“And Hegel had not made much of that?”
“No, he was more interested in the broad scope of history. This was just what made Kierkegaard so indignant. He thought that both the idealism of the Romantics and Hegel’s ‘historicism’ had obscured the individual’s responsibility for his own life. Therefore to Kierkegaard, Hegel and the Romantics were tarred with the same brush.”
“I can see why he was so mad.”
“S0ren Kierkegaard was born in 1813 and was subjected to a very severe upbringing by his father. His religious melancholia was a legacy from this father.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It was because of this melancholia that he felt obliged to break off his engagement, something the Copenhagen bourgeoisie did not look kindly on. So from early on he became an outcast and an object of scorn. However, he gradually learned to give as good as he got, and he became increasingly what Ibsen later on described as ‘an enemy of the people.’ “
“All because of a broken engagement?”
“No, not only because of that. Toward the end of his life, especially, he became aggressively critical of society. ‘The whole of Europe is on the road to bankruptcy,’ he said. He believed he was living in an age utterly devoid of passion and commitment. He was particularly incensed by the vapidness of the established Danish Lutheran Church. He was merciless in his criticism of what you might call ‘Sunday Christianity.’ “
“Nowadays we talk of ‘confirmation Christianity.’ Most kids only get confirmed because of all the presents they get.”
“Yes, you’ve got the point. To Kierkegaard, Christianity was both so overwhelming and so irrational that it had to be an either/or. It was not good being ‘rather’ or ‘to some extent’ religious. Because either Jesus rose on Easter Day—or he did not. And if he really did rise from the dead, if he really died for our sake—then this is so overwhelming that it must permeate our entire life.”
“Yes, I think I understand.”
“But Kierkegaard saw how both the church and people in general had a noncommittal approach to religious questions. To Kierkegaard, religion and knowledge were like fire and water. It was not enough to believe that Christianity is ‘true.’ Having a Christian faith meant following a Christian way of life.”
“What did that have to do with Hegel?”
“You’re right. Maybe we started at the wrong end.”
“So I suggest you go into reverse and start again.”
“Kierkegaard began his study of theology when he was seventeen, but he became increasingly absorbed in philosophical questions. When he was twenty-seven he took his master’s degree with the dissertation ‘On the Concept of Irony.’ In this work he did battle with Romantic irony and the Romantics’ uncommitted play with illusion. He posited ‘Socratic irony’ in contrast. Even though Socrates had made use of irony to great effect, it had the purpose of eliciting the fundamental truths about life. Unlike the Romantics, Socrates was what Kierkegaard called an ‘existential’ thinker. That is to say, a thinker who draws his entire existence into his philosophical reflection.”
“So?”
“After breaking off his engagement in 1841, Kierkegaard went to Berlin where he attended Schelling’s lectures.”
“Did he meet Hegel?”
“No, Hegel had died ten years earlier, but his ideas were predominant in Berlin and in many parts of Europe. His ‘system’ was being used as a kind of all-purpose explanation for every type of question. Kierkegaard indicated that the sort of ‘objective truths’ that Hegelianism was concerned with were totally irrelevant to the personal life of the individual.”
“What kind of truths are relevant, then?”
“According to Kierkegaard, rather than searching for the Truth with a capital T, it is more important to find the kind of truths that are meaningful to the individual’s life. It is important to find ‘the truth for me.’ He thus sets the individual, or each and every man, up against the ‘system.’ Kierkegaard thought Hegel had forgotten that he was a man. This is what he wrote about the Hegelian professor: “While the ponderous Sir Professor explains the entire mystery of life, he has in distraction forgotten his own name; that he is a man, neither more nor less, not a fantastic three-eighths of a paragraph.”
“And what, according to Kierkegaard, is a man?”
“It’s not possible to say in general terms. A broad description of human nature or human beings was totally without interest to Kierkegaard. The only important thing was each man’s ‘own existence.’ And you don’t experience your own existence behind a desk. It’s only when we act—and especially when we make significant choices—that we relate to our own existence. There is a story about Buddha that illustrates what Kierkegaard meant.”
“About Buddha?”
“Yes, since Buddha’s philosophy also took man’s existence as its starting point. There was once a monk who asked Buddha if he could give clearer answers to fundamental questions on what the world is and what a man is. Buddha answered by likening the monk to a man who gets pierced by a poisoned arrow. The wounded man would have no theoretical interest in what the arrow was made of, what kind of poison it was dipped in, or which direction it came from.”
“He would most likely want somebody to pull it out and treat the wound.”
“Yes, he would. That would be existentially important to him. Both Buddha and Kierkegaard had a strong sense of only existing for a brief moment. And as I said, then you don’t sit down behind a desk and philosophize about the nature of the world spirit.”
“No, of course not.”
“Kierkegaard also said that truth is ‘subjective.’ By this he did not mean that it doesn’t matter what we think or believe. He meant that the really important truths are personal. Only these truths are ‘true for me.’ “
“Could you give an example of a subjective truth?”
“An important question is, for example, whether Christianity is true. This is not a question one can relate to theoretically or academically. For a person who ‘understands himself in life,’ it is a question of life and death. It is not something you sit and discuss for discussion’s sake. It is something to be approached with the greatest passion and sincerity.”
“Understandable.”
“If you fall into the water, you have no theoretical interest in whether or not you will drown. It is neither ‘interesting’ nor ‘uninteresting’ whether there are alligators in the water. It is a question of life or death.”
“I get it, thank you very much.”
“So we must therefore distinguish between the philosophical question of whether God exists and the individual’s relationship to the same question, a situation in which each and every man is utterly alone. Fundamental questions such as these can only be approached through faith. Things we can know through reason, or knowledge, are according to Kierkegaard totally unimportant.”
“I think you’d better explain that.”
“Eight plus four is twelve. We can be absolutely certain of this. That’s an example of the sort of ‘reasoned truth’ that every philosopher since Descartes had talked about. But do we include it in our daily prayers? Is it something we will lie pondering over when we are dying? Not at all. Truths like those can be both ‘objective’ and ‘general,’ but they are nevertheless totally immaterial to each man’s existence.”
“What about faith?”
“You can never know whether a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It’s something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don’t think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss.”
“You’d be very odd if you did.”
“Faith is the most important factor in religious questions. Kierkegaard wrote: ‘If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in
