Happy Passion

Introduction

This volume brings together select articles on Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813–1855) theory of faith that have hitherto been scattered, some in remote places, some in German, and now translated¹ and/or edited for publication in this collection. Faith was not only the theme of Kierkegaard’s life, but also the systematic center of his thought. The studies collected in this volume represent an attempt to understand Kierkegaard’s theory of faith from different perspectives and on different levels of analysis. The development of his theory of faith, which is marked by a wide array of educational and discursive contexts, will also be investigated before the background of his engagement with the philosophical-theological debates of his time and close involvement with other thinkers in his immediate environment. The volume concludes with a glance at the history of the translation and reception of Kierkegaard’s work.

The eleven studies correspondingly fall into four sections. The three chapters of Section I are devoted to Kierkegaard’s engagement with other thinkers who were not only his contemporaries, but also close in his intellectual vicinity, and who exercised a profound influence on the clarification and development of his understanding of faith. Chapter 1 deals with the question: Who is Kierkegaard’s target when he criticizes the philosophical ‘volatilization’ of Christian faith? I will argue that Kierkegaard’s early dispute with the younger Fichte, i.e., Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796–1879), can be considered not only as the background of this critique, but also as the key to its proper understanding. According to Kierkegaard, the philosophical ‘volatilization’ of Christian faith consists in the inappropriate usage of this term within the philosophical realm, a misuse which results from conflating the realms and boundaries of philosophy and Christianity. In Chapter 2 I will investigate the genuine targets of Kierkegaard’s critique of characterizing faith as ‘the immediate,’ which can be found in almost all of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. After delineating the factual context of the expression ‘the (first) immediate,’ I will show that it is neither Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) nor Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) or Philipp Marheineke (1780–1846), but rather Kierkegaard’s contemporaries in Copenhagen, Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–1884) and Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860), who should be considered the particular targets of his critique. Chapter 3 deals with the Icelandic theologian and religious author Magnús Eiríksson (1806–1881), a forgotten contemporary of Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark and an unwanted ally of Kierkegaard in their shared opposition to Danish Hegelianism. It is my aim to point out the importance of the Kierkegaard-Eiríksson dispute for every approach to Kierkegaard’s theory of faith, since in Kierkegaard’s drafted replies to Eiríksson’s critique, we encounter decisive statements not only about the meaning of ‘the absurd’ and ‘the paradox,’ but also about the perspectival and relative qualities of his pseudonyms in this regard.

The four chapters of Section II consider central aspects of Kierkegaard’s theory of faith. Chapter 4 explores the relation between Kierkegaard’s concept of a ‘life-view,’ understood as a certain quality of a person’s character, and his early account of Christian faith. This relation has been interpreted in different, at times incompatible ways by Kierkegaard-scholars. After comparing in detail the concepts of ‘life-view’ and faith I will show that defining a ‘life-view’ as “an unshakable certainty in oneself won from all experience”²—Kierkegaard’s formula in his debut book From the Papers of One Still Living (1838)—essentially conforms with his characterization of faith as an ‘a priori certainty.’ Chapter 5 discusses Kierkegaard’s account of faith as ‘the new immediacy.’ After considering the term ‘immediacy’ with respect to its semantic ambiguity and to the different senses in which it can be used, i.e., as an epistemological assumption and as an ontological assumption, I will argue that this very distinction can provide a hermeneutic key for an understanding of Kierkegaard’s account of faith. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Kierkegaard’s talk of the transition into faith as a ‘leap’—a transition he elsewhere designates as a ‘qualitative’ or ‘pathos-laden transition.’ Both the concept of ‘leap’ and that of ‘transition’ shall be disclosed before the background of their multifarious usages and contexts in Kierkegaard’s œuvre, each in its own exact meaning.

Section III focuses on far-reaching developments and changes of as well as fundamental challenges to Kierkegaard’s theory of faith. Chapter 8 considers the origins of Kierkegaard’s paradox Christology. By the spring of 1843, Kierkegaard’s Christology had changed radically: he now attributed paradoxicality to the person of Jesus Christ. Through a critical reading of influential attempts within Kierkegaard research to explain the roots and background of Kierkegaard’s paradox Christology, I will argue that the project undertaken in Kierkegaard’s Climacus writings, where the paradox Christology found its most prominent expression, had its starting-point in his reading of David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874). Chapter 9 will shed light on a remarkable difference between the younger and the later Kierkegaard’s account of faith. Whereas up through the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Kierkegaard understands and describes the relation between faith and reality as a positive one, in his later works a negative assessment of the relation of faith to reality grows ever more important, ultimately culminating in the demand for a world-renouncing imitation Christianity, i.e., a Christianity focused on the imitation [Efterfølgelse] of Christ. Whereas faith in the Climacus writings represents “that happy passion” [hiin lykkelige Lidenskab] in which “the understanding and the paradox happily encounter each other in the moment,”³ in Kierkegaard’s late works this passion of faith, understood as an infinite interest in eternal happiness, crystallizes ever more clearly as a passion that generates suffering in the outer world. I will examine this fundamental change in terms of its background, along with the factors and circumstances conditioning it, and highlight the role of Martin Luther (1483–1546) in this context. In Chapter 10 Kierkegaard’s understanding of faith is examined in the context of the question of a religious grounding of ethical norms, which is, so to speak, a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7) of any consistently Protestant-theological ethic—that ethic which sees itself forced to take the Lutheran principle of a coextensivity of the good and that which is willed by God as its starting point, whereby the goodness, and thus the deontological imperativeness of an action is to remain rooted in its manifest harmony with God’s will. Before the background of the so-called Euthyphro dilemma the relation of faith and theonomic ethics in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843) is presented, and fundamental challenges to Kierkegaard’s account are pointed out.

Finally, Section IV deals with the history of the translation and reception of Kierkegaard’s works by providing a particularly impressive example: Christoph Schrempf (1860–1944)—the ‘Swabian Socrates.’ After offering an overview of Schrempf’s life and taking stock of Schrempf’s importance for the reception of Kierkegaard both within and outside the German-speaking world, I will point out the problematic consequences of Schrempf’s influence as a Kierkegaard translator on the reception of Kierkegaard, since Schrempf’s translations must be regarded as error-ridden—and in some cases deeply distorting. And I will show that this is true not least for the representation of Kierkegaard’s account of faith. Further, the problematic of speaking of a ‘leap of faith’ (as if the leap were itself an act of faith), which is a familiar, widely used slogan commonly ascribed to Kierkegaard, but in fact represents an erroneous interpretation of his theory of faith, shall be made apparent.

Just as all our knowledge is piecemeal (1 Cor 13:9), so too can these studies represent but fragments of a larger whole. Yet I have hope that many of the ideas and considerations rendered here may contribute to a better understanding of this fascinating thinker and “religious author from the very beginning.”⁴

I would express my cordial gratitude to all those who have accompanied and supported the genesis of these studies in multifarious and constructive ways. A few of them shall be named here especially: Heiko Schulz (Frankfurt am Main), whose keen observations and ideas were extraordinarily helpful in the treatment of this material; Niels Jørgen Cappelørn (Copenhagen), from whose truly formidable knowledge of Kierkegaard I was allowed to profit in innumerable dialogues; Jon Stewart (Bratislava), whose manifold studies have enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard’s position in the context of the philosophy of his time, and Bruce H. Kirmmse (Copenhagen/Randolph, New Hampshire), who has always stood by me both as a professional colleague and a personal friend.

Darmstadt, June 2018

Gerhard Schreiber

Abbreviations

1 Kierkegaard’s Primary Texts

1.1 Danish Abbreviations

1.2 English Abbreviations

2 Hegel’s Primary Texts

3 Abbreviations of Bible Versions/Books of the Bible

Old Testament (OT)