The Context

An understanding of the totality of my work as an author, its

maieutic purpose, etc., requires also an understanding of my
personal existing [existeren] as an author, what I qua author have
done with personal existing to support it, illuminate it, conceal it,
give it direction, etc., something that is more complicated than just
as interesting as the whole work as an author.1
In the article "Toward the Understanding of Kierkegaard", which came out in the Journal
of Religion, Philip Merlan contends that, "to understand Kierkegaard is by no means necessary
to find out his whole history".2 Hence, it is by no means necessary to elucidate portions of
Kierkegaard's life that helped form his thoughts and writings.
This chapter examines the context of the historical and theoretical foundation of
Kierkegaard's philosophy. In so doing, the researcher takes into consideration salient points in
Kierkegaard's biographical turns relevant to the formulation of his existential philosophy. This
chapter includes the following: a.) historical context; b.) Hegel and his dialectic; and c.)
Christendom.
This chapter serves two main objectives: first, to expose the background of Kierkegaard's
formulation of existential philosophy; and second, to situate a better understanding of his
philosophical ideas (influenced by biographical and intellectual milieu of 19 th century Denmark).

I
A Historical Spectrum

The Golden Age of Danish Culture

The first half of the 19th century was the Golden Age of Danish culture, a time of
significant development and great achievements in which culture flourished as never before.
For instance, the physicist and philosopher H. C. Ørsted (1777-1851), Denmark's leading
natural scientist, discovered electromagnetism in 1820. 3 His brother, A. S. Ørsted (1778-1860), was
perhaps the most exceptional legal scholar Denmark has ever produced and became one of the
nation's leading statesmen throughout the Golden Age. 4 The paleontologist Christian J.

1Kierkegaard. The Point of View on My Work as an Author Armed Neutrality, trans., Howard Hong and
Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) p. 185.
2 Philip Merlan. “Towards the Understanding of Kierkegaard”, Journal of Religion no. 64 (1968) p. 112. Cf.
Theodore Anthony Demata, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Mind, Unpublished Thesis (Manila: University
of Santo Tomas, March 1998) p. 20.
3 Hans Christian Ørsted was the rector of the University of Copenhagen when Kierkegaard defended his
doctoral dissertation (at the time he received the title of magister, which corresponded to a doctoral degree. In the
1850s, all who possessed the magister degree in philosophy automatically received the doctoral degree) on The
Concept of Irony (1841). His signature was on Kierkegaard’s diploma. “His main achievement... was to clarify the
relations between magnetism and electricity, which he established in 1820 in a Latin pamphlet. His observations... led
directly to the further discoveries of Ampère, Faraday, and others, which often involved consultation with Ørsted.” In
1824 he discovered aluminum. He wrote The Soul in Nature, a Romantic and Idealist philosophy of science. See T.
K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), p. 239, p. 293; and A
History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H. Rossel (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), p. 175. For more
on his philosophy of science and his The Soul in Nature, see “The Life of H. C. Ørsted” by Peter Ludwig Möller at the
beginning of the English translation of Ørsted’s The Soul in Nature, trans. Leonora and Joanna Horner (London, UK,
1852), and the first chapter of Habib Malik, Receiving Søren Kierkegaard, esp. pp. 21-36.
4 For more on Anders Sandoe Ørsted, see Habib Malik, Receiving Søren Kierkegaard, pp. 21-25; Bruce
Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 80; F. J.
Billeskov Jansen, Søren Kierkegaard: Life and Work (Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Ministries of Culture and Education, 1994), p. 2; and T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia, (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1979) p. 243.
Thomsen (1788-1865) devised the epoch-making division into Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. 5 J. J.
A. Worsaae (1821-1885) pioneered the comprehensive study of the impact of the Vikings' voyages. 6
The influential philologist Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) was the first to describe Old Norse, becoming
one of the founders of comparative linguistics. 7 The social reformer, pedagogue, mythologist, poet,
and theologian N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) laid the groundwork for children's public education
and the celebrated folk-high-schools.8 Two Danish bishops of the time,
J. P. Mynster (1775-1853) and H. L. Martensen (1808-1884) became authors of renown, the
former as a devotional writer and as a great preacher, and the latter as a theologian and one of
Kierkegaard's greatest adversaries.9 Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) won worldwide renown as
a sculptor.10 C. W. Eckersberg (1783-1853), the father of modern Danish painting, was making

5 Ibid., p. 283.
6 “His works,” said G. P. Gooch, were “the chief source of knowledge of the Vikings and... created the taste
for Scandinavian antiquities.” Cf., Ibid., p. 283.
7 Sven H Rossel, ed., A History of Danish Literature, (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992) p. 175.
8 Kierkegaard, however, said of him: “even in eternity he will be distasteful to me.” Quoted by Walter Lowrie,
A Short Life of Kierkegaard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 6. For more on Nicolai Frederik
Severin Grundtvig, see Bruce Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, pp. 198-237; A History of Danish
Literature, ed. Sven H Rossel, pp. 180-81, pp. 195-199; P. M. Mitchell, A History of Danish Literature (Copenhagen,
Denmark: Gyldendal, 1957), pp. 126-134. Edgar Leonard Allen, Bishop Grundtvig: A Prophet of the North (London,
UK: J. Clarke, 1949); Johannes Knudsen, Danish Rebel: A Study of N. F. S. Grundtvig (Philadelphia, PA: Muhlenberg
Press, 1955); and Poul Georg Lindhardt, Grundtvig: An Introduction (London, UK: SPCK, 1951). The Folke Højskole
are schools at the post-secondary level for adult education. For the delicate issue of Kierkegaard’s relation to
Grundtvig, see M. G. Christensen, “Grundtvig and Kierkegaard” in The Lutheran Quarterly, II (1950), pp. 441-446;
and see also Niels Thulstrup, “Kierkegaard and the Church in Denmark”, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, Vol. 13, 198ff.
Derry says Grundtvig was “a seer of the type of Carlyle... his reverence for the Nordic past... did not prevent the Sage
of Copenhagen from preaching a special Scandinavian Liberalism...” and “down to his death in his ninetieth year in
1872, Grundtvig was so clearly the central figure in Scandinavian religious life that no contemporary could have
guessed that a wider fame awaited... [Kierkegaard].” T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia, pp. 287-288.
9 For more information on Jacob Peter Mynster, see Bruce Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark,
pp. 100-135; Niels Thulstrup, “Mynster” in Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, Vol. 10, p. 15ff, and A History of Danish
Literature, ed. Sven H Rossel, 248. For more information on Hans Lassen Martensen, see Bruce Kirmmse,
Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, pp. 169-197; J. H. Schiørring, “Martensen” in Biblioethica Kierkegaardiana Vol.
10, p.177ff, and Sven H Rossel (ed.,) A History of Danish Literature, p. 205, p. 248. It would be impossible in to delve
into the issue of Kierkegaard’s relation to Mynster and Martensen in great detail, but their names will appear again
and again in this dissertation as we proceed. Their importance in Kierkegaard’s life and work is immeasurable,
particularly because they were, with Kierkegaard, the central figures in the Kirkekamp of pp. 1854-1855.
10 For more on Bertel Thorvaldsen, see Eugene Plon, Thorvaldsen: His Life and Work (Boston, MA:
Roberts, 1874); for more pictures of his works, see Thorvaldsen, 3 vols. in one (Copenhagen, Denmark: G. E. C.
Gad, 1924-
1930). He sculpted the famous statue of Jesus with outstretched arms that was placed in the chancel of
Copenhagen’s Vor Frue Kirke (Church of Our Lady) in Kierkegaard’s days.
In one of the few “discourses” Kierkegaard actually delivered, in this case at this very church, a sermon on Jesus’
invitation on Matt 11:28, “Come here to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (a translation to English
of the text as it can be found in the Danish Bible), Kierkegaard pointed his finger to Thorvaldsen’s statue and exclaimed:
“See, he stretches out his arms and says: Come here, come here to me, all you who labor and are burdened. See, he opens
his arms, in which all of us can rest equally secure and equally blessed, for it was only in our Saviors’s earthly life that John
lay closest to him upon his breast. How you come here now, how you can be said to be laboring burdened now, whether
your offense was major or minor, whether the guilt is old and, yet no, it is not forgotten, no, but old and often repented, or it
is new and no mitigating recollection has eased it oh, with him you will find rest for your soul. I do not know what in particular
troubles you, my listener; perhaps I would not understand your sorrow either or know how to speak about it with insight. But
you are not going to any human being; from having confessed in secret before God you are going to him, the merciful inviter,
to him who knows all human sorrows, to him who himself was tested in everything, yet without sin. He also knew earthly
needs, he who hungered in the desert, he who thirsted upon the cross. He also knew poverty, he who had nowhere to lay
his head. His soul has been sorrowful unto death. Indeed, he has experienced all human sorrow more grievously than any
human being, he who at the very end was abandoned by God when he bore all the sin of the world. Moreover, he is not only
your spiritual guide; he is also your Savior. He not only understands all your sorrow better than you understand it yourself,
but he wants to take the burden from you and to give rest for the soul.” Kierkegaard. Christian Discourses in Christian
Discourses/The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. Howard & Edna Hong. Princeton, (NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1997), pp. 265-266.
pictures of sailing ships for Denmark's bourgeois homes.11 With Adam Oehlenschläger (1779-
1850), Denmark's national poet, Nordic antiquity was reborn in Danish poetry and drama. 12 The
Eventyr of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) soon gained worldwide fame.13 The art critic J. L.
Heiberg (1790-1861) was the sovereign arbiter of taste,14 and his wife, Johanne Luise Heiberg
(1812-90)15 became Denmark's, and one of Europe's, most exceptional acting talents, as well
as a writer of success. Playwright, 16 university professor, editor, Heiberg united with Martensen
in making the philosophy of Hegel the vogue in Denmark. 17 Hans Nicolai Clausen (1793-1877),
theologian, educator, and politician, champion of the struggle for emancipation and progress,
represented what Kirmmse calls "the liberal alternative." 18 It was in this milieu that Søren
Kierkegaard manifested his genius.19

A Short-lived Life
Kierkegaard was born on the fifth of May 1813, in a pietistic family of Copenhagen,
Denmark. His parents were Mikael Pedersen Kierkegaard and Anne Sorensdatter Lunds, both

This quotation illustrates a sample of Kierkegaard’s works, in which he employed “direct communication”,
i.e., he wrote as himself. It shows Kierkegaard as the utterly orthodox Christian thinker he really was inasmuch as all
central, historic Christological dogmas are present here, unquestioned and vigorously proclaimed, e.g., Christ’s dual
nature, the vicarious-substitutionary atonement, Christ not only as master and model but also as savior. This
proclamation is made in a clearly evangelical tone (with pietistic overtones, e.g., the emphasis on suffering and the
staurological depictions).
11For more on C. W. Eckersberg, see Palle Lauring, A History of the Kingdom of Denmark, trans. David
Hohnen (Copenhagen, Denmark: Høst & Søn, 1963), p. 208; and The Golden Age in Denmark, ed. Bente Scavenius,
trans. Barbara Haveland (Denmark: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1994), p. 9ff.
12 For more on Adam Oehlenschläger, see Bruce Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark,
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990) pp. 86-99; and A History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H Rossel,
pp. 178-180, pp. 187-191; and T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia, p. 286.
13 For more on Hans Christian Andersen, see A History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H Rossel, pp. 228-
37; See also, Svend Dahl & H. G. Topsøe-Jensen (eds.), Hans Christian Andersen: His Life and Work, trans. W Glyn Jones
(Copenhagen: Det Berlingske Bogtrykkeri, 1955); Elith Reumert, Hans Andersen the Man, trans. Jessie Brøchner (London,
UK: Methuen & Co., 1927; and Elias Bredsdorff, Hans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Work (New York, NY:
Noonday Press, 1975). Kierkegaard’s first publication was a long study of Andersen as a novelist. See
Kierkegaard, From the Papers of One Still Living, trans. Julia Watkin, in Early Polemical Writings, trans. Julia Watkin.
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) in Kierkegaard, Early Polemical Writings, trans. Julia Watkin.
Princeton, (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). For the complex issue of the friendship and antagonism between
Kierkegaard and Andersen, see the first chapter of H. Malik, Receiving Søren Kierkegaard, The Early Impact and
Transmission of His Thought.(Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press, 1997) esp. pp. 7-17.
14In the 1830s the young Kierkegaard also belonged to “Heiberg’s circle.” He later became the strongest
opponent of Heiberg’s attempts to introduce Hegelianism in Denmark. For more on Johan Ludvig Heiberg, see Bruce
Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, p. 136-68; and A History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H Rossel, pp.
203-207.
15Inspired by, and in honor of her, Kierkegaard wrote a small but profound and beautiful piece called The
Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress (1848). See Kierkegaard, The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress
in Christian Discourses/The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, pp. 303-25.
16 Heiberg’s masterpiece was the satire En Sjæl efter Døden: En Apokalyptisk Comedie (A Soul after
Death: An Apocalyptic Comedy), ed. Henning Fonsmark (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1965), pp. 5-54. For some comments
on it, see P. M. Mitchell, A History of Danish Literature, pp. 135-139.
17 Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, p. 5.
18 For more on Hans Nicolai Clausen, see Bruce Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark,
238-244; and The Golden Age in Denmark, ed. Bente Scavenius, trans. Barbara Haveland, 19ff.
19 A simple but instructive account of the Golden Age can be found in T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia,
p. 283ff. For a detailed account of the Golden Age, see The Golden Age in Denmark, ed. Bente Scavenius, trans. Barbara
Haveland. Many other figures could be cited, such as the “lightning man” Henrik Steffens who brought romanticism to
Denmark; the university professor F. C Sibbern who so greatly influenced Kierkegaard; the philanthropist Jonas Collin; the
painters Ludvig Bødtcher, Wilhelm Marstrand, and Christen Købke; the poets B. S. Ingemann and Frederik Paludan-Müller;
the democratic idealists J. J. Dampe and Orla Lehmann; the publishers C. A. Reitzel and Frederik Hegel, of Gyldendal; the
musician and gourmet C. E. F. Weyse; the composer Herman Severin Løvenskiold; the novelist, satirist and The Corsair’s
editor Meir Aron Goldschmidt, with whom Kierkegaard was going to clash in 1846; and Kierkegaard’s own brother, Peter
Christian Kierkegaard, who became the bishop of Ålborg in 1856, and a
native of Jutland peasant stock. Due to his father's skill as a merchant, they became well to do
Danish family.20
Mikael was a strict Lutheran.21 His gloomy, guilt-ridden piety, and vivid imagination
strongly influenced Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard saw his own childhood distorted by his father's
guilt and melancholy. We see in 1846 entry in his Journals:

An old man who himself was extremely melancholy(why, I will not

write down) gets a son in his own old age who inherits all his
melancholy—but who always has a mental-spiritual-elasticity
enabling him hid his melancholy. Furthermore, because he is
essentially and eminently health of mind and spirit, his melancholy
cannot dominate him, but neither is he able to throw it off; at best
he manages to endure it.22
The orthodox father purveyed Kierkegaard's early education, which motivated his whole
life and philosophy. In countless cases, Kierkegaard became mature at a very early age. He
writes:

The joy of being a child I have never had. The frightful torments I
experienced disturbed the peacefulness which must belong to
being a child, to have in one's hands the capacity to be occupied
etc., to give his father joy, for my inner unrest had the effect that I
was always, always, outside myself. But on not rare occasions it
seems as if my childhood had come back again, for unhappy as
my father made me, it seems as if I now experience being a child
in my relationship to God, as if all my early life was misspent so
dreadfully in order that I should experience more truly the second
time in my relationship to God.23

Kierkegaard was naturally introspective and shy during his early years. 24 This is so since his
father used to clothe him with old-fashioned clothing his father himself wore. He seldom made
friends with the rest of the boys, for they often made fun of his clothes and discrete behavior. 25

government minister in 1867. When the Danish cultural Golden Age was losing its strength, it gained new impetus by
the beginning of the Norwegian cultural awakening of 1850-80 when authors such as Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne
Bjørnson appeared. In the 1870s they would join the literary critic and pioneer Kierkegaard scholar Georg Brandes
and other Danish intellectuals to begin a whole new chapter of Scandinavian culture by importing continental and
British realism. It was a radical rupture with almost all that the golden age represented, a movement which Brandes
named the “Modern Breakthrough.” See Habib Malik, Receiving Søren Kierkegaard, p. 237ff. See also Niels
Thulstrup, The Copenhagen of Kierkegaard, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana (vol. 11), pp. 9-135.
20 The Kierkegaard family lived in a big house. The house was at Nytorv (New Marketplace). “It was a
good house, not ostentatious like some of the pilaster mansions with triangular gables that faced it across the square,
but a solidly respectable dwelling for the family of a retired hosier...” Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard, p. 11. For all the
places where Kierkegaard lived and the occasions he moved, see E. Skjoldager, “His Residences” c. 16 vols. ed. by
Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Forlag, (1978-1988). Vol. 12: pp. 72-73.
Lescoe writes: “As a youth of twelve, Soren’s father, Mikael, was brought to Copenhagen by his maternal
uncle, who employed him in the business of selling wool of the Jutland heath. The venture was so successful that
Mikael was able to retire at forty, a wealthy man.” Cf. Francis Lescoe, Existentialism: With or Without God? (New
York: Alba Publishing House, 1974) p. 25.
21Soren Kierkegaard. Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. 7 vols., (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1967-1968) vol. VI, p. 83.
22 Ibid., (vol V) p. 334 no. 5913.
23 Ibid., p. 83, no. 6298.
24 Lescoe, p, 14.
25 Ibid., p. 6.
The school he attended was semi-private and which, by strict discipline and consistent methods,
made the foundation on humanities and mathematics for those who would have professional
careers. However, Kierkegaard's early academic formation played fewer roles in natural
sciences and found greater inclination on human sciences.26
On the thirteenth of October 1830, he enrolled at the University of Copenhagen and
chose the faculty of theology following his father's will. 27 However, he paid minimal interest in
theological studies and devoted himself instead to philosophy, literature, and history.
At this point, Kierkegaard gained knowledge of Hegelian philosophy (which later on he
would react strongly against). During the same period, he was very much an observer of life.
Cynical and disillusioned, he became devoted to the social life of the university. While in the
university, Kierkegaard ceased to practice Lutheranism and, for a time, led an extravagant
social life. He became a familiar figure in the theatrical and numerous café spots in
Copenhagen, Denmark. At the university, he maintained that philosophy and Christianity were
strongly incompatible. This religious disbelief was accompanied by laxity in moral standards
(this part in Kierkegaard's life, he later on coined as the aesthetic stage of his existence). 28
In the spring of 1836, Kierkegaard appeared to have been tempted to accept a
melancholic life as the only form of existence by having been overcome by a vision of cynicism.

Already as a small child I was told—and as solemnly as possible

— that "the crowds" spit upon Christ, who was in fact the truth, [in
margin: that they spit upon Christ, that the crowd(")those who
passed by") spit upon Him and said: Fie on you]. This in have hid
deep in my heart [penciled in margin: even though there have
been moments, yes, times when I seemed to have forgotten it, it
has always come back to me as my first thought]. In order to
conceal the fact that I had hid this thought deep in my soul, I have
even concealed it under the most opposite exterior, for I was
afraid that I would forget it too soon, that it might would be tricked
out of me and be like a blank cartridge. This thought… is my life…
and if I forgot everything, I do not forget…what was said to me as
a child, and the impression it made on the child.29
Realizing that aesthetic life brings tremendous boredom, he searched for a deeper
sense of style of living. In June of the same year (1836), he underwent a kind of moral
conversion by adopting moral standards and made an attempt to live up to them (this segment
of Kierkegaard's life later on coined as the ethical stage of his existence).
On the nineteenth of May, 1838, Kierkegaard's father, Mikael, died. In the same period,
he experienced a different kind of religious conversion. In his Journals entered on the same
date, he wrote:

A religious conversion accompanied by an indescribable joy which

cools and refreshes like a breath of wind, a wave of air, from the

26 Ibid., p. 7.
27 Lescoe, p. 26.
28 Frederick Copleston, S.J., History of Philosophy, vol. vii (New York: Doubleday Co., and Inc., 1965) p.
338.
29 Kierkegaard. Journals and Papers (vol. VI) pp. 145-146. no. 6389.
 trade wind which blows from the plains of Mamre to the
everlasting habitations.30
Such feeling of "refreshment of the soul" refers to the religious awe and wonder Kierkegaard
later on called the religious sphere of his existence.
In the year 1840, Kierkegaard became engaged to seventeen-year-old Regina Olsen.
But almost immediately, he began to suspect that marriage was incompatible with his own
complicated brooding, and his growing sense of philosophical vocation. After a year (1841), he
abruptly broke off the engagement and realized at the same time that he did not want to
become a Lutheran pastor. This kind of rebellion is a form of freedom for Kierkegaard.

An observer will perceive how everything was set in motion and

dialectically: I had a thorn flesh, intellectual gifts (especially
imagination and dialectic) and a culture in superabundance, and
enormous development as an observer, a Christian upbringing that
was certainly unusual, a dialectical relationship to Christianity which
was peculiarly my won, and in addition to this I had from childhood a
training in obedience, obedience absolute, and I was armed with an
almost foolhardy faith that I was able to do anything, only one thing
excepted, to be a free bird, though but one for the whole day, to slip
out of the fetters of melancholy in which another power held me
bound. Finally, in my own eyes I was a penitent.31

On the second day of October, 1845, as Kierkegaard was carrying from the bank the
slim installment of a sizable fortune which he inherited, he fell unconscious on the street and
became paralyzed from the waist-down. He died in Frederick's Hospital, on the eleventh day of
November, at an early age of forty-two.32

Mikael Pedersen Kierkegaard and the “Insane Upbringing”

Kierkegaard's father, Mikael, played an important role in his philosophical and personal
development. Kierkegaard's mature life is undoubtedly a consequence of his strict orthodox
upbringing.33 Soren writes:
As a child I was eternally and seriously brought up in Christianity.
Humanly speaking, it was an insane upbringing. Already in my
earliest childhood I broke down under the grave impression which
the melancholy old man who laid it upon me himself sank under. A
child—what crazy thing—travestied as an old man! Frightful!34
Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard was a Pietist and attended the Moravian Brethren
congregation in Copenhagen35 , although he was also loyal to the State Church and to his pastor,

30 Soren Kierkegaard, Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, trans., ed., Alexander Dru (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1959) p 592.
31 Kierkegaard. The Point of View of My Work as an Author and Armed Neutrality p. 82.
32 Lescoe, p. 64.
33 Merlan, p. 122. See also, Lescoe, pp. 15-25; and Mullen, p. 99ff.
34 Kierkegaard. The Point of View as an Author and Armed Neutrality. p. 76.
35The Moravian Brotherhood on Stormgade (Storm Street). See J. Thompson, Kierkegaard, p. 19; and
Johannes Höhlenberg, Sören Kierkegaard, p. 27.
J. L. Mynster, who later would become bishop of Sjælland. 36 Kierkegaard's father was a shrewd
businessman. He had made safe investments before the days of the Danish state bankruptcy of
1813 only two months before Kierkegaard's birth which brought financial ruin upon most of the
well-to-do families in Denmark.37 Kierkegaard's father came out of it, a very wealthy man. His
father's fortune allowed Kierkegaard to live without a regular job and to dedicate his life to his
authorship. This incident led Kierkegaard later to make the following comment: "I was born in
1813, in that bad fiscal year [Thompson's trans.: "in the year of the crazy money"] when so
many other bad banknotes were put in circulation, and my life seems most comparable to one of
them. There is a suggestion of greatness in me, but because of the bad conditions of the times I
am not worth very much."38
There were two events in Mikael's life that caused him to be obsessively morbid and
extremely melancholic. The first instance was when Mikael was a boy of about eleven, tending
the sheep in Jutland heath. Due to hunger and great need, he secretly, in rebellion, cursed God.
We read in Soren's Journals this incident concerning his father. He writes,

How terrible about the man who was a little boy, while herding the
flocks on the heath of Jutland, suffering greatly, in hunger and in
want, stood upon a hill and cursed God -- and the man was
unable to forget it even when he was eighty-two years old.39
The second instance, the reason for Mikael's melancholic disposition, was his conjugal
infidelity to his first wife.40 He married twice. His first wife, Kirstine Røyen, died in 1796, leaving
no children. His second marriage was to Anne Sørensdatter Lund (1768-1834), the maid of his
first wife, whom he had made pregnant. 41 Michael and Anne had seven children, the youngest
of whom was Søren, born on May 5th, 1813. 42 His father was then 56, and his mother 44 at the
time of Kierkegaard's birth. His wife died giving birth to the child.
Mikael's misdeeds constantly tormented him with a deep sense of guilt. 43 He became
convinced that God is punishing him through the successive deaths of his loved ones. His second
36 See Niels Thulstrup, “Mynster” in Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10, and p. 15ff.
37 The economic crisis was a consequence of the war with England and the bombardment of Copenhagen
in
1807. “Inflation was rampant and Finance Minister Schimmelmann was taking God knows what liberties with the Mint.
Michael had put most of his money into royal bonds but even these were not secure. On January 5... Schimmelmann was
out, and with him the old Kurantbank monetary system. A new Rigsbank was being set up whose daler [sic] notes would be
worth six of the old dalers [sic]. [according to JP, the old currency value was dropped 1:10]... in deference to foreign
creditors royal bonds could be exchanged at face value for new Rigsbank bonds of the same denominations.”
Cf., Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard, p. 28. The war between England and Denmark was a consequence of
Denmark’s support of Napoleon. See Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers (vol. V) “Notes”, p. 525n1098.
38 Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers (6 Vols. plus Index) ed. & trans. Howard & Edna
Hong. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1967-1978) vol. V. 5725. See also Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard,
p. 8.
39 Kierkegaard, Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, trans Alexander Dru. p. 229. “How appalling for the man
who, as a lad watching sheep on the Jutland heath, suffering painfully, hungry and exhausted, once stood on a hill and
cursed God – and the man was unable to forget it when he was eighty-two years old.” Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s
Journals and Papers (vol. V), p. 5874. H. P. Barfod, the first editor of Kierkegaard’s papers, tells us in Til Minde om Biskop
Peter Christian Kierkegaard (Copenhagen, 1888), pp. 13-15, that Peter Christian confirmed the veracity of this story. See,
Ibid., p. .537n1363. It is said that Kierkegaard’s brother replied: “That is my father’s story and ours too.” See
Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard p. 246; or W. Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1974) p. 71.
40 Merlan, p. 122.
41 Whom according to some, Mikael either seduced or raped while his wife was pregnant. Cf. Lescoe, p. 25.
42 The other children were: Maren Kirstine (1797-1822), Nicoline Kristine (1799-1832), Petrea Severine
(1801-1834), Peter Christian (1805-1888), Søren Michael (1807-1819), and Niels Andreas (1809-1833). As the dates clearly
show, they all died young, with the exception of Peter Christian. The death of his brothers and sisters caused Kierkegaard
much pain, and contributed to his melancholy. Cf. Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard’s Letters and Documents, ed.
& trans. Henrik Rosenmeier. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 501-502.
43 Ibid., p 25.
wife and five of the seven children died in rapid succession (one child died in 1819, another in
1822, and between 1832 to 1836, three more children and finally, their mother died). 44 This
deep sense of morbid guilt and extreme melancholia was transmitted to the young Kierkegaard.
This is manifested when he writes:

An old man, himself prodigiously melancholy... had a son in his

old age upon whom the whole of that melancholy descended in
inheritance -- but at the same time he had such an elasticity of
mine that he was able to conceal it, and because his mind was
essentially, eminently sound in his melancholy could never obtain
power over him, but neither was he able to throw it off, at the most
he was able to bear it.45
Kierkegaard's father's brooding nature led him to expect God's punishment upon him for
the sin of his youth. Since, instead of the punishment, he was continually being spared in every
eminent disaster,46 and always becoming wealthier, he began to arrive at strange ideas, such
as believing that Søren Kierkegaard had to be sacrificed, just as Abraham had sacrificed
Isaac.47 Being born of an old couple, Kierkegaard identified himself with Isaac.48
On another occasion, Kierkegaard speaks about the overwhelming legacy of melancholy
from the older man bequeathed to the children.

The thoughtlessness, the carelessness, and cocksureness with

which children are brought up is frightful to see; and yet everyone
is essentially what they are to be when they are ten years old, and
yet one would find that almost everyone bears with them a defect
from their childhood, which they do not overcome in their
seventieth year; together with the fact of all happy individualities
are related to false impression received in children.49
In the year 1830, Kierkegaard experienced a significant incident he considered as the "great
earthquake" that influenced his entire life.50 The event made him conclude that the "insane

44 Ibid., pp. 25-26.

45 Kierkegaard. Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, p. 169. Further, Alexander Dru states: “His (Mikael’s)
vigorous mind was imprisoned in a narrow disfiguring Protestantism, an arid predestinarian theology and meagre
pietism that accentuated the personal dependence of man on God at the price of confirming it as an almost
mechanistic conception of Divine Providence. To him the chain of cause and effect of guilt and punishment reached
from his first rebellion of God, down through his sensuality to the successive deaths of his children. It was a religion
which neither education nor vision touched; it remained morose, intense and sterile.” Taken from the introductory
note by Alexander Dru, ed. The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, p. 13.
46 “The fire of 1795 burned through 55 streets, destroying 941 buildings in the center of Copenhagen,
but he was miraculously spared. Spared was too weak a word; the general destruction around him actually enhanced
the value of his own property.” J. Thompson, Kierkegaard, p. 26.
47 “Since on all human reckoning Michael need no longer fear for his material welfare, a presentiment
began to gnaw at his soul that it was his family, his children, who were to be selected as propitiatory sacrifices, and that
God, as in the Old Testament, would punish them for the father’s sin, and deprive him of them one after the other, till at last
he would be left childless, lonely, and desperate.” Johannes Hohlenberg, Sören Kierkegaard, p. 24. “If he had understood
God’s will aright, the birth of another child was not a blessing but a misfortune, and not only a misfortune but a crime. It
meant that he would drag in another being under the curse, and force punishment on an innocent child.” Ibid. “Little by little
the thought took shape that the only way to be reconciled with God was to let this child restore the relationship between
himself and God – and that God therefore demanded this child as a sacrifice, as he had demanded
Isaac from Abraham.” Ibid., p. 25.
48 See, for instance, Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers (vol. VI) p. 241, no. 6791.
49 Kierkegaard. Journals of Kierkegaard, p. 314.
50 Ibid., p. 241.
upbringing" was vested upon him by the old man (Mikael). With this, Kierkegaard became
convinced that the entire family was singled out by God to be a special object of divine
punishment.51 He writes, "the guilt that must rest upon the whole family, a punishment of God
must be impending over it, and so my life should be properly employed in doing penance".52
Then it was the great earthquake that occurred, the terrible
revolution, which suddenly forced upon me a new infallible law of
interpretation of all the acts. Then I suspected that my father's
great age was not a divine blessing but rather a curse; that the
outstanding intellectual gifts of our family were only given to us in
order that we should rend each other to pieces; then I felt the
stillness of death grow around me when I saw in my father an
unhappy man who was to outlive us all, across on the tomb of his
hopes…

There must be a guilt upon the whole family, the punishment of

God, obliterated like an unsuccessful attempt, and only at times
did I find a little alleviation the thought that my father had been
allotted the heavy task of calming us with the consolation of
religion, ministering to us so that a better world would be open to
us, even though we were taken by the punishment which the Jews
always called down upon their enemies: that all recollection of us
should be utterly wiped out, that we should no longer be found.53
The immediate experience Kierkegaard had undergone from his father, brought up what
he inscribed as the "insane upbringing". In effect, religion turned out to be a scandal to the
young Kierkegaard.
It is terrible when for a single instant, I come to think of the dark
background of my life, from the very earliest time. The anxious
dread with which my father filled my soul, his own frightful
melancholy, the many things in that connection which I cannot
record -- I got such a dread of Christianity, and yet I felt myself so
strongly drawn into it.54
Later Kierkegaard said that, as a child, he had already been made into an old man, and
that it was:

a crazy upbringing... there were times when Christianity appeared

to me the most inhuman cruelty although never, even when I was
furthest from it, did I cease to revere it... But I have never definitely
broken with Christianity nor renounced it. To attack it has never
been my thought. No, from the time when there could be any
question of the employment of my powers, I was firmly determined

51 Ibid.
52 Ibid., p. 503.
53 Ibid., p. 243.
54Kierkegaard’s Journals. quoted by Lee M. Hollander, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard. (New
York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1960) p. 2.
 to employ them all to defend Christianity, or in any case to present
it in its true form.55
As a result, religion, for Kierkegaard, became a symbol of dread more than praise,
punishment more than mercy.

As a child I was eternally and seriously brought up in Christianity.

Humanly speaking, it was an insane upbringing. Already in my
earliest childhood I broke down under the grave impression which
the melancholy old man who laid it upon me himself sank under. A
child—what crazy thing—travestied as an old man! Frightful!56
Kierkegaard has discovered the reason for his father's "silent despair" that caused him
his "insane upbringing". In his journal entry in 1844, he writes:

A relationship between father and the son, where the son secretly
discovers everything after, only one in a state of intoxication, he lets
drop a few words, which hint at the worst. Otherwise, the age does
not discover what it is and never dares his fathers or others. 57

In the end, Michael Pedersen "ruled his numerous family with old-fashioned severity." 58
When he died in 1838, only two of his children were alive; one of them was Peter Christian
Kierkegaard (1805-1888).59 The other survivor was Søren Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard and the Stages on Life's Way
Kierkegaard's own life was a witness to what he was about to share with the philosophical
world. His life embodied the existential element of his philosophy. 60 This was evident when he

55 Kierkegaard. The Point-of-View for My Work as an Author in The Point of View, Etc., trans. Walter
Lowrie. (London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1939) p. 76-77.
56 Kierkegaard. The Point of View as an Author and Armed Neutrality. p. 76.
57 Ibid., p. 596.
58 Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, p. 23.
59 Peter Christian later would become the bishop of Ålborg. See E. Skjoldager, “The Family” in
Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, Vol. 12, esp. pp. 11-12, and Niels Thulstrup, “The Brother Peter Christian”, Bibliotheca
Kierkegaardiana, Vol. 12, p. 26ff.
60 Merlan, p. 122.
categorized levels of existence into the aesthetic stage, the ethical stage, and the religious
stage.61
In the early part of his life, Kierkegaard regarded his existence as futile and dark. 62 A life
characterized by guilt, melancholy, and anxiety. From the life of emptiness and dark rigid
commandments, he discovered meaning in his life. Hence, in spite of the pessimistic horizon of
a gloomy guilt-ridden life filled with sensual laxity, truth arose. It is the highest truth that dwells
on the fullest meaning of one's existence since no other person can experience it except the self
alone. Kierkegaard called this journey from a dark path towards the bright end of truth as the
stages on life's way.
In 1838, when he was twenty-five, he may have had a mystical experience, which may
indicate a conversion (or a new commitment) to Christianity.63

There is an indescribable joy that glows all through us just as

inexplicably as the apostle's exclamation breaks forth for no
apparent reason: 'Rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice.' not a joy over
this or that, but the soul's full outcry 'with tongue and mouth and

61 Many works of Kierkegaard, illustrate these stages of life, but it is noteworthy to take Either/Or that
typifies the life of aesthetic man, written by a pseudonymous author, Judge Vilhelm [alias Judge William (1843), alias
“B”
(1836)—is the author-character of the whole second half of Either/Or and also of the second part of Stages on Life’s
Way, “Some Reflections on Marriage in Answer to Objections” (1845). In the latter, the judge is identified in the front-page
simply as “A Married Man.” In fact, the pseudonym “B” appeared first in 1836 as the author of some early polemical articles.
In these early appearances, “B” is no more than a nom-de-plume. Later, in Either/Or, “B” (now identified as
Judge Vilhelm) has become a fully developed heteronym, Kierkegaard’s representative par excellence of the ethical
stage]. The judge uses foolscap for writing, like a civil servant. He is a man whose life is orderly and whose opinions
are ethically grounded in an untroubled faith in God, marriage, and the society he serves. The ethical stage in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript by Johannes Climacus [(John of the Stairs, or John the Climber, or still John of the
Climax, 1842/1844) the author-character of Philosophical Fragments (1844) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript
(1846) plus the posthumous De hominibus dubitandum est (written in 1842-43, which makes of Climacus
Kierkegaard’s first true heteronym). Climacus, although not a Christian, believes he has a better understanding of
what Christianity is than most of those who affirm being Christians. He is the debunker of speculative theology and
philosophy. He is also a humorist, and is supposed to be understood as a bridge from the ethical to the religious
stage. Climacus may also be understood as a religious skeptic par excellence, in the tradition of Montaigne, Pascal,
Bayle, and Hamann] and Fear and Trembling, of religious stage, Johannes de Silentio.
62 Merlan, p. 122.
63 If this entry actually points to a “conversion” experience, his “conversion” text would have been Phil 4:4-7.
Although some have questioned this interpretation (see J. Thompson, Kierkegaard, 90), many others agree with it (see, e.g.,
W. Lowrie, Kierkegaard, 170ff,; and J. Hohlenberg, Sören Kierkegaard, 83-4). The Hongs and Malantschuk affirm, in their
notes for Journals and Papers, that the “entry suggests a religious experience something like Pascal’s and represents the
opposite pole to another profound experience, ‘the great earthquake’ which preceded it...” (Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers vol. V, Notes, 492n456).
It is not easy to understand what was going on in Kierkegaard’s mind in May of 1838. However, not only this
entry but also others of the period indicate a deep religious desire to move back to Christianity in a more inward way:
“If Christ is to come and live in me, it will have to be according to the Gospel for the day given in the almanac: Christ
enters through closed doors.” (Ibid. vol. V, no. 5313); “My life... is... like a duplicate copy of an original edition of my
own self.” (Ibid., vol. V, no. 5320); just before the “conversion” entry, he wrote: “A midnight hour. Satan the devil fly
specks, etc. You have tricked me, cheated me of the moments I should have enjoyed. The watchman cries: There is
no other Savior.” (Ibid., vol. V, no. 5323); and in July: “How I thank you, Father in heaven, for having kept an earthly
father present for a time here on earth, where I so greatly need him; with your help I hope that he will have greater joy
in being my father the second time than he had the first time.” (Ibid., vol. V, no. 5328); “I am going to work toward a
far more inward relation to Christianity, for up until now I have in a way been standing completely outside of it...”
(Ibid., vol. V, 5329); “I hope that my contentment with my life here at home...” (Ibid., vol. V no. 5330) Lowrie interprets
this expression “here at home” (highlighted by Kierkegaard) metaphorically, meaning a return to Christianity. See W.
Lowrie “Introduction” in Point of View, xiv. Kierkegaard was reading a book (written by Görres) on Athanasius at that
time, and it is likely that Athanasius’ life and theology caused a deep impression on him, and helped him to arrive at
this new commitment to the Christian faith (Kierkegaard. Journal and Papers, no. 5321).
 from the bottom of the heart': 'I rejoice for my joy, by, in, with,
about, over, for, and with my joy..64
This new commitment was followed by his reconciliation with his father before the latter's
death (August 9, 1838) when he decided to fulfill his father's wish that he gets his degree in
theology, and he began to work on that after his "pilgrimage" to his father's old town of Sædding
in Jylland. It is not easy to detect what was the crucial element which led Kierkegaard to
reconcile with his father.65 The older man, now in feeble health, took the opportunity created by
the celebration of Kierkegaard's 25th birthday to make him a complete confession of all his sins.
He may have thought that the discovery or suspicion of his misconduct in the past had helped to
drive his son away from home and away from God. 66 Kierkegaard, after having inherited part of
his father's fortune, was ready to begin his work as an author.

To Be a Rebel
As a young man, Kierkegaard possessed a deep inclination towards rebellion. 67 He is
always concerned to unsettle, to put a question mark against accepted prejudices and habits of
thought.68 In Kierkegaard's time, Copenhagen was a relatively sophisticated city that was
culturally a colony of Germany and was constantly slightly behind the latest trends.69
Kierkegaard's home served as a gathering place for religious and civic leaders, discussing and
arguing on issues that went on each day. The issues were mainly political due to the recent
social revolution of the West and the era of increasing liberalism during that time. The religious
doctrines also lingered constantly on these daily talks. Through these issues, Kierkegaard had
seen his future as a pastor, a bishop, and as a leader of the community.70
However, when Kierkegaard reached the age of twenty-three, this glorious, dignified
ambition suddenly changed its course. He began to find himself in rebellion against the issues

64 Kierkegaard gives for this entry not only the date but also the hour (10:30 AM, May 19, 1838),
which may be quite significant, for also in this the entry is unique. (Ibid., vol. V, no. 5324.
65 Indeed, it is not clear if it happened at all. Josiah Thompson, in harmony with his usually skeptical
views, sees no reason to believe this reconciliation has ever occurred. See Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard, pp. 90-
91.
66Kierkegaard’s deep love and admiration for his father is evident not only in the Journals but also in the
authorship, particularly in the dedications. But Lowrie may have exaggerated the importance for Kierkegaard of his
father’s sins. Some authors have suggested that it was normal in those days to do what Kierkegaard’s father did in
order to be sure that the second wife would be able to conceive. I consider this observation highly questionable. Cf.,
W. Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, p. 119.
67 Enumerated instances of Kierkegaardian rebellion against the system are explained in detail in the
book of John Douglas Mullen, Kierkegaard’s Philosophy: Self-Deception and Cowardice in the Present Age (New
York: New American Library, 1981) pp. 11-22.
68Climacus (Kierkegaard’s one pseudonymous authorship) tells us how he decided to become an author:
“You are getting on in years, I said to myself, and are becoming an old man without being anything and without
actually undertaking anything... you see the names and figures of celebrities, the prized and highly acclaimed
people... the many benefactors of the age who know how to benefit humankind by making life easier and easier,
some by railroads, others by omnibuses and steamships, others by telegraph, others by easily understood surveys
and brief publications about everything worth knowing, and finally the true benefactors of the age who by virtue of
thought systematically make spiritual existence easier and easier and yet more and more meaningful and what are
you doing?... You must do something, but since with your limited capabilities it will be impossible to make anything
easier than is has become, you must, with the same humanitarian enthusiasm as the others have, take it upon
yourself to make something more difficult... when all join together to make everything easier in every way, there
remains only one possible danger, namely, the danger that the easiness would become so great that it would become
all too easy. So only one lack remains, even though not yet felt, the lack of difficulty. Out of love of humankind... out
of genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I comprehended that it was my task: to make difficulties
everywhere”. Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (vol.1 – Text), trans.
Howard & Edna Hong. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 186-187.
69 Mullen, p. 1.
70 Ibid., p. 12- ff.
that have once been the gospel truth when he was younger.71 As the years went on, he started
to become critical and expressive to what he felt and thought about the daily affairs in the naive
city.72
In the year 1836, Kierkegaard writes in his book, Either/Or:

Of all the ridiculous things it seems to me the most ridiculous is to

be a busy man of affairs, prompt to meals and prompt to work.
Hence, when I see a fly settle down in a crucial moment on the
nose of a businessman… then I laughed heartily. And who could
have not helped laughing? What do they accomplish, this
hustlers? Are they like the housewives, when her house was on
fire, who in her excitement saved the fire-tongs what more do they
say from the great far of life?73

It was Kierkegaard's growing awareness and sense of rebellion that caused him to reject
his (supposed) glorious life and the life his father had planned for him. His brother Peter took it
for himself and eventually became the bishop of Aalborg.74
The "Romanticists" and the Theme of the Lost Generation
In the early years of 1830's, a group of German-poet journalists came to be known as
the" young German movement" (known also as the "romantics"). 75 At home, Kierkegaard was
always left alone, since his brother studied theology and the other family members were busy
with their own businesses. He engrossed himself with reading and led himself directly to the
new and radical thoughts of the "romantics".
The romantics strongly believed that a new and radical era was on the horizon. It was the social
and cultural shift that concerned their writings. Yet they did not choose politics as a means but
rather utilized the artistic vehicle to make known that the great change of the era "is at hand".76
The movement's issues are concerned with individuality, free love, women's equality, the
oppressiveness of the social norms, and the emptiness of the bourgeois life.77 They used
poetry, novels and other literary means, with the aim of expressing the theme of "alienation" and
"melancholy"—the theme they considered the battle cry of the lost generation. The heroes were
the "social outcasts but noble outlaw", "respectable prostitute", "the insane", "the crippled",
"Satan", "the wandering Jew", "Don Juan", "Robin Hood", "the prodigal son", "the consumptive
woman", "frustrated lover", the noble savage", and the "simple peasant".78
This group was considered the "outlaws" in the field of letters. They were accused of being
anti-Christian and a threat to morality, modesty and decency. These groups were the "rage" in the
history of German letters. They took their inspiration from Friedrich Schlegel, August

71 As it “appears in the Christian movement whenever one man finds it necessary to take his stand
against the dominant thought-patterns of his day.” James W. McClendon, Jr., Biography as Theology (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon Press, 1974) p. 196.
72 Mullen, p. 13.
73 Kierkegaard, Either/Or. Cf. Mullen, p. 13.
74 Ibid., p. 18.
75 Ibid., p. 17.
76 Ibid., p. 20.
77 Ibid., p. 21.
78 Ibid.
Schlegel (brother of the Friedrich), Caroline Schlegel (August's wife) and Friedrich Schiller
(Kierkegaard's professor).79
Kierkegaard and the Romanticists
The influence of the Romanticists inevitably penetrated Kierkegaard's fresh mind.
However, it must be noted that he did not take the Romanticists' radicalism as either an
intellectual problem or a literary revolution. Instead, he made it a way of living. In the course of
his legacy, he came to an understanding that "romanticism" is more than art but can also be a
tool towards the search for identity. He used the thoughts of the Romanticists in going against
the universal and in a deeper endeavor, made than his guide towards a journey in the discovery
of the importance of individuality.
Kierkegaard and the romanticists, therefore, share a common path that is the theme of
the Lost Generation: being a rebel. He is, however, distinct from the Romanticists in that he
understood it as the idea was meant to be understood. That is a change not in paper alone or
intellectual mindset, but in the manner of living. In the same way, the form and style of how this
movement expresses thoughts intimately were the same means used by Kierkegaard to
advocate the existential component of his philosophy.

II
Hegel and the Dialectic of the Geist80

In the year 1840, Frederick William ascended to the throne of Prussia (a region in
Germany) and passed a state law imposing that Hegel's philosophy be taught in all
universities.81 Denmark, as a quasi-colony of Germany, influenced Copenhagen as well as most
of Europe. This is the time when Kierkegaard engaged himself with philosophy, and inevitably,
was exposed to Hegel's work and philosophy and later on went strongly against it.

Influenced as I was by Hegel and whatever was modern, without

the maturity really to comprehend greatness, I could not resist
pointing out somewhere in my dissertation that it was a defect on
the part of Socrates to disregard the whole and only consider the
individuals numerically. What a Hegelian fool I was!82
Hence, in the understanding of Kierkegaardian philosophy, it is necessary to understand
Hegel's thought.

Hegel's Geist: The Giant Abstract

Hegel's work, Phenomenology of the Geist, exercised a powerful influence on
Kierkegaard. The latter called Hegel's dialectic83 a number of names. He describes it as the

79 The group’s inspiration was also taken from the writers Novalis and Tieck, the theologian
Schleiermacher, and the poet Holderin. Cf. Mullen, p. 14. As regards the history of their endeavors and aspirations of
the movement, see, Mullen, pp. 13- 20.
80 The term “Geist“ is a German term for the Spirit, which stands for the reality itself. The term is
capitalized since the term is predicated to God, whose nature is spirit. Sometimes it is identified with the term “Idea”,
“Nature”, “Spirit”, “Mind”, or “Absolute”. Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit. trans., A.V. Millers (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1977) Cf., Albert Hakim. Historical Introduction to Philosophy. (New York: Macmillan Publishing,
Co., 1992) pp. 571–372.
81 Mullen, p. 19.
82 Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates p. 234-235. See also,
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers (vol. IV) p. 4281.
83The term “dialectic” comes from the Greek word “dialagesthai” which literally connotes “to argue” or “to
discuss”. However, in Hegel’s terminology of the term, “dialectic” refers to the study of contradictions present in the
"abstract thought", "pure thought", "objective truth", "objective reflection", logic", "quantitative
dialectics" or simply, "mediation". 84 Hegelian abstractionism corresponds to Hegel's thought in
general. He looks upon the world as an organic reality, which is constantly contradicting each
other to form anew.85 Hence, from this schema, a dynamic predestined order is implied.
The reality is the result of the oppositions that comprise the nature of the Geist,
(considered as Divine). Here, Hegel would assert that the absolute is not a being separate from
the world and the kosmos, since the world is itself the Geist and the Geist is itself the kosmos.
Thus, he believes that there exists nothing unrelated. Whatever we experience as separate
things, eventually, upon extensive reflection, lead to other things to which they are related, until
the last process of dialectic rests on the knowledge of the Absolute. The whole history of
civilization indeed, is the permeation of the Geist in reality.

Kierkegaard's Individual and Hegel's Concept of Man

It is evident, from the discussion above, that Hegel influenced Kierkegaard. However,
Kierkegaard went strongly against Hegel's abstractionism and emphasized the value of the
concrete individual; as the primacy of the individual over the multitude, as the subjectivity and
the passionless objectivity. Kierkegaard lamented that "one thing continually escapes Hegel—
what it is to live".86 His attacks against Hegel are as follows:
Hegel and the Dehumanization of Man
Kierkegaard blames Hegelian abstractionism for much of what he regards as the
"dehumanization" of man. This happens when one is accumulated and becomes lost in the
gigantic system of the Geist. Kierkegaard describes man as lost in the abyss of pantheistic
abstract reality imposed by Hegel. He asserts:

In such pantheism, all concrete individuals are necessary and

inevitable manifestations of the universe, known a priori, and all
coming from the single reality of the Absolute Mind. Man's position
in this constant mediating System is negligible. For each human
belonged not a separate and independent identity, possessing
essence and existence, a free agent who chooses and who is the
master of his own destiny.87
In Hegel's evolutionary dialectic, man is reduced into a mere moment of the gargantuan
process by the Absolute. As this fleeting moment progresses, man is absorbed in the system.
Man's actions become not his own, but a necessary ingredient in the unfolding of the Absolute.
Kierkegaard asserts that Hegel's artificial removal of all contradictions through a dialectical
development of thought claimed that "personality will for all eternity protest against the idea that
absolute contrasts can be mediated". 88 Therefore, Hegelian abstractionism deals not with the
flesh and blood of individuals but of abstract ideas.
The difficulty arises when it comes to the realm of morality. Hegelian abstractionism
leaves no room for personal individuality but instead takes for granted the moral responsibility of

very essence of things. This is manifested in the tripartite paradigm of thesis-anti-thesis - synthesis. Hegel,
Phenomenology of the Spirit. nos. 17-25, 73-89. Cf., Hakim, pp. 570-582.
84 David R. Law. Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) p. 39.
However, for the purpose of convenience, the phrase “Hegelian abstractionism” is used.
85 Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit nos. 85-86. Cf., Hakim, pp. 580.
86 Kierkegaard. Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, trans. by H. Hong and E. Hong (vol. II.) p.
222, notes. 1611.
87 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Cf., Lescoe, pp. 44-45.
88 Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers trans. By H. Hong and E. Hong (vol. II) “Notes”
1578 p. 219,
the action of an individual. Presupposing man is nothing more than a passing moment of a
highly complicated system, how then could he expect to live a truly personal individual Christian
life? It follows, then, that a person who commits evil is not at all a problem, since eventually, he
will be justified and unified in the dialectical progression of the Absolute. However, in reality, this
is not the case. The end cannot and will never justify the means. Reverend Copleston writes: "If
history is a rational process in the sense of being a teleological process, a movement towards a
goal, which is determined by the nature of the absolute rather than human choice, it may appear
all that occurs, is justified by the very fact that it occurs".89
In the Hegelian abstractionism-process, an evil action is no sin, since they are essential
and necessary in the process. Accordingly, the human spirit is merely a moment of the Absolute
so much so that the apparent self-subsistence of the finite things appears to be an illusion. 90
Hegelian abstractionism indeed, for Kierkegaard, falsifies man's understanding of reality
because it shifts attention away from the concrete individual towards the transitory spiritual
movement of history towards the Absolute.
Kierkegaard believes that this principle is repugnant:

Therefore, it is impossible for a Hegelian to understand himself by

means of his philosophy, for his philosophy helps him to understand
only that which past and finished, while a living person is surely not
dead.91
Kierkegaard rejects the Hegelian notion of the inevitability of mediation of the triadic
progress in the events of history. Instead, he emphasized the significance of human freedom in
faith and repentance. In the book Fear and Trembling, he reminds his reader that concerning
faith, "no generation begins at any other point than where the previous one did. Each generation
must begin all over again".92 In Hegel's system, there is no ethics. The individual is reduced to a
spectator and passed the responsibility to the intellectual contemplation that serves to be the
"ethical answer of what I ethically have to do".93 Furthermore, the ethical is an open enterprise
and not something already achieved with the arrival of a certain stage in history. Hence, in
Hegel's system, the individual turned lost in the accumulation of the Mind, becomes more
abstract and a free agent of his own.

The "Crowd" as the "Untruth"

Another difficulty with Hegelian abstractionism arises when a man becomes one among
the crowd (or the many).94 The individuality of a human person is degraded into a mere part and
becomes an insignificant unit which feels so great because of his affinity to the "crowd". For
Kierkegaard, the "crowd" is the "untruth"95
Oftentimes, man needs something simply because it is the most "in" thing to do. A sort of a
"rule of the many", whereby quality is sacrificed in favor of quantity. This quantitative majority or
bandwagon carries the individual to what the majority wants. The crowd manipulates and influences
the will of one through the rule of the many. The individual does factually exist, but not existentially.
Here, the man does not fully understand the situation, and to cover it up, he lets the

89 Frederick Copleston, SJ. History of Philosophy, vol. vii, p. 223.

90 Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwind Ltd., 1961) p.
701.
91 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 272.
92 Soren Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling and Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology,
trans. and ed. by H. Hong and E. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University, Press, 1969) pp. 121-122.
93 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 119. See also, p.450
94 The “crowd”, “they”, the “many” can be interchanged. For Kierkegaard, it is the “untrue” and the
source of objectivity. Cf. Hakim, pp. 642-652.
95 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pp. 648
situation unfold unto him, and not he that should create the situation. On an occasion such as
this, he becomes a "reactor" and less of an "actor". At times, the man "wants" things because
everybody has it, but not because one "needs" it.
In the same manner, Hegelian abstractionism dissolves man's individuality and
subjectivity because he tends to follow what other people would say. For Kierkegaard, it is an
openly scandalous inferiority of the individual when one is assumed into the "crowd". Hence, the
"crowd" is guilty of universalized abstractionism that puts away the individual from his inviolable
claim to self-freedom and individuality.
In the book Kierkegaard’s Authorship: A Guide to Writing Kierkegaard, Arbaugh quotes
Kierkegaard:

We certainly do not need Hegel to inform us that relative

contradictions can be mediated, the ancients have already said
that… but personality will protest in all eternity the propositions
that absolute contradictions can be mediated (and this protest is
incomprehensible with the assertion of the mediation) it will in all
eternity repeat immortal dilemma: to be or not to be is the question
(Hamlet).96

Hence, Hegelian abstractionism forfeits man's freedom and responsibility. In the denial
of human freedom and responsibility implicit in the "necessity" of progress, morality loses its
meaning. It swallows up the possibility of choosing from alternatives—the abolition of choice
results in absolute apathy and demoralization. In effect, man loses the very either-or of decision-
making and thereby is denied freedom, which is the best manifestation of human existence.
Arbaugh concludes: "Man must be viewed as a finite yet self-determinative and responsible
agent, not passively shaped and guided by circumstances of the transitory content experience.
Man is responsibly free, even in his relationship with the whole nature, the Absolute, or God".97
The Rise of the Christendom
For Kierkegaard, another difficulty Hegel brought is the obstacle of becoming a Christian
in Christendom. This is speculative in nature. As the Hegelian philosophy was the only system
taught in almost all of the European universities, the same was true with most of the Danes
being automatically Christians, having no serious commitment to what true Christianity means.
In the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel contends that:

God is the one and only object of philosophy; it has to do with

Him, it recognizes all things in Him, it leads all things back to Him,
so that as every particular is derived from Him and everything is
solely justified and maintains itself in Him the particular lives in His

96 Kierkegaard, Journals of Soren Kierkegaard (entry no. 286). Cf. Reidar Thomte, Kierkegaard’s
Philosophy of Religion. (New York: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1969) p. 8.
97 George E. Arbaugh and George B. Arbaugh, Kierkegaard’s Authorship: A Guide to Writing
Kierkegaard,
(New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1970) p. 402.
 radiance and has its soul from Him. Philosophy is, therefore,
Theology, and the pursuit of philosophy in itself the service of God98

In another occasion, Hegel states that:

The Absolute is Essence. It distinguishes essential contradictions

or polarities within itself while maintaining its concrete identity in
this activity. This is its own dialectic…being posits the negation of
itself as real: what seems to be also is. This is the ontological
foundation of the subject-logic (Begriff) of truth and illusion: if
illusion is known to be an illusion, it is known truth.99
In such a scheme, Hegel failed to distinguish thought from reality. Here, the individual
becomes merely an expression of the abstract, universal, and timeless categories. For
Kierkegaard, however, objectivity breeds disinterestedness. True Christianity is only in the
passion of inwardness. And because of the speculative theology of Hegel, Christendom is
magnified. He concluded that:

Christianity is spirit, spirit is inwardness, inwardness is subjectivity,

subjectivity is essentially passion, and in its maximum an infinite,
personal, passionate interest in one's eternal happiness.100
In a book entitled From Luther to Kierkegaard: A Study in the History of Theology, Jarslov
Pelikan observed that "Hegelian intellectualism…had infected the Danish Church and Danish
theology".101 We see the same in the introductory remarks by Bretall in his book A Kierkegaard
Anthology, when he writes: "Not only may people accept the Gospel (or what they think to be the
Gospel) because it is made easy and attractive for them; but they accept it because it is made to
appeal to their intellect as logical or reasonable – as sectioned by human reason…Abhorrent to
Kierkegaard above all else was the condensing attitude of the Hegelian philosophers of his day who
were continually 'going further' than Christianity, i.e., from a supposed higher vantage point looking
down upon such doctrines as the Incarnation and the Atonement and showing that they are indeed
true – if one understood them in a certain sense". 102
The mistake of the Hegelian speculation, according to Kierkegaard, was its fundamental
confusion of a "speculative standpoint" with the "individual existing subject". 103 Hegel allowed no
qualification that would set the human mind apart from the divine Intellect. 104 For Kierkegaard, the
whole discussion of the relationship between Christian truths and the truths of philosophy indicates
that the former is neither mere logical extensions of the latter nor are Christian truths

98 G.W.F. Hegel Lectures in the Philosophy of Religion, trans by Robert L. Perkins. Cf. Perkins “Hegel
and the Secularization of Religion,” The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion no. 1 (1970) p. 37.
99 G.W.F. Hegel. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, trans. by G.E. Mueller (New York: Philosophical Library,
1959)
p.117.
100 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript pp. 25-35, 312-322, 330-340, and 520-537.
101 Jarslaov Pelikan. From Luther to Kierkegaard: A Study in the History of Theology (St. Louis: Concordia,
1967) p. 114.
102 Robert Bretall, ed. A Kierkegaard Anthology. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946) p. xxiii.
103 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 262.
104 It must be noted that Mind, God, Reason, Nature, Geist, are one and the same for Hegel.
merely assertions.105 Kierkegaard laments the fog that such speculation is introduced into
Christianity. He writes:

Every Christian concept has become so volatilized, so completely

dissolved in a mass of fog that is beyond all recognition. To the
concepts of faith, incarnation, tradition, inspiration, which in the
Christian sphere are to lead to a particular historical fact, the
philosophers choose to give an entirely different ordinary
meaning, whereby faith has become the immediate
consciousness… and tradition had become the content of a
certain experience of the world, while inspiration has become the
content of a certain experience of the world, while inspiration has
become nothing more than God's breathing of the life-spirit into
man, and incarnation no more that the presence of one or another
idea in one or more individuals.106
Kierkegaard believes that an eternal abyss separates God and man, and therefore
whatever he communicates to us can never be reduced to philosophical authority.107
Hegel's identification of thought, reality, and God into one led him to pantheism.
Pantheism or the non-distinction between man and divinity confused many. In an entry to the
Journals, in the year 1847, Kierkegaard writes, "All the confusion of modern thought springs
from attempting to abolish the qualitative abyss that separates God from man".108
Hegelian abstractionism, therefore, undermined Danish Christianity. The Danish
Lutheran ministers who were educated in German universities and in the Scandinavian centers
of learning secretly, if not openly, espoused Hegelianism. 109 Lescoe asserts that the ministers
were responsible for the following inexcusable errors: firstly, the obliteration of the individual
human being who is nothing more than a moment in the revolutionary process of the Hegelian
abstractionism; secondly, the glorification of the abstract and the rejection of the concrete
individual; and thirdly, the rendering of reason as superior to faith and exultation of philosophy
as more excellent to religion.110
According to the Hegelian dialectic, the self-purposive Mind or Spirit, after having
mediated and unfolded itself via a host of triads, would finally return upon itself by way of an
ultimate triad. This ultimate triad is composed of art (thesis), religion (antithesis), and philosophy
(synthesis).111 It must also be noted that it is a philosophy and not religion, which occupies the
highest and ultimate moment in the Hegelian paradigm. Kierkegaard protested Hegel's
subordinating religion under philosophy, that is, reason over and above faith. He writes:

Christianity does not lend itself to objective observation, precisely

because it proposes to intensify subjectivity to the utmost; and when

105 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 262. Hegel, quoted by P.L. Perkins from ”Hegel and
the Secularization of Religion”; Lectures in Philosophy of Religion p. 137. See also, Hegel’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
p.117.
106 Kierkegaard. Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. (trans., by H. Hong and E. Hong) vol. I, pp. 329,
705.
107 Cf. Louis Dupre. Kierkegaard as Theologian: The Dialectic of Christian Existence, (New York: Shed and
Ward, 1963) pp. 39-40.
108 Kierkegaard’s Journals of Soren Kierkegaard (entry no. 222) quoted by Lescoe. p. 40. See also,
Kierkegaard. Sickness Unto Death p. 192ff.
109 Lescoe, p. 54.
110 Ibid., p. 53.
111 Ibid.
 the subject has thus put himself in the right attitude, he cannot
attach his eternal happiness to speculative philosophy.112
Kierkegaard's interest was in understanding the possibility of faith and how it arises in
the individual. He did not want a philosophical or systematic construction of a doctrine of faith.

Christ has not appointed assistant-professors but imitators or

followers [Efterfølgere]. When Christianity... does not reduplicate
itself in the one who presents it, he does not present Christianity;
for Christianity is an existential-communication and can only be
presented by existing.113
In a blatant slap at Hegelian speculation, Kierkegaard writes:

In our age, everyone is unwilling to stop with faith but goes further. It
perhaps would be rash to ask where they are going, whereas it is a
sign of urbanity and culture for me to assume that everyone has faith,
since otherwise it certainly would be odd to speak of going further. It
was different in those ancient days. Faith was then a task of a whole
lifetime, because it was assumed that proficiency in believing is not
acquired either in days or in weeks. When the tried and tested oldster
approached his end, had fought the good fight and kept the faith, his
heart was still young enough not to have forgotten the anxiety and
trembling that disciplined the youth that the adult learned to control,
but that no man outgrows.114

Kierkegaard repeatedly and with increasing vigor rejected the notion that philosophy is
superior to faith. Kierkegaard sought to show the limits of thought in dealing with Christian truth.
He saw the Hegelian dialectic as destructive to the essential subjective character of Christian
faith. He writes:

Christianity does not lend itself to objective observation, precisely

because it proposes to intensify subjectivity to the utmost; and
when the subject has thus put himself in the right attitude, he
cannot attach his eternal happiness to speculative philosophy. 115
Hence, Kierkegaard was firmly convinced that the main reason for the rationalistic state
of Christianity in Denmark was the Hegelian abstractionism.

Kierkegaard and Christendom

Christendom for Kierkegaard is the inauthentic form of Christianity. This happens when
religion becomes a passionless effort as a result of dissolving it into the ordinary routine rituals.
Religion, then, becomes a mere duty and less of a zealous act towards God. Kierkegaard thought

112 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 55

113 Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. (vol. I p. 484). See also Kierkegaard. Practice in
Christianity, pp. 237-257.
114 Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling, (trans. H. Hong and E. Hong) p. 7
115 Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 55
that during his time, the Christian environment is far from being helpful for making one a Christian.
He states that:

In the early ages of Christianity, to be a Christian meant to

separate oneself from the crowd, and to do what was not easy to
do, humanly speaking.116
Kierkegaard observes that one becomes a Christian by the easiest and most natural
process. In Christendom, everyone is a Christian "as a matter of course". 117 The church's
services and sacraments become a mere customary social function. Kierkegaard coined this
phenomenon, the "Sunday Christianity".

If he were married, his wife would tell him, 'hubby, darling, where
did you ever pick up such a notion? How can you not be a
Christian? You are Danish, aren't you? Doesn't the geography
book say that the predominant religion in Denmark is Lutheran-
Christian? You aren't a Jew, are you, or a Mohammedan? What
else would you be, then? It is a thousand years since paganism
was superseded; so I know you aren't a pagan. Don't you tend to
your work in the office as a good civil servant; aren't you a good
subject in a Christian nation, in a Lutheran-Christian state? So of
course you are a Christian.118
One becomes a Christian by obligation and less devotion. One becomes a Christian
during Sundays through services that require the minister's blessing in case of death, nuptial,
and baptism. Further, the church is established by the state; thereby, the government pays the
salaries of the pastors to whom it was contractually committed. 119 And so, Kierkegaard wittily
says that dogmas are not the problem of the church, Christians are.120
Being a Christian hence is far from being a spiritual necessity but has been degraded
into a mere level of socio-political issue. Kierkegaard affirms this when he says: "The doctrine in
the established Church and its organization is very good. But the lives, our lives believe me,
they are mediocre".121 It is the loss of inwardness, (or the loss of paradox) and the loss of "New
Testament-Christianity" that burdens Kierkegaard. He indicates that if Christianity is to be
equated with Christendom, then Christianity becomes “a historical curiosity, pretty much like a
guidebook to particular country when everything in that country has been totally changed”.122
Such an unfortunate situation infers that being a Christian is a form of modern tragedy since
the idea of becoming a Christian is emptied with the significance that it is supposed to have.
Kierkegaard repeatedly condemns the failure of Christendom to appropriate the truth of the Bible.

116 Ibid., p. 272.

117 Soren Kierkegaard. Training in Christianity. trans., Wolter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1978) p. 79.
118 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript. pp. 50-51.
119 Kierkegaard. Attack Upon Christendom. pp. 144-146.
120 Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. (vol. VI) p. 6727.
121 See, above “To Be A Rebel”.
122 Kierkegaard. Attack Upon Christendom, p.111.
The priests, according to him, are "cannibals" living off sacred things in a profane way.123 In a
note of irony and humor, Kierkegaard lampoons the church and its worldliness in saying:

In the magnificent cathedral the Honorable and Right Reverend

Geheime-general-Ober-Hof-Pradikant, the elect favorite of the
fashionable world, appears before an elect company and
preaches with emotion upon the text he himself elected: 'God hath
elected the base thing of the world, and the things that are
despised'—and nobody laughs.124
In sum, the existing situation of Christianity in Denmark awakened Kierkegaard in his deep
slumber. The secularization of faith in Denmark was one of his greatest complaints. Lutheranism
was imposed as an official Danish religion that made churches, bishops, and ministers supported by
the state. He means that being a Christian is no one's guaranteed possession, for one is not a
Christian for having been born in a Christian country or in a Christian family, nor for having been
baptized, not even for having confessed one's faith once upon a time. He writes:

People who perhaps never once enter a church, never think about
God, never mention His name except in oaths… are all of them
Christians, call themselves Christians.125

Becoming an automatic Christian without a test of hardship (as in the case of early
Christians who were persecuted and died in the name of faith) triggered Kierkegaard to go
against the local church. This we the problem and aim of Kierkegaard. He writes:

My intention is to make it difficult to become a Christian, yet not

more difficult than it is, and not difficult for the obtuse and easy for
the brainy, but qualitatively and essentially difficult for every
human being...126

Christianly, every human being (the single individual),

unconditionally every human being,... is equally close to God... is
loved by him... The difference is: that one person bears in mind
that he is loved keeps it in mind perhaps day in and day out...
Another person perhaps does not think about being loved...127
For him, to accuse a Dane of not being a Christian is tantamount to the highest insult.
Kierkegaard writes:

Christianity is given… how strange is the way of the world! Once it

was at the risk of his life that a man dared to profess himself a

123 Ibid., pp. 144-146

124 Ibid., pp. 181.
125 Kierkegaard. The Point-of-View for My Work as an Author in The Point of View, Etc., p. 22.
126 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 49.
127 Kierkegaard. Two Discourses at Communion on Fridays, in Without Authority, trans. Howard & Edna Hong.
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997) p. 165.
 Christian; now it is to make oneself suspect, to venture, to doubt,
that one is a Christian.128

Thus, nobody can be a Christian without having first become one. In his mature years,
Kierkegaard became a vigilant protester against the Established Church, which, according to
him, deceived most of the Danish faithful. He unceasingly attacked the worldly character of the
Danish Church.129

Christ required 'followers' and defined precisely what he meant:

that they should be salt, willing to be sacrificed,... in Denmark,
Christianity marches to a different melody,... Christianity is
enjoyment of life, tranquillized,... by the assurance that the thing
about eternity is settled,...130
What Christianity wants is...the following of Christ. What man does
not want is suffering, least of all the kind of suffering which is
properly the Christian sort, suffering at the hands of men. So he
dispenses with 'following' and consequently with suffering... and
then builds the sepulchers of the prophets... And then he says...
that he is better than those who killed the prophets.131

Kierkegaard's complaint towards Christianity, however, remained silent until his father's
death since A.J. Mynster, a minister of the Danish Lutheran Church, was a good friend of
Kierkegaard's father (Mikael Kierkegaard).
It must be noted, however, that Kierkegaard had nothing against Christianity itself, but
with the actions done by the people of the Danish church that prompted depersonalization,
hypocrisy, and irresponsibility. Kierkegaard was militantly against this system of Christendom
that transformed a true Christian into a dull and fatuous individual. This we read in several of his
work Attack Upon Christendom:

The contents of this little book affirm, then, what I truly am as an

author, that I am and was a religious author, that the whole of my
work as an author is related to Christianity, to the problem 'of
becoming a Christian'.132

The first group of writings represents aesthetic productivity, the

last group is exclusively religious: between them, as the turning
point, lies the Concluding Postscript. This work concerns itself with
and sets 'the Problem', which is the problem of the whole
authorship: how to become a Christian.133
But N.B., Kierkegaard elsewhere speaks of 'being' instead of
'becoming': "What I have wanted to achieve and still want to achieve

128 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript. p. 557.

129 Dreyfus. Kierkegaard, n.p.
130 Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon Christendom, trans. Walter Lowrie. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press) 1944. pp. 34-35.
131 Ibid., p. 123.
132 Kierkegaard. The Point-of-View for My Work as an Author in The Point of View, Etc., p.5-6.
133 Ibid., p. 13.
 through my work, what I still regard to be of utmost importance, is
first of all to get clarified what is involved in being a Christian.134

Kierkegaard believed that ministers of the church were indifferent to what they preached.
For him, "a rebellious ministry has seized the reign of power that now governs in the king's
name while keeping himself at a distance".135 Kierkegaard underscored his protest by saying:

Quite simply: I want honestly…I am not a Christian severity as

opposed to Christian leniency. By no means, I am neither leniency
nor severity: I am… a human honesty. The leniency which is the
common Christianity in the land I want to place alongside the New
Testament in order to see how these two are related to one
another.136
Kierkegaard protested that while one is keeping himself a Christian, no one thought
seriously of Christ. That is why he stated that "now we are all Christians, and in a manifold ways
tempted to become Christians".137 For Kierkegaard, people had become completely disposed to
an earthly hedonistic way of living. The church people tended to seek comfort and pleasure of
the flesh, ignoring their spiritual lives. 138 Christianity, thus, became a matter of course and a
necessity of life, as Kierkegaard waggishly writes: “…all are Christians in a matter of course…to
avoid the many annoyances and difficulties that will confront the child, if he is not baptized, in
view of the existing police regulations. 139 In another occasion he illustrated how truly Christian
living should be:

Christianly the emphasis does not fall so much upon to what extent of
how far a person succeeds in meeting or fulfilling the requirement, if
he actually is striving...so that he rightly learns to be humbled and to
rely upon grace. To scale down the requirement in order to be able to
fulfill it better... to this Christianity in its deepest essence is opposed.
No, infinite humiliation and grace, and then a striving born of gratitude
this is Christianity.140

Accordingly, the so-called "Christians" were Christians in virtue of their baptismal

certificate. The established Church, then, was reduced to "Christendom". And so, he
recommends that being a Christian is a way of "striving" like a leap where one participates in the
abyss of uncertainty fueled by a kind of faith, that is, inward, subjective and passionate.

134 Kierkegaard. Armed Neutrality in Armed Neutrality and An Open Letter, trans. Howard & Edna
Hong. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968) p. 33.
135 Ibid., p. 386.
136 Soren Kierkegaard. Attack Upon Christendom. trans. Walter Lowrie. Cf. L. Joseph Rosas III. Scripture in
the Thought of Soren Kierkegaard. (Tennessee: Brodman and Holman Publishers, 1994) pp. 20-21.
137 Ibid., p. 329.
138 Insole, p. 365. See, also, Klemke, p. 38.
139 Cf., Insole, p. 336.
140 Kierkegaard develops this idea in depth and detail Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard’s Journals and
Papers. (written in 1851) (vol. II) p. 993. See also, Works of Love (1847) trans. Howard & Edna Hong. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1995). pp. 126-134, 175-76, 339-43, 384-86.