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From Despair to Faith

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From Despair to Faith 1 Kierkegaard as Spiritual Writer Books about Kierkegaard frequently open with a survey of his life. A number of reasons might account for this development, not least the fact that Kierkegaard’s biography contains drama worthy of Shakespeare. There are family secrets, unhappy love affairs, and public scandals, just to mention a few elements of his story. Moreover, Kierkegaard himself writes pointedly of these events, pouring over them in his journals and papers, but also alluding to them in his published writings. In this way, he not only leaves a great deal of material for his biographers, but also helps determine how they arrange and interpret his story. To be sure, it is no accident that most versions of Kierkegaard’s life focus on four issues: his complicated relationship with his father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard (1756–1838); his love for—and breakup with—his fiancée, Regine Olsen; his public dispute with , a satirical Copenhagen paper; and his infamous “attack” The Corsair on Denmark’s state church. These are what might be termed the “crescendos” of Kierkegaard’s life, and he himself certainly calls attention to them. And yet, even as musical crescendos are but conspicuous points within a larger and more varied composition, so are the crescendos of Kierkegaard’s life prominent outgrowths of a 1 From Despair to Faith larger and more subtle story. That is not to deny, of course, the importance of these biographical highpoints. Rather, it is to recall that they belong to a broader context, which deserves to be studied in its own right. Such is the case with Kierkegaard’s spiritual background. As will be seen, Kierkegaard came from a pious home, where devotion to God was encouraged as much as sin was discouraged, and this rearing influenced him throughout his life. As he puts it in an 1848 journal entry: “What I know [of Christianity] is not to my credit but is actually due to my father’s upbringing.”9 M. P. Kierkegaard had a background in and an affinity for the spirituality associated with Pietism, and this connection—in addition to its impact on his youngest son—will be considered below. Strangely, however, biographies of Kierkegaard tend to neglect this aspect of his story. For example, the Pietist movement receives limited attention in Alastair Hannay’s , so much so that “Pietism” is not Kierkegaard: A Biography even listed in the index.10 Nor does the term figure into Joakim Garff’s .11 To be fair, both works do Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography mention the Moravian Congregation of Brothers, a Pietist group with which the Kierkegaard family was affiliated. But Garff only devotes two paragraphs to the subject12—a small number for a book that runs more than eight hundred pages—and Hannay’s treatment is similarly brief.13 Shorter “sketches” of Kierkegaard’s life are not much different. In his recent , C. Stephen Evans Kierkegaard: An Introduction touches on Kierkegaard’s familiarity with “evangelical pietism,”14 but 9. SKS 21, NB 6:89 / JP 6, 6243. 10. Alastair Hannay, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Kierkegaard: A Biography 11. Joakim Garff, , trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton, NJ: Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography Princeton University Press, 2005). 12. Ibid., 11. 13. Hannay, , 37. Kierkegaard 14. C. Stephen Evans, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Kierkegaard: An Introduction 2010), 5. 2 Kierkegaard as Spiritual Writer embeds this reference in a larger discussion about M. P. Kierkegaard’s personal failings. The topic does not turn up again. One could speculate about why Kierkegaard’s Pietist background seems to be of marginal interest to biographers, but such a discussion exceeds the scope and interest of this work. What needed, however, is is an exploration of Kierkegaard’s links to the Christian spiritual tradition. This will not be an exhaustive discussion,15 but, at its conclusion, Kierkegaard’s emergence as a spiritual writer in his own right should no longer seem accidental. Kierkegaard’s Spiritual Background As alluded to above, Kierkegaard’s particular spiritual vision grew out of contact with Pietist—and, by association, Catholic16—sources. “Pietism” can be defined as a devotional movement that developed within Lutheranism toward the end of the sixteenth century and spread to other Protestant denominations throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Given its breadth, it is unsuitable to talk of Pietism as if it were a unified development. However, in all of its manifestations, Pietism sought to promote holiness—the fulfillment of Christian life and activity—in the church as well as in the world. This purpose was thought urgent on account of the various troubles 15. However, as noted in the Preface, I have dealt with this issue in depth elsewhere. See, for example, Christopher B. Barnett, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness 16. At the same time, Kierkegaard’s connection to Catholicism cannot be to the influence of reduced Pietism. On the contrary, Kierkegaard had a multifaceted interest in Catholic authors and ideas, from Augustine’s stress on resting in God (as will be discussed in Chapter Two) to the spiritual insights of Alphonsus de Liguori. On the latter point, see Cornelio Fabro, “Influssi Cattolici Sulla Spiritualità Kierkegaardiana,” (1962): 501-07. For broader considerations Humanitas 17 of Kierkegaard’s connection to Catholicism, see Jack Mulder, Jr., Kierkegaard and the Catholic (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), as well as my Tradition: Conflict and Dialogue “Catholicism,” in , ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, William Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Absolute to Church McDonald and Jon Stewart (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2013). 3 From Despair to Faith afflicting post-Reformation Europe, from theological division to political strife to plague. Wherever they were found, Pietists were recognized for their emphasis on devout habits and practices. Among other things, they wrote hymns, founded schools, formed charitable organizations, coordinated Bible studies and prayer groups, sought ecumenical dialogue, encouraged moral renewal, and popularized numerous edificatory writings. John Wesley (1703–1791)—the founder of Methodism, an English incarnation of the Pietist movement—once recounted a “common way of living” among Methodist missionaries: From four in the morning till five each of us used private prayer. From five to seven we read the Bible together. At seven we breakfasted. At eight was the public service. From nine to twelve I learned German, Mr. Delamotte, Greek; my brother wrote sermons, and Mr. Ingham instructed the children. At twelve we met together. About one we dined. The time from dinner to four we spent in reading. At four were the Evening Prayers, when either the Second Lesson was explained (as it always was in the morning), or the children were catechized and instructed before the congregation. From five to six we again used private prayer.17 Such piety attracted praise, but more than a little disparagement also followed. One critic snickered that the name of Wesley’s group “was first given to a few persons who were so uncommonly methodical as to keep a diary of the most trivial actions of their lives, as how many slices of bread and butter they ate . .”18 Similarly, the general label “Pietism” first achieved currency in the 1680s, serving largely as a term of abuse until the German Pietist, Philipp Jakob Spener 17. John Wesley, “A Short History of the People Called Methodists,” in , The Works of John Wesley ed. Rupert E. Davies (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), 9:428. 18. Quoted in John Wesley, “A Second Letter to the Rev. Dr. Free,” in , The Works of John Wesley 9:324. 4 Kierkegaard as Spiritual Writer (1635–1705), embraced it as denoting one “who studies God’s Word/ And also leads a holy life according to it.”19 Though its practical emphases could (and did) slip into mere social activism, Pietism originated first and foremost as a spiritual movement—that is to say, as a movement of renewal, which inner took its direction from some of Catholicism’s great mystics.20 This, 19. Quoted in Carter Lindberg, introduction to , ed. Carter Lindberg The Pietist Theologians (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005), 3. 20. Here, and elsewhere in this text, words such as “mystic” and “mystical” are used in general fashion, indicating, for example, persons who seek to relate to divine mystery or treatises that strive to facilitate such a relationship. Understood in these terms, the difference between a spiritual work and a mystical one is negligible. Still, it must be said that the mystical has often been associated with unusual and privileged experiences of the divine, despite the fact that a number of so-called “mystics” have questioned the nature of such experiences or, at least, the ability of human words to articulate them. For that reason, I prefer the broader and more contemporary language of “spirituality,” though, at times, I draw on the vocabulary of mysticism, particularly where it is historically appropriate to do so. This usage, however, should neither be confused with a systematic appraisal of the questions surrounding “mysticism,” nor with an assumption that such questions have been settled. For a précis of this complicated issue, see Alister McGrath, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 5-7. Christian Spirituality: An Introduction Incidentally, the extent to which Kierkegaard might be considered a “mystic” (in the strong, experiential sense mentioned above) is an interesting problem. In a well-known journal entry—dated May 19, 1838 and timed precisely as 10.30 a.m.—Kierkegaard writes of “an indescribable joy,” “a heavenly refrain,” that “glows all through” the believer (SKS 17, DD:113 / JP 5, 5324). Some commentators have associated this passage with a proper mystical experience (see, for example, Jean Wahl, “Kierkegaard et le Mysticisme,” 1 [1930]: 16-23), while Hermès Joakim Garff has wondered if the whole thing was made up, a poetic musing and nothing more (Garff, , 128).
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