Kierkegaard

[dms1972]

What do you think of Kierkegaard? I am trying to figure out if he was a christian and if I should read him (I have read a little and that has had some influence on me already I suspect).

However I am coming across conflicting assessments, some fairly negative such as those of Francis Schaeffer (though he did say some Kierkegarrd's devotional writings can be helpful), and Hal Lindsey. Lindsey included Kierregarrd in chapter called 'Thought Bombs' in his book Satan is alive and well on Planet Earth, the other 'thought bombs' were Kant, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Freud - a pretty negative assessment and probably enough to discourage a good few of Lindsey's readers off looking into Kierkegaard. I am not saying there are no problems with Kierregaard, there does seem to be a strong thread of irrationalism and individualism in his thought.

A problem of course in reading him is am I understanding him? Even the first few paragraphs of Sickness unto Death are pretty difficult reading to grasp.

Frank Lake has written this about him : "Soren Kierkegaard, who died in 1855 at the age of 42, remains incompariably the most perceptive diagnostician of the tortorous paradoxes of the schizoid person. He needed to go no farther than himself to uncover his source material. Novel-like aesthetic works were written at the same time as devotional discourses and ontological studies. Yet S.K. was more than an author with a prodigious output. He was a 'sign'. because his authorship and his life together were expressions of God's personal education of him in Christianity. That he fell short at the growing edge of his personality in committment to other christians is of less significance than that he explored depths never before written about. It would not have been possible for to write with such insight into the schizoid position as he does in Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Dread, and The Sickness unto Death, unless, at the same time, he had been sustained by a life of entire devotion to God and fellowship with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit."

Any way I just wanted to ask and see what people think of him.

 

[Tree of Life]

Hal Lindsey certainly never read Kierkegaard or half the other people on that list.

 

[TuxAme]

I'm not terribly informed about his philosophy (I'm more interested in what the Classics had to say), but you can learn from anyone. They may have some insights that can prove incredibly fruitful.

 

[Penpoint5309]

He's known as the Father of Existentialism. I believe he is one of the first to discuss the concept of the "leap of faith" as a necessary step to overcome the limitations of reason. I'm extremely rusty on his ideas, but I think he's definitely worth reading.

 

[Halbhh]

Doesn't he say something like much or most theology is an attempt to push away or negate the challenging words of Christ? To avoid Christ's commands? I haven't read him, so that is someone else's view I'm recalling.

 

[Halbhh]

Here is one viewpoint:

1. In his later writings—Works of Love (1847), Christian Discourses (1848), and Training in Christianity (1850)—he tried to clarify the true nature of Christianity.
2. The greatest enemy of Christianity, he argued, was "Christendom"—the cultured and respectable Christianity of his day. The tragedy of easy Christianity is that existence has ceased to be an adventure and a constant risk in the presence of God but has become a form of morality and a doctrinal system. Its purpose is to simplify the matter of becoming a Christian. This is just paganism, "cheap" Christianity, with neither cost nor pain, Kierkegaard argued. It is like war games, in which armies move and there is a great deal of noise, but there is no real risk or pain—and no real victory. Kierkegaard believed the church of his day was merely "playing at Christianity."
3. 
4. Kierkegaard became increasingly convinced that his calling was in "making Christianity difficult." He was to remind people of his day that to be truly Christian, one must become aware of the cost of faith and pay the price.
5. So he chastised: "We are what is called a 'Christian' nation—but in such a sense that not a single one of us is in the character of the Christianity of the New Testament."
6. And he mocked: "Most people believe that the Christian commandments (e.g., to love one's neighbor as oneself) are intentionally a little too severe, like putting the clock half an hour ahead to make sure of not being late in the morning."

Søren Kierkegaard

 

[Halbhh]

Another interesting piece from a summary from another view:

Crucial to the miracle of Christian faith is the realization that over against God we are always in the wrong. That is, we must realize that we are always in sin. This is the condition for faith, and must be given by God. The idea of sin cannot evolve from purely human origins. Rather, it must have been introduced into the world from a transcendent source. Once we understand that we are in sin, we can understand that there is some being over against which we are always in the wrong. On this basis we can have faith that, by virtue of the absurd, we can ultimately be atoned with this being. The absurdity of atonement requires faith that we believe that for God even the impossible is possible, including the forgiveness of the unforgivable. If we can accept God’s forgiveness, sincerely, inwardly, contritely, with gratitude and hope, then we open ourselves to the joyous prospect of beginning anew. The only obstacle to this joy is our refusal or resistance to accepting God’s forgiveness properly. Although God can forgive the unforgivable, He cannot force anyone to accept it. Therefore, for Kierkegaard, “there is only one guilt that God cannot forgive, that of not willing to believe in his greatness!”.
Søren Kierkegaard (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Halbhh]

This is dense but gets very interesting in the 2nd half I thought-- quite of K from the wiki on his theology:

"...The object of faith is not a doctrine, for then the relation is intellectual, and the point is not to bungle it but to reach the maximum of the intellectual relation. The object of faith is not a teacher who has a doctrine, for when the teacher has a doctrine, then the doctrine is eo ipso more important than the teacher, and the relation is intellectual, in which the point is not to bungle it but to reach the maximum of the intellectual relation. But the object of faith is the actuality of the teacher, that the teacher actually exists. Therefore faith’s answer is absolutely either yes or no. Faith’s answer is not in relation to a doctrine, whether it is true or not, not in relation to a teacher, whether his doctrine is true or not, but is the answer to the question about a fact: Do you accept as fact that he actually existed? Please note that the answer is with infinite passion. In other words, in connection with a human being it is thoughtless to lay so infinitely much weight upon whether he has existed or not. Therefore, if the object of faith is a human being, the whole thing is a prank by a foolish person who has not even grasped the esthetic and the intellectual. The object of faith is therefore the god’s actuality in the sense of existence. But to exist signifies first and foremost to be a particular individual, and this is why thinking must disregard existence, because the particular cannot be thought, but only the universal. The object of faith, then, is the actuality of the god in existence, that is, as a particular individual, that is that the god has existed as an individual human being. Christianity is not a doctrine about the unity of the divine and the human, about subject-object, not to mention the rest of the logical paraphrases of Christianity. In other words, if Christianity were a doctrine, then the relation to it would not be one of faith, since there is only an intellectual relation to a doctrine. Christianity, therefore, is not a doctrine but the fact that the god has existed. Faith, then, is not a lesson for slow learners in the sphere of intellectuality, an asylum for dullards. But faith is a sphere of its own, and the immediate identifying mark of every misunderstanding of Christianity is that it changes it into a doctrine and draws it into the range of intellectuality. What holds as the maximum in the sphere of intellectuality, to remain completely indifferent to the actuality of the teacher, holds in just the opposite way in the sphere of faith-its maximum is the quam maxime [in the greatest degree possible] infinite interestedness of the actuality of the teacher. The individual’s own ethical actuality is the only actuality. That this seems strange to many does not surprise me. To me it seems odd that one has finished with the system and systems without asking about the ethical.
-- Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Vol 1, p. 326-327 Hong
Via Theology of Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia

 

[The-Doctor]

Didn't he say something about if we lived backwards we would know more but we are forced to live forwards?

 

[dms1972]

Didn't he say something about if we lived backwards we would know more but we are forced to live forwards?

Almost

"Life is understood backwards; but lived forwards.. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

 

[dms1972]

Hal Lindsey certainly never read Kierkegaard or half the other people on that list.

For myself I cannot say anything with such certainty about Hal Lindsey's reading habits. Did you happen to know him personally?

 

[FireDragon76]

His view of the human condition is more interesting than its solution, which is evangelical pietism.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Tried reading him a few times but his style seems way to eccentric for my tastes. Maybe he reads better in his native Danish.

 

[FireDragon76]

Almost

"Life is understood backwards; but lived forwards.. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

Of course, being open to the future is more healthy that dwelling in the past. And of course dwelling only upon a cognitive approach to life and ethics is really just sleepwalking through life.

 

[dms1972]

This is dense but gets very interesting in the 2nd half I thought-- quite of K from the wiki on his theology:

"...The object of faith is not a doctrine, for then the relation is intellectual, and the point is not to bungle it but to reach the maximum of the intellectual relation. The object of faith is not a teacher who has a doctrine, for when the teacher has a doctrine, then the doctrine is eo ipso more important than the teacher, and the relation is intellectual, in which the point is not to bungle it but to reach the maximum of the intellectual relation. But the object of faith is the actuality of the teacher, that the teacher actually exists. Therefore faith’s answer is absolutely either yes or no. Faith’s answer is not in relation to a doctrine, whether it is true or not, not in relation to a teacher, whether his doctrine is true or not, but is the answer to the question about a fact: Do you accept as fact that he actually existed? Please note that the answer is with infinite passion. In other words, in connection with a human being it is thoughtless to lay so infinitely much weight upon whether he has existed or not. Therefore, if the object of faith is a human being, the whole thing is a prank by a foolish person who has not even grasped the esthetic and the intellectual. The object of faith is therefore the god’s actuality in the sense of existence. But to exist signifies first and foremost to be a particular individual, and this is why thinking must disregard existence, because the particular cannot be thought, but only the universal. The object of faith, then, is the actuality of the god in existence, that is, as a particular individual, that is that the god has existed as an individual human being. Christianity is not a doctrine about the unity of the divine and the human, about subject-object, not to mention the rest of the logical paraphrases of Christianity. In other words, if Christianity were a doctrine, then the relation to it would not be one of faith, since there is only an intellectual relation to a doctrine. Christianity, therefore, is not a doctrine but the fact that the god has existed. Faith, then, is not a lesson for slow learners in the sphere of intellectuality, an asylum for dullards. But faith is a sphere of its own, and the immediate identifying mark of every misunderstanding of Christianity is that it changes it into a doctrine and draws it into the range of intellectuality. What holds as the maximum in the sphere of intellectuality, to remain completely indifferent to the actuality of the teacher, holds in just the opposite way in the sphere of faith-its maximum is the quam maxime [in the greatest degree possible] infinite interestedness of the actuality of the teacher. The individual’s own ethical actuality is the only actuality. That this seems strange to many does not surprise me. To me it seems odd that one has finished with the system and systems without asking about the ethical.
-- Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Vol 1, p. 326-327 Hong
Via Theology of Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia

I apologise for not replying to this thread again sooner. Thanks for that quote from SK. I cannot say I grasp everything he is saying here, and reading some parts of SK can be a little tortorous for me. But nowhere near as tortorous as I found reading Sartre, or Neitzsche. Sartre left me with an awful sense of something like alienation. Some people read philosophy and they can remain at a distance, either they have a firm philosophy of life of their own, or they simply have learnt to evaluate other people's ideas without embracing those ideas - that not always easy though in reading the existentialists.

I think Kierkegaard re-discovered a neglected aspect of Christianity, the need to walk with Christ moment by moment. Francis Schaeffer agreed that in this respect at least Kierkegaard was correct, but SK also recognised the need for decisive conversion. What I understand is he was deeply critical of the Church in Denmark of his day and the way in which many people considered themselves christian merely from having undergone the rite of baptism. His other bete noire was the Danish Press of his day.

Its been noted, SK had a religious personality, somewhat like the Apostle Paul - "This one thing I do...." As a Lutheran he wished to be a family man, but he seemed find it impossible when it came to the point to go through with marrying Regine Olson, to whom he had been engaged. William Barratt, who wrote one of the best introductions to Existentialism, said this inability to commit to marriage, was due to this religious single-mindedness - SK had sought for something to devote himself to that would give meaning to life.

In regard to his philosophy it may be that he has been misunderstood in some respects - particularly his view of Truth, what truth is. Perhaps this is because people don't actually read Kierkegaard, they just become familiar with a quote or two and never realise they don't actually know what Kierkegaard was meaning. That said from what I have read of him his manner of writing is a little to blame at times also. SK believed we need God as our Teacher to come to know the truth. In this respect he differed a good deal from Plato, who as far as I can understand him thought the truth within us could be drawn out by careful questions.

What SK says in the above paragraph, I think Francis Schaeffer would ask in the following form:

"Do you believe that God exists and that he is a personal God, and that Jesus Christ is God, and that we are not merely talking about the word God, or the idea God, but the Personal-Infinite God Who is there?"

I find it a bit hard to shift gears from reading SK to reading Francis Schaeffer's books, and feel hit with a lot of dissonnance sometimes. I think that the latter did a very good job at articulating Historic Christianity and True Spirituality for modern people all the same.

 

[Halbhh]

I apologise for not replying to this thread again sooner. Thanks for that quote from SK. I cannot say I grasp everything he is saying here, and reading some parts of SK can be a little tortorous for me. But nowhere near as tortorous as I found reading Sartre, or Neitzsche. Sartre left me with an awful sense of something like alienation. Some people read philosophy and they can remain at a distance, either they have a firm philosophy of life of their own, or they simply have learnt to evaluate other people's ideas without embracing those ideas - that not always easy though in reading the existentialists.

I think Kierkegaard re-discovered a neglected aspect of Christianity, the need to walk with Christ moment by moment. Francis Schaeffer agreed that in this respect at least Kierkegaard was correct, but SK also recognised the need for decisive conversion. What I understand is he was deeply critical of the Church in Denmark of his day and the way in which many people considered themselves christian merely from having undergone the rite of baptism. His other bete noire was the Danish Press of his day.

Its been noted, SK had a religious personality, somewhat like the Apostle Paul - "This one thing I do...." As a Lutheran he wished to be a family man, but he seemed find it impossible when it came to the point to go through with marrying Regine Olson, to whom he had been engaged. William Barratt, who wrote one of the best introductions to Existentialism, said this inability to commit to marriage, was due to this religious single-mindedness - SK had sought for something to devote himself to that would give meaning to life.

In regard to his philosophy it may be that he has been misunderstood in some respects - particularly his view of Truth, what truth is. Perhaps this is because people don't actually read Kierkegaard, they just become familiar with a quote or two and never realise they don't actually know what Kierkegaard was meaning. That said from what I have read of him his manner of writing is a little to blame at times also. SK believed we need God as our Teacher to come to know the truth. In this respect he differed a good deal from Plato, who as far as I can understand him thought the truth within us could be drawn out by careful questions.

What SK says in the above paragraph, I think Francis Schaeffer would ask in the following form:

"Do you believe that God exists and that he is a personal God, and that Jesus Christ is God, and that we are not merely talking about the word God, or the idea God, but the Personal-Infinite God Who is there?"

I find it a bit hard to shift gears from reading SK to reading Francis Schaeffer's books, and feel hit with a lot of dissonnance sometimes. I think that the latter did a very good job at articulating Historic Christianity and True Spirituality for modern people all the same.

It would be interesting to try to paraphrase the main thing SK is saying in that quote.

I'd try like this: to be "Christian" by intellectual activity/doctrines, is to profoundly miss out on being Christian.

Instead, the real thing is the overwhelming experience or reality of faith being the total joy or overwhelm of knowing God, not intellectually by abstraction, nor doctrine, but the vastly better: actually that He is!

 

[FireDragon76]

I apologise for not replying to this thread again sooner. Thanks for that quote from SK. I cannot say I grasp everything he is saying here, and reading some parts of SK can be a little tortorous for me. But nowhere near as tortorous as I found reading Sartre, or Neitzsche. Sartre left me with an awful sense of something like alienation. Some people read philosophy and they can remain at a distance, either they have a firm philosophy of life of their own, or they simply have learnt to evaluate other people's ideas without embracing those ideas - that not always easy though in reading the existentialists.

I think Kierkegaard re-discovered a neglected aspect of Christianity, the need to walk with Christ moment by moment. Francis Schaeffer agreed that in this respect at least Kierkegaard was correct, but SK also recognised the need for decisive conversion. What I understand is he was deeply critical of the Church in Denmark of his day and the way in which many people considered themselves christian merely from having undergone the rite of baptism. His other bete noire was the Danish Press of his day.

Its been noted, SK had a religious personality, somewhat like the Apostle Paul - "This one thing I do...." As a Lutheran he wished to be a family man, but he seemed find it impossible when it came to the point to go through with marrying Regine Olson, to whom he had been engaged. William Barratt, who wrote one of the best introductions to Existentialism, said this inability to commit to marriage, was due to this religious single-mindedness - SK had sought for something to devote himself to that would give meaning to life.

Not just his religious mindset. He was a pietist, which means he did not have confidence in the ordinary means of grace. For him, grace was the result purely of the choice to believe and follow Jesus. Of course it renders Christian life and human life somewhat at odds with each other, because God's sanctifying presence cannot be mediated through the world, even through holy institutions like marriage, but only through the interior life of faith. What Kierkegaard's solution is, is impossible. He only counts two people in the whole of history as having real faith- Abraham and Mary. And in his later life, he refused to go to church and he refused any last rites. He was a Christian in his heart perhaps, but in practice he rejected any kind of religion except in his interior life. Sounds positively sterile, especially in the modern age when there are so many religious alternatives other than pietist fideism.

 

[FireDragon76]

It would be interesting to try to paraphrase the main thing SK is saying in that quote.

I'd try like this: to be "Christian" by intellectual activity/doctrines, is to profoundly miss out on being Christian.

Instead, the real thing is the overwhelming experience or reality of faith being the total joy or overwhelm of knowing God, not intellectually by abstraction, nor doctrine, but the vastly better: actually that He is!

Bonhoeffer was far more faithful to anything resembling Christianity, and especially anything likely taught by an historical Jesus. I am afraid Kierkegaard is appreciated as much by atheists and non-Christians as by Christians, which should tell you where his philosophy leads.

I tried reading Kiekegaard for Lent last year. It almost wrecked my faith until I realized the fundamental flaw in his approach.

For Bonhoeffer, Christ is present in the neighbor, especially the stranger or the marginalized, not in ones subjective will to faith. It's much more in line with what Jesus actually taught.

 

[trophy33]

I read The Moment and few other books by S. Kierkegaard.

I must say it influenced me, his position against established "theatrical" Christianity is extremely sincere and honest. He was basically teaching that todays Christianity is not the Christianity of the New Testament and is actually the opposite of it.

Some of his books were boring to me, because he is sometimes too repetitive.

Some of his ideas are too extreme for me (like that a Christian who does not live in a conflict with the world does not live as a true Christian and similar). He was very concentrated on a conflict, sincerity and inner desperation.

I think its good to taste it. But prepare for a heavy load of irony and tension.

I would recommend to read the Moment and maybe two, three other books from him. If you will read more, you will probably leave your church and end up in a depression, thinking that if you want to call yourself a Christian, you must give up all your success and live a miserable life full of conflict with the world. You have been warned.

The (Present) Moment online:
Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard : Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813-1855 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

(it begins on the page 214)

 

[trophy33]

Some taste of his The Moment:

Imagine that a fellow with a loaded pistol in his hands held up a person and said to him:
"I shall shoot you"; or imagine, what is still more terrible, that he said:
"I shall seize you and torture you to death in the most horrible manner if..."

-- now watch, here is the point --

"...if you do not render your life here on earth as profitable and as enjoyable as you can".

Would not that be utterly ridiculous? ... The most terrible blasphemy is the one which "Christianity" is guilty, which is, to transform the God of the Spirit into a ridiculous piece of nonsense.