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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Søren Kierkegaard delivered a scathing critique of certain German philosophies that arose in the wake of the Aufklärung. In this respect he is most well known for focusing most of his attacks against Hegelian idealism, although it is important to remember that he also found the time to attack aspects of the theological Rationalism and Romanticism that he had encountered during his university studies. Unfortunately for us he chose a rather eccentric way in which to do this. Inspired by the literary techniques of German Romantic ironists such as Friedrich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, Kierkegaard chose largely to mask his thoughts beneath levels of irony and pseudonyms. Each one of these pseudonyms personified specific traits of his chosen opponents.
2 The true nature and extent of their decisive, though ambiguous, influence upon Kierkegaard's philosophy and literary method is illustrated fully in his The Concept of Irony, ed. and trans. Howard V., and Hong, Edna H. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), cf. pp. 272–323 especiallyGoogle Scholar. This much neglected text was Kierkegaard's MA dissertation (equivalent to a modern PhD) which sets out in detail many of the ideas and tactics which were to occur in later works. In The Concept of Irony he refers to Schlegel as the ‘philosopher’ of irony, and to Tieck as its ‘poet’ (p. 276). The ambiguity in his relation to them lies in the fact that, although he was to employ aspects of irony and pseudonymity to great effect within numerous publications throughout his life, Kierkegaard vehemently criticised the philosophical and theological views of Schlegel in particular. For instance, both The Concept of Irony and the first volume of his more well known Either/Or deliver present penetrating critiques of Schlegel's ethical position in the novel Lucinde ‘the gospel of Young Germany’; cf. The Concept of Irony, p. 286.
3 At this point it is helpful to compare the general reasoning behind Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works with that of Erasmus' Praise of Folly in the sixteenth century. Erasmus held the Catholic Church and the significance of Christian learning in such high esteem that he felt compelled to publish an open, satirical criticism of the abuses he had witnessed in order to force the Church to take action. Despite Erasmus' deserved reputation as a learned defender of Catholicism, some mistakenly believed this to be an open attack on the Christian faith itself. He was compelled to explain himself quite carefully in the ‘Letter to Martin Dorp’ of 1515; cf. Praise of Folly, trans. Radice, Betty, intro. by Levi, A. H. T. (London: Penguin, 1985), pp. 215–216.Google Scholar
4 Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. Howard V., and Hong, Edna H. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1967–1978), 6702, X–A 635 n.d., 1850.Google Scholar
5 Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V., and Hong, Edna H. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 9.Google Scholar
6 Philosophical Fragments, p. 1.
7 Lessing, G., ‘On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power’, in Lessing's Theological Writings, ed. and trans. Chadwick, Henry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), pp. 53, 55.Google Scholar
8 Philosophical Fragments, p. 62; Practice in Christianity, ed. and trans. Howard V., and Hong, Edna H. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 124, 127Google Scholar. A brilliant and highly detailed discussion of the concept of revelation along similar lines to that put forward by Kierkegaard may be found in Schwöbel, C., God: Action and Revelation (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1992), pp. 84fGoogle Scholar. Cf. also:
Christian faith has always insisted upon the particularity of God's revelation in the historical individual Jesus of Nazareth who is confessed as the Christ, as the one who is seen by Christians as the realization of God's righteousness which was expected in Israel and as the salvation for all mankind. This means, on the one hand, that God's revelation in Jesus Christ cannot be transformed into a transhistorical metaphysical or moral principle [as suggested by Hegel and Kant respectively]. On the other hand, this implies that all Christian beliefs are shaped by the fundamental role ascribed to Jesus Christ as the ultimate revelation of God. Ibid., pp. 14–15.
9 Philosophical Fragments, p. 100. N.B. What has been discussed above refers only to one sense of Kierkegaard's ‘paradox’ of the Incarnation. I offer a more detailed discussion within the context of Christology, Kierkegaard's in Kierkegaard's Christocentric Theology(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2001).Google Scholar
10 This is particularly well brought out in his rejection of Ebionitism and Gnosticism and cutting remarks on similar tendencies in nineteenth-century German Christologies after Hegel, , Practice in Christianity, pp. 123ff.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., p. 93.
12 Ibid., p. 97.
13 Ibid., p. 103.
14 Ibid., pp. 102ff.; 124ff.
15 Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World, trans. Guder, Darrell L. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1983), p. 156Google Scholar. Cf. also Gunton's, Colin brief discussion of rationalism and rationality in The Actuality of Atonement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 24 especially.Google Scholar
16 Practice in Christianity, p. 63.
17 Ibid., pp. 24–5.
18 Ibid., p. 24; cf. Pattison, George, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith (London: SPCK, 1997), p. 108.Google Scholar
19 Judge for Yourself! in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. and trans. Howard V., and Hong, Edna H. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 147.Google Scholar
20 Philosophical Fragments, p. 47; cf. Practice in Christianity, pp. 18–19, 61.
21 For Self-Examination, p. 81.
22 Ibid., p. 82.
23 Practice in Christianity, pp. 68, 155.
24 Rae, Murray, By Faith Transformed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 142Google Scholar. This epistemological significance of metanoia is also discussed, although without reference to Kierkegaard, by Torrance, Thomas F. in his Theological Science (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 48–49.Google Scholar
25 Practice in Christianity, p. 107.
26 Journals and Papers, 349, X–A 170 n.d., 1849; 693; X–A 132 n.d., 1849; JFK, p. 147.
27 Cf. Philosophical Fragments, p. 102.
28 Kierkegaard opens For Self-Examinalion with a discourse on the importance of the written Word as the mirror in which the believer can see himself as he is and as he ought to be. Through reflection upon what is written he is then motivated to act upon it. Kierkegaard follows this with the section ‘Christ is the Way’ in order to illustrate this more fully. The work concludes with ‘It is the Spirit who gives life’, prepared for reading on Pentecost. Here he declares: ‘Think about this festival day! It was indeed the Spirit who gives life who today was poured out upon the apostles—and the Spirit really was a life-giving spirit. This was demonstrated by their lives, their deaths, to which testimony is given by the history of the Church.’ For Self-Examination, p. 77.
29 Gouwens, David J., Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 For some of Kierkegaard's comments on this, see For Self-Examination, pp. 15– 16. Kierkegaard also argues that the secularisation of Christianity is a result of the self-deification of the established order, although it is most likely that his comments in this context were directed against Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Practice in Christianity, pp. 87–91.