Introduction
The thought of the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
has fresh relevance in a post-Christendom era when Western
society is distancing itself from its affiliation with
Christianity. Working from within the orthodox Protestant
tradition, while being critical of theological stagnation, he
focuses his idea of Jesus Christ on his concept of the paradox
of the Incarnation and the “leap of faith” required of the
believer in accepting it. He also deals with Christ as loving
and suffering Pattern to be imitated, the work of Christ as
Redeemer, and – of particular importance today - Christ as an
affront to contemporary thinking.
The Incarnation in Kierkegaard’s Thought
The Christ presented by Kierkegaard is that of the orthodox
Nicene and Chalcedonian definitions, and his Christology
includes belief in the virgin birth, the Resurrection, the
Ascension, and the parousia.[1] But
these creeds are important for Kierkegaard not just in
themselves, or out of respect for tradition, but because they
summarize what he perceives to be the history of salvation -
divine love incarnate in Jesus to redeem humanity. The focus of
Kierkegaard’s Christology is therefore on Jesus Christ as
“unique and unsubstitutable saviour who embodies divine love,”[2] and
on how true faith in this Christ is contrary both to a
comfortable Christendom that does not confront or challenge and
to speculation through history, philosophy and science.
Kierkegaard saw belief in Christ as grappling with the divine
becoming incarnate in human form. He uses a story[3] to
explain the incarnation. A king falls in love with a humble
maiden, but wishes to avoid embarrassing or offending her. If he
goes to her in his kingly glory, with royal garments and a
retinue of courtiers, he would overwhelm the maiden. And if she
should respond to his love, he could never be sure that she
loved him or his majesty. He could disguise himself as a beggar
and go to her; but then she would not really love him – he is a
king, but she would love a beggar. The reverse solution,
elevating the girl instead of lowering the king, would not
suffice either; this would imply that as a humble maid she is
not good enough to be loved, when it is in this state that the
king loves her. The only possible answer is for the king to
become a beggar in reality, not just to pretend to be one, and
to win the maiden’s love as a beggar.
Diogenes Allen further explains this allegory of the divine
becoming fully human:
So it is no good pointing to something Jesus did, a miracle, for
example, and saying, “Oh, that is the divine side of him
showing” – as if the disguised king let his beggar’s robe part
slightly to show his royal vestments underneath. Nor can we
point to something else, such as Jesus weeping over Jerusalem or
getting angry in the Temple, and say, “Oh, that is the human
side showing.” All of
him is human; for to perform miracles does not make a person
God. And all of him, including tears and anger, is the divine
one who became a man. Jesus is what God became when God became a
man. Jesus is not merely a
man; he is the man God became.[4]
The Incarnation for Kierkegaard is not an appearance or
disguise; the humanity of Christ is real, as is his divinity.[5]
The Incarnation is the content of the Christian faith while
being inherently paradoxical and absurd. Kierkegaard asks:
What, then, is the absurd? The absurd is that the eternal truth
has come into existence in time, that God has come into
existence, has been born, has grown up, etc., has come into
existence exactly as an individual human being.[6]
Christian faith affirms an irreconcilable contradiction. There
is a difference that is both infinite and qualitative between
eternity and time, and between God and humanity, yet in the
Incarnation they are united in the God-man, Jesus Christ. The
eternal God entering into time as a human being is an absolute
paradox,[7] which
can never be anything but a stumbling block to the human mind.
Therefore faith cannot be an act of understanding; it is a
venture of the will, which must constantly be renewed because
objections to it arise continually.[8]
The Incarnation of the divine in human form, particularly when
it involves helplessness and suffering, is so paradoxical and so
opposed to human understanding that it cannot be understood
through history or philosophy or proven by empirical data or
reasoned argument. One cannot enter into Christianity - meaning
the truth of the Incarnation - by way of thought, reason,
speculation, or science. Historical study cannot prove Christ’s
identity, nor will it bring modern people any closer to Jesus
than His contemporaries, who even though they saw and heard Him
were no better suited to answer the fundamental question: is
Jesus God incarnate? His miracles were not able to establish His
divinity to contemporary witnesses. These signs and wonders did
put people into a situation in which they needed to decide who
Jesus was. We do not see or hear Jesus or witness His miracles,
but we are in the same position. We too must decide whether to
believe.[9]
Christ cannot be recognized directly; Kierkegaard says, “All
solemn assurances that this is indeed Christ and that he is the
true God are futile as soon as it ends with direct
recognizability…It is easy to see that a place remains for
faith; take away direct recognizability, and faith is in the
right place.”[10] As
God is hidden in Christ, the truth of the Incarnation - and
therefore Christianity as a whole - can only be entered by faith
in spite of reason. Faith is a way of knowing which separates
itself from all others;[11] “reason
counts and counts, reckons and reckons, but it never attains the
certainty which faith possesses.”[12] Choosing
Christ by making a “leap of faith” will transform the person
making the choice.
Kierkegaard agrees that historical research can serve a purpose
in improving the understanding of the choice of whether to
believe in Christ. But it cannot resolve the paradox that Jesus,
a historical person, calls us to find peace and joy in Him, but
neither reason nor scientific or philosophical study can certify
that He is to be believed. Christian belief is based on
something historical – the Incarnation – which, by its very
nature, cannot become historical.[13]
There is no direct transition, Kierkegaard says, to belief, “to
this thing of becoming a Christian…It is only by a choice that
the heart is revealed (and surely it was for this cause that
Christ came into the world, that the thoughts of all hearts
might be revealed), by the choice of whether to believe or be
offended.”[14] Those
who use their intellect to search history and philosophy will be
offended that truth is to be held by faith.
For Kierkegaard the tendency toward objective thought, which he
saw as “futile” and “perverse,” led to Hegelianism,[15] which
based Jesus’ greatness on His immense influence on history as a
“world-historical” figure. But the Hegelians could not explain
how people believed in Jesus before He was historically
influential, nor could this influence show that Jesus is divine[16] -
like the Gospel miracles, historical importance could only place
people in a position to decide about Him.
Kierkegaard’s View of the Work of Christ
In Kierkegaard’s view, sin is a fundamental fact of the
spiritual and moral position of humanity, such that he called it
the “new existence-medium” as, simply by having come into
existence, the individual has become a sinner in need of
salvation.[17] Sin
cannot be overcome through the virtuous acts of the ethical
life; the transformation of one’s entire life is required, which
can be accomplished only by the decisive leap of faith into a
new relationship with God through Christ.
From Kierkegaard’s standpoint one is not simply guilty of an act
for which one must repent; rather, one is unconditionally guilty
through being a sinner. Christians are distinguished by their
burden of the consciousness of their sin. But the life and work
of Jesus bring good news to believers: “This burden is made
light for Christian strivers through the forgiveness of sin by
Christ. In forgiveness, the consciousness of sin is taken away
and replaced by its opposite, the consciousness of forgiveness.”[18] This
expresses the central dialectic of Christian existence. One
finds forgiveness of sins in faith, relating to Christ as
atoner, a dialectical realization that one is “totally sinner
and totally justified.”[19]This
consciousness of sin is the way by which Christ draws the
repentant to Himself, and the act of confession is the
individual’s personal meeting with Christ as Saviour.[20]
The consciousness of both sin and forgiveness come together in
the service of Holy Communion, as the sacrament expresses how
Jesus works salvation: “His life is proclaimed from the pulpit,
but from the altar…His death, for our sins and for those of the
whole world.”[21] Communion
reenacts Christ’s act of atonement as the sacrificial Lamb
substituting for sinful humanity, “by presenting the sacraments
as an ‘eternal pledge’ that Christ by his death has put himself
in one’s place in order that one may have life.”[22] But
Kierkegaard, with his emphasis on the Christian life, warns that
while receiving the elements in Holy Communion is itself
communion with Christ, one should try to maintain this communion
in one’s daily life by living more and more out of oneself and
into Christ’s love.[23]
He accepts the prevailing doctrine of the sacrificial,
substitutionary Atonement in his sacramental theology,[24] and
affirms that part of the paradox of the Incarnation is that
Christ entered the world in order to suffer. Like Luther, he
contrasts a theology of glory, which finds God directly in God’s
works, with the paradox of God being hidden in the suffering
Christ. Christians meets God in the figure of Christ on the
cross, and the God known there is the suffering God who loves
sinners unto death.[25] But
he criticizes the popular emphasis on the suffering of Christ,
calling it “childish” and “misleading.”[26]
Kierkegaard sees Christ as both Redeemer, who makes atonement
for sins in dying redemptively, and Pattern, who insists upon
imitation[27] (“Christ’s
whole life in all its respects must supply the norm of the life
of the following Christian”[28]).
While Christ is no longer physically present as Pattern, the
risen Christ still serves as not only prototype but as helper
and goal of the journey.[29] Christianity
itself is defined as “the doctrine of and guidance in resembling
Christ.”[30]
The relation of Christ as Redeemer and Pattern is another
example of dialectic; both elements are necessary. Without the
Atonement, the Pattern is simply an external demand or law,
leading either to despair or to justification by works. Without
the Pattern, Christian existence is free from works or is
indistinguishable from worldly life. Kierkegaard’s emphasis on
Christ as Pattern is meant to redress the balance between
Redeemer and Pattern.[31] As
one is convicted of sin, Christian existence is an ongoing
three-stage cycle of “imitation – reliance on Christ as atoner –
imitation.” [32] And
Kierkegaard adds that in relying upon Christ as atoner, one is
not engaged in imitation; Christ’s death is in fact the
Atonement, and as Saviour and Reconciler He cannot be resembled
in this respect.
In Works of Love Kierkegaard
deals with Christ’s work to fulfill the law: “So Christ did not
come to abolish the law, but to perfect it, so that from this
time forth it exists in its perfection. Moreover, He was love,
and His love was the fulfillment of the law.”[33] Here
Kierkegaard uses the sacrifice motif again: Christ demanded no
reward for his work during His life, “for His only requirement,
His only purpose throughout His whole life from birth to death,
was to sacrifice Himself as an innocent victim.”[34]
Kierkegaard stresses the humanity of Christ in much of his
writing, but does so in order to show that Christ’s humiliation,
in renouncing His divine powers and choosing to suffer despite
his sinlessness, allows an adequate understanding of human
suffering and God’s identification with that suffering.[35]
Kierkegaard’s Practice
in Christianity specifies
a distinction between two forms of Christ’s sufferings: first
are His public, external sufferings during his Passion; and
second, His unique suffering following from His identity as the
God-man – His inward suffering as He concealed His consciousness
of his divinity and did not reveal himself.[36] And
Christ’s public suffering is not historically accidental, as is
the persecution of other historical figures; it expresses what
the truth must suffer.[37]
Christ as Scandal
In the nineteenth century’s version of Christianity, “we are
accustomed to being Christians and being called Christians as a
matter of course,” Kierkegaard says. “It looks as if one is
actually a Christian even as a week-old child” as “Christ has
been changed from the sign of offence into a friend of
children…or a teacher at a charity school.”[38] In
modern times “God’s love easily becomes a fabulous and childish
conception, the figure of Christ something so insipid and
mawkish as to render it impossible that He could have been a
stumbling block to the Jews or foolishness to the Greeks.”[39]
When Christianity emerged, it was not necessary for it to call
attention to the fact that it, and Christ, would be a source of
offence, for the world quickly discovered that it was offended.
But now, since the world has become nominally Christian,
Christianity must look out for offence. In the same way, early
Christianity did not call attention to the fact that it was
contrary to human reason; but now “a fallen Christianity, like
those fallen angels who married earthly women, has entered into
a marriage with the human reason.”[40] And
as the world has been made Christian through removing the
possibility of offence, Kierkegaard finds one of his paradoxes:
the world is offended at the real Christian.[41]
Kierkegaard’s Relevance to Our Time
Much of the hostility Kierkegaard faced was due to his being out
of step with the dominant thought of his time. He opposed the
application of reason to religion in the form of Hegelian
speculation, history and philosophy, and establishment
Christianity which made Christ into an inoffensive, undemanding
historical figure and surrounded Him with “childish” doctrine.
Today the Christendom that formed Kierkegaard’s environment is
largely gone. But from his nineteenth century perspective
Kierkegaard provides a valuable critique of modern Christology.
One can imagine that, with his perspective on the Incarnation,
he would be scathingly critical of the application of history
(or, at least, historical interpretations and best guesses) to
faith in the modern quest for the historical Jesus, in work
ranging from that of the Jesus Seminar to Tom Harpur; of the
vogue for iconoclastic fiction like The
Da Vinci Code; and of theology that does not balance the
divine and human aspects of the Incarnation.
The criticism Kierkegaard made of the nominal nature of
Christian membership in nineteenth-century state churches
resonates today in some denominations and the way in which the
rituals of baptisms, weddings, and funerals are viewed in
popular culture. He would also disparage how some popular images
of Jesus, and much preaching, make Him undemanding and
unobjectionable. Kierkegaard would have a visceral reaction to
the depictions of an inoffensive Jesus in many United Church of
Canada congregations, described in Margaret Laurence’s novel A
Jest of God: the United Church’s “stained-glass window shows
a pretty and clean-cut Jesus expiring gently and with absolutely
no inconvenience, no gore, no pain, just this nice and slightly
effeminate insurance salesman who, somewhat incongruously,
happens to be clad in a toga, holding his arms languidly up to
something that might in other circumstances have been a cross.”[42]
Christianity in the post-Christendom era is inherently
countercultural in relation to the materialism that dominates
secular culture; therefore, there is much to be learned from
Kierkegaard’s thought on the impossibility of knowing the
historical Jesus and the paradox and countercultural offence
inherent in Christ. Kierkegaard could also be a unifying force
in contemporary theology, bringing together neo-orthodox,
feminist, liberation, and Radical Orthodox theologians in
proclaiming Christ as antithetical to prevailing social values
and much popular piety.
As well, Kierkegaard provides an example of how it is not
necessary to reject or reinterpret radically the heritage of
Christian orthodoxy; as a theologian he held to the creeds and
traditions of the Church, passed on from the patristic fathers
down through the Reformation, while giving fresh insight and
relevance to Christian doctrine and rejecting a stifling
orthodoxy.
Conclusion
Søren Kierkegaard devotes much of his Christology, which is
based solidly in the received Protestant tradition, to Christ as
the God-man of the Incarnation, which is so paradoxical in
uniting human and divine that it cannot be understood through
reason, and Christ can only be known by faith. He also depicts
Christ as Pattern of love and suffering, to be imitated in the
Christian life; Christ as Redeemer, whose Atonement brings
salvation and forgiveness of sins; and Christ as offence and
scandal, to the first century world, to the cozy Christendom of
Kierkegaard’s time, and to our era.
Endnotes
