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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2017
Is it possible to believe that the implications of the Christian Gospel are of such a kind that it cannot be communicated directly, and that the implications of the Christian Gospel are of such a kind that it ought to be preached on the street? Whether such a view is indeed “possible” did not bother the great paradoxical thinker, Søren Kierkegaard, who appeared to hold it. Indeed, one of the most enduring elements of Kierkegaard's theological legacy is his rigorously dialectical approach to Christian communication. For the reader of Kierkegaard, comprehending his (in)direct communication is typically both a frustrating and inspirational affair. On the one hand, Kierkegaard believed that the Gospel—precisely because of its unique existential consequences—cannot be preached directly; and on the other hand, he believed in the impassioned proclamation of this very same Gospel for the very same reasons. Traveling through his enigmatic authorship, one finds both of these aspects side by side, back to front, or sometimes one on top of the other. It is well noted that although Kierkegaard displays different stages of emphasis, he never totally relinquishes the importance of either method. It is the question of this article to re-engage this dialectical quandary, and to see how the paradoxical juxtaposition might prove both directly and indirectly instructive to a theology of Christian proclamation.
1 Hartshorne, for example, draws attention to what he perceives as a neglected interpretative approach to Kierkegaard's authorship: “What is not generally recognized is the ironic character of the pseudonymous authorship in form and purpose” (M. Holmes Hartshorne, Kierkegaard, Godly Deceiver: The Nature and Meaning of His Pseudonymous Writings [New York: Columbia University Press, 1990] 91).
2 See, for example, Soderquist, K. Brian, “Irony,” in The Oxford Handbook to Kierkegaard (ed. Lippitt, John and Pattison, George; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 344–64Google Scholar, especially 348–50.
3 See Kierkegaard, Søren, The Point of View (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) 41–42 Google Scholar. Of course, many today simply refuse to believe that his pseudonymous texts carried any such function within the wider authorship and that he projected such a meaning upon them in light of the more overt religiosity of the later authorship. Refreshingly, this dominant critical view of Kierkegaard's “view” has been increasingly challenged of late. See Tietjen, Mark A., Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue: Authorship as Edification (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013) 61–85 Google Scholar.
4 See Muench, Paul, “The Socratic Method of Kierkegaard's Pseudonym Johannes Climacus: Indirect Communication and the Art of ‘Taking Away,’” in Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s): Essays on Hermeneutics and Communication (ed. Houe, Paul and Marino, Gordon D.; Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 2003) 139–50Google Scholar.
5 For some especially helpful contemporary work on this relationship, particularly regarding indirect communication, see Paul Muench, “Apology: Kierkegaard's Socratic Point of View,” David D. Possen, “Protagoras and Republic: Kierkegaard on Socratic Irony,” and Marius Timmann Mjaaland, “Theaetetus: Giving Birth, or Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” in Kierkegaard and the Greek World, Tome I: Socrates and Plato (ed. Jon Stewart and Katalin Nun; Farnham: Ashgate, 2010) 3–25, 87–104, 115–46.
6 Mjaaland, “Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” 115.
7 Plato, Theaetetus (trans. John McDowell; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 145e-146a, 6–7.
8 Kierkegaard, Søren, The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) 12 Google Scholar.
9 Edward F. Mooney, “Pseudonyms and Style,” in The Oxford Handbook to Kierkegaard, 191–210, at 206 [italics in original].
10 Hartshorne certainly exaggerates this connection when he says, playfully: “Had he not been a Christian, Kierkegaard would, I am persuaded, have found divinity in that Greek philosopher, whose use of irony evoked his highest admiration” (Hartshorne, Kierkegaard, Godly Deceiver, 6).
11 “[Kierkegaard] sees the Socrates figure as an ideal for communication and self-knowledge in nineteenth-century Europe. Accordingly, his maieutics is not a simple copy of the Socratic pattern, but a genuinely new application of the maieutic problem in a different historical and spiritual context” (Mjaaland, “Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” 116).
12 Kierkegaard, Søren, Practice in Christianity (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) 133 Google Scholar.
13 Law, David R., Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Daise, Benjamin, Kierkegaard's Socratic Art (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999) 26 Google Scholar.
15 See Kierkegaard, Søren, Philosophical Crumbs (trans. Piety, M. G.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 88–110, 125–39Google Scholar.
16 “If the teacher is to be the occasion that reminds the learner, then he cannot contribute to the learner's remembering that he really knows the truth, because the learner is actually in a state of error” (Kierkegaard, Philosophical Crumbs, 92).
17 Kierkegaard, Philosophical Crumbs, 93.
18 Ibid., 131.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., 95.
21 Mjaaland, “Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” 143.
22 Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 144.
23 For more on the complexity of human freedom in relation to divine activity in the Christian life, see Andrew Torrance's excellent new book, The Freedom to Become a Christian: A Kierkegaardian Account of Human Transformation in Relationship with God (London: T&T Clark, 2016).
24 Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 236 [italics in original].
25 Ibid., 126.
26 Ibid.
27 Knowing that Jesus is God in an entirely direct sense is impossible because the very fact itself can only be accepted through faith: “the single direct statement . . . can serve only to make aware in order that the person who has been made aware, facing the offense of the contradiction, can choose whether he will believe or not” (Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 136).
28 Kierkegaard, Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) 614 Google Scholar.
29 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 75.
30 Poole, for example, sees no theologically didactic purpose in any of Kierkegaard's indirect communication beyond mere playfulness: “there is no unadorned instruction or doctrine or objective fact to be had, but only the mutually shared experience of perplexity” ( Poole, Roger, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication [Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993] 10 Google Scholar). Tietjen helpfully critiques such an approach to Kierkegaard's authorship: “[Poole's] reasoning rests largely on a false dilemma: either take seriously Kierkegaard's use of indirect communication, commonly taken to include devices such as irony and pseudonymity, or read him ‘on religious grounds.’” Tietjen thus offers a positive conception of Kierkegaard's indirect communication, highlighting its edifying facets: “The intention of the indirect communication—which is composed of both jest and earnestness—is not endless dialectical play with the knot . . . Rather, the intention is to work on the problem of the knot, to struggle with it, and eventually to untie it and, in accomplishing this, receive the message of indirect communication, albeit in a particular (playful) way” (Tietjen, Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue, 19).
31 There are also complex personal reasons for Kierkegaard's cross-switching between methods, including a desire to protect his former fiancée Regine Olson's reputation by perpetuating his own scandalously “aesthetic” guise. Although the theological basis for indirect communication is evident, it is also clear that Kierkegaard was not always able to understand the holistic implications of his task until later: “For me indirect communication has been as if instinctive within me, because in being an author I no doubt have also developed myself, and consequently the whole movement is backwards, which is why from the very first I could not state my plan directly, although I certainly was aware that a lot was fermenting within me. Furthermore, consideration for ‘her’ required me to be careful. I could well have said right away: I am a religious author. But later how would I have dared to create the illusion that I was a scoundrel in order if possible to help her. Actually it was she—that is, my relationship to her—who taught me the indirect method. She could be helped only by an untruth about me; otherwise I believe she would have lost her mind. That the collision was a religious one would have completely deranged her, and therefore I have had to be so infinitely careful. And not until she became engaged again and married did I regard myself as somewhat free in this respect” ( Kierkegaard, Søren, Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers [hereafter, JP] (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; 7 vols.; Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press, 1967–78) 2:384-5Google Scholar / Søren Kierkegaard's Skrifter [hereafter, SKS] (ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, et al; 55 vols.; Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 2007) 23, NB17:82.
32 Kierkegaard, JP 2:1962, 386–87 / SKS 25, NB26:7.
33 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6783, 427 / SKS 24, NB24:2.
34 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6231, 42 / SKS 21, NB6:66. Prior to this journal entry, another factor in Kierkegaard's communicative shift involves his unpublished (and unfinished) lectures on communication, written a year earlier in 1847, though never actually delivered. See Kierkegaard, JP 1:649-657, 267–308. These lectures “mark an important change in his reflections on the role of maieutics” (Mjaaland, “Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” 137).
35 The incident with The Corsair, in which he was publically ridiculed before the Copenhagen media and public, also played a huge part in his resolute shift to direct communication: “He then became more occupied with the radical incommensurability of Christian thought and its call to represent a scandalon and provocation in society” (ibid.).
36 Kierkegaard, JP 2:1959, 384 / SKS 23, NB17:82.
37 One possible explanation may be related to the alternate meaning of the classical mythological term, “daimon,” connoting a spiritually mediating presence between heaven and earth, and one which certainly carried both Homeric and Socratic heritage. However, it is highly likely that—as always—Kierkegaard was aware of the negative connotations by drawing attention to their connection.
38 We also see direct communication referred to as a seemingly “transitional” mode too; for example, in the proclamation of the early Church: “The position of the apostle is something else, because he must proclaim an unknown truth, and therefore direct communication can always have its validity temporarily” (Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 243). Both indirect and direct communication are “temporary” measures, dependent upon context, even though there are objective and unchanging doctrinal reasons for using both.
39 Kierkegaard, JP 5:5987, 372.
40 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6783, 427–28.
41 Possen has even suggested that Kierkegaard was more “preacher” than “scholar”: “Kierkegaard's forays into scholarship are unscholarly by design”; in particular instances “he does not follow the standard scholarly procedure of articulating a hypothesis and demonstrating its truth. Rather, he simply declares that his hypothesis . . . simultaneously appears as the truth. But this is not scholarship; it is dogma” (Possen, “Kierkegaard on Socratic Irony,” 103).
42 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6701, 361.
43 Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 235.
44 Ibid.
45 Kierkegaard, JP 3:3521, 607 / SKS 24, NB24:68.
46 Kierkegaard, JP 3:3521, 608 / SKS 24, NB24:68.
47 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6957, 562.
48 For more on Kierkegaard's corrective expression of the Lutheran Gospel in relation to preaching, see Edwards, Aaron, “Life in Kierkegaard's Imaginary Rural Parish: Preaching, Correctivity, and the Gospel,” Toronto Journal of Theology 30 (2014) 235–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Hinkson, Craig, “Luther and Kierkegaard: Theologians of the Cross,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 3 (2001) 27–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 39.
50 In The Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard claims that the realization of the utter paralysis of sin causes an existential anguish that can only be quenched by the paradoxical forgiveness of the Atonement. Following Luther's Law-Gospel hermeneutic, Kierkegaard notes the astounding impact of proclaiming the reality of sin and the reality of forgiveness in succession: “the paradox is the implicit consequence of the doctrine of the Atonement. First of all, Christianity proceeds to establish sin so firmly as a position that the human understanding can never comprehend it; and then it is this same Christian teaching that again undertakes to eliminate this position in such a way that the human understanding can never comprehend it” ( Kierkegaard, Søren, The Sickness Unto Death [ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983] 100 Google Scholar).
51 Kierkegaard, JP 4:3936 / SKS, NB12:180. In an illuminating article, Vainio reflects on Kierkegaard's view of the believer's reception of justification at the Eucharist, further demonstrating what Kierkegaard believed about the Gospel at its core: “But how is it that Communion enables forgiveness? The answer is amazingly classical—through substitutionary atonement” ( Vainio, Olli-Pekka, “Kierkegaard's Eucharistic Spirituality,” Theology Today 67 [2010] 15–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 19).
52 In Kierkegaard's expression of the Gospel, it is fair to say he emphasized the importance of a Christian's action in response to Christ far more overtly than the grace which forgives regardless of one's works. However, this emphasis occurs not because Kierkegaard didn't believe in justification by grace through faith, but because he so believed it that he wanted it to be preached in its fullness: “The error from which Luther turned was an exaggeration with regard to works. And he was entirely right; he did not make a mistake – a person is justified solely and only by faith” ( Kierkegaard, Søren, For Self-Examination / Judge For Yourself! [ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991] 193 Google Scholar). Kierkegaard so believed in the importance of Lutheran justification that he felt it could not be preached in Christendom without recourse to the existential demands it necessitates: “Not that the minor premise should now be made the major premise, not that faith and grace should be abolished or disparaged—God forbid—no, it is precisely for the sake of the major premise . . . [that] it certainly becomes most proper to pay more attention to the minor premise” (Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 24).
53 For a helpful elucidation of Kierkegaard's approach to preaching in Christendom in reference to one of Kierkegaard's actual preached sermons, see Plekon, Michael, “Kierkegaard at the End: His ‘Last’ Sermon, Eschatology and the Attack on the Church,” Faith and Philosophy 17 (2000) 68–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Breuninger, Christian, “Søren Kierkegaard's Reformation of Expository Preaching,” The Covenant Quarterly (1993) 21–36 Google Scholar; Burgess, Andrew J., “Kierkegaard on Homiletics and the Genre of the Sermon,” Journal of Communication and Religion 17 (1994) 17–31 Google Scholar.
54 For more on Kierkegaard's use and redirection of Lutheran doctrine, see Barrett, Lee C., “Faith, Works, and the Uses of the Law: Kierkegaard's Appropriation of Lutheran Doctrine,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Vol. 21: For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself (ed. Perkins, Robert; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2002) 77–109 Google Scholar.
55 John Campbell-Nelson, Kierkegaard's Christian Rhetoric (unpublished doctoral dissertation, The School of Theology at Claremont, 1982), 30.
56 Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, 107.
57 Kierkegaard, JP 1:651, 287 / SKS 27, Papir 368:1.
58 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6687, 355 / SKS 24, NB21:88.
59 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6957, 562.
60 See, for example, the oft-noted prefaces to his many discourses, in which he refuses to call them sermons because he does not have “authority” to preach them. This, it seems, refers not only to his lack of official ordination in the Danish Lutheran Church, but more pertinently to the fact that if one preaches a sermon, one ought to live in and by its truth, and Kierkegaard never felt comfortable putting himself forward as an imitative prototype, as though his own life were worthy of such authority. For more on Kierkegaard's complex approach to authority, see Barry L. Snowden, “By What Authority? Kierkegaard on Pastoral Authority and Authenticity,” Quarterly Review (1985) 43–57.
61 Kierkegaard becomes progressively starker in how he presents the connection between the reality of the human need of the Gospel and the urgency of the minister's call to sacrificial proclamation. It is this calling, bearing great existential cost, from which Kierkegaard feels Christendom's pastors have conveniently escaped: “To believe that there is a hell, that others go to hell—and then get married, beget children, live in a parsonage, think about getting a bigger parish, etc.—that is frightful egotism. But the N. T. is not like that. Anyone who believes that there is a hell, that others go to hell, is eo ipso a missionary, that is the least he can do” (Kierkegaard, JP 6:6851, 490).
62 For more on Kierkegaard's attack period, see Law, David R., “Kierkegaard's Anti-Ecclesiology: the attack on Christendom, 1854–1855,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 7:2 (2007) 86–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
63 “[B]ut in any case I cannot do it for the simple reason that I lack the physical strength” (Kierkegaard, JP 6:6957, 563). Although this appears an ironically “convenient” excuse (the kind of excuse for which Kierkegaard might well have chastised the clergy had they claimed it), it is not all that surprising given that Kierkegaard collapsed in the street later that same year, an event which led to his subsequent death. Although the particularities of his condition remain somewhat mysterious, it is known how much preaching affected him physically based upon previous experiences, as well as the fact that his voice was particularly weak for oratorical purposes, judging from some feedback from his Citadelskirken sermon of 18 May 1851. See his vacillating frustrations with his severe preacherly limitations in JP 6:6769, 416–17 / SKS 24, NB24:74. It seems fair to give Kierkegaard the benefit of the doubt that if he could not be heard in a church, it is indeed unlikely he could be heard on the street, and the entire project might have become undermined and ultimately fruitless.
64 He recounts how he has attempted to make up for his inability to street-preach by writing columns within the non-religious political newspaper, Fædrelandet, viewing this as the closest equivalent of preaching on the street because of the stark juxtaposition between what he would be saying and the location of where he would be saying it (see Kierkegaard, JP 6:6957, 563). Whether this absolves Kierkegaard of hypocrisy is still open to debate. It is clear that his struggle over his own calling was an intense one, and his chosen path was by no means lightly taken. On Kierkegaard's anguished reflections on his “calling,” see B. E. Benktson, “‘The Ministry,’” in Biblioteca Kierkegaardiana: Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard (ed. Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup; 16 vols.; Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980) 5:224–25.
65 “Our age might not be ready for this and perhaps must first be prepared for it” (Kierkegaard, JP 6:6957, 563). This possibly indicates a future strategy for initiating some kind of street preaching mission.
66 See Kierkegaard's reflections on being a kind of proto-reformer (but not an actual reformer) of the Church in Kierkegaard, Judge For Yourself!, 211.
67 Craddock, Fred B., Overhearing the Gospel (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2002) 19–20 Google Scholar [italics in original].
68 This bears thinking about in our own context today, when—due to many debilitating examples of street preaching which do violate the appropriate “style” of Christianity—the very notion of street preaching is usually met with a priori disdain, a reaction which may itself be inappropriate (if Kierkegaard is to be believed).
69 Kierkegaard, JP 3:2642, 153 / SKS 21, NB6:15.
70 Kierkegaard, JP 1:175, 69 / SKS 24, NB23:146.
71 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6168, 14 / SKS 20, NB5:69.
72 Kierkegaard, JP 6:6252, 57.
73 Much has been made of Nathan's parable to David in 2 Sam 12:1–4 as a way of emphasizing the indirect method. Indeed Kierkegaard makes much of this text in a number of different ways throughout his authorship. Yet it is important to see that in Nathan's parable, the indirect (the narrative into which David is drawn) only paves the way for the clear revelation which can only come through the accompanying direct communication: “Thou art the man!” Nathan's parable is—like Kierkegaard's authorship—a combination of indirect and direct communication, with the indirect underlying the direct, preparing the way, as it were, for actualized revelation.
74 Kierkegaard, JP 1:646, 286 / SKS 27, Papir 368:1.
75 See Kierkegaard, Søren, “The Moment” and Late Writings (ed. and trans. Hong, Howard V. and Hong, Edna H.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) 340–47Google Scholar.
76 “When talking about Kierkegaard, it is not a question of maieutics or not maieutics, but a question of how the maieutic communication takes place and to what extent it influences his thinking” (Mjaaland, “Kierkegaard's Socratic Maieutics,” 124).
77 Kierkegaard, JP 1:670, 314 / SKS 21, NB10:154.
