The Religious Sphere

The ethical decision, however, is not the last word.  It leads necessarily to a crisis in which man will either despair again or turn to God.  Up to this point God has been considered too exclusively as a complement of man’s ethical life; he ordinarily recalls Him only in examination of conscience.  By admitting his faults the ethical man expresses his essential limitation before God’s transcendency and avoids falling into despair.  Religious contrition thus belongs to the essence of ethical life, since it indicates that although evil is a part of one’s self, one detaches himself from it in his ultimate choice, and asserts his fundamental ability to observe the ethical law.

At a certain point, however, my conscience will conclude that it is impossible to observe faithfully the claims of ethics, and I will be forced to abandon belief in my own basic righteousness.  My conscience accuses me of being guilty before God not only in certain respect, but in every respect.  A new decision becomes necessary, in which I will either abandon myself to despair, or throw myself entirely on God’s mercy.  Only in this moment can my commitment be called absolute, because only here do I choose my self completely, including the true relation to its Origin, guilt…This means that the choice of myself, by which I escaped from the aesthetic stage, is only fully accomplished on the religious level, where I cast myself as totally guilty before God.  The ethical stage was a transition.  My decision becomes absolute only when it is completed in absolute despair or in absolute faith.

If the essence of spirit is subjectivity, it follows that man becomes fully spirit only in the religious stage.  For in the ethical stage the subjective choice was still aimed at an objective realization of ethical values, whereas in the religious choice subjectivity abandons every hope of realizing itself objectively.  Man accepts himself as nonobjective, as an individual, completely isolated from the universal.  He is alone with his guilt before God, and finds no place in an objective universe. But in choosing himself as guilty before God he finally chooses himself and his relation to the Origin of his self.

Louis Dupré, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 47-48.

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The Ethical Sphere

In the choice of himself as an absolute, one leaves the aesthetic stage.  Kierkegaard calls the new sphere, into which freedom has introduced man, the ethical.  As soon as  a person takes possession of himself and becomes free there arises an absolute distinction between good and evil.  For the speculative attitude (which is included in the aesthetic, because of its lack of commitment), this distinction is only relative: good and evil can be integrated in a single system.  The distinction becomes absolute when we make it so by a personal commitment.  This means that good and evil are absolute only insofar as we will them.  Such a statement does not reduce them to mere subjective determinations – they are objective and universal in themselves – but they become themselves only in the free decision of absolute choice.  Nothing but a conscious, personal acceptance can make objective standard into absolute values.

Even in their subjective acceptance, however, the objective ethical standards are a limitation of the spirit….The absolute of the ethical man is expressed as an existence which is extremely limited and, as such, relative.  Although the synthesis of the ethical personality is more balanced than the aesthetic, which refuses to bind itself to the finite, the question remains whether the ethical man will ever be conscious of the absolute as such, which is the primary condition for becoming spirit.  The very self-assurance of the ethical man makes his whole attitude somewhat suspect.  “He feels no want of the eternal, for it is with him in time.”

Louis Dupré, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 45-46.

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The Aesthetic Sphere

The aesthetic sphere bears within itself the germ of its own destruction: the frustrated attempts of the spirit to affirmt itself cause a strange anxiety, eventually leading to despair…Only a free decision can break through the aesthetic attitude.  At this point it does not matter to what one commits onself, since the dilemma here is not between good and evil, but between choosing and not choosing.  If the aesthete has followed his attitude to its ultimate consequences, there is nothing left for him to choose other than the despair into which he has brought himself.  If he accepts it resolutely, he chooses himself and thus brings an absolute element into his existence: in his commitment to despair he constitutes a relationship to himself.

One does not fall into despair; one chooses it voluntarily.  And in choosing despair man also chooses the object of despair, himself. This is an absolute, not subordinate to anything else.  The unique character of this absolute is that it becomes real only through choice, and, on the other hand, that it must already be real to be an object of choice.  This is possible only if I am, myself, the choice, and if freedom is the very essence of my existence, for only then can I become myself through realizing my freedom.  The fact that I am essentially freedom is at the origin of the paradox that I choose the most concrete reality, myself, and that this self becomes concrete only by that choice.  In order to choose myself, I should already be myself: on the other hand, I become myself only in choosing myself.

Louis Dupré, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 43-44.

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Essentially Religious

The essentially religious author is always polemical, and hence he suffers under or suffers from the opposition which corresponds to whatever in his age must be regarded as the specific evil.  If it be kings and emperors, popes and bishops…and powers that constitute Evil, the religious author must be recognizable by the fact that he is the object of their attack.  If it is the crowd – and prating and the public – and the beastly grin which is the Evil, he must be recognizable by the fact that he is the object of that sort of attack and persecution.  And the essentially religious author has but one fulcrum for his lever, namely, a miraculous syllogism.  When any one asks him on what he bases the claim that he is right and that it is the truth he utters, his answer is: I prove it by the fact that I am persecuted; this is the truth, and I can prove it by the fact that I am derided. That is, he does not substantiate the truth or the righteousness of his cause by appealing to the honour, reputation, etc., which he enjoys, but he does quite the contrary; for the essentially religious man is always polemical.

Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, 59.

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Kierkegaard and Hauerwas?

In a conversation with Stanley Hauerwas in March, he divulged that he was very much influenced by Søren Kierkegaard.  I asked him about this because I have intuited, although never really read, a strong connection between their work.  Now, I wouldn’t want to overdo it and claim that Kierkegaard is the key to understanding Hauerwas, but I do think there is something important to be said about this.  Hauerwas is often misunderstood because of the harshness of his writing directed towards American Christians in general, and specifically Christians formed through Constantinianism.  One example of this can be found here:

“I assume most of you are here because you think you are Christians, but it is not all clear to me that the Christianity that has made you Christians is Christianity.”

Many of you will know that he is speaking to a hand-picked group of 18-year-olds here, gathering for a Christian youth conference.  No doubt a group that would self-identify as Christians.  It is not at all clear to me that the Christianity that has made you Christians is Christianity. And then comes Kierkegaard:

Every one with some capacity for observation, who seriously considers what is called Christendom, or the conditions in a so-called Christian country, must surely be assailed by profound misgivings.  What does it mean that all these thousands and thousands call themselves Christians as a matter of course?  These many, many men, of whom the greater part, so far as one can judge, live in categories quite foreign to Christianity!…People upon who it has never dawned that they might have any obligation to God, people who either regard it as a maximum to be guiltless of transgressing the criminal law, or do not count even this quite necessary!  Yet all these people, even those who assert that no God exists, are all of them Christians, call themselves Christians, are recognized as Christians by the state, are buried as Christians by the Church, are certified Christians for eternity!

That at the bottom of this there must be a tremendous confusion, a frightful illusion, there surely can be no doubt. (The Point of View for My Work as an Author, 22)

The illusion that Christendom produces Christians is deeply embedded in the Constantinian mindset.  And so Kierkegaard can proclaim quite famously that the goal of all of his writing is to “reintroduce Christianity into Christendom.” (23)  Likewise, Hauerwas can say that, “I have, of course, been spending a good part of my life trying to make Christianity hard to be ‘generally believed’  (Wilderness Wanderings, 159). Furthermore,

I remember the highlight of the camp was watching the sun go down on the last night from a mountain—well, a hill (it was Texas)—while we sang “Kumbayah.” This was an attempt to give us a “mountain top experience” that we could identify with being or becoming a Christian. About the last thing I would want is for you to have such an experience here. I do not want to make Christianity easy. I want to make it hard. (Duke Youth Academy, 2005)

Kierkegaard and Hauerwas are at least agreed upon a goal: the re-introduction of Christianity into Christendom and an unmasking of the illusion of Christendom.  Their methods may differ but the spirit is the same.  Where Kierkegaard speaks to ‘the solitary individual’, Hauerwas tries to rescue the ‘individual’ from individualism. Where Hauerwas tries to make Christianity hard, Kierkegaard tries to make it foolish. The problem that both Hauerwas and Kierkegaard address is fundamentally the same: How does one truly become a Christian?

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Either/Or

“When I began Either/Or…I was potentially as deeply under the influence of religion as ever I have been.  I was so deeply shaken that I understood perfectly well that I could not possibly succeed in striking the comforting and secure via media in which most people pass their lives: I had either to cast myself into perdition and sensuality, or to choose the religious absolutely as the only thing – either the world in a measure that would be dreadful, or the cloister.”

Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author

Isn’t this the problem?  Either the world in a measure that would be dreadful, or the cloister?  Maybe this is why some people have a special affinity with Kierkegaard, while others can’t understand him at all.  One of the common characteristics of the people I know who have a deep appreciation for Kierkegaard is their inability to live that “secure via media.”  I’m not saying that these people are necessarily radicals  – though some are – rather they have a keen sensitivity to their own desire for faithfulness, which leads them to see the deep contradictions in their lives and desire integrity and wholeness.

They often live on the edge of despair – hope just out of their grasp like a carrot on a stick leading the way.  Every day seems like a good day to throw in the towel, to give in and stop pursuing the faithful life.  Or, every day is another reason why the cloister is the only way to go that’s truly faithful.  But there is no resolve.

All there is is faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is…hope?

For the person living on the fine line between pessimism and optimism, despair and idealism, the greatest of these is hope.  For without hope there is no chance of faith, no chance of love.  But if you can hold on to hope…well, sometimes that’s all there is.

But I can only speak for myself…

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