 48–​9.

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ethical development (for which only non-​authoritative and indirect communication can be used). As a result, Kierkegaard cautiously suggests that knowledge and authority are needed only “a little” and only “first of all” to get the process started so that “the same relationship as in the ethical” can begin.38 Religious communication, then, remains essentially indirect communication, even if it must begin with direct communication. Significantly, at this point the “Lectures” provides a new model which is able to harmonize authority and freedom.39 The discussion suddenly shifts from a focus on indirect discourse as a method of preserving human freedom through distanciation, to a focus on indirect discourse as a method of developing human capability through practice. Kierkegaard begins to describe indirect communication as the process of communicating a capability rather than a knowledge. Communication of capability is the communication of a skill already present in the learner, and therefore such communication requires appropriation and practice to develop this skill. What is needed is not new knowledge, but a showing how, and this showing how is the essence of indirect communication. Kierkegaard illustrates the difference between knowledge already inherent in the individual and knowledge given from outside through the example of a drill instructor who supposes the farm boy is capable of military service and teaches him as an “art” rather than as a “knowledge.” The drill instructor “sees the soldier […] in the farm boy and therefore says: I will have to pound the soldier out of him. On the other hand the soldier studies a manual of field tactics; in regard to the instruction contained therein, the corporal might say: I will have to pound this into him” ( JP1,653). In this illustration, the capability 38 Kierkegaard repeats the caution several times that religious knowledge must only be an initial step. Kierkegaard emphasizes that, “The communication of religious capability is direct communication insofar as there is at first a communication of knowledge, but essentially indirect communication” ( JP1,651). Further, Kierkegaard claims, “Here is an element of knowledge and to that extent an object. But it is only a first thing. The communication is still not essentially of knowledge but a communication of capability. That there is an element of knowledge is particularly true for Christianity; a knowledge about Christianity must certainly be communicated in advance. But it is only a preliminary” ( JP1,653). 39 Christopher A. P. Nelson, “Kierkegaard’s Undelivered Lectures and his Author-​ Activity Writings: ‘The Dialectic of Ethical and Ethical-​ Religious Communication Revisited,’ ” in International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 22: The Point of View, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2010), 393–​6, has shown that it is difficult to date these lectures any more precisely than somewhere between 1847 and 1851, even if it is clear that they were started in 1847. One implication of this insight is that the various sections of the “Lectures” may have been worked out at different times, and therefore different arguments may not necessarily be fully compatible with each other. This appears to be the case with the new model presented here.

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of military service is inherent in the boy and must be brought out as an art (indirectly), yet the instructions in the field manual must be first received as knowledge (directly) and then turned into practice. This new emphasis on the communication of a skill is particularly significant because it renders irrelevant the need for distanciation and lack of authority to respect the freedom of the learner. In the military illustration, it is precisely the corporal’s absolute authority over the boy that facilitates both subjective and objective learning. The corporal’s authority establishes an order in which the boy learns both skill knowledge (internal) and cognitive knowledge (external). Because the final goal of military instruction (in both forms) is success in practice (performance on the battlefield), it appears that there is far less opposition between these two kinds of knowledge than Kierkegaard had previously suggested, and that both authority and direct communication could be quite useful tools to encourage the free appropriation of instruction (in both forms) once the soldier recognizes that such learning is for his good. The point is that the recognition of authority does not impinge on ethical development but, in the case of the instructor and the recruit, recognized authority establishes the means by which ethical instruction (both as knowledge and as inherent capacity) can be received. With this analogy, Kierkegaard reconciles three important aspects of Christian communication that have seemed difficult to combine: (1) the importance of direct communication for presenting religious content, (2) the importance of keeping religious communication essentially the communication of a capacity or skill rather than a knowledge, and (3) the importance of recognizing divine authority as the means by which one is enabled both to receive this knowledge and to develop Christianity as a skill. Kierkegaard’s emphasis on Scriptural authority in the Christian discourses bears a striking resemblance to Kierkegaard’s discussion of “capability” communication in the unpublished “Lectures on Communication,” where Kierkegaard specifies, “The rule of the communication of capability is: begin immediately to do it. If the learner says: I can’t, the teacher answers: Nonsense, do it as well as you can. With that the instruction begins. Its end result is: to be able” ( JP1,653). Here authority (whether of the drill instructor or of Scripture) establishes the possibility for the communication of capability, because it enables the learner to act immediately. Third, recognition of Scriptural authority frees Christian readers to begin the task immediately. For those who already have chosen faith rather than offense when confronted by the paradox, a clear recognition of Scriptural authority enables the reader quickly to proceed to the task of appropriation. This recognition of authority is a dominant theme in the discourse, “Hardship is the Way,” where Kierkegaard describes the “father or mother or […] nanny” who commands the child “with

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authority: ‘Now go to sleep at once,’ ” and immediately “the child goes to sleep” (UDVS, 293–​4) because the child has been freed to obey by the recognition of parental authority. Kierkegaard notes that “in the same way” the parents command the child, so “does the Bible, the word of God, command the elders,” and therefore “the authority of the Bible” is “emphasized […] not something someone has thought out but something commanded […] with authority” (KJN4,NB:134). For the adult, however, “The greatest difficulty seems to be just to get the task firmly set or actually to get set firmly on what the task is” (UDVS, 294). Recognition of transcendent authority enables freedom since, “Every person would in fact be infinitely strong if he did not need to use 2⁄3 of his energy in discovering his task […]. The dialectical aspect of the task is what is truly exhausting” (KJN4,NB:60).40 The process of understanding and choosing the appropriate task through human reflection is always filled with doubt, and demonstration will likely only lead to ambiguity. In this discourse, Kierkegaard envisions himself removing the obstacle of human reflection so that the clarity of the authoritative command may become evident. Fourth, recognition of authority frees Christian readers to obey for the right reason. For Kierkegaard, the religious person should obey God precisely because God is the authority, not because that individual has come to believe that a command is good or useful. Kierkegaard notes, “When duty, instead of being the imperative, is set aside as a problem, even if people did what duty commands, they would still not be doing their duty; duty is to be done because it ought to be done” (CD, 206). If a son were to obey his father “because he is a genius, or because his commands are always profound and brilliant” the son would “undermine […] the obedience” because “a command is simply indifferent to this qualification” (BA, 185). Furthermore, “To ask if a king is a genius, and in that case to be willing to obey him, is basically high treason, because the question contains a doubt about submission to authority” (BA, 182). Consequently, a pastor must remind his congregation “not [to] accept the words [of Scripture] because they are brilliant or profound or wondrously beautiful—​because this is blasphemy, this is wanting to criticize God” (BA, 185). Kierkegaard feels that in an age which emphasizes the autonomy of reason, “Doubt and disbelief, which make faith worthless, have, among other things, also made people ashamed of obeying, of submitting to authority” (BA, 184). The minister has the responsibility to reclaim “the dominance of authority, of the specifically paradoxical authority,” so that “all relations are 40 The word “dialectical” here refers to the process of coming to know and to practice what is good. It should be added that there is still a dialectical task (now that of appropriation) when the individual chooses faith rather than offense, since, as Climacus puts it, even “a revelation […] becomes dialectical when I am to appropriate it” (CUP1:35n).

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qualitatively changed” (BA, 185–​6). Kierkegaard, then, envisions himself enabling readers in Christendom to live in consistency with their claim that they believe God to be the authority. Remaining Tensions about Authority: Overall, then, the presentation of Scriptural authority is necessary to safeguard Christian concepts so that esthetic readers will be challenged to choose faith or offense and Christian readers will be made aware of their freedom to obey and enabled to obey for the right reason. The discussion of authority above is quite significant for understanding how Kierkegaard develops his later upbuilding arguments. Recognition of and response to transcendent authority is freedom, for Kierkegaard, and he seeks to provide this capacity for freedom to his readers. Yet this discussion of Scriptural authority reveals several tensions in Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture which, when identified, will enable us to understand better Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic. First, while Kierkegaard claims that in the Christian discourses “the argument is strictly based on the apostolic word,” while in the Upbuilding discourses the argument “operates with the assistance of thought” (KJN4,NB:135), it should be clear that Kierkegaard does not simply replace a philosophical argument with a Scriptural argument. We have seen that the theological presuppositions which attach to particular Scriptural texts in the Upbuilding discourses continue with that text’s use in the Christian discourses. Further, we have seen that Kierkegaard’s particular vision of authentic existence is the primary criterion of adequacy in Kierkegaard’s Scriptural interpretation. David Kelsey has argued that all theological uses of Scripture inevitably provide a range of arguments which include both Scripture itself and an appeal to some kind of ontology. Kelsey states bluntly that in practice “it is pointless to contrast ‘authorizing a theological proposal by appeal to scripture’ to ‘authorizing it by appeal to ontology (or to a phenomenology or to historical research),’ as though, if it were genuinely authorized in one way, it would not also be authorized in one of the other ways in the same argument.”41 Kierkegaard’s Christian discourses are no exception to Kelsey’s claim, and we might better say that Kierkegaard is attempting to read Scripture in his Christian discourses through the lens of a different perspective, an omvendt (reversed) perspective that cannot be intelligible to human experience without a stance of faith. The omvendt perspective is a classic case of “faith seeking understanding,” rather than experience leading one to Christian truth. As a result, Kierkegaard attempts to develop his upbuilding argument in the Christian discourses by beginning with a Christian concept that must be believed before it can be understood and

41 David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (London: S.C.M. Press, 1975), 135.

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appropriated. The Christian discourse then proceeds to explain the full dimensions of that Christian concept using fully “the assistance of thought.” Second, while a number of interpreters have described Kierkegaard’s understanding of Scriptural authority as “functionalist,” Kierkegaard would think that such a designation confuses cause with effect. David Kelsey explains a “functionalist” model of Scriptural authority by saying that Scriptural “texts are authoritative not in virtue of any inherent property they may have, such as being inerrant or inspired, but in virtue of the function they fill in the life of the Christian community.”42 Further, John Whittaker claims that for Kierkegaard, “God’s Word is identified by its function; that is, by the role that it plays in cutting through self-​ deceptions and revealing readers to themselves.”43 Yet for Kierkegaard, Scripture is not authoritative because of its capacity to change its readers within a community; rather, Scripture has capacity to change the reader because the reader believes it to have come from God. Kierkegaard would agree with the logic of the Protestant Reformation that “[i]‌t is logically impossible for the books in question both to be Word of God and to derive their authority from human decisions.”44 For Kierkegaard, a functionalist model would give Scripture authority based on a criterion of immanence (a decision of the Church). Kierkegaard’s consistent refusal to defend Scriptural authority based on a criterion of immanence (either a doctrine of inspiration or scientific “demonstration”) would mean that Kierkegaard would also refuse to base Scriptural authority on its supposed usefulness in a community, which Kierkegaard would likely view as just another criterion of immanence. Instead, Scripture’s capacity to challenge and change the reader is dependent upon the reader’s awareness that Scripture is given by God (i.e. as “apostolic speech”).45 42 Kelsey, 47. Tim Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, 75, applies this definition to Kierkegaard. 43 Whittaker, “Whence the Authority of God’s Word?,” 271. Whittaker (ibid) claims, “The advantage of thinking about God’s Word in this sense is that it moves us away from the misguided tendency to justify the authoritative claims of Christianity by grounding a text in an imagined history of its transmission from God to man, as if that were either meaningful or possible.” But this is precisely what Kierkegaard does with his emphasis on apostolic authority. 44 Francis Watson, “Hermeneutics and the Doctrine of Scripture: Why They Need Each Other,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 2 (2010), 132. Watson, ibid, explains, “If the Bible is not divine speech, then it may well derive its authority from the interpretative community that is its natural habitat. If it is divine speech, its authority must be inherent to it, for it participates in the self-​grounded divine authority.” 45 This would seem to press Kierkegaard toward the position of the Reformed Tradition, which attributes authority to the Holy Spirit. As the Westminster Confession of Faith notes, “[O]‌ur full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts” (see Cornelius Burges, ed., The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1:I.i, 1647, https://​www.ligon​ier.org/​ learn/​artic​les/​west​mins​ter-​con​fess​ion-​faith/​, accessed November 20, 2021.

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Third, while Kierkegaard does not view his creative use of Scripture as standing in tension with his notion of Scriptural authority, Kierkegaard’s account of Scripture as authoritative “apostolic speech” seems difficult to reconcile with Kierkegaard’s free use of such “apostolic speech” to create his own upbuilding point. The most popular way of resolving this tension has been to say that Kierkegaard is willing to alter authoritative Scriptural language or to overlook the constraints of the immediate context because Kierkegaard claims to write “without authority.” For example, IbenDamgaard suggests, “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.”46 Jolita Pons similarly claims that “dialogue could hardly take place if one side had authority and exercised it (this is particularly relevant for the biblical quotations, since they seem to suggest an inherent authority; the task then is to suspend the authority). For, although having an authority would not exclude the dialectical, it would dissolve the dialogical.”47 The implication of this perspective is that one speaking with authority could not use Scripture in the way that Kierkegaard does. While the approach of Damgaard and Pons may work as an explanation for the pseudonymous works (where most of their analysis is located), these claims provide a much too simple solution with regard to the Christian discourses. Kierkegaard is trying to develop a distinctly Christian communication, and it seems unlikely that he would he forbid ministers (who present Scriptural interpretation with authority) from utilizing the same interpretive techniques that he has employed (Kierkegaard’s journal entries often indicate that he wants ministers to follow his interpretive approach).48 Furthermore, Kierkegaard engages in the “rewriting of biblical narratives” even in the Communion discourses, which were constructed as sermons, and in which Kierkegaard indicates that he lacks authority only in ordination (see CD, 249).49 Finally, even if Kierkegaard did think that his lack of authority entitled 46 Damgaard, “Kierkegaard’s Rewriting of Biblical Narratives,” 225. 47 Pons, Stealing a Gift, 48. 48 Kierkegaard encourages ministers to follow him in eliminating discussions of doubt from sermons (which Kierkegaard himself eliminates in the Communion discourses) (KJN4,NB:120), in “tak[ing] hold of people from their vulnerable side” (KJN4,NB2:129), in placing emphasis on the “you shall” (KJN4,NB3:33), and in removing “anything aesthetic” from the sermon (KJN5,NB7:16). It seems more likely that Kierkegaard is presenting his own hermeneutical techniques as exemplary for Christian use, and therefore that the emphasis on imagination is something that occurs within the submission to authority. 49 See, for example, the retelling of Peter’s betrayal (CD 275–​81). Damgaard never defines precisely what counts as the “rewriting of biblical narratives,” so it is unclear what she would include in this

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him to use the text in ways that others could not, more needs to be said about his rationale in interpretation. Interpretation of authoritative texts, for those with or without authority, is about adequately representing the meaning of the authoritative text to which one appeals, and it will be necessary to explain how Kierkegaard understands a criterion of interpretive adequacy to apply to his work. Fourth, Kierkegaard emphasizes Scriptural authority as arising from its status as “apostolic speech,” yet this approach creates an inherent tension in the Christian discourses. It appears that Kierkegaard practically comes to hold two models of Scriptural language simultaneously, one that we have called the “metaphor” model (WL, 209), and the other the “apostolic speech” model (EUD, 98; CD, 221,292). Each of these models has a different function. Kierkegaard needs the “metaphor” model to (1) emphasize the multiplicity of Scriptural meaning and (2) to practice his hermeneutic of upbuilding, in which (as we saw in Chapter One), the immediate context is often only of secondary influence in determining the meaning of a text. Kierkegaard needs the “apostolic speech” model to (1) emphasize Scriptural authority (UDVS, 292), (2) consider Scripture as presenting claims of revelation (UDVS, 250), and (3) safeguard “Christian concepts” (BA, 111). It seems to be Kierkegaard’s interaction with Adler which forces Kierkegaard to see Scripture more through the model of apostolic speech, and this practically causes Kierkegaard to view Scripture as a message from God delivered through the apostles. Kierkegaard writes hypothetically, but with clear implications for Scripture, “If I imagined a letter from heaven, then it is not the content of the letter, no matter from whom it came, that is the main point. The main point is that it is a letter from heaven” (BA, 32). Kierkegaard continues to present this image of Scripture as a “letter from God” in 1851 when Kierkegaard speaks of Scripture as a “letter from the beloved” with God as author (FSE, 26). The “apostolic speech” model necessarily presses Kierkegaard toward a view of Scripture that comes very close to a dictation theory of inspiration, at least with regard to the New Testament texts.50 In 1849 Kierkegaard wrote that “a divine teaching come[s]‌ into the world […]. By God taking possession of a number of individual human beings, and, as it were, overpowering them to the degree that they then become willing […] to endure and suffer everything for this teaching” (KJN6,NB13:50). While the focus here is on the obedient response of the apostle to suffering, the category. For understanding the Communion discourses as sermons, see Niels JørgenCappelørn, ”Søren Kierkegaard at Friday Communion,” 276–​7. 50 As we saw in the introduction, Kierkegaard refuses to discuss inspiration, and therefore it remains unclear what view of inspiration Kierkegaard would hold (see CUP1:24–​25 and KJN7, NB16:78).

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apostle’s direct presentation of God’s message seems to be implied as well. The apostolic speech model, for Kierkegaard, places focus on the divine authority of the Scriptural texts, as it emphasizes God’s presentation of a revealed content which must be safeguarded. The implications of the “apostolic speech” model are, nonetheless, problematic for Kierkegaard’s overall use of Scripture. If it is Scripture’s status as apostolic speech which makes Scripture unique in its presentation of the truth, then Kierkegaard would seem obligated to explain a text to the fullest extent possible within its original context. Scriptural authority, on this account, is closely tied to a particular human author being commissioned to communicate paradoxical truth to a particular audience, and the interpreter seemingly must attend carefully to that whole message in its context before providing the upbuilding insight from the text. On the “apostolic speech” model, preserving the meaning of the original speech event seems to be a primary task for interpretation. In practice, Kierkegaard seems to view the locus of Scriptural authority not precisely in “apostolic speech” (i.e. as a message of the apostle understood within the context of the book as a whole) but in “Christian concepts” mediated through Scripture’s metaphorical (poetic) language. “Christian concepts” specify those realities “upon which the whole of Christianity depends” (BA, 239) and which must be learned as the fundamental grammar of Christianity. As “revealed” truth these Christian concepts are viewed by Kierkegaard to hold a relatively fixed and determinate, though paradoxical and infinite, meaning through which the rest of Scripture should be viewed. Christian concepts would seem to include not only distinctly Christian realities such as sin, forgiveness, the Incarnation and the Atonement, but also the “doctrinal principles” discussed in previous chapters which guide interpretation of specific texts. The “apostolic speech” model is used to emphasize the authority of Scripture in order to safeguard Christian concepts, yet Christian concepts are not precisely the content of “apostolic speech,” but are doctrinal reflections on Scripture which have been codified in tradition over time. Consequently, while stating the importance (authority) of “apostolic speech,” it seems that Kierkegaard is really emphasizing the authority of the Church in stabilizing through creeds, councils, and tradition the “Christian concepts” which now are the focus of Scriptural interpretation. Apostolic speech may provide the content for Christian concepts, but the Church has codified the form for Christian concepts. If Kierkegaard is to be consistent in this emphasis on Christian concepts mediated through Scripture’s metaphorical language, then he needs to focus more attention on the authority of the Church in developing, codifying, and safeguarding doctrinal concepts which have both shaped the writing of Scripture (the rule of faith) and which have been developed from Scripture by the Church. In the final

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chapter, we will offer some suggestions about how Kierkegaard’s insights might best be utilized in the project of theological interpretation of Scripture.

IV. Conclusions about the Relationship between Discourses This chapter has focused on the two most important changes in the use of Scripture between the Upbuilding discourses and the Christian discourses, the shift in Scriptural content and the shift in emphasis on Scriptural authority. With regard to Scriptural content, we suggested that the movement from Upbuilding to Christian discourses is a greater specification in the same process of upbuilding, even though the Upbuilding discourses provide an apparently non-​Christological reading of Scripture which changes to an overt focus on Christ as prototype in the Christian discourses and on Christ as mediator in the Communion discourses. We suggested further that continuity and difference can be accounted for by distinguishing Kierkegaard’s instructional and evangelistic aims. Whereas the instructional aim proceeds according to Kierkegaard’s principle “first the first, then the next” (KJN4,NB:160), leading readers through essential aspects of Christian faith, Kierkegaard’s evangelistic aim causes him to strip away overused Christian language in the Upbuilding discourses, then to focus on overt confrontation in the Christian discourses. The perspective here proposes that a fundamental continuity exists in the theological perspective of the discourses, yet understands each discourse set as a specific situational religious communication to particular groups of readers. In the conclusion, we will challenge the adequacy of the “theory of stages” (the popular view that the Upbuilding discourses deal with religiousness A while the Christian discourses deal with religiousness B) for reading the discourses, and we will develop a different model for reading which better accounts for Kierkegaard’s rhetorical emphases and use of Scripture. With regard to the presentation of Scriptural authority, we suggested that while Kierkegaard always presupposed the authority of Scripture throughout the Upbuilding discourses, Kierkegaard presents the authority of Scripture more overtly in the Christian discourses in order to (1) safeguard Christian concepts; (2) challenge esthetic readers with the choice between faith and offense; (3) make Christian readers aware of their freedom to begin the task immediately, and (4) enable Christian readers to obey God for the right reason. Yet the analysis of authority has also uncovered some tensions in Kierkegaard’s interpretive project, as Kierkegaard wants to use Scripture imaginatively as metaphorical language which

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will lead readers to upbuilding, yet Kierkegaard also wants to safeguard claims to revelation by understanding Scripture as “apostolic speech.” Understanding Scriptural language as apostolic speech safeguards Scriptural authority, yet it seems to require a deeper analysis of and adherence to the immediate context than Kierkegaard is willing to provide. Understanding Scriptural language as metaphor enables the free and imaginative use of Scripture characteristic of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical project, yet interpretive boundaries must be fixed through Christian concepts developed by the authority of the Church. We have suggested that Kierkegaard’s interpretive practice is centered more on the metaphor model to illumine Christian concepts, and that to be consistent in his approach, Kierkegaard must also grant to the Church much of the authority he gives to Scripture. In the conclusion, we will suggest that Kierkegaard’s instinct to hold imagination and authority in a creative tension while interpreting Scripture provides an important contribution to a theological interpretation of Scripture. We will seek to understand better the place and limits of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical task, and will provide some interpretive boundaries within which Kierkegaard’s “metaphor” model of Scripture can be fruitfully used for upbuilding.

CHAPTER FIVE

Conclusion

I. Achievements and Remaining Questions This book began with an analysis of Kierkegaard’s understanding of spiritual language, in order to describe the movement from “metaphorical” reading to “actual” reading which stands at the center of Kierkegaard’s Scriptural interpretation. Scriptural language, as inherently metaphorical, enables readers to envision who they are and who they might become through an existential awareness much like what Ricoeur calls second-​order reference. We suggested that Kierkegaard attempts to create Scriptural metaphor by “stir[ring] up the waters of [Scriptural] language” (CUP1:86) to enable this movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading. Furthermore, we suggested that Kierkegaard’s project can best be described as a spiritual interpretation of Scripture called tropology, as the reader moves from the meaning accessible to all individuals (the literal sense) to an interested reading committed to participation in Christ. After exploring this metaphoric movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, the second chapter illumined Kierkegaard’s actual practice of Scriptural use by providing a catalog of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions and techniques which sought to illumine patterns in Kierkegaard’s creative and varied interpretive approach. These assumptions and techniques revealed, in continuity with our insights above, that Kierkegaard demonstrates only a secondary concern for the

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immediate Scriptural context in his interpretation, and that Kierkegaard’s focus is not so much on determining what the text meant as on enabling readers to imagine and appropriate Scriptural truth for themselves by means of the text. These observations raised questions about how we might characterize Kierkegaard’s work as interpretation, and about what criterion of interpretive adequacy might be used to govern such interpretation. In the third chapter, we suggested that each of Kierkegaard’s sets of discourses are specific communicative attempts aimed at persuading particular readers to consider the Scriptural vision of human existence in relationship with God. Our exploration of the structure, content, and techniques of Scriptural use in the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and the five sets of Christian discourses revealed that there were significant shifts in Scriptural use not only between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses, but among the five sets of Christian discourses themselves, as the Christian discourses can be divided into sets of “challenge” discourses (challenging readers to live consistently with the Christian faith they claim to hold), and sets of “exploration” discourses (exploring Christian concepts from their omvendt perspective). This split in the Christian discourses, we suggested, shows that when composing these individual discourse sets, Kierkegaard had in mind an evangelistic aim (to lead the esthetic reader to a resolution about the God relationship) and an instructional aim (to lead the religious reader toward further depth in the God relationship). With regard to the evangelistic aim, we suggested that the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses could be described as an attempt to strip away easy Christian confessional language in order to challenge readers to focus on the practice of Christian faith. In the Christian discourses, where such stripping away of overt religious language was no longer possible, we suggested that Kierkegaard turned to challenging directly esthetic readers who believe they are Christians. Certain Christian discourses, then, focus on the exploration of paradoxical truth for religious readers, while others focus on the presentation of direct challenge to esthetic readers. These observations raised questions about the development in Kierkegaard’s own theory of religious communication, as he balances his presuppositions about Christian communication with the practical requirements of appealing to individuals for upbuilding. In the fourth chapter we undertook a more complete exploration of two significant differences in use of Scripture between the Upbuilding and Christian discourses: the shift in Scriptural content and the shift in Kierkegaard’s emphasis on Scriptural authority. With regard to Scriptural content, we suggested that the doctrinal principle texts provide evidence of a continuous theological perspective running through the discourses, and that Kierkegaard’s principle of maieutic procession (“First what comes first, and then wh[at] comes next” (KJN4,

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NB:160)) reveals a fairly stable progression from general religious experience (the Upbuilding discourses), to the requirement to follow Christ the prototype (the Christian discourses), to a deeper examination of Christ’s work as mediator (the Communion discourses). It was shown that the Upbuilding discourses provide a layer of understanding about upbuilding which remains indispensable for understanding the Christian arguments. With regard to Scriptural authority, we suggested that Kierkegaard presents the authority of Scripture more overtly in the Christian discourses in order to safeguard Christian concepts and thereby to free readers to (1) choose faith or offense, (2) recognize their freedom to begin the task immediately, and (3) obey God for the right reason. Kierkegaard’s emphasis on authority brings into clearer focus tensions in Kierkegaard’s interpretive project as it reveals Kierkegaard attempting to hold both an “apostolic speech” model of Scriptural language (to emphasize authority and safeguard Christian concepts), and a “metaphor” model of Scriptural language (to provide the shift from “ordinary” to “actual” reading and to promote a multiplicity of meaning). We suggested that in practice, what Kierkegaard sees as authoritative are the Christian concepts mediated through Scripture’s metaphorical language, and that this enables Kierkegaard to emphasize the authority of Scripture while freely rewriting and reinterpreting Scriptural language. Yet to be consistent in this hermeneutical approach, we suggested that Kierkegaard would need to grant authority to the Church for developing and safeguarding Christian concepts. These observations raised questions about the extent to which Kierkegaard does, in fact, grant authority to the Church in formulating boundaries around Scriptural interpretation. In this conclusion, we will seek to answer the questions that have emerged in the preceding chapters by stepping back from the details and discussing Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical project as a whole. We will pursue conclusions in two areas. First, we will make suggestions about how to read the discourses. We will show that the results of the present research challenge the “theory of stages” (a perspective which views the Upbuilding discourses as an instance of religiousness A and the Christian discourses as religiousness B), and will suggest instead that the discourse sets are best read as situational instances of religious communication. This means that because the various discourse sets are oriented toward particular groups of readers, we cannot expect continual development of content and argument throughout the discourses as a whole, but must determine from each set the specific focus of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding argument. Second, we will we will provide a possible way of resolving the tensions between Kierkegaard’s insistence on Scriptural authority and his very free interpretation of Scripture. Here we will seek to provide some boundaries around Kierkegaard’s Scriptural interpretation. If interpretation is not

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regulated by the immediate context, or by the historical-​critical method, then what provides the boundaries which would allow use of Scripture to be called interpretation? We will suggest that, as tropology, Kierkegaard’s interpretive boundaries are primarily theological and existential, rather than contextual, and that his project depends on the authority of the Church to define and safeguard Christian concepts so that Scriptural language may be used as metaphor to challenge readers. In this, we will see distinctives in Kierkegaard’s project that can provide insights for the theological interpretation of Scripture today.

II.  Reading the Discourses as Situational Religious Communication A. The Theory of Stages and Its Problems The most common way to read the discourses has been through the lens of the “theory of stages,” the view that Kierkegaard’s discourses lead readers in a progressive development of existence in stages from the esthetic through the ethical to religiousness A and finally to religiousness B. In this view, the Upbuilding discourses are often seen as presenting religiousness A (the religion of immanence), and the Christian and Communion discourses are seen as presenting religiousness B (Christianity, the religion of paradox). Basis for this view comes from Climacus’s claims in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Kierkegaard’s pseudonym) that the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses should be regarded as existing only in the realm of “immanence,” and that in those early discourses Kierkegaard was “seeing how far one can go, purely philosophically, in the upbuilding” (CUP1:256–​7). Climacus claims further, “The paradoxical expression of existence (that is, existing) as sin, the eternal truth as the paradox by having come into existence in time, in short, what is decisive for the Christian-​religious, is not found in the upbuilding discourses” (CUP1:271). Climacus also adds that these discourses have “incorporated an aesthetic element on a larger scale than is usual in the upbuilding address,” and that they intend to “posit a cleft in the listener […] leav[ing] him wanting something that he consequently must seek elsewhere” (CUP1:275,n.). Taken together, these statements seem to indicate that the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses were written primarily to esthetic readers and that they are intended to draw esthetic readers only as far as religiousness A, although Climacus does note that the final four discourses should be considered “humorous” and therefore stand at the boundary between general religiousness and Christianity (CUP1:270).

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The theory of stages has remained the dominant way of reading the discourses because the Postscript has been more influential than the discourses themselves. Beyond this, Climacus’s assessment is at least partially correct: the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses do not say a great deal overtly about “sin” or “the paradox […] having come into existence in time” (CUP1:271), and they do seek to “posit a cleft in the listener […] leav[ing] him wanting something that he consequently must seek elsewhere” (CUP1:275,n.). Nonetheless, given that a number of Christian discourses do not discuss these distinctly Christian realities either, there may be other reasons that Kierkegaard forces the reader to “seek elsewhere” than that he is addressing merely esthetic readers and is limiting his discussion to religiousness A. The theory of stages has been perhaps most centrally pursued by Gregor Malantschuk, whose work has been influential for a number of scholars. On Malantschuk’s account, the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses merely “prepare [esthetic readers] for the transition to the reality of the ethical […] and to an existential understanding of man as a spiritual being.”1 For Malantschuk, the discourses continue to show the progress of existence all the way to distinctively Christian existence, first developed in “The Gospel of Sufferings” (1847). From this point on, all discourses present a particularly “Christian” perspective. To deal with the fact that a number of later discourses do not appear to contain distinctively Christian terminology (such as the “Devotional Discourses” on the Lilies and the Birds from 1849, (WA, 1–​45)), Malantschuk employs his “law of repetition,” in which he suggests that Kierkegaard “modifies all the existential approaches on the basis of the new insight and experience which every new position during the progressing movement brings with it.”2 This means that even if later discourses lack distinctively Christian terminology, they must still be considered Christian because Kierkegaard is approaching them from a Christian perspective. Consequently, Malantschuk’s “law of repetition” would show that all discourses written after 1847 must be Christian discourses as they “imply the consciousness of the new immediacy which is expressed in the fourth part of Christian Discourses” (i.e. the Communion discourses).3

1 Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, 312. 2 Malantschuk, ibid, 309. 3 Malantschuk, ibid, 330. Malantschuk’s argument (ibid, 331) seems to be developed primarily from the observation that these three “devotional discourses” (WA, 1–​45) come directly after the Communion discourses, since Malantschuk notices, but has little explanation for why, in these late discourses, “Kierkegaard refrains from touching on […] ‘sorrow for sin,’ ” and why the content only extends to the command to “Cast all your cares upon God” (content that seems limited to religiousness A).

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The central problem for the theory of stages is that places a homogeneous interpretive grid on the discourses which cannot be maintained in light of evidence from the discourses themselves. In short, the theory of stages forces readers to find too little Christian content in many of the early discourses, and too much in many of the later discourses. Further, the theory of stages gives the impression that Kierkegaard is writing about how the same individual might approach upbuilding as he/​she progresses through various stages of development, while in practice, we have seen that Kierkegaard’s discourses are appeals to different kinds of readers who may exist in different stages of existential development, and therefore Kierkegaard formulates different kinds of challenges to appeal to these different kinds of readers. We have already seen the emergence of two different trajectories in the Christian discourses, those sets which explore paradoxical Christian claims to help committed Christians grow in upbuilding, and those which challenge esthetic, nominal Christians to become accountable to the truths they claim to believe. Readers who approach the discourses through the theory of stages struggle to account for these two different trajectories, as the theory of stages requires readers to view the Christian discourses as together addressing a level of existence higher than that of religiousness A, and as generally progressing in the development of Christian existence with each new set. David Gouwens, for example, suggests, “In its rhetorical and maieutic structure, Kierkegaard’s [book] Christian Discourses presents a careful dialectic in which the reader is ‘gently’ invited to make the movements of self-​reflection that will allow her or him to hear the force of the polemical attack, yet for the larger purposes of upbuilding and repentance.”4 Gouwens thus reads parts I–​IV of the book Christian Discourses as continual development of the dialectic, assuming that the reader of the whole work will be moved from “polemic” to “mildness” in cycles as the Christian discourses are read in a dialectical manner.5 Even more curious, Gouwens sees a “maieutic strategy” at work across the Christian Discourses which Kierkegaard calls the “stinger,” in which Kierkegaard claims to “maieutically […] proceed […]. First what comes first, and then wh[at] comes next,” by “always leaving in each work a goad [or, ‘stinger’] that constitutes the connection of that book to the next” (KJN4,NB:160). Remarkably, Gouwens seeks to show how the “stinger” of Part III, “Thoughts That Wound from Behind,” continues into the Communion discourses in Part IV, and he claims that this “stinger” can be seen in the fact that “the communion discourses function, in very Lutheran fashion, to combine awareness of one’s own sin with assurance of 4 David J. Gouwens, “Kierkegaard’s Christian Discourses,” 147. 5 See Gouwens, ibid, 151–​4 and 157–​62.

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God’s faithfulness.”6 In this way, Gouwens seeks to show a dialectical development throughout the sets of Christian discourses. Unfortunately, Gouwen’s theory takes little account of Kierkegaard’s own statements about his construction of the Christian discourses, and this leads to several problems. First, as Kierkegaard was decidedly unconvinced of the order of this book when he wrote the individual sets of discourses (only after submission did he reconcile himself to the inclusion of Part III), it is difficult to take the present order of the discourses as indicative of Kierkegaard’s intention when he wrote each set (see KJN4, NB4:77). Second, Kierkegaard wrote the Communion discourses of Part IV before he wrote the “Thoughts That Wound from Behind” of Part III, and therefore Kierkegaard could not have left a “stinger” in part III which would anticipate what he would develop in Part IV. Of course, there is evidence that Kierkegaard eventually reconciled himself to reading the Christian Discourses in a way much like Gouwens proposes, yet tracing the historical development of these sets of discourses will reveal a somewhat different way of reading each set.7 If we trace the timeline of Kierkegaard’s writing of the discourses, a somewhat different picture emerges.

B. Discourses as Situational Religious Communication The various sets of Christian discourses were produced as follows: “The Gospel of Sufferings”

“States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering”

published Mar. 13, 1847

begun Jun. 1847; completed Jan. 1848

“Discourses At the Communion on Fridays” begun Aug. 1847; completed Jan. 1848 “The Cares of the Pagans”

“Thoughts That Wound from Behind”

begun no later than Nov. 1847 begun end of 1847

6 Gouwens, ibid, 160. 7 To the extent that we accept the final form of the book as Kierkegaard’s intention, or perhaps the intention of “Governance [which] […] added what I needed” (KJN4, NB4:78), Gouwens’s reading remains quite useful. The point here, however, is that Kierkegaard could not have viewed his discourses in this way while he was writing them, and therefore Kierkegaard’s subsequent reading belongs to a later stage in the history of composition. As such, the earlier moment of authorship envisions two trajectories of discourses (instructional/​exploration and evangelistic/​ challenge) to two differently perceived audiences.

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Reading the discourses in the order of composition allows us better to see the discourses as an ongoing experiment in religious communication, in which new strategies are developed for concretely communicating religious truth (Christianity) to a specific audience (readers living in Christendom). All Kierkegaard’s discourses, on this account, are ongoing attempts to communicate to the “single individual” something that has been overlooked in Christianity in the present age. In fact, we might distinguish four phases in the development of Kierkegaard’s discourses, in which Kierkegaard himself signals a shift in focus on upbuilding (what we will call in each case a shift statement). Stage 1: General Upbuilding (1843–​ 1845): The evidence has shown that Kierkegaard practices a decidedly non-​Christological hermeneutic of Scripture in these early discourses, and that Kierkegaard appeals to the individual to recognize the reasonableness of the upbuilding argument based on experience. However, as these discourses represent Kierkegaard’s first attempt at religious communication, there is also little evidence to suggest that Kierkegaard was practicing a well-​developed strategy of presenting religiousness A. A number of scholars have already shown that Kierkegaard does not limit the content of his discussions in the Upbuilding discourses entirely to the realm of religiousness A.8 From another angle, we will add that these Upbuilding discourses show Kierkegaard intending to address both esthetic readers and committed religious readers, and therefore cannot be limited merely to esthetic readers (as would be the case in the theory of stages). First, Kierkegaard specifically claims that he is writing to at least three different kinds of readers in his discourses: (1) “cultured” individuals who have forgotten the need to be upbuilt as they have assimilated to secularity (EUD, 474); (2) “simple” individuals who lack the resources to think through deep theological issues (EUD, 471, 474); and (3) “wise” individuals who actively seek upbuilding and are skilled at making theological distinctions (EUD, 471). Second, Kierkegaard at times directly addresses in the same discourse readers in different stages of existence, readers who will appropriate the same upbuilding truth in different ways.9 Third, the readers addressed by Kierkegaard in the Upbuilding discourses are expected to 8 See Thomas C. Anderson, “Is the Religion of Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses Religiousness A?,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 74–​5; George Pattison, Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses, 31; and Sylvia Walsh, “Comparing Genres,” 75. 9 For example, Kierkegaard addresses religious readers who have already “grasped this blessedness,” and have been “reminded […] of what you possess,” as opposed to readers who have been “disturbed” (EUD, 100–​1); and religious readers who already “know what the discourse is about” because they are already striving toward authentic religious existence (EUD, 343), as opposed to esthetic readers who do not know what the discourse is about (EUD, 343–​4) because they never have had the experience of struggle with God (EUD, 336).

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associate upbuilding with their own Christian faith background.10 Together, these observations show the difficulty of reading the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses either as a “prepar[ation] for the transition to the […] ethical” (as Malantschuk), or as merely religiousness A (as Climacus). Certainly Kierkegaard focuses on general practices of religious faith, yet we have suggested that this is done to place the focus on the practice of faith rather than on an intellectual affirmation of the content of faith. Stage 2: Paradox and Authority as Essential to Christian Existence (1846–​1847): With the production of the Postscript, Kierkegaard signals dissatisfaction with his earlier general approach. Kierkegaard’s shift statement away from general upbuilding and toward Christian upbuilding is perhaps most clearly expressed through Climacus, who states that “what is decisive for the Christian-​religious is not found in the upbuilding discourses” (CUP1:271), and who assigns these discourses to the realm of “immanence” (CUP1:256–​57). While we have seen that Climacus’s statement does not completely hold, exaggeration will be typical of all these Kierkegaardian pronouncements about his shift of intention. Kierkegaard’s first Christian discourses focus on distinctly Christian terminology and on the “reversed” [omvendt] perspective needed to understand Christian realities. After “The Gospel of Sufferings” (1847), Kierkegaard appears to have written “States of Mind” with the intention of furthering “The Gospel of Sufferings.”11 In “States of Mind,” Kierkegaard fully develops what he comes to call the “inverted dialectic” [omvendt Dialektik] (KJN4, NB4:11). These discourses establish a particular trajectory of communication in which Kierkegaard explores paradoxical realities in the Christian faith. The “Discourses at the Communion on

10 From the very earliest discourses, readers are assumed to possess a great deal of Scriptural and theological literacy, and are expected to accept apostolic authority. Kierkegaard addresses no actual reader who is simply a committed adherent of religiousness A, and Kierkegaard addresses readers knowing that they will relate a general religious discussion to the specific content of Christianity at every step. For example, in the discourse, “Think About Your Creator,” Kierkegaard addresses readers who hold “a recollection of youth that preserves youth’s thought of the Creator” (EUD, 249) and urges them to return to their Creator. Readers are expected to relate this upbuilding message to their own Christian religious heritage. 11 When the series is first introduced in the journals (containing six of the seven discourses eventually published), it bore the title “The Gospel of Sufferings No. 2” and each discourse begins with “The joy in … ” (KJN4, NB2:72). Kierkegaard also deliberates about also calling the series “The Continuity of Some Joyous Thoughts” (KJN4, NB2:237) and suggests, “Perhaps instead” it should be called “Reassuring Thoughts” (KJN4, NB2:181). As a result, this set appears to have been conceived as a further exploration of “The Gospel of Sufferings.”

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Fridays” were the next set to be written,12 yet the original draft of these Communion discourses seems to indicate that Kierkegaard had considered publishing them as a small book separate from “States of Mind.”13 This seems to show that Kierkegaard originally viewed these Communion discourses as a separate development from his work in “The Gospel of Sufferings” and “States of Mind.” Nonetheless, this set of Communion discourses bears an affinity to the former two sets, insofar as all three sets are more focused on the exploration of theological truths for committed Christians than on the direct challenge to nominal Christians. Stage 3: Wounding from Behind (1847–​1848): Around this time Kierkegaard again shifts his rhetorical aims, turning his attention primarily to challenging nominal Christians in Christendom in “The Cares of the Pagans” and “Thoughts That Wound from Behind.” Shortly after the publication of the book Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard began to see the rhetoric of “Thoughts That Wound from Behind” as providing the central theme for his authorship, and writes the following characteristically exaggerated shift statement: “But as noted in my most recent discourses, my entire terrible authorship is [concentrated in] one grand thought, and it is: to wound from behind” (KJN4, NB4:66). Kierkegaard explains that his authorship is structured in this way because, “If one begins straightaway with Christianity, they say: there’s nothing here for us—​then they’re immediately on guard.” Kierkegaard adds that he “must begin with paganism,” because “those who proclaim Christianity, starting right off with orthodoxy, accomplish little and affect only a few” (KJN4, NB4:66). The insight is interesting in context: Kierkegaard has just sought, in three sets of discourses (“The Gospel of Sufferings,” “States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering,” and “Discourses for the Communion on Fridays”) to begin with the essentially Christian (indeed, to “proclaim Christianity, starting right off with orthodoxy”). Yet now Kierkegaard seems dissatisfied with that approach, and seeks to formulate a different strategy of religious communication (a strategy which he now claims that he “began with Either/​Or”) (KJN4, NB4:66). At this point in his authorship, Kierkegaard seems to see his primary audience as nominal Christians in the esthetic realm of existence who need to be challenged 12 The first reference to Part IV comes from Aug. 1847, noting the topic of the seventh discourse (KJN4, NB2:146), yet by this time Kierkegaard had already preached discourses 2 and 3 (on Jun. 18 and Aug. 27, 1847). 13 Steen Tullberg, “On the Genesis of Christian Discourses,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2007, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 8, notes that because Kierkegaard mentions the set of Communion discourses as a “book” (dedicated to Bishop Mynster), which is later “crossed out and replaced with the word ‘Part’ ” (see JP5, 6069), it seems likely that Kierkegaard had originally considered publishing the Communion discourses separately.

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“from behind.” Yet this audience appears to be quite different from the audience intended in the three previous sets of Christian discourses, in which Kierkegaard explored the paradoxical realities of Christian faith. Stage 4: A Varied Approach Focused on the Communion on Fridays (1849–​ 1851): Within the next two years, Kierkegaard again changed his mind, and began to back away from the rhetoric of the “attack from behind.” In May 1849 Kierkegaard claims, in what could be regarded as another shift statement, that his “authorship conceived as a whole […] points definitively to Discourses at Friday Communion” (KJN6, NB11:53).14 In this final period, we find Kierkegaard writing “Devotional discourses,” “Christian discourses,” “Communion discourses,” and even an “Upbuilding discourse,” while explicitly referring the reader back to the earliest Upbuilding discourses (WA, 3, 111, 147, 165).15 And after developing his set of three Communion discourses, Kierkegaard reaffirms that “the Communion on Fridays is once and for all designated as the point of the rest for my works” (KJN6, NB13:79).

C. Implications Throughout these phases of authorship, it appears that Kierkegaard’s goal is to develop forms of religious communication appropriate for challenging specific readers, and Kierkegaard’s hermeneutic of Scripture seems to have been in an ongoing state of development corresponding to this rhetorical task. Abandoning the theory of stages allows for more flexibility in reading the discourses, as it enables them to be read as both concrete communication to a specific audience, and as ongoing thought experiments about how to present religious truth. Recognition of the situational nature of the discourses shows that because Kierkegaard is seeking to communicate to readers in Christendom, ever-​changing strategies are developed to move this specific audience toward upbuilding. Understanding Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture in the discourses, then, depends upon specifying the purpose and audience for which the set of discourses is written. In the next section, we will suggest that Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic is best characterized as a form of theological and existential Christian reading called tropology, and we will provide possible regulative boundaries around his theological interpretation of Scripture. 14 At this point Kierkegaard had only published the seven Communion discourses found in Christian Discourses (although he had written the next three Communion discourses). 15 In Sept. 1849 he attributes the Anti-​Climacus writings, The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity, to “the year 1848” and claims they “would be much too strong if […] brought to bear on me personally” (KJN6, NB12:133).

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III. Kierkegaard as Tropologist: His Hermeneutic in the Present Age We began the book by suggesting that Kierkegaard works to create metaphor within the Scriptural language to enable readers to make a metaphoric transition from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, and we suggested further that this metaphoric transition is something like the transition from “literal” to “tropological” reading in Medieval Scriptural interpretation. In the early chapters, we raised important questions about the need for boundaries around Kierkegaard’s interpretation, lest his creative use of the text for upbuilding vacate a biblical text of meaning by allowing it to mean nearly anything. In successive chapters, we saw that Kierkegaard strengthens his emphasis on Scriptural authority, while still interpreting Scripture freely and creatively in order to enable readers to make this metaphoric transition. Kierkegaard wants his readers to attend to the Scriptural text with extreme care, yet his own exegesis often seems to disregard contextual constraints on meaning (determining what the text meant), while leading readers to existential engagement with the text (envisioning possibilities for their own existence). This tension between contextual constraints and existential engagement needs to be resolved, and the goal of this section is to articulate a criterion of interpretive adequacy which could account both for Kierkegaard’s insistence on the authority of Scripture and his actual interpretive practice. Overall, we will suggest that Kierkegaard’s free and imaginative interpretation finds its boundaries, on the one hand, by creedal Christian orthodoxy, and on the other hand, by an existential vision of the human being upbuilt before God. In the first section, we will argue that it is because Kierkegaard understands what he calls “Christian concepts” to hold a stable and determinate (although paradoxical) meaning, and because he is relatively unconcerned about providing further exegetical analysis of these concepts, Kierkegaard can utilize Scriptural language freely as metaphor to draw readers’ attention to these Christian concepts. The initial tension which appears when Kierkegaard’s emphasis on Scriptural authority is viewed alongside Kierkegaard’s free and imaginative interpretation of Scripture can be relieved by understanding Kierkegaard’s project as a spiritual interpretation of Scripture. Of course, this means that Kierkegaard is undertaking only one aspect of the necessary task of Scriptural interpretation, but precisely in this aspect of interpretation his contribution is useful. In the second section, we will show that Kierkegaard’s tropological reading is constrained and directed by his goal to connect “Christian concepts” to the “situation” of the individual reader, within his vision of the upbuilt life before God.

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Because Scripture provides “concerned truth,” Scripture is not complete until it is read “for me.” Within the framework of these “Christian concepts,” determination of interpretive boundaries must be primarily theological and, only secondarily textual, and adequacy of interpretation is governed by the effectiveness of the interpretation to lead the reader to make a resolution before God.

A. Resolving the Tensions in Authority: Metaphorical Reading in the Service of Christian Concepts A key point to be noted from the last chapter is that in his safeguarding of Christian concepts, Kierkegaard is acknowledging a logically-​prior “what” of Christianity that must be stable in meaning before it is appropriated. While Kierkegaard would say that the reader cannot understand or apprehend Scriptural truth until it becomes truth for that individual, there nonetheless must be a datum of Christianity which is able to be described in a relatively “objective” way, prior to its appropriation by the reader. This does not mean that Christian concepts are “objective truth”; rather, it means that the datum of revelation (i.e. the Christian concepts) can be articulated objectively (as a “what”), and must be safeguarded as the content of Christian faith before it can be appropriated by the individual (as a “how”).16 The recognition of this logically-​prior content of Christianity shows that it is a conceptually distinguishable theological activity to define and safeguard Christian concepts than it is to relate oneself to such truth, or to encourage others to relate themselves to such truth.17 This is why a biblical scholar or theologian might be quite skilled 16 Notice that Kierkegaard portrays his pseudonym Climacus (who is not a Christian) articulating Christian concepts, even if Climacus understands them in what Kierkegaard would call an “ordinary” and not “actual” way. Kierkegaard speaks of this “objective” truth in Christianity in a journal entry from 1849 in which he rhetorically asks, “So, is there to be nothing objective in Christianity?,” and answers that the “objective is what he says―he, the authoritative person [i.e. the apostle]” (KJN6, NB13:50; see also KJN8, NB22:23). 17 Establishing a clear distinction between Christian concepts and the appropriation of those concepts allows us to modify a recent claim by Lee C. Barrett, ed., Kierkegaard as Theologian (London and New York: Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2018), 18–​ 19, who suggests that Kierkegaard’s “authorship signals a revolution in the understanding of the nature of theology,” since “the traditional theological task of elucidating basic Christian convictions […] had to be done with the proper pathos inscribed into the writing itself.” Barrett (ibid, 19), goes on to claim that Kierkegaard believed that “the usual distinction between ‘systematic theology,’ ‘devotional writing,’ and ‘spiritual provocation’ was bogus,” because simply the logical development of theological claims (which would not “inscribe […] pathos” into the writing of theology) would be inappropriate for Kierkegaard. Barrett (ibid), is certainly correct that for Kierkegaard, “Christian convictions cannot be directly communicated in simple declarative sentences alone, and certainly not in a formal system of such propositions.” Yet it does not seem to follow that

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at articulating the “mere letter,” or what Kierkegaard calls the “ordinary” sense of Scripture, without having themselves made the metaphoric transition to “actual” reading by relating themselves to that truth. Christian concepts, likewise, can be articulated adequately without appropriation. Kierkegaard’s upbuilding project primarily engages the latter task, and therefore may be regarded as a second-​ order analysis which depends upon the logically prior theological formulations of Christian faith.18 This approach is limited, of course, as Kierkegaard does not regularly contribute to discussions about what a particular text may have meant in its original context, nor about the verification of a text’s ostensive reference.19 While biblical scholars cannot be satisfied with Kierkegaard’s conception of upbuilding as their criterion for determining textual meaning, theological interpretation of Scripture must engage these kinds of criteria of meaning. One of the distinctives of Kierkegaard’s interpretive approach is that Kierkegaard places a great emphasis on the authority of Scripture (especially in the Christian discourses), and yet interprets Scripture with remarkable freedom and creativity. The emphasis on authority seems, at first, to preclude the possibility a theologian who does not “inscribe pathos” into theological formulations has failed in his/​her task. The “eternal truth” inscribed in the Christian Creeds is still true, and may be very adequately stated (in Scripture and Christian creeds), even if it has not yet become truth for me. It would seem that Kierkegaard would affirm that “Christian concepts” must have (at least at one point) been stated directly in (to use Barrett’s phrase) “simple declarative sentences,” since declarative proclamation by the apostle is the only way in which such truths can be safeguarded so that they can become truth for me. 18 Kierkegaard makes this clear in a journal entry from 1850, where he claims that, “In general, the doctrine, as it is presented, is entirely sound. Thus I am not fighting against that. My contention is that something should follow from this” (KJN8, NB22:23). 19 See here Julia Watkin, “The Letter from the Lover: Kierkegaard on the Bible and Belief,” in For Self-​Examination and Judge for Yourself, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary, Vol. 21 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002), 305, who argues that to shift, as Kierkegaard does, the focus from historical questions about Christ to “imitation [of Christ] […] is to move from the question of exegesis to the question of the moral/​spiritual way of life by having already accepted the truth-​claim of the material in question.” Watkin (“The Letter From The Lover,” 298, n.16), worries that “to concentrate on the moral and spiritual element of scripture in the hope that personal growth in these areas will be enough to outweigh exegetical problems” will not ultimately work, since this strategy is dependent upon a prior decision about why just these texts (Scripture) must be read in just this way (for imitation). Watkin’s assessment of Kierkegaard’s approach is quite accurate, as Kierkegaard’s upbuilding project draws upon a solid core of Christian tradition (seemingly centered in the creeds and confessions), which Kierkegaard assumes to articulate adequately the truth of Christianity, without analysis, and moves immediately to the task of appropriation. Yet Watkin’s concern may be eased considerably by noticing the limited nature of Kierkegaard’s interpretation.

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of creative interpretation. Yet Kierkegaard decisively affirms both authority of text and creativity in interpretation, and he does so by (1) allowing the boundaries for authority to be the Church’s creedal tradition (hence allowing nearly any interpretation that falls within the bounds of that tradition), and (2) grounding his view of Scriptural interpretation in a theological anthropology of upbuilding. The point here is that if readers approach the text recognizing its Divine authority, they will approach the text with the presupposition that they are responsible to be upbuilt before God, and therefore they will creatively utilize the text for the purpose of upbuilding. For Kierkegaard, acceptance of the authority of the text is to imaginatively interpret it for me within the bounds of the Christian faith. This emphasis on the prior authority of Christian concepts places Kierkegaard quite close to the “cultural-​linguistic” approach of Postliberal theology.20 In his emphasis on the authority of “apostolic speech” and Christian concepts, Kierkegaard seems to be articulating something like George Lindbeck’s claim that the process of becoming a Christian is one of “becoming skilled in the language” or “symbol system” of Christianity.21 Quite significantly, Linkbeck notes that in his model, “doctrines” should be seen “integrally related to […] the sentiments or experiences” that arise from the religion.22 What Lindbeck means is that “religion and experience” are “not unilateral but dialectical,” so that, as Kierkegaard would likely say it, proper attitudes and affections are necessary for the development of Christian concepts, and the individual relates him/​herself to Christian concepts through the proper attitudes and affections.23 Consequently, the safeguarding of Christian concepts is necessary so that the proper affections may be developed in Christianity. Kierkegaard would say with Garrett Green that “[r]‌eligious language is […] speech arising out of commitment to specific religious paradigms” and that “[w]hat is given to the believer […] is not a foundational experience but a religious paradigm: a normative model of ‘what the world is like,’ embodied in a canon of scripture and expressed in the life of a religious community.”24 As a result, Kierkegaard would agree with Lindbeck that “instead of deriving external features of a religion 20 For a good presentation of Kierkegaard as a proto-​“cultural-​linguistic” theologian, see Steven Emmanuel, Kierkegaard and the Concept of Revelation, 95–​108. 21 Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 34. 22 Lindbeck, ibid, 19. 23 I am grateful to David Gouwens for pointing out to me the reciprocal relation between Christian concepts and experience of affections in both Lindbeck and Kierkegaard. For more on Kierkegaard’s emphasis on attending to Christian concepts with the proper “mood,” see CA, 14–​15. 24 Garrett Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), 133.

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from inner experience, it is the inner experiences which are viewed as derivative” from the language given in Christianity.25 Along these lines Tim Polk has argued that Kierkegaard “would regard the ‘classic’ construal as a category mistake analogous to his own age’s confusion of the concept ‘genius’ with that of ‘apostle.’ ”26 Kierkegaard would reject the model of Scripture as classic because, Polk argues, “For Kierkegaard, the Bible’s aesthetic quality and cultural impact are only relative goods (and potential distractions). What is decisive about it as scripture is that it is a unique occasion for contemporaneity with Christ […] a unique revelatory event […]. Through scripture one learns […] to speak, feel, think, see, and imagine Christianly.”27 Polk’s insight seems quite correct, and this project suggests that the reason Kierkegaard can work so creatively and imaginatively with Scriptural language and yet yield Scriptural interpretation that is traditionally Christian (within the bounds of the Christian Creeds) is that Kierkegaard keeps a fixed focus on the authority of Christian concepts. Kierkegaard, then, emphasizes the authority of “apostolic speech” and the givenness of Christian concepts precisely so that metaphorical language of Scripture will guide the imagination toward the particular vision of upbuilding grounded in traditional Christianity.28 Kierkegaard’s upbuilding hermeneutic, as a form of spiritual interpretation, is at once more limited and more expansive than the Postliberal project. Kierkegaard’s project is more limited because it stands as a necessary, though incomplete, part of Christian Scriptural interpretation. We have seen that Kierkegaard at times justifies a particular interpretation of Scripture by arguing that this is simply what “Christianity says,” and by appealing to a certain interpretation of Christian concepts which he does not feel the need to defend. Kierkegaard’s project is more expansive because it utilizes the language of Scripture freely at every turn in order to initiate a metaphoric activity in the reader that will lead the reader toward upbuilding. As Joel Rasmussen notes, Kierkegaard “enjoyed a poetic freedom with the biblical text not characteristic of post-​liberalism.”29 As has been seen, Kierkegaard 25 Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 34. 26 Polk, The Biblical Kierkegaard, 22. 27 Polk, ibid, 22. 28 Of course, even Christian concepts themselves are not static, but have a meaning potential that emerges in the process of appropriation. The precise understanding of Christian concepts is always being reassessed in the Christian tradition as readers find greater precision and depth in those concepts. in order to draw new insights from the infinite depth of those Christian concepts. Kierkegaard is assuming the truth-​value of these Christian concepts and then reinvestigating them for their meaning potential for present readers, and this reciprocally enables further dimensions of meaning to emerge. 29 Rasmussen, “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics,” 250.

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does not merely recover Scripture’s metaphorical language of second-​order reference, but works to create it, as he uses the Scriptural “language” or “symbol system” of Christianity quite flexibly to draw the reader’s imagination into the vision of upbuilding. It is Kierkegaard’s “metaphor” model of Scriptural interpretation, characterized by “poetic freedom” and grounded in authoritative Christian concepts, that gives Kierkegaard’s project its distinctiveness.

B. Kierkegaard as Tropologist: Articulating Criteria of Interpretive Adequacy for Regulating Interpretation The argument throughout this book has been that Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic, seen in the movement from “ordinary” to “actual” reading, is tropological reading. The word tropology, we recall, means a “turning,” the process of “conversion” or “transformation” of the individual through Scriptural reading, so that, as de Lubac puts it, “[I]‌n this Christian soul, it is each day, it is today, that the mystery, by being interiorized, is accomplished.”30 What tropology (in the Medieval hermeneutic) and Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic together pursue is a restoration of the individual into the image of God through the incorporation of the individual believer into the mystery of Christ. When de Lubac claims about tropology that “whatever page [of Scripture] I meditate upon, I find in it a means that God offers me, right now, to restore the divine image within me,” he echoes an interpretive aim nearly identical to the focus of Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic, in which each passage of Scripture is read “rightly” when it leads the reader to make a resolution toward upbuilding.31 What is striking about Kierkegaard’s project is that tropology is his primary (perhaps exclusive) interpretive aim. Kierkegaard would have likely agreed with Richard Bauckham’s claim that “Kierkegaard is not an exegete, at least in the modern sense. He makes his contribution at a stage of interpretation and appropriation of the biblical texts which lies beyond the historical exegesis practised by modern commentators.”32 Yet since “historical exegesis” (discernment of textual meaning in its original context) is commonly understood to be interpretation, we must articulate the theological and existential criteria of interpretation which guide Kierkegaard’s work, and show them to be valid criteria for interpretation.

30 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 138. 31 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 141. 32 Richard Bauckham, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage (London: Routledge, 1999), 161.

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First, for Kierkegaard’s tropological interpretation, a criterion of interpretive adequacy must be primarily theological and only secondarily textual. Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions, we have seen, must be governed primarily theologically (as does all spiritual interpretation) because they necessarily move beyond the discernment of what the text meant in its original context. David Kelsey has suggested that all theological interpretation of Scripture is subject to theological regulation by the Church in several ways. On the one hand, dialogue within the Church serves to re-​center interpretive projects, as “culturally conditioned limits” provide restraints on what “the theologians or his readers can find seriously imaginable,” and on the other hand, such dialogue prevents a theological proposal from becoming controlled entirely by the present “situation” (where it loses its Christian character) or by the claim to “revelation” (centering on “Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection”) (where it loses its relevance to contemporary society).33 Kelsey is arguing, therefore, that theological criteria always govern Christian interpretation, so that what is “seriously imaginable” is always negotiated and renegotiated between the community’s “situation” and the content of “revelation.” The usefulness of Kelsey’s controls in governing Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture can be seen by examining Kierkegaard’s use of the phrase “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). Kierkegaard applies the phrase to three different referents: (1) the requirement of love to hide the sins of others (EUD, 55–​68); (2) the need for love to cover one’s own sins in the day of judgment (EUD, 69–​78); and (3) love as Christ atoning for sin (WA, 181–​8). The exegete would, no doubt, contest the contextual adequacy of the last two referents, since the phrase “the end of all things is near” is not likely being used by the original author to show that all persons will die (EUD, 71), and since Christ’s atonement is seemingly not a topic at all in 1 Pet. 4 (WA, 182). Theologians, on the other hand, would recognize all three uses of the phrase as faithful expressions of the Christian faith, yet contemporary theologians would likely contest certain implications of the first discourse; namely, that it is desirable to be “constituted” in such a way that one hides a multitude of sins in another (EUD, 59), since this would seem to encourage an active ignorance toward evil. Theologically, the present “situation” imposes limits on what is “seriously imaginable” since desiring to become an individual who does not see the sins of another seems, in the present situation, to be an evasion of the responsibilities of justice. Ironically, then, the discourse which develops the phrase most closely in line with the textual parameters set by the immediate context is the one which brings about the greatest number of theological objections in the contemporary situation. Theologically, the debate here would be about what characterizes an authentically 33 Kelsey, Uses of Scripture, 170–​75.

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upbuilt life within the overall structure of the canonical witness and the present situation. Good tropological reading will be governed less by contextual constraints (what the text meant) than by theological constraints as its goal is to enable readers to envision their own upbuilding into the whole Christian theological vision. Second then, a criterion of interpretive adequacy for tropological interpretation must be related to the effectiveness of the interpretation in joining what Kierkegaard calls “Christian concepts” with the individual’s “situation.” It is important again to note that both the Medievals and Kierkegaard presuppose a definite “content” of Christian faith that establishes an identifiable “shape” of the Christian life (for Medievals, this content is established in the literal and allegorical senses; for Kierkegaard, this content is simply described as “Christianity” or “Christian concepts”), and because of this stable content, the “shape” of the Christian life can be found in any passage of Scripture and pursued in any “situation” of the reader. In his interpretation of Scripture, Kierkegaard takes as a given the Creedal framework of Christianity (the definite content of “Christian concepts”), and sets himself to the task of enabling the “single individual” to understand how to relate him/​ herself to this authoritative text, and thereby to make a metaphoric transition from “ordinary” to “actual” reading. Kierkegaard, we saw, was an inheritor of the Lutheran dialectical tradition of Law and Gospel, in which each Scriptural passage is seen as providing both Law (awareness of sin) and Gospel (the promise Christ has acted for me). Kierkegaard also utilizes this dialectical approach to Scripture, that so that just as in Lutheran dialectic, Kierkegaard finds it necessary for the interpreter to find something like Law (requirement) and Gospel (possibilities for the upbuilt life) in every Scriptural passage.34 Yet we might say that where Luther’s dialectic was primarily theological, Kierkegaard’s dialectic is primarily existential. Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic (as we noted in Chapter One), is focused on making the individual aware of a “qualitative contradiction between one’s present condition and one’s […] ethical-​religious telos,” and on enabling the individual to pursue that telos.35 34 Francis Watson, Text, Church and World. Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), 232, shows how Luther developed the Law/​Gospel distinction inherited from Paul so that, “What for Paul is an irreversible linear movement (the time of the law is superseded by the time of the gospel) has become for Luther a circular movement from law to gospel and (by implication) from gospel back to law.” In this dialectic, Luther had been able to attribute “Law” (in Christ’s demands) as well as “Gospel” (in Christ’s promises) to Christ. This new dialectic between Law and Gospel now forms the center of the Lutheran Scriptural hermeneutic, and it means that every passage of Scripture can (and must) be read in light of this dialectic. 35 Walsh, Living Christianly, 6–​7.

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In his reading of Scripture, this continually re-​negotiable structure of dialectic allows Kierkegaard to pursue the connection between “Christian concepts” and the individual’s “situation.” In this existential dialectic, Kierkegaard realizes that it is possible for a text which once provided a challenge (Law) to be ignored, thereby preventing the liberating message of existence (Gospel) from being heard. While Kierkegaard is willing to claim that “Lutheran doctrine is […] the truth” (FSE, 24), Kierkegaard is concerned that where “Luther wished to take “meritoriousness” away from works,” Kierkegaard sees that in his own day “the secular mentality […] took meritoriousness away altogether—​including the works” (FSE, 17). Kierkegaard thus suggests that Luther would say in nineteenth-​century Denmark, “The Apostle James must be drawn forward a little […] to cause the need for grace to be felt deeply in genuine humble inwardness and […] to prevent grace […] from being taken totally in vain” (FSE, 24). Consequently, Kierkegaard works persistently in his Scriptural interpretation to restructure the dialectical balance between Law and Gospel in ever more appropriate ways, in order to challenge readers who have become so familiar with Scriptural language that they often fail to see the requirements of such language for their own existence. Kierkegaard is quite clear about his desire to restructure the dialectic between Law and Gospel for his own readers when he claims, “It is entirely clear that it is Christ as the prototype which must now be stressed dialectically, for the very reason that the dialectical (Christ as gift), which Luther stressed, has been taken completely in vain, so that the ‘imitator’ in no way resembles the prototype but is absolutely undifferentiated, and then grace is merely slipped in” ( JP2, 1862). Here we see Kierkegaard retaining the essence of Luther’s Law/​Gospel dialectic, yet restructuring the dialectic for his present “situation” so that the dialectic proves effective for the upbuilding of individuals. Consequently, we might say that the shift from what Luther calls “spiritual reading” (i.e. reading in faith) to what Kierkegaard calls “actual reading” (i.e. reading to make a passionate resolution) is really what the Medievals would call a shift from “allegory” (reading the whole Scriptures in light of the Mystery of Christ) to “tropology” (reading to be transformed into the image of Christ). Luther’s Law/​Gospel dialectic is still visible; but Kierkegaard has shifted from an intellectual focus (recognizing one’s own sin and Christ’s gift) to an existential focus (experiencing one’s own inauthenticity and resolving to live authentically) because, in his “situation” of religious apathy, a focus on the “what” (content) of Christianity needed to be replaced (or at least balanced) by a focus on the “how” (resolution) of Christian existence. In this restructuring of the dialectic for tropology, the shape of the upbuilt life will be the primary criterion of interpretation, and it must be continually

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renegotiated between “Christian concepts” and the present “situation” of the reader. This means that for Kierkegaard, Scriptural interpretation and Christian communication can ultimately only be “situational,” in the sense that the dialectic will always need to be restructured for the individual’s specific situation. This is why we have seen different interpretive techniques being applied in different discourse sets, and why we have sought to identify the different kinds of individuals to whom Kierkegaard is writing. Kierkegaard did not have one “method” of interpretation, but continually reworked his own approach in his various discourse sets, seeking always to restructure the dialectic for his specific audience. Kierkegaard’s persistent address to the “single individual” indicates that Kierkegaard would almost certainly be willing to change his approach in order to communicate more effectively to readers in a different situation. With this insight in mind, we might ask about the extent to which Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions and techniques would be useful for our present situation. Where Luther wrote to an audience who struggled with the inadequacy of merit and the need to experience the grace promised in the Gospel, and where Kierkegaard wrote to an audience who struggled with the apathy of indifference and the need to embrace the requirements of the Gospel, exegetes today write to readers in a post-​Christian world who have increasingly lost awareness of the Christian creedal structuring of Scripture’s overall narrative. Biblical literacy has faded with the end of Christendom, and therefore most individuals to whom the Scriptural interpreter would write today would not be well enough immersed in the Scriptural language to be challenged by Kierkegaard’s creation of metaphor from Scriptural language. It may be true both in Kierkegaard’s day and in the present “age” that “there is a shortage of both […] being deeply moved and of education in [Christian] concepts” (BA, 115), yet Kierkegaard was at least able to assume a general theoretical agreement about Christian concepts, and therefore was able to move immediately to the task of encouraging individuals to be “deeply moved” toward the appropriation of such concepts. In the present situation, a prerequisite task of religious communication would seem to be that of enabling readers to learn the biblical storyline, within the framework of the Christian creeds, for the first time. As George Lindbeck puts it, only when readers become so immersed in the Scriptural world that it “supplies the interpretive framework within which believers seek to live their lives and understand reality,” can that “scriptural world […] absorb the universe.”36 If Kierkegaard were to pursue his goal of allowing “Holy Scripture” to “teach the believer everything from the beginning” (EUD,

36 Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 117.

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327) in the present age, he may need to shift his focus to the prerequisite task of developing biblical literacy. Nonetheless, Kierkegaard has shown that tropological reading holds a certain priority of place in Scriptural interpretation, since readers are drawn to Scripture precisely when they recognize its potential for upbuilding in their own existence. Agreeing with Gregory that “the mind understands God’s words more truly when it searches for itself within them,” we might say that the search for oneself is the beginning of Scriptural knowledge.37 If this is true, then all of Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions which we identified in Chapter Two remain valuable as tropological interpretation, provided that some prerequisite understanding of Scriptural language in its overall narrative shape has been (or is being) instilled in the reader. There is still value in emphasizing meaning at the level of the Scriptural phrase, since in any religion the phrase, story, or symbol often serves more effectively to articulate the lived expression of the spiritual reality than does a theological treatise on that spiritual reality. However, the Scriptural phrase will be effective toward upbuilding only to the extent that the reader is able to associate that Scriptural phrase with the overarching Scriptural narrative. Likewise, there is still value in universalizing the particular text, since this is really a practice of his later principle that the reader must always approach the text saying, “It is I to whom it is speaking” (FSE, 35). Yet the reader would need a relatively coherent understanding of the biblical storyline in order to recognize which texts could be universalized and which, on Kierkegaard’s account, should not be universalized (for example, Kierkegaard would insist that those predominantly Old Testament texts which emphasize earthly reward given by God to faithful persons could not be taken as promises for believers today). There remains value in utilizing the broader canonical context over the immediate context in order to create a conversation between Scriptural texts, as such dialogue forces the reader to rethink the meaning of a biblical text from a new Scriptural perspective. And it seems useful still to rewrite and reinterpret the Scriptural text in order to challenge readers to reconsider their own relationship to the text. Yet the ability to rethink the text will be greatest when that text has grown “old and familiar” to the reader. So long as Kierkegaard’s approach is recognized as a spiritual interpretation of Scripture which is judged theologically rather than textually, these hermeneutical assumptions continue to be fruitful in the present age to readers who are knowledgeable of the overarching narrative of Scripture. Yet to readers who do not have such a background, Kierkegaard’s hermeneutical assumptions (and many of the techniques which correspond to them) 37 De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, II, 134, citing Gregory I, Mor., Bk. XXVIII, c. viii, n. 19, Patrologiae Latina, ed. Jacques Paul Migne, 76, 459 C.

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will be of limited value. Just as the Medieval theologians emphasized the need for the student of theology to begin with the literal sense and then advance to the spiritual senses of Scripture, so Kierkegaard’s hermeneutic will be most effective for those readers who are developing an intellectual understanding of the “ordinary” sense of the Scriptural storyline, yet who need these words to be “taken over by the spirit” (WL, 209), and thereby move the reader to “actuality” in existence through appropriation. In this quest to bring the reader into the challenge and promise of Scripture, and thereby to reveal possibilities for existence, Kierkegaard’s religious communication shows that tropological reading continues to hold a certain logical priority in Christian Scriptural interpretation. Theologically, the Medievals were certainly correct in placing tropology after literal and allegorical reading, as one dimension of the spiritual sense.38 Existentially, however, Kierkegaard seems correct in placing primary emphasis on tropology, since Kierkegaard shows that the Bible is really only approached as Scripture when it is read for appropriation. In this emphasis, Kierkegaard still stands as a reliable guide. In the past century, a number of theologians (such as Kierkegaard’s heirs Barth and Bultmann) have devoted a great deal of attention to the recovery of a theological reading of Scripture, seeking to explain Scriptural reading as God’s present communication to the reader who approaches the text in faith. Yet fewer theologians have focused on connecting this theological reading to the requirements for existential appropriation that the Scriptural text may place upon the individual reader for upbuilding into the image of God. Kierkegaard’s focus on the Christian life as a process of becoming an individual before God through resolution enables him to transcend the modern tendency to emphasize cognitive knowledge over existential resolution. In Kierkegaard’s day, optimism for the historical critical method had given the literal sense to the historian, optimism for human reason had given the doctrinal sense (i.e. “allegory”) to the speculative theologian, and optimism for secular progress had reduced tropology to moralistic preaching. This division of the senses of Scripture, and the resulting tendency to undervalue tropology, continues to this day. Scholars in the field of Biblical studies still influenced primarily by historical critical methodologies (predominantly the writers of Biblical commentaries), are 38 Certainly the Christian faith is built on the literal sense (Scripture’s narrative rendering of God’s action in history), and certainly allegory (the doctrinal sense—​the unified meaning of the Bible in light of Christ) is necessary to hold the two Testaments of Scripture together as one unified story of God’s self-​revelation. It is in the literal and allegorical (doctrinal) reading, that the creedal Christianity emerges which will form normative boundaries around Christian faith. Tropology could only come after these senses as one aspect of the spiritual sense (see de Lubac Medieval Exegesis, I, 142–​3).

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often understood to be entrusted with the “literal” sense of Scripture. Confessional systematic theologians are then trusted to provide the “doctrinal” (or, for the Medievals, the “allegorical”) sense of Scripture. Tropology, especially in the academic setting, often remains disconnected (and therefore secondary) from both of these “primary” senses. The result is a theological impoverishment of tropology, as it becomes separated from the holistic theological vision of being incorporated into the Mystery of Christ, and tends toward mere moralistic exhortation. This division of interpretive specialty may be necessarily in modern academic theology, yet it has often led to an impoverishment of the Christian imagination toward upbuilding within the Church. Kierkegaard, by accepting that “Christianity” is a sufficiently stable reality in its historic creedal form, and viewing the Bible as the location where the individual is upbuilt before God, sees appropriation as the most urgent task of Scriptural interpretation and provides a useful guide in how to lead readers to resolution before God through the Scriptural texts. At least part of Kierkegaard’s ongoing significance as a biblical interpreter may be in providing a model for tropology in a post-​critical age of Scriptural interpretation.

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—​—​—​. “Kierkegaard’s Understanding of the Eucharist in Christian Discourses, Part Four.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 273–​98. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2007. —​ —​ —​ . “Resignation, Suffering, and Guilt in Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘philosophical Fragments’.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 12: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments’, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 263–​89. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1997. —​—​—​. “The Ultimatum of Kierkegaard’s Either/​Or, Part Two, and the Two Upbuilding Discourses of 16 May 1843.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 4: Either/​​ Or: Part II, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 259–​80. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1995. —​ —​ —​ . “Wrongness, Guilt, and Innocent Suffering in Kierkegaard’s Either/​​ or Part Two, and Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 15: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 315–​48. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. Lillegard, Norman. “Authority, Speech Acts, and Freedom.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 10: Without Authority, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 11–​ 42. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2006. Lindbeck, George. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984. Liu, Zizhen. “Immediacy/​​reflection.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome III: Envy to Incognito, edited by Steven M. Emmanuel and William McDonald, 215–​22. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. Lorentzen, Jamie. Kierkegaard’s Metaphors. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001. Malantschuk, Gregor. Kierkegaard’s Thought, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971. Martens, Paul. “Authority, Apostleship, and the Difference between Kierkegaard’s Old and New Testaments.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 24: The Book on Adler, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 121–​38. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008. —​—​—​. “Kierkegaard and the Bible.” In The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, edited by John Lippitt and George Pattison, 150–​65. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. —​ —​ —​ . “The Woman in Sin: Kierkegaard’s Late Female Prototype.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, edited by Lee Barrett and Jon Stewart, 123–​37. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. Maughan-​ Brown, Frances. “Metaphor.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome IV: Individual to Novel, edited by Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart, 143–​ 49. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.

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Miles, Thomas P. “To Be Joy Itself ’: Kierkegaard on Being Present to Oneself and Others in Faith.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2011, edited by Heiko Schultz, Jon Stewart, Karl Verstrynge, with Peter Šajda, 221–​38. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. Minear, Paul S., and Paul S. Morimoto. Kierkegaard and the Bible: An Index. Princeton: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1953. Mininger, J. D. “Allegory.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 15: Kierkegaard Concepts: Tome I: Absolute to Church, edited by Steven Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart, 31–​36. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2013. Müller, Mogens. “Kierkegaard and Eighteenth-​and Nineteenth-​ century Biblical Scholarship: A Case of Incongruity.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, edited by Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart, 285–​328. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. —​—​—​. “Søren Kierkegaard’s Historical Jesus as the Christ of Faith.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2014, edited by Heiko Schultz, Jon Stewart, Karl Verstrynge, with Peter Šajda, 135–​52. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014. Nelson, Christopher A. P. “Revelation and the Revealed: The Crux of the Ethical-​religious Stadium.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 24: The Book on Adler, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 67–​96. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008. —​—​—​. “The Joy of It.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 119–​41. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2007. Nicholson, Graeme. “The Intense Communication of Kierkegaard’s Discourses.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 15: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 349–​69. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. Oeming, Manfred. Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics: An Introduction, translated by Joachim Vette. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Olhausen, William P. “The Role of Hermeneutics and Philosophy in Theological Interpretation.” In A Manifesto for Theological Interpretation, edited by Craig G. Bartholomew and Heath A. Thomas. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016. Pattison, George. Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image. London: Macmillan Academic, 1992. —​ —​ —​ . “D.F. Strauss: Kierkegaard and Radical Demythologization.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 6: Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries: Tome II: Theology, edited by Jon Stewart, 233–​ 58. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2007. —​—​—​. Kierkegaard and the Theology of the Nineteenth Century: The Paradox and the ‘Point of Contact’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. —​—​—​. “Kierkegaard on the Lilies and the Birds: Matthew 6.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, edited by Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts, 529–​41. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

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—​—​—​. Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-​Century Crisis of Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. —​—​—​. Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Literature and Theology. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. —​—​—​. “New Year’s Day: A Comparative Study of the First of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2000, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser, 74–​99. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. —​—​—​. “The Art of Upbuilding.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 77–​89. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. Piety, M. G. “Good Faith.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 157–​80. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. Polk, Timothy Houston. The Biblical Kierkegaard: Reading by the Rule of Faith. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997. —​—​—​. “Kierkegaard’s Use of the New Testament: Intratextuality, Indirect Communication, and Appropriation.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, edited by Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart, 237–​48. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2010. Pons, Jolita. “Jesus’ Miracles: Kierkegaard on the Miracle of Faith.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible: Tome II: The New Testament, edited by Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart, 17–​32. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. —​—​—​. “On Imitating the Inimitable: Example, Comparison, and Prototype.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 15: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 173–​98. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. —​—​—​. Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible. New York: Fordham, 2004. Porter, Stanley E. and Jason C. Robinson. Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 2011. Possen, David D. “Faith’s Freedom from Care.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 15: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 153–​72. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. Pyper, Hugh. The Joy of Kierkegaard: Essays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014. Raener, Siegfried. “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther.” In Hebrew Bible/​Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Volume II, edited by Magne Sæbø, 363–​406. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003. Rasmussen, Joel D. S. “Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics: Imitation, Imaginative Freedom and Paradoxical Fixation.” In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Volume 1: Kierkegaard and the Bible, Tome II: The New Testament, edited by Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart, 249–​84. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

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—​—​—​. “The Pitiful Prototype: Concerning Kierkegaard’s Reflections on the Apostle Peter as a Model for Christian Witness.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2007, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist, 271–​92. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. Ricoeur, Paul. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-​Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, translated by Robert Czerny, with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello. S. J. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977. —​—​—​. “Preface To Bultmann.” In Ricoeur, Paul. Essays on Biblical Interpretation, edited by Lewis S. Mudge, 49–​72. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. —​—​—​. “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation.” The Harvard Theological Review 70 (1977): 1–​37. Rosas, L. Joseph. Scripture in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994. Samely, Alexander. Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. —​—​—​. Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Shakespeare, Steven. “A Word of Explanation: Transfiguring Language in Kierkegaard’s Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary Volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 91–​106. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. —​—​—​. Kierkegaard, Language, and the Reality of God. Burlington: Ashgate, 2001. —​—​—​. “Stirring the Waters of Language: Kierkegaard on the Dangers of Doing Theology.” Heythrop Journal 37, no. 4 (1996): 421–​36. Søltoft, Pia. “To Let Oneself be Upbuilt.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2000, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser, 19–​39. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000. Stewart, Jon. Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Strawser, Michael J. Both/​​ And: Reading Kierkegaard from Irony to Edification. New York: Fordham, 1997. —​—​—​. “Welcome to the Jungle: The Problem of Language in Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.” Topicos 3, no. 1 (1992): 97–​110. Tracy, David. The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism. New York: Crossroad, 1981. Tullberg, Steen. “On the Genesis of Christian Discourses.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2007, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist, 1–​21. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.

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Turnbull, Jamie. “Saving Kierkegaard’s Soul: From Philosophical Psychology to Golden Age Soteriology.” In Kierkegaard Yearbook Studies 2011, edited by Heiko Schultz, Jon Stewart, Karl Verstrynge, with Peter Šajda, 279–​302. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. Vinterberg,Hermann,and C.A.Bodelsen,eds.Dansk-​Engelsk Ordbog.Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1966. Walsh, Sylvia. “Comparing Genres: The Woman Who was a Sinner in Kierkegaard’s Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays and An Upbuilding Discourse.” In Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2010, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist, 71–​90. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. —​—​—​. “If the Lily Could Speak; On the Contentment and Glory of Being Human.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 15: Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 129–​52. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. —​—​—​. Living Christianly: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Watkin, Julia. “The Letter from the Lover: Kierkegaard on the Bible and Belief.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 21: For Self-​Examination and Judge for Yourself, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 287–​314. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Westphal, Merold. “Paganism in Christendom: On Kierkegaard’s Critique of Religion.” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 17: Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 13–​34. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2007. Whittaker, John H. “Kierkegaard on the Concept of Authority.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 46, no. 1 (1999): 83–​101. —​—​—​. “Whence the Authority of God’s Word?” In International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 21: For Self-​Examination and Judge for Yourself!, edited by Robert L. Perkins, 259–​ 86. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Wolf, Herbert C. Kierkegaard and Bultmann: The Quest for the Historical Jesus. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1965.

Index

A actual/​actuality,  12, 13, 22, 23, 39–​42, 44–​7, 49–​50, 52–​6, 67, 80, 83, 161, 163, 172, 174, 177, 179, 180, 183 metaphor,  30–​6 reading and scriptural language,  30–​6 in upbuilding,  33–​6 aesthetic production,  22 allegory/​allegorical,  42–​50, 52, 74, 75, 179, 180, 183, 184 criticism of,  47 interpretation,  48, 49, 52 allusion,  26 Anderson, Thomas,  140, 168 Andic, Martin,  42 Anti-​Climacus,  12 Apostle,  13, 35, 48, 49, 59, 61, 69–​70, 103, 129, 136, 144–​6, 149, 156–​7, 173, 174, 176, 180

speech model,  156, 157, 163 articulating criteria, of interpretive adequacy for regulating interpretation,  177–​84 authority  apostolic speech,  155 change in presentation,  143–​58 command,  152 corporal,  151 direct communication and,  149 functionalist,  147–​8, 154 inherent,  143 in upbuilding discourses,  144–​6 presented in christian discourses,  146–​58 of revelation,  136 scriptural,  25, 126 theological presuppositions,  153 transcendence,  148 awakened reading,  46 axiomatic wisdom statements,  132

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B Barnett, Christopher B.,  10 Barrett, Lee,  3, 19, 50, 173 Bauckham, Richard,  177 Bauer, Bruno,  5

C Cappelorn, Niels Jorgen,  7, 116 The Cares of the Pagans,  24, 76, 95, 101–​5, 136, 170 TheChanging Role of Matthew and John,  130–​3 Christian communication,  23, 81, 90, 123–​4 Christian concepts,  138, 157, 173–​7 Christian religiousness,  122 Climacus, Johannes,  4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 20, 32, 122, 123, 142, 152, 164, 165, 169, 173 communication,  23, 81, 123–​4 of capability,  150 direct,  149 Kierkegaard’s theory of,  123 lectures,”  147 situational religious,  122, 164–​71 constructive response to scriptural misuse,  2–​16 creeds,  21, 45, 56, 157, 172, 174, 175, 179, 181, 183, 184 criticism of inspiration,  9

D Damgaard, Iben,  19, 73, 155 Danish State Church,  7–​9 TheDecreasing Role of James and Paul,  128–​9 De Lubac, Henri,  23, 29, 41–​50, 53, 54, 177, 182 deeper sense/​profound sense (of Scripture),  68, 117–​19 dialectic,  50, 96, 115, 123, 127, 131, 150, 152, 155, 166, 169, 180, 181

between faith or offense,  8 existence,  13, 49, 50, 52, 177, 179, 180 of internal struggle and comfort  inverted,  98, 105–​9, 121 of inwardness,  13 Kierkegaard’s combination,  52, 179 Luther’s Law/​Gospel,  179, 180 omvendt (reversed),  109 Discourses at the Communion on Fridays,  120 doctrine,  7–​9, 44, 103, 110, 148, 174, 175, 180, 181 doctrinal principle texts,  86, 109, 110, 134–​ 41, 137

E Emmanuel, Steven M.,  32, 97, 148 Errant Affirmations,  21 eternal qualitative difference,  147–​8 existence/​existential,  2, 6, 11, 14, 16, 18, 21, 22, 30–​2, 36–​9, 44, 47, 48, 50, 56, 67, 98, 108, 123, 124, 131–​3, 140, 145, 153, 170, 180 development in,  13, 122, 164–​6 dialectic,  13, 49, 50, 52, 177, 179, 180 human,  21 paradoxical expression,  164 Scriptural vision,  81

F Ferreira, M. Jamie,  41 Fodor, James,  37 Francke, August Hermann,  50–​1 Frei, Hans,  18

G gift/​gift-​giving,  12, 21, 35–​6, 38, 39, 46, 58, 63, 69, 85, 87–​9, 106, 117, 122, 135–​8, 144, 145, 155, 180

index  | 197

The Gospel of Sufferings,  95–​101, 105 Gospel, John’s,  130 Gouwens, David J.,  166 Green, Joel B.,  45

H hermeneutical assumptions  canonical context of scripture,  56–​60 spiritualizing narrative detail,  74–​8 grammatical details,  64, 65 exaggeration,  61–​2 imagination,  61 level of phrase,  60 metaphoric activity,  70 mistranslation and incorrect citations,  71–​2 multiple referents,  66 scriptural image,  63–​4 spiritualizing narrative detail,  74–​8 technical phrases,  62–​3 universality of interpretation,  67–​70 upbuilding,  26, 67 hermeneutical techniques,  55–​81 of imaginative freedom,  20 of imitation,  20 Kierkegaard’s upbuilding scriptural,  29–​54 of paradoxical fixation,  20 upbuilding,  51–​2 historical critical method,  3–​7, 9–​10 Holmer, Paul L.,  3, 9

I imagination,  13, 48, 61, 155, 159, 176, 177, 184 involvement,  41 inverse/​inverted [omvendt],  12, 48, 84, 95–​7, 106, 107, 109, 115, 118, 119–​21, 140, 153, 162, 169

dialectic,  98, 105–​9, 121 inwardness,  7, 13, 123

K Kangas, David,  11, 21–​3 Kierkegaard, Søren  approach,  8 challenge discourses,  84 changing rhetorical strategies,  125 christological,  134 evangelistic aim,  121, 126, 142 “exploration” discourses,  84 fear and trembling,  136 historical narrative to spiritualized universal principle,  116 inadequacy of human language,  116 instructional aim,  121, 126 presumptuousness,  80 rhetorical argument,  79 Scriptural authority,  126 situational,  81 spiritualized universal principle,  116 theological vision of upbuilding,  124 theory of stages,  163 Kingo, Anders,  22, 23

L language difference,  118 Law, David R.,  122 “Lectures on Communication,”  147 Lindbeck, George,  18, 175, 176, 181 literal/​literalism,  7, 35, 37, 38, 42–​9, 51–​2, 64–​6, 104, 105, 161, 172, 179, 183–​4 sense,  44–​5 Liu, Zizhen,  32 Lorentzen, Jamie,  53 Lutheranism,  7

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M

P

Malantschuk, Gregor,  165 Maughan-​Brown, Frances,  46 Medieval,  42–​4, 46–​50, 53, 75, 179, 180, 183, 184 appropriation,  49 contemplation,  49 plain sense,  44 Scriptural interpretation,  172 secular sense,  44 theologians,  183 upbuilding project,  47 metaphor  model,  29–​54, 156 second-​order reference,  52 and surplus of meaning,  37–​41 Minear, Paul,  2 Morimoto, Paul,  2 Moses’s inward deliberation,  79 Muller, Mogens,  5

Pattison, George,  10, 20, 22, 23, 146, 149, 168 Paul (apostle),  69–​71, 73–​5, 78, 87, 89, 90, 100, 108, 113, 114, 129, 144 trial,  113 phrase,  10, 15, 24, 33–​5, 40, 44, 47, 58–​6, 71–​3, 80, 86, 90–​3, 103, 107, 111, 114, 116, 118, 120, 130, 145 doctrinal principle,  59 Polk, Timothy H.,  6 Pons, Jolita,  17, 64–​5, 70, 72, 73, 75, 155 Porter, Stanley E.,  40 Pyper, Hugh,  11, 17

N narrative  for contemporary audience, conflating or recreating,  73–​4 rewriting,  114, 155 reinterpreting detail,  75–​8 to spiritualized universal principle,  116 spiritualizing narrative detail,  74–​8 truth,  75–​8 Nelson, Christopher A. P.,  150, 154 non-​ostensive reference,  37

O Oeming, Manfred,  42 orthodoxy,  7–​16, 9–​10, 50

R Raener, Siegfried,  49 Rasmussen, Joel D. S.,  9, 20 religious communication,  122 Religious Discourses as the Medium of Upbuilding,  14–​15 remnants,  77, 78 rhetoric  argument,  79 in Christian discourses,  94–​119 in eighteen upbuilding discourses,  85–​94 emphasis,  120 omvendt (inverted) perspective,  12, 48, 84, 95–​7, 106, 107, 109, 115, 118, 119–​21, 140, 153, 162, 169 Ricoeur, Paul,  23, 29, 37–​41, 43, 52, 53, 161 Robinson, Jason C.,  40 Rosas, L. Joseph,  17, 106 royal law,  89 Rule of Faith,  45

index  | 199

S Samely, Alexander,  56, 61 Schaller, Julius,  6 Scripture/​scriptural,  10, 15, 36, 40–​ 1, 126–​58 apostolic speech,  155 arguments,  79, 142 in Christian discourses,  94–​119 in eighteen upbuilding discourses,  85–​94 emphasis,  120 functionalist/​functionalism,  154 inherent authority,  143 in upbuilding discourses,  144–​6 presented in christian discourses,  146–​58 omvendt (inverted) perspective,  12, 48, 84, 95–​7, 106, 107, 109, 115, 118, 119–​21, 140, 153, 162, 169 sensate-​psychical,  30 senses of Scripture,  41–​2, 49, 52, 183 Shakespeare, Steven,  12 shared texts,  126 Sharpened Pathos,  123 speculative,  5, 11, 44, 46–​8, 52, 103, 148, 183 spiritual  “actuality”,  31 language,  23 reading,  33, 41–​53, 117 sense,  45 States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering,  120, 136 Stewart, Jon,  3, 5, 6, 19, 46, 50, 103 Strauss, David,  5

T theological presuppositions,  89, 153 theological principle,  35 theory of stages,  25, 164–​7

The Thorn in the Flesh,  61, 63, 69, 70, 86, 90, 108, 129 transparency,  12 tropology,  23–​5, 29–​54, 81, 161, 171, 177, 179, 182, 183 modern tropologist,  44–​53 reading,  172 as tropologist,  172–​84 Tullberg, Steen,  170 Turnbull, Jamie,  5 Turner, Max,  45

U unified genre of discourses,  95 universal,  6, 11, 14, 24, 57, 59, 67–​70, 80, 85, 116, 117, 119, 120, 145, 182 spiritualized principle,  116 teaching,  99, 108 upbuilding,  64–​74, 76–​81, 86, 90–​4, 124, 175–​7, 179, 182–​4 upbuilding,  64–​74, 76–​81, 86, 90–​4, 124, 175–​7, 179, 182–​4 and Christian Discourses,  20–​6, 125–​ 159, 162–​6, 168–​9, 171 Kierkegaard’s constructive response,  9–​ 16, 55–​9, 174 rhetoric and scripture,  83–​124 Scriptural Hermeneutic,  29–​54

W Wall, Robert W.,  45 Walsh, Sylvia,  67, 97, 115, 143 Watkin, Julia,  174 Watson, Francis,  154, 179 Westphal, Merold,  101 Whittaker, John H.,  149 Works of Love,  18 Worship,  12