Kierkegaard and the "Finnish " Luther on the Presence of Christ in Faith or Jesus Embraces. Perichoresis?

By

David John Boehmer

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Divinity of Trinity College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Theology awarded by the University of St. Michael's College.

Toronto, Ontario Summer, 2008

Copyright © David Boehmer Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada

Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-43151-1 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-43151-1

NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.

The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract

The current study is an examination of Kierkegaard's relation to Luther under the motif of Christ's presence in faith. A detailed account of this motif in Luther is provided by the "Finnish" school founded by Tuomo Mannermaa. This "Finnish Lutherbild" is still controversial in Lutheran and scholarly circles, but it has been systematically developed and is able to provide direction for exploring the motif in Kierkegaard. In examining his Ontology, Christology and theory of love, it is determined that Kierkegaard's understanding of the Christian's "participation" in Christ is very similar to that of the Finnish Lutherbild, a sort of participation that is cautiously described using the word perichoresis. This finding provides insight into a neglected area of Kierkegaard's thought and provides a new perspective on the relationship between Luther and Kierkegaard. Acknowledgments

This thesis has been a significant undertaking and a number of people have helped me through the process. I would like to thank my parents John and Carol for supporting me, and especially my mother for proofreading drafts on short notice; Dr. A. H. Khan of Trinity College for kindly agreeing to supervise me, for sharing his knowledge, and for helping me through the process; my readers Dr. J. Skira of Regis College and Dr. M. O'Gara of St. Michael's College who offered many encouraging comments; Drs. A. Jorgenson and R. Kelly of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary for their willingness to discuss my work with me; and my many friends who encouraged me along the way, especially Linley Ali, Lowell Seimens, Jeff Allen, and Kevin Krumrei, with whom I spent many happy hours drinking beer and discussing theology. Christ was certainly present with us in all of our speech about Him. Table of Contents

Introduction 1

The Finnish Lutherbild 14

Ontology 36

Christology 66

Christian Action - Love 88

Conclusion 108

Appendix 1: Luther and Kierkegaard 115

Appendix 2: Reception of the Finnish Program 134

Bibliography 140 1

Introduction

Kierkegaard's relationship to Luther is a complicated matter.1 Kierkegaard himself was divided in his opinion of Luther; he often referred to him positively, yet by the end of his life Kierkegaard's evaluation of Luther had become basically negative. In

spite of this many scholars attempt to see past Kierkegaard's own often emotional

opinions and comment on the more fundamental tendencies in the two theologians. Here

scholars seem to be divided into two camps. One, represented by Regin Prenter for

example, sees the two as essentially dissimilar; the other, represented by Johannes Slok, recognises some differences but maintains that they are essentially similar. Somewhat

obviously, if one wishes to emphasise similarity one focuses on explicit agreement and minimises or "spins" what Kierkegaard says that is negative about Luther; if one wishes to see disagreement, one naturally focuses on the explicit disagreement.

There are consistent themes in both types of comparisons. A useful list of these is

given by Ernest Koenker; he is one who sees the two as essentially different, but one who

also acknowledges their points of contact. According to Koenker, "It was because he

shared so much with Luther that, as we shall see, he must break with him on the very points for which he commends Luther." Koenker then gives a list of these points, saying

for example that Luther was a needed corrective but then his corrective created a new

corruption by becoming the norm.3 Koenker's list might be reduced to one particular issue: the proper understanding of the Christian life. In Luther's or Lutheran categories,

1 See "Appendix 1: Luther and Kierkegaard" of the present study. Ernest B. Koenker, "Soren Kierkegaard on Luther," in Interpreters of Luther: Essays in Honour of Wilhelm Pauck, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, 231-252, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), 232. 3 ibid., 232-240. 2

it might be described as "the proper distinction between Law and Gospel;" in

Kierkegaard's language it could be called "the imitation of Christ."

It seems that the basic question is whether or not these concepts are essentially the

same, with different emphases, or whether they are fundamentally opposed. Of the

scholars noted above, Slok sees them as essentially the same and Prenter as essentially

different. All of the points on Koenker's list may be seen as various ways of stating this

one issue. To better understand this conflict, it is useful to examine also another point made by Koenker and one that seems to be generally mistreated. Koenker says,

Kierkegaard could have little sympathy for Luther's conception of Christ the Savior as being in the believer, making it possible for the individual to have what Christ has, guiding him to renewal. Though in both Luther and Kierkegaard Christ is the picture of what happens to the believer, still the process is seen along radically different lines. Luther's is a mystical identification based on the believer's being cemented together with Christ through faith. The imitatio Christi is the clothing with Christ's righteousness, power, and life. For Luther, the "putting on of Christ" need not entail suffering the same things Christ suffered. Kierkegaard's is a constant, passionate striving to imitate the pattern. Each individual spirit relives the cruciform character of the Messiah's life.4

Here is another way of phrasing the essential dissimilarity often perceived between

Luther and Kierkegaard: for Kierkegaard, the Christian life is a "striving to imitate the

pattern" of Christ's life; for Luther, the Christian life is a state of living from the

"righteousness, power, and life" of the indwelling Christ. This seems to be good

conventional wisdom;5 yet one may ask: Do Koenker and others perhaps miss something

in Kierkegaard? Might not the idea of Christ as indwelling power exist in Kierkegaard's

4 ibid., 245. 5 A similar assessment is given by noted Kierkegaard scholar Walter Lowrie: Kierkegaard did "not think of God as the power within him making for righteousness but as the power confronting him and exacting obedience..." (Walter Lowrie, Kierkegaard, Harper Torchbooks/The Cloister Library, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 171.) Lowrie is not making this comment with respect to Luther in particular, but in terms of indwelling in general. 3 thought, in dialectical tension with the notion of Christ as external pattern? Does not

Kierkegaard like Luther speak of a sort of 'mystical' union with Christ, whereby the believer is 'cemented together' with Him?

An initial reaction to these questions might simply be to dismiss them;

Kierkegaard is after all constantly railing against the union of the human and divine. It is true that he is fundamentally and unconditionally opposed to this idea, but only when this is understood in the Hegelian, or in a particular mystical sense. Kierkegaard's "anti­ union" polemic refers to a specific sort of union between God and humanity, is

emphasised for specific reasons, and does not preclude union as understood by Martin

Luther, particularly Martin Luther as expounded by the "Finnish" school.

What then of Kierkegaard's famous "infinite qualitative difference"7 between

God and the individual human being? This idea is expressed often and in various ways throughout the authorship, but it is not as straightforward as it may at first appear. This infinite qualitative difference does not preclude a certain type of meeting. Anti-

Climacus, in Practice in Christianity, speaks of "the chiasmic abyss between the single individual and the God-man over which faith and faith alone reaches."8 Faith thus bridges the gap. On the other hand, faith also maintains the gap. Anti-Climacus, this time in The Sickness Unto Death, points to how this is also true:

Christianity teaches that everything essentially Christian depends solely upon faith; therefore it wants to be precisely a Socratic, God-fearing

6 The Finnish school will be dealt with in detail in the next chapter of the present work; Kierkegaard's thoughts on union might become confused if too much of the Finnish scholarship is introduced too soon. 7 See for example, Anti-Climacus, [Soren Kierkegaard], The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 19, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 126. The phrase seems to first be used, in slightly modified form, in the Book on Adler. See Arnold B. Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian: Recovering My Self, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997), 23. 8 Anti-Climacus, [S0ren Kierkegaard], Practice in Christianity, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 20, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 139. 4

ignorance, which by means of ignorance guards faith against speculation, keeping watch so that the gulf of qualitative difference between God and man may be maintained as it is in the paradox and faith, so that God and man do not, even more dreadfully than ever in paganism, do not merge in some way, philosophice, poetice, etc., into one - in the system.

Clearly, Anti-Climacus/Kierkegaard's concern here is to guard Christianity against

Hegelian pantheism. Though faith may reach over the abyss, the abyss must remain. The

Hegelian System simply and foolishly destroys the difference. For Hegel, it is not that the human being comes to union with God but that he or she realises an already existing union, a union that is not actually a union of two separate entities but an essential identity.10 This is an important point: Kierkegaard's use of the "infinite qualitative difference" is directed toward Hegel's understanding of union as pantheism and not the union that the Finns find in Luther, aperichoresis. Union provisionally understood as

9 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], The Sickness Unto Death, 99. The most detailed work on Kierekgaard's relation to Hegel has been done by Niels Thulstrup in his aptly titled Kierkegaard's Relation to Hegel. According to Thulstrup, Kierkegaard's entire authorship "can very well be read as a great counterpart to Hegel." (Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaard's Relation to Hegel, trans. George L. Stengren, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 12.) Hegel begins with immediacy and proceeds to absolute knowledge; Kierkegaard also begins with the category of immediacy but he proceeds to faith. For Hegel, this progression takes place of necessity; for Kierkegaard this movement takes place by a leap, in freedom. Finally, in Hegel's process, the individual is unimportant and may disappear into the world-historical process; for Kierkegaard, the individual is supreme and the world- historical process unremarkable, (ibid., 12.) Particularly relevant for the purposes of this study is that for Hegel the divine and human natures are not actually different. Very briefly, the individual spirit moves by a necessary process from the immediate to the speculative. (This summary of Hegel is taken from Thulstrup, 249-254; he is particularly familiar with the Danish mediation that Kierkegaard received.) Thought and being are identical and are the expression of the divine Spirit. Every concept, when thought through, will eventually lead to a contradictory concept. The coming together of these two results in a new higher unity that subsumes the old concepts. This is identical to the process of life and indeed of all existence: nature and human history. Describing this dialectic with respect to thought or with respect to the "outside world" amounts to a description of the same thing: the movement of the Absolute Spirit. According to Thulstrup's concise summary, "The human's, the finite spirit's, knowledge of the Absolute Spirit and the Absolute Spirit's knowledge of itself are, in Hegel's view, two aspects of the same thing..." (ibid., 249.) The Absolute comes to knowledge of itself through reason and religion, the highest of which is Christianity. Hegel's thought is basically pantheism. 5 perichoresis is a union of different entities, of God dwelling in the Christian, even more remarkable because the infinite qualitative difference remains.

Connected to Kierkegaard's argument with Hegel is his attitude toward mysticism. Because union with, or participation in, Christ might be described as mystical, this should also be considered here. It is Lowrie's judgment that Kierkegaard was not a mystic though "he seemed to be headed in that direction."12 It is true that

Kierkegaard does occasionally speak well of the mystics and certainly prefers mysticism to Hegel's system, saying for example: "The system begins with 'nothing'; the mystic always ends with 'nothing.' The latter is the divine nothing, just as Socrates' ignorance was devout fear of God, the ignorance with which he did not begin but ended, or which he continually reached." Here "nothing" is however not connected so much to union as it is clearly to Socratic ignorance. In David Law's estimation, Kierkegaard "does not make the transition to the via mystica but stops at the via negativa..." Kierkegaard appreciated some things about mysticism and not others. Again, in Law's opinion:

...Kierkegaard rejects the idea of mystic union. There is no idea in Kierkegaard's works of the individual being absorbed into the Godhead.

11 Perichoresis is the English form of the Greek word n£pi%(opr]aic, (f|), Ttepi meaning "around" and Xcopnoig, f| which may be translated as "dance." It has been used in various senses to describe both the relationship between the natures of Christ and the Persons of the Trinity. The first use, describing the hypostatic union in the person of Christ, was to signify something like "reciprocation;" when it was later applied to the Persons of the Trinity, it came to mean "interpenetration." As will be seen, it has been used by various people involved with the Finnish program to describe the relationship between Christ and the Christian. This is perhaps a significantly different use of the word and perhaps it has been used too hastily. It has however been maintained in the present study out of convention and because it has the desired connotation of interpenetration and union of separate entities. As the study progresses, the use of perichoresis intended here will become more clearly defined. How the use of the word here relates to previous uses is an important question but outside the scope of the present work. (For an interesting survey of the history and various uses of perichoresis, see Oliver D. Crisp, "Problems with perichoresis," in Divinity and Humanity, 1-33, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).) 12 Lowrie, 562. 13 S0ren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers, 7 vols, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, with Gregor Malantschuk, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957), entry 2797, (X2 A 340). 4 David R. Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, Oxford Theological Monographs, eds. P.S. Fiddes et al, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 217. 6

Whereas for the negative theologians God can become so near that the distinction between the human and the divine can be broken down, for Kierkegaard God is and will always remain beyond our grasp... perhaps the main reason for Kierkegaard's antipathy to the concept of mystic union is its threat to the two concepts he sees as absolutely essential to Christianity, namely, the transcendence of God and the single individual. These two concepts come together not in a mystic union but in a paradoxical relationship in which both retain their independence and yet exist in a relationship of unparalleled intimacy.15

This conclusion is very helpful; Law rightly argues that Kierkegaard is not a traditional mystic. Conventional mysticism, as accurately described by Law, would be too much like Hegelianism; Kierkegaard rejects it for the same reasons that he rejected

Hegelianism: the need to maintain the integrity of a transcendent God and of the specific human individual.16 Law furthermore rightly brings attention to the meeting of God and the single individual; he might nevertheless improve the wording of the last sentence of this conclusion. Certainly traditional mystic union is to be rejected, but it might nevertheless be best to describe the "relationship of unparalleled intimacy" as mystical

and as a union. In fact, unparalleled intimacy and the independence of God and human beings are two ideas that do not appear to contradict each other, two ideas that should not be described as "paradoxical," unless unparalleled intimacy is indeed understood to mean

union, the uniting of God and man. What Kierkegaard rejects is mystic union of a particular type, not union with God per se.

One scholar at least, Paul Sponheim, has already recognised something along these lines. While not directly focusing on union with Christ, Sponheim's monograph,

15 ibid., 214. la a Journal entry from 1836, Kierkegaard seems to apply the same criticism to mysticism that he does to Hegelianism: "May not Matthew 11:12 properly be interpreted as referring to the mystics (here I am giving this verse a wider meaning, whereby it can apply outside the sphere of theology also), who think that they have a direct relationship to God and consequently will not acknowledge that all men have only an indirect relationship..." Kierkegaard, Journals, 2794, (I A 168). Both the Hegelians and the mystics want to claim a direct relationship, a simple union, with God. 7

Kierkegaard on Christ and Christian Coherence, appears to touch on many of the same

issues as the present study. Sponheim sees Kierkegaard as a sort of systematic thinker,

noting that the very ways in which Kierkegaard opposes systems "are seen to reveal the

systematic impulse itself... they represent a formally structuring principle despite their

1 7

negation of system." This structuring principle consists of two "poles" or two

"rhythms:" the diastatic, stressing the separation between God and human beings, and the

synthetic, emphasising the "relatedness" and "co-involvement" of God and human

beings. These can never be isolated from each other; when one appears to dominate the

other is always also present in some form.18 These two rhythms are furthermore

intimately connected to Kierkegaard's Christology. According to Sponheim, ".. .the

Christological concern not only possesses independent systematic significance for

Kierkegaard within the movement between the poles of God and man, but also as such a

fundamental irreducible systematic force so functions as to check the very movements of

diastasis and synthesis between those poles."19 Sponheim then, in contrast to the

conventional wisdom, sees Kierkegaard as concerned not only with the distance between

God and humanity but also their nearness, mediated by Christ. This is not yet the

indwelling of Christ; it is, however, an appreciated emphasis, and furthermore draws

attention to the special place of Kierkegaard's Christology in his thought.20

Paul Sponheim, Kierkegaard on Christ and Christian Coherence, The Library of Philosophy and Theology, eds., John Mclntyre and Ian T. Ramsey, (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1968), 4. 18 ibid., 9, for example. 19 ibid., 14. 20 Sponheim is furthermore helpful in illuminating many of the reasons why Kierkegaard is generally considered a "diastatic" thinker. In chapter eight of his work, "The Dominance of the Diastatic: The Peril of Polarization," Sponheim notes that the diastatic reading of Kierkegaard has dominated the early part of the twentieth century and that in his own time, the late nineteen sixties, this one-sidedness has been challenged, but that the challenges have often been inaccessible in English or simply been ignored, (ibid., 267-270.) 8

Sponheim's study is helpful but there is still a degree of separation between what

Sponheim investigates and concludes and the focus of the present study. Sponheim's purpose appears to be to correct the one-sided emphasis on "diastasis;" though his argument is greatly appreciated, it seems that he presents something more cautious than the present study. Sponheim takes issue with the idea that for Kierkegaard God and human beings only "meet;" he believes that "cohere" is a better word: "If coherence suggests 'connection or congruity arising from some common principle or relationship', it implies an extensiveness and a givenness missing in a 'meeting'."21 The present study seeks to take this reasoning a step further, arguing that Kierkegaard speaks of a union of

Christ and the Christian best described by a word stronger than coherence, interpenetration or perichoresis? The present study also takes a slightly different approach from Sponheim's: it is not concerned with the "synthetic" rhythm per se, which may include such things as "natural revelation,"23 a natural connection between God and

According to Sponheim, there are two main reasons for the dominance of the diastatic rhythm: existentialism and the dialectical theology/neo-orthodoxy, the effects of which may still be perceived today. The existentialists share many themes with Kierkegaard such as the emphasis on individuality and freedom, but these very themes, separated from Kierkegaard's theology and placed in a philosophy where any synthesis between God and man is difficult because there is little place for God, lead to an untenable diastatic caricature of Kierkegaard's thought, {ibid, 270-276.) Even when Kierkegaard is handled by theologians, the rhythm of synthesis has often been missed. The main character in this story is Karl Barth, though there are others such as Tillich and Bultmann. Sponheim notes that the more diastatic "attack literature" was the first to be translated into German and was what first influenced Barth. (ibid., 289.) Barth in any case appropriated Kierkegaard's diastatic rhythm, though there are also hints of synthesis in Barth. (ibid., 277-279.) Sponheim notes however that Barth's failure to check his early diastatic tendency may actually make God so far removed that He is out of the picture: "Barth's neo-Kantianism may not place him so far from the dark world of philosophy." (ibid., 283.) Sponheim then identifies Neo- Kantianism as partially responsible for the misreading of Kierkegaard. As will be seen in the next chapter, the Finns blame the same Neo-Kantian presuppositions for the misreading of Luther. Sponheim's analysis of the historical oversimplification of Kierkegaard suggests that it is not unreasonable to compare him to a Luther whose thought may have been damaged in the much the same way. 21 ibid., 290-291, quoting from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, fifth ed. (Springfield, Mass; G. & C. Merriam Co., 1948), p. 195. 22 Sponheim does bring up the word "interpenetration" in his study but uses it only to refer to the relationship between the diastatic and synthetic rhythms in Kierkegaard's thought, not the relationship between Christ and the Christian. (Sponheim, 99-100.) 23 ibid., 166. 9 human beings; it seeks rather to investigate Kierkegaard's thought on the union of

Christians with Jesus Christ. This may be a special case of the "synthetic" rhythm, or perhaps union with Christ should be understood as qualitatively different than the natural

"coherence" of God and humanity. This idea too will be examined in the following pages.

Thus far it has been argued that Kierkegaard is not necessarily opposed to the idea of union with Christ, and that some form of union with God is not foreign to Kierkegaard

scholarship. This has been a presentation of the "negative" evidence; it now remains to present briefly the "positive" evidence and outline how this study will proceed. There is much in Kierkegaard that is indicative of the indwelling of Christ. Particularly interesting here is a Journal entry from 1849: "He [Luther] declares that Christ himself is the food, is the banquet, is the meal. If, then, we eat of this meal, even though we die, we are unable to remain in death, for our food lives. Usually we conclude that we live because we eat; here the conclusion is that we may live because the food lives. There is

something remarkable about this syllogism." This may be the only passage where

Kierkegaard makes a comment specifically related to Luther's theology of union.

Granted this statement alone reveals very little of Kierkegaard's actual thought on the matter; he simply finds Luther's thoughts on Communion and the indwelling of Christ remarkable. Nevertheless, there is warrant here for looking deeper: Kierkegaard does not reject what he has understood of Luther's thought on the indwelling of Christ; he rather appears interested. It is also noteworthy that the idea of indwelling is connected with

Communion. This is natural when one considers the matter. Kierkegaard was a member of a church that understood the Lord's Supper to be a sacrament, a means of grace, where

24 Kierkegaard, Journals, 2496, (X 1 A 439). 10 the body and blood of Christ are "in, with, and under" the elements of bread and wine, where one takes the "real presence" of Christ.

Kierkegaard composed a number of "discourses" to be delivered at Communion

services. One series of these is collected in part four of his Christian Discourses, published on April 26, 1848. In these "Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," there is one particular meditation, on Luke 22:15, in which Kierkegaard speaks about longing

for Christ and for His Supper. Near the end Kierkegaard practically recites Galatians

2:20, a major verse speaking of union with Christ: "He [Jesus Christ] is not one who is

dead and departed but one who is living. Indeed, you are really to live in and together with him; he is to be and become your life, so that you do not live to yourself, no longer

live yourself, but Christ lives in you."25 This short passage clearly reveals that there is an

idea of union with Christ operating on some level in Kierkegaard's thought. He

discusses union here as his hearer's living "in" Christ, "together with" Christ, and as

Christ's living in his hearer. The metaphysics of this statement are difficult but the picture Kierkegaard gives is again reminiscent of perichoresis.

It is certainly possible that Kierkegaard's use of Galatians 2:20 is simply a bit of hyperbole but the burden of proof appears to be shifting. Indeed the above quotations do not constitute isolated cases. Kierkegaard reveals the same sort of thinking in another

Communion discourse, "Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins," from Two Discourses at

the Communion on Fridays. This work, published August 7, 1851, is a very significant one; with the publication ofFor Self-Examination, it marks the end of the second

25 S0ren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, (ed. and trans, by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 17, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 261. The pertinent part of Galatians 2:20 reads: "and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." (NRSV) 11 authorship. Kierkegaard describes it saying, "An authorship that began with Either/Or and advanced step by step seeks here its decisive place of rest, at the foot of the altar..."

Kierkegaard clearly sees this work as continuous with his entire authorship. Indeed, the authorship seems to have led him to the foot of the altar, the sacrament, the real presence of Christ; at the very end of this discourse he speaks strongly about union:

Devout listener, it is to the love that hides a multitude of sins that you come today, seeking it at the Communion table. From the servant of the Church you have received the assurance of the gracious forgiveness of your sins. At the Communion table you receive the pledge of that. And not only that; you do not only receive this pledge in the same way as you receive from another person a pledge that he bears this feeling for or this attitude toward you. No, you receive the pledge as a pledge that you receive Christ himself. As you receive the pledge, you receive Christ himself. In and with the visible sign, he gives you himself as a cover over your sins... This is why the Lord's Supper is called communion with him. It is not only in memory of him, it is not only as a pledge that you have communion with him, but it is the communion, this communion that you are to strive to preserve in your daily life by more and more living yourself out of yourself and living yourself into him, in his love, which hides a multitude of sins.

There are many things to be noted in this lengthy passage. Foremost is again the basic idea of Galatians 2:20: it is no longer the hearer who is to live (one lives oneself out of oneself) but it is Christ who is to live in the hearer, to whom He gives Himself in the sacrament. At the end of the passage, Kierkegaard makes it clear that this union with

Christ continues even after the reception of the sacrament; this union is received as a particular pledge in a certain time and place but is a feature of the Christian's entire life.

As opposed to a human being who can naturally give only human assurance, Christ gives

Seren Kierkegaard, "Preface to Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," in Without Authority, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 18, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 165. 27 Kierkegaard, "Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," in Without Authority, 188. 12

Himself. This is furthermore connected here with justification, only in Christ's Person is there forgiveness of sins.

One more passage should be highlighted here. This one is from Judge for

Yourself!, written in 1851 but published posthumously. Here Kierkegaard describes the child Ludvig, whose mother decides one day to let him push his stroller instead of pushing him herself as usual. The key part of the parable is that Ludvig is not actually strong enough to push the stroller by himself, and that it is actually his mother who walks behind him and pushes it. Kierkegaard relates this to Christian life: ".. .he is, in a far higher sense, still in the same situation as the child, that when the adult works it really is someone else - it is God who is working."28 This quotation speaks to God's action in

Christ in the Christian. It is Christ who indwells, who is the true agent of good works.

These quotations should provide sufficient warrant to begin a more systematic examination of the union with Christ motif in Kierkegaard's thought. The major task now is to relate this to Kierkegaard's thought as a whole, and in the process better understand how Kierkegaard is related to Luther. There are four stages in this task as undertaken in the present study. The first of these will be to clarify Luther's own thought on union with Christ. This will be done with help from the Finnish school; though their findings are not universally accepted, they are systematically presented and well argued. The Finnish "Lutherbild" will be presented in a way that will allow it to be divided and compared with elements of Kierkegaard's own thought. This comparison will comprise the next three chapters. The first will deal mainly with Kierkegaard's ontology particularly as regards the self, ending at the point where Christ begins to enter

28 S0ren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination and Judge For Yourself., ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 21, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 186. 29 See "Appendix 2: Reception of the Finnish Program" for more detail. 13 the picture; this will connect mainly with the "philosophical" portion of the Finnish program. The second will deal with Kierkegaard's Christology; this will connect with the

"justification" aspect of the Finnish program. The third will then discuss how Christ's indwelling relates to a Christian's action, of particular importance will be the theme of indwelling divine Love. In all of this it is hoped that no violence will be done to

Kierkegaard's thought but that the Finnish Lutherbild will only help put into focus what is already there. 14

The Finnish Lutherbild

The Finnish Lutherbild has its origins in the ecumenical dialogue carried on between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church.

At the beginning of the process, in the early nineteen seventies, faculty members at the

University of Helsinki were asked to identify a topic that might lead to a fruitful discussion. The resulting group came to an interesting conclusion: in the words of

Tuomo Mannermaa, the father of the movement, "The indwelling of Christ as grasped in the Lutheran tradition implies a real participation in God, and it corresponds in a

special way to the Orthodox doctrine of participation in God, namely the doctrine of

theosis."^ The Finnish program is thus especially concerned with the idea of the

"indwelling of Christ" and "participation in God." It originated in response to the

Orthodox dogma of theosis and produced a commensurable theological paradigm; it

seems though that theosis was mainly a catalyst, and that the Finnish research may be discussed without any significant reference to Orthodox Theology. The Finns claim that what they have found is native to Luther. It was in rereading Luther that Mannermaa and his circle came to understand "union with Christ" to be the basis of his thought.

Mannermaa presented the basic points of his program in Kiev in 1977 and published the

first major work on the subject in 1978.32 Out of these initial studies a long-term research project has been undertaken which is now known as the "Mannermaa," "Helsinki," or

30 Mannermaa received his doctorate from the University of Helsinki in 1970, was assistant professor there from 1976-1980, and professor of Ecumenics from 1980-2000. 31 Tuomo Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 1-20, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 2. 32 Mannermaa, In ipsa fide Christus adest, Finnish ed. 1978. The English translation is Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith: Luther's View of Justification, ed. and intro. Kirsi Stjerna, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). 15 simply the "Finnish" school of Luther interpretation. The first phase of the project consisted of examining and categorising the ontological assumptions of modern Luther research. The second task has been an analysis of Luther's own understanding of the presence of Christ in faith.34

It seems that the Finnish conclusions may best be examined in terms of two essential claims, each of which challenges a specific intellectual paradigm: 1) Luther understands the indwelling of Christ to be a "real," "ontological," or "real ontic"35 indwelling, and 2) Luther understands the indwelling of Christ to be inseparable from, and indeed even the basis for, justification; (1) challenges the Luther scholarship of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly as regards some of its philosophical presuppositions, and (2) challenges some of the traditional theology of the

Lutheran Church, particularly the separation of justification and the indwelling of Christ.

In this chapter: matters pertaining to (1) will be considered first followed by those related more closely to (2); some of the more important corollaries of these assertions will be outlined, particularly those regarding divine love and the Christian life; the general

In what follows the members of this school are occasionally simply referred to as "The Finns." Their work certainly does not represent the consensus of all Finnish people, but the scholars in this group are all Finnish and the moniker is convenient. Furthermore, though each scholar has his or her own area of specialisation and nuanced understanding of the larger topic, their work is unified enough that it may be referred to collectively. A more detailed study might look at the nuances of each scholar's thought and how these opinions change over time, but this does not seem needed here. 34 The historical details mentioned here are taken from Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 1- 4. and Kirsi Stjerna, "Editor's Introduction," in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, xv-xix. A note might also be made at this point concerning the availability of sources; the Finns are popular in certain North American scholarly circles but there are only two significant works are available in English: Christ Present in Faith: Luther's View of Justification, the English translation of Mannermaa's initial study, and Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, a collection of papers by Finnish theologians with responses by their American counterparts published in 1998. It has been some time then since a major work has appeared in English. (See bibliographic entries under "The Finnish Lutherbild.") 35 Mannermaa has used a number of terms to explain his idea but due to their existing use in various philosophical systems none has been totally satisfactory. It seems though that Mannermaa himself has settled on "ontological." (See Stjerna's note in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 95.) This word will be defined more clearly in the following pages. 16 reaction to the Finnish program will be discussed; and some areas of potential difficulty will be considered.

At the heart of the Finnish Lutherbild is the idea of Christ's "ontological" union with the Christian. The fact that Luther's fundamental concern with this idea has been overlooked may, according to the Finns, be traced back to the Neo-Kantianism of

Hermann Lotze (1817-1881). Mannermaa presents a concise summary of Lotze's position: "The initial assumption of Lotze's ontology is that the everyday conception of reality, according to which things first must exist in themselves in order subsequently to be able to stand in relationship to other things, is false. There is not being in itself. The only sense of 'being' is 'standing in relationship.'" Things are when they are in relationship to other things: the world does not consist of isolated beings but of things in relationship. Lotze's epistemology corresponds to his ontology: there can be no knowledge of a thing-in-itself but only of its effects, and because knowledge comes from the effects of things on the knower, things receive their form from the nature of the knower. Mannermaa identifies an important point here: in classical realist epistemology the form of the thing known enters into the intellect via the senses such that the being of the external thing is actually present in the knower; there is a unity of intellect and object that is not present in Lotze's system where the thing known has its form from the knower and not from itself.

This thinking furthermore leads to a particular theology. Thinking about God is restricted to the individual person and not the larger world of being; religion is concerned only with values and ethics. God's effects on the soul are effects of the will of God; God

Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?." 5. cf. ibid. 17

Himself/itself maintains a certain distance: "The presence of God is, according to Lotze, a community of willing and of affecting (gemeinschaft des Wollens und des Wirkens), but not a union of being (unio)." In contrast, the Finns find a "community of being" between Christ and the Christian, something much more comprehensive than a

"community of deed" or "will." For the Finns, Luther truly does speak in ontological terms and believes that Christ is "really" present in the Christian. Mannermaa, in opposition to Lotze and Neo-Kantianism generally, explains how the "community of being" between Christ and the Christian comes about:

God is in relation to himself in the movement of Word (Deum Patrem sibi suum apud se verbum proferre) at the same time that he is this movement of the Word. The being of God is relational, and as such has the character of esse. This understanding of the being of God is the basis for understanding the being-present-of-Christ in faith. In Christ the inner- trinitarian Word, which is the being of God, becomes incarnate. The presence of Christ's word and the word about Christ in faith are the presence of God himself.40

The first part of this statement seems to be fairly standard trinitarian theology: God's being is relational; in the Trinity God relates Himself to Himself. As in Lotze, existence is in some sense relational but this does not mean that God and man must remain isolated with respect to their "beings."41 God's Word is at one time related to God and is God

Mannermaa recounts how this line of thinking has been taken up by a long line of Luther scholars including Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889), who maintained that when Luther spoke of the presence of Christ he was speaking about the effects of God's will on the Christian. For Ritschl, God Himself remained outside of human experience, (ibid., 8.) Mannermaa goes on to say that Ritshl maintained that Luther held on to vestiges of the old realist epistemology in addition to the "correct" one. (ibid.) This view was also taken up by Karl Holl and his Luther Renaissance and then by the Dialectical Theology movement. Mannermaa clarifies his own opinion: "Luther's concept concerns more than the notion of the union of the will of God with that of man (Luther Renaissance). And it also goes beyond the concept of a community of deed or of act in revelation (Dialectical theology). Rather, it refers to a community of being of God and man." (Tuomo Mannermaa, "Participation and Love in the Theology of Martin Luther," in Philosophical Studies in Religion, Metaphysics, and Ethics, 303-311, (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Society, 1997), 305.) 40 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12. 41 Robert Jenson, an enthusiastic American supporter of the Finns, notes that for the Greeks something has being insofar as it is eternal and it can be known. He continues, "To be, according to Luther according 18

Himself. Therefore, because faith involves the apprehension of the Word of God, faith involves the apprehension of Christ Himself. Mannermaa clarifies this conclusion: "This ontological basis has its epistemological side as well: the act of knowing and the object of knowledge are identical. God who illuminates and the illuminated heart, the present God and the God seen by us, are identical.. ."42 This is the mechanism of participation and the reason why God can be said to be ontologically present in faith. Against the Neo-Kantian idea that the knower and the thing known must remain separate, the Finns understand

Luther to believe that God and the knowing Christian do not remain essentially apart.

The position that the Finns oppose is thus clear, as are the basics of their constructive proposal, yet after a certain point things perhaps necessarily become somewhat hazy; God is clearly Himself present in the Christian, is "ontologically" present, but the Finns are reluctant to articulate too precisely what the word "ontological" means. One of Mannermaa's translators says simply, "The word 'ontological,' in

Mannermaa's use, underscores the reality of things and events."43 In other places it has been taken to mean "that which has to do with being".44 This is a somewhat helpful clarification, yet still very vague. Luther never appears to give a rigorous definition of his own ontology and Mannermaa notes, ".. .we cannot describe it [Luther's ontology] appropriately by means of the concepts of an 'effect' ontology, the concepts of a static substantial ontology, or the concepts of other forms of philosophical ontology. For

to Mannermaa, is to give oneself to another, by speaking. Note the subtle but vital difference between this and Kantianism. According to the Kantians, we cannot deal with being but only with relations. According to Luther according to Mannermaa, a certain mode of relation is being." (Robert W. Jenson, "Response by Robert W. Jenson," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 21-24, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 23) 42 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12. 43 Stjerna, "Editor's Forward," in Mannermaa, Christ present in Faith, viii. 44 Stjerna, in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 95. 19

Luther's understanding of the being of Christ in faith is theological in its nature."45 The process of outlining Luther's ontology is thus something of a process of elimination. It is rather difficult to explain Luther's ontology rigorously and philosophically.

Sammeli Juntunen is the Finnish scholar who seems to have done the most work on Luther's metaphysics and he appears to be more optimistic than Mannermaa.

Juntunen notes that Luther is indeed somewhat anti-metaphysical but this is only because he perceives the love of self, the desire for selfish wisdom, to be the driving force behind human philosophy,46 not because he is against metaphysics per se. The conclusions of philosophers may nevertheless contain some truth and metaphysics is therefore acceptable in a formal sense.47 Luther's ontology may be described as theological and not philosophical in the sense that it is based on Scripture, acknowledges the limitations of human reason, and relies on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.48 This however does not preclude all efforts to understand it philosophically; it is proper to speak of "the kind of understanding of the structure of being that belongs to Luther's theology." In outlining this understanding, Juntunen takes particular issue with earlier Luther scholars such as

Gerhard Ebeling and Wilfried Joest who understood Luther to replace Aristotelian

5 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12. Dennis Bielfeldt, an American who has taken an interest in the Finnish program, adds his opinion: "The unity between Christ and the Christian is not that of a static substance ontology, nor is it habitual grace accidentally inhereing in the human substance, nor a relational unity due to some 'effect' of God upon the Christian. It is neither an inner communion of wills, nor some external relation." (Dennis Bielfeldt, "The Ontology of Deification," in Caritas Dei: Beitrage zum Verstandnis Luthers und der gegenwartigen Okumene: Festschrift fur Tuomo Mannermaa zum 60. Geburtstag, Oswald Bayer, Robert W. Jenson and Simo Knuuttila, eds., 90-113, (Helsinki: Luther- Agricola-Gesellschaft, 1997), 93) 46 Sammeli Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics: What Is the Structure of Being according to Luther?," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 129-160, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998.), 132. 41 ibid., 133. 48 ibid.,135. 49 ibid. 20

substances with a "relational ontology."50 Juntunnen notes that Ebeling and Joest seem to

see Luther's ontology in terms of an either/or: "either a static and non-personal

substance-metaphysic or a relational-existentialist ontology, which is personal and dynamic."51 Juntunen and the Finns on the other hand, hold for a "third way", some sort

CO of synthesis of these two positions.

Juntunen notes, "Before one claims that Luther's ontology is relational, one

should consider carefully what kind of relation one means."53 According to the idea introduced by Mannermaa above, Luther's is a relational ontology but one that also

includes a more substantial concept of being. For Luther there are essentially two modes

of being: esse naturae or natural being, and esse gratiae or "the spiritual being of a

Christian in the church."54 Both modes of being are a matter of creatio continua, that is to say creation is continuous; being is constant reception of being from God. This is not

simply a preserving of being but a constant creation out of nothing.55 Creation is thus a relationship, and Juntunen notes that most medievals agreed that relation involves two

aspects of being: "being-in" (esse-in) and "being-toward" (esse-ad).56 Both the old and new creations involve both of these aspects. In this terminology, the Finns reject the understanding of Luther where the esse-in is discarded in favour of the esse-ad. To

clarify what exactly is meant by esse-in, Juntunen relates it to the term factum.51 This is

50 ibid., 130. 51 ibid. 52 ibid. 53 ibid., 145. 54 ibid., 136 55 ibid., 138-139. It is true that Juntunen admits that he may be a bit hasty in his assertion that Luther perceives the esse naturae as a matter of continuous creation, {ibid., 151.) 56 ibid., 146. He credits Mark G. Henninger, Relations: Medieval Theories 1250-1325, (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1989), for this insight. 57 In Juntunen's words, "The esse-ad aspect refers to how in both esse naturae and esse gratiae a person is continuously nihil ex se and needs to receive God's creative love in order to remain in existence. The 21 an action of God but an action of a particular sort, to be distinguished from an actus; the latter is a mere "happening" while the former, though also dependent on God, has "a certain intrinsic moment in its ontological structure". What is important here is that the

Christian has both a natural and a spiritual existence and that in each existence there is both a "relational" ontology and a "real-substantial" ontology, one with its own intrinsic

(though dependent) being. Christ is "ontologically" present in the Christian (esse-in) and the Christian participates in Him; "that which is participated in has to be present in that which participates." There nevertheless remains the esse-ad aspect of being which

"refers to how in both esse naturae and esse gratiae a person is continuously nihil ex se and needs to receive God's creative love in order to remain in existence." Luther's ontology is thus both relational and substantial.

Having clarified the Finnish Lutherbild 's ontology to some degree, it is possible to describe the ontological nature of Christ's union with the Christian in more detail.

Using Aristotelian language, Juntunen says, "The esse gratiae is a participation in Christ, who comes into a very intense union with the believer but who nonetheless remains his own substantial reality without becoming part of the essence of the believer or being reduced to an accident in this essence."61 In the Christ's ontological union with the

Christian there is yet an important "separateness." Mannermaa expresses this idea very

esse-in aspect refers to how the result of this creative love is ontologically something more than an event, namely a factum (factum naturae, factura gratiae). Both of these aspects, the extrinsic (esse-ad) and the intrinsic (esse-in), in respect to the relation of the person to God, can be viewed alternatively from the standpoint of Luther's claim that the esse gratiae of a person is realized as participation in God." (Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 152.) 58 ibid., 143-144. 59 ibid., 153. 60 ibid., 152. 61 ibid., 154. 22 eloquently in the statement, "Even Christ in nobis is Christ extra nos." The union of

Christ and the Christian cannot be understood as a union of essences. Again, union must be described negatively; a positive definition in philosophical terms is very difficult.

Mannermaa does say that the Christian, like Christ, has in a sense two natures, the divine nature being Christ Himself. According to Simo Peura, "Participation then, to speak generally and in summary, means that the natural, created life of a Christian is permeated throughout (perichoresis) by the divine life of God."6 Perichoresis may be the best provisional definition of how Christ is ontologically united with the Christian. Luther himself notes the difficulty in pressing the issue too far: in his Galatians Commentary (a major text for the Finnish program), he says quite eloquently:

It [faith] takes hold of Christ in such a way that Christ is the object of faith, or rather not the object but, so to speak, the One who is present in the faith itself. Thus faith is a sort of knowledge or darkness that nothing can see. Yet the Christ of whom faith takes hold is sitting in this darkness as God sat in the midst of darkness on Sinai and in the temple. Therefore our "formal righteousness" is not a love that informs faith; but it is faith itself, a cloud in our hearts, that is, trust in a thing we do not see, in Christ, who is present especially when He cannot be seen. Therefore faith justifies because it takes hold of and possesses this treasure, the present Christ. But how He is present—this is beyond our thought; for there is darkness, as I have said.65

In summary then, what is meant by "ontological" indwelling/participation/union66 is that

Neo-Kantian philosophy, where the nature of relationships keeps fundamental being out of the realm of consideration, must be rejected when considering Luther; for Luther, God

62 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 25. One may however point out that Christ has two natures in one person; the Christian would seem here to have two natures in one what? 63 Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 310. 64 Simo Peura, "The Essence of Luther's Spirituality," The Seminary Ridge Review 2, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 30. 65Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4, trans, and ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Luther's Works, vol. 26, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 141. 66 It does not seem that the Finns make a clear distinction between these terms. 23 is present in His Word and is present as such in the Christian. The ontology that allows

such an idea has both "relational" and "substantial" elements; Christ is in the Christian

and thus united with him or her but there also remains a "separateness." The idea of two

entities in a state of perichoresis is perhaps the best way to understand this.

It is important to understand the Finnish program from the standpoint of ontology but it is also essential to consider the issue from the standpoint of soteriology; what is the role of union with Christ in the economy of salvation and in the Christian life generally?

In answering this question it is useful to first consider the disagreement between the

Finnish Lutherbild and the Lutheran Confessions. Before the disagreement though, there is significant agreement: the Formula of Concord actually seems to anticipate Neo-

Kantian ontology when it condemns the idea "That not God himself but only divine gifts

dwell in believers." More completely Article III of the Sold Declaration of the

Formula of Concord states:

We must also explain correctly the discussion concerning the indwelling of God's essential righteousness in us. On the one hand, it is true indeed that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is the eternal and essential righteousness, dwells by faith in the elect who have been justified through Christ and reconciled with God, since all Christians are temples of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who impels them to do rightly. But on the other hand, this indwelling of God is not the righteousness of faith of which St. Paul speaks and which he calls the righteousness of God, on account of which we are declared just before God. This indwelling follows the preceding righteousness of faith, which is precisely the forgiveness of sins and the gracious acceptance of poor sinners on account of the obedience and merit of Christ.

"Epitome of the Formula of Concord," "Article IV," in Theodore G Tappert ed. and trans., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 475. Mannermaa observes it in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 4. Tappert, 548-549. This is quoted in Mannerma, Christ Present in Faith, 4 and Tuomo Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 25-41, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 27-28. 24

The Formula of Concord thus clearly acknowledges the indwelling of God but also clearly separates this from justification; justification is defined as God's action outside of the Christian69 and as in some sense preceding God's indwelling.70 The Finns understand

Luther's own position as significantly different; the divine indwelling is a necessary part of justification and is in no way subsequent to it.71 The reason for this on an ontological level has already been stated: "The presence of Christ's word and the word about Christ in faith are the presence of God himself."72 If faith requires the hearing of the Word, then the indwelling of God cannot come at some later point, neither temporally nor logically.

The Finnish Lutherbild also sees this indwelling as a soteriological necessity; for

Luther there can be no separating Christ's person and work in the event of justification.

Christ is both favour {gratia, favor) and gift (donum) and justification involves both of these. According to Mannermaa, "'Favor' signifies God's forgiveness and the removal of his wrath. In other words, 'favor' is the attitude toward the human being in the 'subject' of God. Christ as a 'gift,' in turn, denotes the real self-giving of God to the human being... the notion of Christ as a 'gift' means that the believing subject becomes a participant in the 'divine nature.'"74 Christ as God's favour opposes God's wrath and

In Lutheran orthodoxy this was denoted by the phrase "extra nos." Mannermaa preserves this terminology but seems to change its essential meaning: "Even Christ in nobis is Christ extra nos." Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 25. Here this means that Christ, though united to the Christian, is still in some sense outside of him or her, not that justification is an external event. This position seems somewhat inconsistent. 70 The subject of whether it is only Christ who indwells or all three Persons of the Trinity will not be touched upon here. 71 Thus Mannermaa and the Finnish school find a Luther who is neither Neo-Kantian nor in a certain sense Lutheran. The reaction to this project will be discussed shortly. 72 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12. 73 Useful here are some words by Regin Prenter who, though not a member of the Helsinki school, Mannermaa quotes as expressing similar thought in 1977: ".. .only through God himself, that is, through the Holy Spirit, can a human being believe in God, and love God, and thus be justified. God in Christ is himself the human being's righteousness before God. This implies that the human being who is righteous in faith is taken into the being of God." Prenter, quoted in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 7. 74 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 19. 25

Christ as gift opposes the Christian's corruption.75 In terms of justification, favour and gift are spoken of as the "forensic" and "effective,"76 the "extrinsic" and "intrinsic,"77 or the "external" and "internal"78 aspects of justification. This way of speaking may seem to diminish the role of the crucifixion and to be reminiscent of the position of Andreas

Osiander, who thought that the indwelling of Christ was the essence of justification, and whose teachings have been clearly rejected in the Lutheran tradition. The Finns therefore find it necessary to distinguish their position from his. Simo Peura notes, "..the problem of Osiander's doctrine was not actually his claim that justification was based on God's indwelling in a Christian, but the Christological presuppositions of this claim."

Osiander, says Peura, separated the human and divine natures in Christ; Christ's human nature and His work on the cross as a human being were only a preamble to the justifying

DA power of his divine nature in the believer. For the Finns, Christ's work on the cross is

75 Simo Peura, "Christ as Favor and Gift: The Challenge of Luther's Understanding of Justification," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 42-69, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 43. Juntunen says that Luther understands sin in a twofold manner: it is guilt before God and a destructive power. "From the duality of the understanding of sin there results a duality in the understanding of Christ's work: on the one hand Christ conquers the evil powers and redeems people from their captivity. On the other hand, he took upon himself the guilt of humankind and suffered death on behalf of other people, which God's law requires for sinners." (Sammeli Juntunen, "The Christological Background of Luther's Understanding of Justification," The Seminary Ridge Review 5, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 17.) 76 See for example, Peura, "Christ as Favor and Gift," 64. 77See for example, Pekka Vainio, "Christ for us and Christ in Us," in Luther Between Present and Past: Studies in Luther and Lutheranism, Ulrik Nissen, Anna Vind, Bo Holm and Olli-Pekka Vainio, eds. (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 2004), 92. 78 See for example, Juntunen, "The Christological Background of Luther's Doctrine of Justification," 6. These terms are somewhat unsatisfactory; surely a great number of Christians have understood forensic justification to be "effective" and in some sense "intrinsic" and "internal." What the Finns are getting at is a different kind of effective, intrinsic, and internal model of justification than the purely forensic one. 79 Peura, "Christ as Favour and Gift," 46. 80 ibid. Olli-Pekka Vainio notes, ".. .for Osiander Christ's atoning work is not a part of justification. For Luther, Christ's presence is also the presence of the merit that is in the person of Christ." (Vainio, 97.) The works of Christ were, for Osiander, not as important as Christ's uncreated essence, {ibid.) 26 fundamental,81 yet as Juntunen explains, it is a necessary but not sufficient cause for justification:

Christ's work as reconciling death and resurrection is the necessary but not sufficient reason for the salvation of people. It is not sufficient because it does not yet explain how it is possible for people to believe in Christ and his salvific work, how to apprehend Christ and his righteousness for oneself in justifying faith, how forgiveness and Christ's victory over sin become a reality for me and in me.

The favour expressed fundamentally in Christ's work on the cross must be understood together with the gift. Salvation is by participation in Christ through faith; only in this way to Christians share in Christ's victory: "In Luther's view, faith is a victory precisely because it unites the believer with the person of Christ, who, in himself, is the victory."

This uniting with Christ in His victory is furthermore the gracious work of God alone. In this respect, the Finnish Lutherbild seems to be in accord with the Theology of the Cross. The Finnish program recognises the gracious condescending action of God,

God's kenosis, His hiddenness on the cross, God's alien work in preparing the sinner for

It seems that they are to be believed here even in spite of the obvious interpretation of some of their comments. Juntunen for example notes that for Luther "the medium of spiritual existence was not the event of 'forensic justification' but the divine person of Christ." (Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 153.) 82 Juntunen, "The Christological Background," 22. 83 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 16. The Finns seem to understand the gift and the resulting victory in terms of a certain atonement theory. Mannermaa says that for Luther, Christ is the "greatest sinner" {maximus peccator). The Logos did not take a pure or neutral human nature but sinful human nature. "This means that Christ really has and bears the sins of all human beings in the human nature he has assumed." {ibid., 13.) Christ is furthermore a sort of "collective person" or the "greatest person" {maxima persona). Christ thus bears the sin of each human being or the sin of all people. This being the case, Christ may be described as the "only sinner" {soluspeccator). {ibid., 15.) Sin fights against the divine nature of Christ and is overcome. It is therefore correct to say that there is no sin nor death anymore because Christ was the only sinner. In summary Mannermaa says, "It is important to appreciate that the conquest of the forces of sin and destruction takes place within Christ's own person. He won the battle between righteousness and sin 'in himself {triumphans in seipso). Sin, death, and curse are first conquered in the person of Christ, and 'thereafter' the whole of creation is to be transformed through his person. Salvation is participation in the person of Christ, {ibid., 16.) It is thus through participation in Christ that His victory becomes a reality for the Christian. 84 David Yeago observes, "Protestants today tend to use the phrase 'theology of the cross' to refer to anything in theology that they like..." David S. Yeago, "The Catholic Luther," in The Catholicity of the Reformation, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson eds., (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 20. 27

His proper work. Peura notes, "Christ is the one who transfers a sinner to Christ himself and who changes the sinner."85 The Finns emphasise that it is not an upward movement of the human being to God but God's downward movement that results in participation.

Mannermaa notes, "The right relationship of faith is not a striving, dynamic movement of love toward the transcendent. God cannot be found 'above' by means of striving love.

OS

Rather, he is 'below' in faith, present in the sinful human". Christ chooses to reveal His love in suffering. Moreover, before Christ indwells the Christian justifying him or her and making of him or her a new creation of love according to God's proper work, the

Christian must undergo God's alien work: "According to Luther, when God justifies a 0-7 person, he makes him/her into nothing (redigere ad nihilum / annihilare)^ The

Christian is made "nihil ex se" such that he or she has nothing of his own on which to base his or her life; he or she is nothing before God. God's alien and proper work are always connected: "The 'annihilatio' and 'deificatio' of a person are simultaneous and describe the same thing from two sides.. ,"88 This is furthermore a constant process}9

Because faith is a work of God alone, it is necessary to emphasise, as the Finns do, that "According to Luther, Christ himself, not the striving elevated love of humans, is the divine reality, the forma of faith."90 Luther rejected the scholastic notion ofa fides charitate formata, divinely elevated human love, as the means to salvation. It is rather

85 Peura, "Christ as Favour and Gift," 62. 86 Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?," 15. Juntunen says, "In order to destroy concupiscentia Christ became in his kenosis the opposite of all that which concupiscentia considers good. He carries the sins of the world. In this way he teaches people to serve others with a pure divine love which does not love in order to receive good things, but in order to give good things to those who lack them." (Juntunen, "The Christological Background," 30.) 87 Sammeli Juntunen, "The Notion of 'Gift' {donum) in Luther's Theology," in Luther Between Present and Past: Studies in Luther and Lutheranism, Ulrik Nissen, Anna Vind, Bo Holm and Olli-Pekka Vainio, eds., 53-69, (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 2004), 62. 88 ibid. 89 ibid, for example. 90 Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?," 17. 28 that Christ Himself is the Christian's faith. This is what Luther means by saying that faith is a living active thing.91 Faith must be active because it is a person: "Luther's notion of faith cannot be understood correctly if Christ is regarded merely as an object of faith in the same way as any item can be an object of human knowledge. Rather, the object of faith is a person who is present, and therefore he is, in fact, also the 'subject.'"

In other words, "God is both the object and subject, the actor and act, of faith." The

Finnish program is thus much more than a treatise on Luther's ontology; it is indeed necessary that Christ be ontologically present, but Christ is present as a living, faith creating, "faithing", life changing person, not simply a metaphysical principle.

The discussion is now moving from the "how" of Christ's presence to the "what" of His presence. Christ's presence in the Christian as justifying faith is radical empowerment. According to Mannermaa, "The notion that Christians are partakers of the 'divine nature' means that they are 'filled with all the fullness of God.' God's righteousness makes Christians righteous; God's 'life lives in them'; God's love makes them love, and so forth."94 In Mannermaa's view, Luther describes this as the central content of his "Reformation Discovery" in the 1545 preface to his collected works. Here, as is well known, Luther speaks of how he first came to understand the righteousness of

God as the righteousness given to Christians, and then all the attributes of God not simply as divine predicates but as gifts. According to Mannermaa, "The list of these words proves that the reformatory discovery denotes understanding of participation in the

91 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 25. 92 ibid., 26. 93 Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?" 12. 94 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 21. Mannermaa further says of "the Hebrew manner of speaking," "According to this way of speaking, the properties of God constitute the essence of God..." (Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 308.) 29 properties of God: 'Work of God, i.e., which God works in us, power of God, through which he makes us powerful, wisdom of God, through which God makes us wise, courage of God, salvation of God, glory of God, etc.,,,9S Mannermaa asserts that this maybe spoken of as a communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum) analogous to but separate from the christological communicatio idiomatum; what is predicated of

Christ may also be predicated of the Christian.

The most significant divine attribute in which the Christian shares, and which may therefore be predicated of him or her, is the love of God. Peura, for example, asserts that the traditional way of understanding Luther's work as the search for a gracious God is flawed; "Rather, the question challenging Luther was simply the classic problem that has exercised all Christians throughout the history of the church. He was trying to work out a solid answer to the great commandment of Scripture: 'You shall love the Lord your

God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27)." Luther's fundamental concern then was how he could love unselfishly, how he could fulfil the law. According to the traditional view represented particularly by scholars such as Paul Althaus, it was the Christian's experience of God's love that was the source of Christian love and

OR action. Antti Raunio, however, who is especially concerned with the place of the natural law in Luther's thought states that for Luther, "The loving application of the

95 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther So Fascinating?," 17. Luther quotation from WA 54, 185, 13-186, 22. 96 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 21. 97 Simo Peura, "What God Gives Man Receives: Luther on Salvation," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 76-95, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 76. In this he is joined by David Yeago. See Yeago, 17- 20. 98 Antti Raunio, "Natural Law and Faith," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 96-124, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 112. Golden Rule is possible for Christians only because Christ has first fulfilled its demand and does so continuously as present in the heart of the believer through faith."99 Only because he or she is united with Christ, can the Christian "love the neighbor without searching for anything from him as reward."1 In simple logic, "Faith in itself is not the fulfilment of the law, i.e., of the commandment to love. On the other hand, love is the fulfilment of the law. But even if faith is not the fulfilment of the law, it nevertheless imports love along with it, and love is the fulfilment of the law."101 This understanding provides a frame of reference for interpreting all Christian action: "Luther understands the participation of the believer in Christ as something so 'ontologically intense' that the actions which Christ works in a Christian can be considered the actions of this Christian in question himself."102 It seems then that the Finns have arrived at a dialectical understanding of works: when the Christian works, it is Christ working.103

Working then is a natural part of salvation. In summary, the Finnish Lutherbild understands salvation to involve both God's favour in Christ and His gift in the same.

Christ takes on the sin of the world on the cross and conquers it in His person; the

ibid., 113. This is simply a corollary of the idea of Christ as gift: "Christ, who is present in faith as donum, brings love with Him, because Christ is in His divine nature God, and God is love." (Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 309.) 100Raunio, 114. 101 Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 309. 102 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 155-156. According to Mannermaa, "You are as deep in God's heart as is Christ, and God's favour, God's own heart, is just as deep in you as it is in Christ." (Tuomo Mannermaa, "Doctrine of Justification and Trinitarian Ontology," in Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson, Colin E. Gunton, ed., 139-145, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 143.) Brief note should also be made of the communal dimension of this idea of participation and love. Love has a uniting function according to Raunio, "Uniting love becomes concrete in participating in the suffering and need of others. To participate in the life of others means not only to act but also to share their suffering in an 'ontological' sense. Uniting love makes the suffering of the other also one's own. And when Christians give themselves in divine love, the other is enabled to participate in that love." (Raunio, 116.) Furthermore, "The love of Christians continuously increases and transforms them such that they become 'common' with everyone. Luther even says that through love Christians will be transformed into each other. This means that by following the Rule of Love they receive the misery and evil of others as their own and share their gifts with them." (Raunio, 119.) These ideas are interesting but seem peripheral to the present study. 31

Christian participates in this victory by participating in His person. This is perfectly

compatible with the Theology of the Cross: in Christ, God hides Himself so that there is

nothing for the Christian to love selfishly; the Christian must moreover constantly undergo God's alien work to be emptied so that God's proper work of Christ's indwelling may take place. The faith of the Christian is not something that he or she does but is

Christ. Because of Christ's indwelling, there is a type of communication that takes place between Christ and the Christian such that the Christian participates in the attributes of

God. The most important of these is love and because the Christian loves with God's

love, he or she can fulfil the law; Christ's work in the Christian is such that it can be

considered the Christian's own work.

Finally, a few words should be said concerning a potential problem in the Finnish

program; this concerns exactly what is meant by the word "participation" and the related

question of how the Finnish Lutherbild understands the phrase simul iustus etpeccator.

In the Lutheran tradition this axiom is understood from a "total" perspective; the

Christian is both totally sinner and totally righteous. In the forensic understanding of justification this is simple to understand; the Christian is justified in that he or she lives by the righteousness of Christ which God has imputed to him or her, and is yet a sinner based on his or her own merit. There is also a "partial" interpretation of simul iustus et peccator; here the Christian is partially a sinner and partially just. The total aspect is

often seen as concerning the relation to God, the "vertical" aspect, and the partial is often

seen as referring to the neighbour, the "horizontal" aspect. The Finns see Luther as maintaining both uses of the phrase together. This is perhaps possible but one must be

very precise in one's use of language; it is easy to become confused. When Christ's 32 indwelling is linked to the moment of justification, becoming necessary for both the vertical and horizontal aspects instead of only the horizontal as in the Formula of

Concord, it seems that the totality of "sinner" must be lost. Indeed Peura refers to

"residual sin".104 This makes sin seem like a substance that can vary in its amount. This however is not traditional Lutheran theology were sin is to be constantly put to death, rather than decreased; when sin is present in the vertical or horizontal dimensions of justification it is always totally present.105 The Finns are able to speak in this more traditional manner as well; according to Mannermaa,

When Luther talks about Christians from the "total" point of view, he considers them in a relationship with the one who is "outside" them even when he is "in them," namely, Christ. Christians are "totally righteous" in their relationship with the one "above," that is, with Christ and God. On the other hand, Christians are to be understood as "total sinners" in themselves, when they are seen as the "old Adam [Eve]," and separate from Christ.106

This is very orthodox Lutheran theology; it may however be inadmissible considering the wider implications of the Finnish program. If Christ indwells, it may be that He can never be "outside." The reference frame of the Christian without Christ's righteousness may be invalid. Indeed this seems to be the conclusion of Robert W. Jenson who, though not himself a member of the Finnish circle, draws the logical conclusion:

The full statement is: "Our transformation and righteousness are still imperfect. Because of residual sin we always have to fight against the tendency to seek our own good instead of the good of others. The tree has become a good tree and is able to produce good fruit, but it has to be treated (purified, made better) again and again so that it continues to produce good fruit in the future." (Peura, "The Essence of Luther's Spirituality," 32.) Everything in this statement seems fine except for "residual sin." The problem might have been solved if "the tendency to live from ourselves and not from Christ" had been used instead. 105 In terms of the old Protestant anti-Catholic polemic, sin is always sin and not sins. Because Christians are accepted on the merit of Christ, there is no need for a Purgatory to work off "residual" sin. Granted, a Finn such as Peura would not need to invent Purgatory; it would be Christ Himself who would eventually destroy this "residual" sin, however this "residue" is to be understood. 106 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 58. 33

God judges the believer righteous. The believer judges himself unrighteous. One or the other judgment has to be straightforwardly right, in the sense of setting the terms in which the other judgment is to be evaluated; then the other judgment, if it is to be justified, must be explained as in those terms right quod-damodo ("in a certain way"), as the scholastics said. The Melanchthonian doctrine takes our judgment as setting the terms, within which God's judgment 'in the forum of heaven' must be understood as a sheer judicial exercise of discretion. Luther's doctrine does more or less the opposite: it is God's judgment which is simply right and sets the terms, with in which our judgment must be taken as a judgment of law 'in the forum of the world.' Surely Luther is right and majority Protestantism wrong.107

In Jenson's view, it cannot be both that God is right because He judges the sinner with

respect to Christ's merits, and that the sinner is right because he or she judges him or

herself with respect to his or her own merits. Jenson says earlier, "To impute or not to

impute something is to make a judgment, and most judgments, also in court, are judgments of fact."1 Thus in his view there is only one fact. He further says that God is

in a better position to make the judgment because He can see the presence of Christ in the

believer, his or her true righteousness, whereas the believer can never directly establish

the presence of Christ in him or herself. 109 If God's judgment is "straightforwardly right"

then the Christian is always totally righteous and justified because of the indwelling of

Christ; there is a sense in which the sinner is always a sinner but because of Christ this

can never be in a total sense. This is a logical extension of the Finnish Lutherbild's

position even if Mannermaa himself expresses something different.

Seemingly in response to this contradiction, Denis Bielfeldt calls for greater

clarity in the meaning of "participation." He identifies three types. The first is simply

Robert W. Jenson, "Response to Mark Seifrid, Paul Metzger, and Carl Trueman on Finnish Luther Research," Westminster Theological Journal 65 (2003): 249. It is true that Jenson is not saying the same thing about "residual" sin as Peura here but the effect on the total understanding oipeccator is the same. 108 ibid., 248. 109 ibid.. 248-249. 34 participation of an individual in a group or a whole. This however is not an ontological unity. The next is Platonic or Neoplatonic, where one participates in God to the extent that the form of goodness fills one's being. The final type is "a relation holding among individuals such that one particular actually shares in the being of another."110 The difference between these last two types of participation might be summarised as linear versus dialectic. Bielfeldt prefers the dialectic. He notes that for Luther humans never cease being wholly human with respect to God.111 Bielfeldt in fact prefers the idea of

"real presence" to "participation:"

While Luther undoubtedly employs the notion [participation], it seems to me that it must nonetheless be ontologically distinguished from the relation of being present in. It is not that the infinite can be predicated of the substance of the finite, but rather that the infinite is present in, permeating the substance of the finite in a nonaccidental way... Perhaps perichoresis is the better image because it does not suggest that the finite person participates in the substance of the infinite. We say, after all, that Christ's body is present in the bread, not that the bread participates in Christ's body.112

The Finns too use the word perichoresis but perhaps in a more Platonic, or at least more

in ambiguous sense. What is important in Bielfeldt's proposal is that, according to his understanding of perichoresis, the "total" aspect ofsimul iustus etpeccator" may be preserved. Bielfeldt suggests how the "total" way of speaking can be preserved, but perhaps this is at the expense of the truly deep unity the Finns wish to express, and perhaps it also causes problems with their idea of the communication of the attributes.

110 Bielfeldt, "The Ontology of Deification," 106. 111 According to Bielfeldt, "In other words, it is unclear how this Platonic notion of participation fits with the simul and its assertion of the 'total aspects' of sin and righteousness." (ibid., 107.) From what Jenson has said, it seems clear that it does not. 112 Dennis Bielfeldt, "Response by Dennis Bielfeldt," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 161-166, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 165-166. 113 Peura says for example, "Participation then, to speak generally and in summary, means that the natural, created life of a Christian is permeated throughout (perichoresis) by the divine life of God." (Peura, "The Essence of Luther's Spirituality," 30.) 35

It seems that in Jenson's view, it is simply that the Christian, being united with

Christ, cannot be essentially considered on his or her own merits; if the Christian was considered without Christ, he or she would no longer be a Christian.114 On the other hand, in Bielfeldt's view it seems that the Christian can in some sense be separated from

Christ and considered totally a sinner. This point of contention is a legitimate one within the bounds set by the Finnish Lutherbild and it draws attention to at least two different models for "participation"/pen'cAoras7,s. This then is a potentially interesting point to ask of Kierkegaard: How does he understand "participation" and "simul iustus etpeccatorT'

This begins to sound like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: one can only ever ascertain the momentum or the position of a particle at one time because the measuring of one changes the other. In this case attempting to measure only the Christian's sinfulness distorts the measurement of his or her righteousness. 36

Ontology

In this chapter Kierkegaard's ontology will be examined in light of the Finnish program. How is Kierkegaard's ontology similar to and different than that of the Finnish

Lutherbildl The Finns make four assertions regarding Luther that may be considered here: 1) the ontological indwelling of Christ is primarily a theological concept and only

secondarily a philosophical one; 2) as opposed to Neo-Kantian metaphysics, things-in- themselves are accessible to individual knowers; 3) ontology is both relational and

"substantial," in Juntunen's terminology including both elements ofesse-in and esse-ad, in both the states of esse naturae and esse gratiae; 4) the indwelling of Christ is what

constitutes the esse gratiae and includes elements of both esse-in and esse-ad, allowing

for Christ's maintained separateness in a union generally understood asperichoresis.

These four points will form the framework for considering Kierkegaard's ontology; in this framework Kierkegaard's own unique approach and contributions will become

apparent. While the ontological aspect of the Finnish program is much more speculative

and less clearly defined than the theological portion, the opposite seems to be true for

Kierkegaard; Kierkegaard's ontology is much more explicitly developed, complex, and modern than that of the Finnish Lutherbild. Kierkegaard's ontology is thus different from that of the Finnish Lutherbild but it will be seen that this difference, at least as regards the indwelling of Christ, does not represent an incompatibility but an added level of complexity.

On one level, Kierkegaard's ontology may be understood as a reaction to the

Hegelian fusion of thought and being. For Kierkegaard, thought and existence must not be confused. In his Journals, Kierkegaard contrasts Ontology and Mathematics with 37

"Existential science" saying that this latter one is fundamentally different than the former two; in the case of math and traditional ontology: "The certainty of these is absolute - here thought and being are one, but by the same token these sciences are hypothetical."

One way of stating Kierkegaard's driving purpose is to say that for him existence is not hypothetical; it is a matter of passion in the face of uncertain theory. Faith,

Kierkegaard's highest level of existence, is defined as "the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty."116 It appears that for

Kierkegaard considering hypothetical ontology may actually be a harmful diversion; one must simply exist authentically.117 In characteristic irony, Kierkegaard sought to help people do this by engaging in his own form of ontology.11

This ontology begins in a different place from most traditional ontology; being concerned neither with pure being nor with the being of reality in general, but with the being of individuals, it has been called both a "regional ontology"119 and a "subjective ontology:" "an ontology of the existing subject in which ontology is subjectivized."

Kierkegaard is always concerned with subjectivity and the self. His purpose is not to create a system but to "provide a clear set of essential metaphysical parameters within

115 Kierkegaard, Journals, 197, (IV C 100). 116 Johannes Climacus, [S0ren Kierkegaard], Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 12.1, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 204 17 Kierkegaard says that while God says simply "I am," "to be in this way is too exalted for us human beings, much too earnest. Therefore we must try to become something; to be something is easier." (Kierkegaard, Journals, 200, (XIA 284).) 118 Stated very eloquently, "The task of the existential thinker is to understand himself, and he accomplishes this not by understanding the concrete abstractly, but, on the contrary, by understanding the abstract concretely." (John W. Elrod, Being and Existence in Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Works, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 23.) 119 Richard J. Colledge, "Kierkegaard's Subjective Ontology: A Metaphysics of the Existing Individual," The International Philosophical Quarterly 44, no. 1 (March 2004): 7. 120 ibid. 38 which the contentions of his mature pseudonymous works can operate." All this

emphasis on the self might seem to yield something different from the ontology of the

Finnish Lutherbild; it is different but not fundamentally so. The Finnish Lutherbild is

concerned not so much with ontology as with the Christian's relation to Christ; what the

Finns seem to derive is not so much a general ontology but "a clear set of essential metaphysical parameters within which" their Lutherbild's contentions can operate. In the

Finnish estimation, ontology serves only as a subordinate part of Luther's theological program; Juntunen argues that one should speak of "the kind of understanding of the

1 99

structure of being that belongs to Luther's theology." Is Kierkegaard's ontology also theological or does he understand it as a distinct philosophical enterprise? For both the

Finnish Lutherbild and Kierkegaard, ontology seems to be a preliminary concern, a 19^ means to an end. Here begins the discussion of Kierkegaard's commensurability with point (1) in the introduction.

There seem to be two basic views on the relationship between Kierkegaard's theology and his ontology: the first, represented for example by John W. Elrod, who has

done the most comprehensive English-language work on the subject in his Being and

Existence in Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Works, is that Kierkegaard's ontology and theology are essentially distinct, though it remains true that Kierkegaard's theology may be explained in terms coming from his distinct ontology; the second view, represented by

David Gouwens for example, is that Kierkegaard's ontology comes from his theology, that Kierkegaard's ontology is not meant to stand on its own as a distinct philosophical 121 ibid. 122 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 135. 123 It is beyond the scope of this study to trace the various lines of reciprocal influence in this methodology but it will perhaps begin to be seen that the ontological methodology of the two programs is not so different. 39 enterprise. While the ontology of the indwelling of Christ might be considered in either interpretation, it is obvious that the latter position makes Kierkegaard much more sympathetic to the Finnish Lutherbild.

Elrod sees himself as presenting an interpretation of Kierkegaard between atheistic existentialism on the one side and the Neo-orthodoxy on the other; one ignores

i of the religious dimension of Kierkegaard's thought and the other gives it exclusive place.

Elrod understands Kierkegaard to hold to "a higher Christian Philosophy of Spirit."126 He takes Kierkegaard's Christianity seriously but understands Kierkegaard's ontological project to be a distinct enterprise; in very simple terms, Kierkegaard's definition of the self "emerges simply in the process of trying to take existence seriously apart from any 1 97 divine revelation concerning the nature and purpose of human existence." Again, 19R

Kierkegaard's "understanding of Christianity and his ontology are formally distinct."

For Elrod, Kierkegaard's ontology may lead to his theology but it does not come from there.129

124 If Kierkegaard's ontology is primarily theological, perhaps some conception of the indwelling of Christ was in Kierkegaard's mind as he outlined his categories. 125 See for example, Elrod, 253. This is distinct from Sponheim who always understands Kierkegaard to be religious but sees himself as incorporating the element of Kierkegaard's thought where God is further away and the element where God and the individual are closer together. 126 For example, ibid., 256. 127 ibid., 19. In other words, "It is a Christian Philosophy, not because the Christian faith dictates an understanding of the nature and purpose of the self, but because the development of the self culminates in the affirmation of the Christian communication as its truth." {ibid., 257-258.) 128 ibid., 19-20. 129 Elrod does in fact see Kierkegaard's ontology leading decisively to Christianity: "Neither the self nor Christianity can exist apart from the other." {ibid., 257.) Elrod sees Kierkegaard as bridging the gap between philosophy and theology, saying that Kierkegaard "combines the subject matter of these two disciplines in the description of what it means to become a self and in so doing transcends the gap separating these two disciplines of thought." {ibid., 259.) Elrod has been accused of trying "to posit an ontology without God" (Kristen Deede, "The Infinite Qualitative Difference: Sin, the Self, and Revelation in the Thought of Soren Kierkegaard," International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 53 (2003): 43.) but this seems to be too simplistic a way to understand Elrod's argument. It is rather that Elrod does not understand Kierkegaard to presuppose the Christian God in developing his ontology. Ultimately, Elrod is clear that Kierkegaard understands the Christian God as necessary for the integration of the self, the goal of ontology. 40

On the other hand, Gouwens begins by asking whether Kierkegaard should be seen as an apologist in the tradition of Schleiermacher or more of a dogmatic theologian such as Karl Barth.130 Gouwens implies that Elrod sees Kierkegaard as essentially an apologist like Schleiermacher: "On this understanding, Kierkegaard's literature provides a faith-neutral or foundational or at least independent account of the human self, for example, an ontology of the self, that serves as the governing conceptual entry-point for religious and specifically Christian interests." Gouwens however stresses that

Kierkegaard sees "psychology," i.e. ontology, as in no way determining of dogmatics.133 Gouwens's own view is:

His [Kierkegaard's] anthropological reflection is rather expressedly "confessional" in its stance, and indeed assertively so. Whereas the "apologetic" account of Kierkegaard tends to see his anthropological reflection as controlling his religious thought, the opposite is actually the case: Kierkegaard is a thinker for whom the religious and Christian concepts provide the governing concepts for his psychological reflection.

Gouwens thus notes that Kierkegaard is an apologist but that this is essentially a tactical move and not the basis of his thought.135 Kierkegaard wishes to work with his readers from within their own standpoint so that he can change them. In the final analysis,

Gouwens concludes that Kierkegaard's "authorship works from the dogmatic

His contrast is thus between apologetics and Karl Barth rather than atheism and Karl Barth. David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 68. Gouwens prefers to speak of "psychology" rather than "ontology." He wants to distinguish his view from that of Elrod and others, so this is fair. Nevertheless, it does not seem that "psychology" is necessarily something other than "ontology" and no strong reason is seen to adopt Gouwens' terminology in the present study. 133 ibid. 134 ibid., 69. ibid. In other words, "Psychology for Kierkegaard provides neither a foundational/evidential conceptual framework for Christian language, nor a faith-neutral account of human experience to which dogmatics must correlate systematically." (ibid., 72.) 136 ibid. 41 presuppositions to their implications for an understanding of human existence." This is the opposite of Elrod's conclusion where human existence is considered first, then seen to provide an entry point for theology.

Kierkegaard gives the most attention to ontology in his pseudonymous works and it seems reasonable that his relation to his pseudonyms is something like his relation to his ontology.138 Kierkegaard is a Christian author and an author who communicates indirectly and poetically through his pseudonyms. He warns his readers about becoming

"encumbered with my personal actuality instead of having the light, doubly reflected ideality of a poetically actual author to dance with..." Becoming encumbered with

Kierkegaard's ontology seems much like becoming encumbered with his personal actuality. In the final analysis, it is impossible to be certain of what exactly Kierkegaard was thinking as he wrote, but it seems much easier to accept Gouwens' view than

Elrod's.

It seems than that Kierkegaard's ontology is ultimately derived from his theology but it is so artfully constructed in terms of universal human reason that this is difficult to see. The pseudonymous material is ambiguously Christian and one therefore does not expect to find any unambiguous mention of the indwelling of Christ; as per the apologetic concerns Gouwens identifies, this material seeks to bring people to the point of offence rather than inform them about the Christian life proper, the life in which Christ dwells.

137 ibid., 73 138 Elrod notes that ontology is consistently discussed only in certain works, and of die works he mentions only the Sickness Unto Death is a Christian work. (Elrod, 20.) Though Sickness is a Christian pseudonymous work, it is a sort of qualified Christian work; it does not deal so much with the Christian life as with the despair that comes before (and perhaps during) such a life. Practice in Christianity, the "sequel" to Sickness, is the only pseudonymous work where Christianity is dealt with from a Christian perspective. The fact that Elrod leaves this work out of his study is telling. He himself notes that a different ontology seems to come out in the Journals. (Elrod, 70) It seems probable that this could be linked to Practice and thus to Sickness and the earlier pseudonymous works. 139 Kierkegaard, "A First and Last Explanation," in Postscript, 628 42

Realising this, there will be no effort made here to reach a clear and decisive ontological explanation of Christ's indwelling; the Finns would have been similarly limited had they dealt only with Luther's ontology and not his theology. Seeing that theology and not philosophy is fundamental makes the ontological explanation of Christ's indwelling secondary to the theological, dealt with in the next chapter of the present work. Here it is not necessary to construct a system that requires the indwelling of Christ, simply one that leaves this possibility open. Having set this modest goal, the discussion may now move deeper into Kierkegaard's philosophy.

According to (2) outlined in the introduction, the Finns argue against an epistemology that rejects any apprehension of being-in-itself. The Finns do not seek to find a complete epistemological system in Luther so much as to show that Luther's epistemology allows for the apprehension of Christ Himself; to do this they criticise the

Neo-Kantian system that disallows it. Actually, if their theory of epistemological participation in Christ is drawn out and applied to all forms of knowing, it has the potential to become problematic. Bielfeldt for example argues that the Finns often appear to be saying that Luther understands all knowing in terms of participation: in spouse, in work, etc.140 It is actually only necessary for the Finns to argue that for Luther the knowing of Christ involves His real presence; one might say that the Finns have a

"regional" epistemology. This is a useful thing to notice when comparing Kierkegaard's epistemology with that of the Finnish Lutherbild; Kierkegaard too seems unconcerned with constructing a general epistemology and the present study need not be so concerned with Kierkegaard's general epistemology as with his specific "religious epistemology."

Kierkegaard might actually tend to side with the Neo-Kantians against the Finnish

140 Bielfeldt, "The Ontology of Deification," 103. 43

Lutherbild's general epistemology, but they seem to agree when speaking about the knowledge of God.

In his discussion of Kierkegaard's epistemology, Law notes that Kierkegaard's main concern is that it not undermine Christian faith. Kierkegaard desires to show that truth is not reducible to propositions, and that the historical uncertainty surrounding the

Incarnation is the same for all forms of knowledge. For him all knowledge is uncertain and knowledge is always bound up with the knower.141 So far, this sort of thinking seems to ally Kierkegaard with the Neo-Kantians against the Finnish Lutherbild; Kierkegaard is basically saying that being/reality/actuality is not immediately accessible to the knower but always mediated and uncertain. In the Postscript Climacus says, ".. .sensate certainty, to say nothing of historical certainty, is uncertainty, is only an

approximation..." Nevertheless, Kierkegaard's general epistemology is not simply in line with that of the Neo-Kantians. It is at this point that the famous "subjectivity" enters the picture. In Law's words, "To provide a solution to the epistemological impasse at which he has arrived, Kierkegaard shifts the debate from the objective to the subjective

sphere. It is in the subjectivity of the human self that epistemological problems are to be

solved." This evaluation is confirmed by Climacus who says, "Whereas objective thinking is indifferent to the thinking subject and his existence, the subjective thinker as

existing is essentially interested in his own thinking, is existing in it. Therefore, his thinking has another kind of reflection, specifically, that of inwardness, of possession,

141 Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 71-72. Elrod goes so far as to say that Kierkegaard's dispute with the Western tradition is primarily over epistemology. (Elrod, 200.) 1 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 38. 143 Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 81. In Elrod's summary, "The highest form of knowing is interested knowing which both precipitates and is grounded in the act through which man drives toward the actualisation of what he essentially is." (Elrod, 201.) 44 whereby it belongs to the subject and to no one else."144 Kierkegaard connects knowing with passion and action; as with his ontology, Kierkegaard's epistemology is not centred on objective and abstract principles but is subjective, bound up with the self. Because all knowledge is uncertain, it must be believed.

The question now is whether or not faith in God is fundamentally different from other forms of knowledge/belief. Does it perhaps allow a connection with the being of

God, of human subjectivity with infinite subjectivity? While Kierkegaard may not agree with the general epistemology of the Finnish Lutherbild, is he perhaps a better Finnish

Lutheran than he is a Neo-Kantian? Climacus does make the encouraging though cryptic statement: "The existing person who chooses the objective way now enters upon all approximating deliberation intended to bring forth God objectively, which is not achieved in all eternity, because God is a subject and hence only for subjectivity in inwardness."1 5

Is knowledge of God connected with a union of subjectivities? It seems at least that knowledge of God is a special case for Kierkegaard. Ronald Green, for example, argues that Kierkegaard shares Kant's epistemology, something the Finnish Lutherbild certainly does not, but Green also says, "Christ is the absurd, the 'paradox,' because he links what

Kant has told us we cannot ordinarily think of as belonging together: God and time, the eternal and the temporal, necessity and existence. Kierkegaard's very understanding of why Christ is the 'absurd' presupposes Kant's epistemology."146 Christ appears as a

144 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 72-73. 145 ibid., 199-200. 146 Ronald M. Green, Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 136. It might be noted here that there may be some significant differences between the epistemologies of Kant and Kierkegaard. Travis O'Brien for example notes that for Kant, in Kierkegaardian language, there is no essential unity between concept and actuality but for Kierkegaard there is. O'Brien cites the Journal entry, "It is not as if 'actuality' were void of concepts, not at all; no, the concept which is found by conceptually dissolving it into possibility is also in actuality, but there is still something more - that it is actuality." (Kierkegaard, Journals, 1059, (X2 A 439), in Travis. O'Brian, 45 special epistemological case: the absurd. Another special epistemological case that should be noted here is the self; as Climacus says,

In order to study the ethical, every human being is assigned to himself. In that regard, he himself is more than enough for himself; indeed, he is the only place where he can with certainty study it. Even another person with whom he is living can become intelligible to him only through the external, and inasmuch as that is so, the conception is already involved in dubiousness.147

Knowledge of the self is thus different and more certain than external knowledge. In

Law's view, "If knowledge of external things is intrinsically hidden, then the only sphere in which the human being can acquire certain knowledge is himself."148

Epistemologically speaking, the self is a special case in that it is source of the most sure knowledge; Christ on the other had is a special case because knowledge of Him is absurd.

To understand how these fit together it is useful to begin with Elrod's statement that for Kierkegaard,

There is no self-knowledge apart from the mediation of the self s unity by the ground of its being, and there is no knowledge of the self s divine ground apart from knowledge of the self s existential unity. It is for this reason that one can say with equal validity that both knowledge of oneself is knowledge of God and that knowledge of God is knowledge of oneself.149

In Elrod's opinion there is no proper self-knowledge apart from knowledge of God. This is part of what Sponheim calls Kierkegaard's synthetic rhythm and may be correct but it is incomplete; it is not simply knowledge of any god that is knowledge of the self. For the Christian Kierkegaard, knowledge of God is ultimately knowledge of Christ.

"Being and Givenness in Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Authorship," Philosophy Today 50, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 172.) This could certainly be explored further but, as will be seen, the present study is not so concerned with Kierkegaard's general epistemology as it is with the special cases of self-knowledge and knowledge of God. 147 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 142. 1 Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 85. 149Elrod,201. 46

Kierkegaard's epistemology is not simply a god epistemology but, as Timothy Rose says, a "Christological epistemology"15 . In the Philosophical Fragments, Climacus discusses how every learner is himself in untruth and cannot learn the truth by himself. Climacus continues, "No, if the learner is to obtain the truth, the teacher must bring it to him, but not only that. Along with it, he must provide him with the condition for understanding it, for if the learner were himself the condition for understanding the truth, then he merely needs to recollect.. ."151 It is later made clear that Christ Himself is the teacher.152 Is

Christ Himself also the condition for understanding the truth? Is what Christ brings to the knower Christ Himself? "The god" or Christ must give the condition, which is later explicitly called "faith," but Climacus is not a Christian and is thus limited in his ability to describe this faith. Calling the condition faith and saying that Christ gives it does not exclude the possibility that the faith Christ gives is Himself. As the Finns would have it, "According to Luther, Christ himself... is the divine reality, the forma of faith."155 It is possible that this is what Kierkegaard is getting at in the Fragments. This is however getting a little too far ahead of the argument. To understand better whether or not this is the case, and to understand better how Christ and the self are special cases of

Kierkegaard's epistemology, the discussion must turn to a deeper examination of

Kierkegaard's ontology.

It seems easiest to outline Kierkegaard's definition of the self before discussing his commensurability and compatibility with points (3) and (4) in the introduction, that is

150 Timothy Rose, Kierkegaard's Christocentric Theology, (Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2001), vii. 151 Johannes Climacus, [S0ren Kierkegaard], Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 7, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 14. 152 The teacher is "the god" and is saviour, deliverer and reconciler, (ibid., 15-17.) 153 ibid., 59. The views of Anti-Climacus, who is able to better describe this faith, will be treated in the next chapter of this study. 155 Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?," 17. 47 the esse-in, esse-ad, esse naturae and esse gratiae elements of Kierkegaard's ontology.

Anti-Climacus' tongue-twisting definition of the self at the beginning of Sickness will be used as a basis for this outline. Examining and developing this definition will provide occasion to point out some of the esse-in and esse-ad aspects of his ontology. Following this, the discussion will be expanded to develop Kierkegaard's understanding of the self under the esse naturae and esse gratiae. Here then without further ado is Anti-Climacus' definition of the self:

A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way, a human being is still not a self. In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self. Such a relation that relates itself to itself, a self, must either have established itself or have been established by another. If the relation that relates itself to itself has been established by another, then the relation is indeed the third, but this relation, the third, is yet again a relation and relates itself to that which established the entire relation.156

This formulation might be divided in two: the self s relation to itself and the self s relation to God. For the present, the discussion will focus on former, the first two paragraphs. Elrod's approach of discussing the self as spirit, relation, and synthesis,151 is a good a place to start.

156 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 13. Elrod is correct to call this "Kierkegaard's most cogent expression of the ontology which permeates his thought..." (Elrod, 30.) 157 Elrod, 31. Colledge prefers the three terms spirit, self, and synthesis. (Colledge, 9) This is another way to look at the issue but it seems easier to understand the entire self under the headings of spirit, relationship, and synthesis, as Elrod does. 158 It might be remembered here that Elrod tends to downplay the self s relation to God. Elrod is even able to assert, "It is true that the concept of human being developed by Kierkegaard in his doctrine of the 48

Kierkegaard begins his definition by introducing the term "spirit:" "A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self."159 Elrod calls spirit, "the structuring

principle of the self',160 Richard Colledge calls it the "foundation of consciousness",161 or

more dramatically: "Spirit is the gnawing voice within that breathes fire and intensity into

human existence, driving it along the difficult road toward fulfilment of its potentiality.

Thus, spirit is the essence of human being."162 These definitions are helpful; indeed,

Anti-Climacus defines "spiritlessness" as the "philistine-bourgeois mentality",163 a sort of

grey unthinking, mechanical existence. Spirit is an expression for authentic existence,

passion. Coming as it does at the beginning of Kierkegaard's definition, spirit runs

through his entire concept of the self and, as will be seen, is especially associated with the

God-relation. There is furthermore a symbiotic relationship between self and spirit.

Colledge says that "spirit and self are functional equivalents to the extent that spirit is

roused in the self and is thereby the ground of the self or alternatively, the self is the

creation of spirit." Similarly Elrod writes, "Spirit refers to the dynamic, becoming

character of the self s being. The different expressions of the self as synthesis (Synthese)

refer to the formal structure of the self s being to which the spirit is bound in its

self omits the reality of God. For Kierkegaard, the God question is an existential question, not an ontological one. Discussions of God appear in his descriptions of the ethico-religious stage of existence, not in his ontology." (Elrod,70.) Seeming to respond to exactly this point, Colledge says that the God- relation is for Kierkegaard "not a matter of religion but ontology!" (Colledge, 17.) Colledge's view, though also something of an exaggeration, seems to be closer to the truth. For the purposes of this discussion, however, it is useful to postpone the discussion of God for a few pages. 159 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 13. 160 Elrod, 31. 161 Colledge, 9. 162 ibid. 163 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 41. 164 Colledge, 10. 49 development."165 Spirit thus has a dynamic character and is something that may wax and wane: it is bound to self-reflection and the actualising of the self as synthesis.

The self is spirit but also "synthesis:" "A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short,

a synthesis."166 Yet the synthesis that is the self is a second order relation, a synthesis' relation to itself: "In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity,

and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation... If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self."

Speaking of negative and positive unity, Kierkegaard may have in mind the Hegelian distinction between "an identity of self-related immediacy" and "a mediated identity of difference". In Hegel's system, there is thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The synthesis is the negative unity of thesis and antithesis, which itself becomes a new thesis creating the process over again. Kierkegaard however maintains that Hegel's synthesis is only mediation and that there can be no real synthesis without a positive third.169 In a

Kierkegaardian synthesis there are three terms instead of one; nevertheless one of these is

above the other two and as Law says, "Relating itself to itself thus means that the self is

concerned with the relation between the elements that give it its structure but in a way that sets it above its structure." As long as there is only simple relation between the

elements of the synthesis, or between one element and the synthesis, there is only negative unity. It is only when the synthesis reflects on itself that positive unity is

165 Elrod, 30. 166 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 13. 167 ibid. 168 Elizabeth A. Morelli, "The Existence of the Self Before God in Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death," The Heythrop Journal 36 (January 1995): 19. 169 Elrod, 39. 170 Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 56-57. 50

attained.171 The self then depends on the relationship between its base elements, and on

this relationship's self-reflection to achieve synthesis and thus posit spirit: "Spirit is the positive third element which binds the two elements of the synthesis into a unity."

Anti-Climacus furthermore names the syntheses that constitute the self: "the infinite and

the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity".173 Elrod, based on

wider study, refines and expands this list and identifies the corresponding positive third

elements: Finite-Infinite: Concrete; Body-Soul: Spirit; Reality-Ideality: Consciousness;

Necessity-Possibility: Freedom; Time-Eternity: Temporality.17

Elrod's first pair and synthesis is "Finite-Infinite: Concrete." The, finite

"pole"176 of this synthesis involves worldly determining factors such as sex, race,

personal characteristics in general, and environment. The infinite is the capacity for

expansion, connected to the imagination. Imagination can make the self more itself but

can also harm the process of coming to oneself if one seeks to escape in imagination;

examples of this are a poet of such deep feeling that he or she no longer feels him or

herself, or a scholar who becomes removed from him or herself in contemplation. The

synthesis of these is to become concrete, to exist neither as simply finite nor simply

infinite but to hold these in tension.177 Acceding to Anti-Climacus, ".. .the progress of

the becoming must be an infinite moving away from itself in the infinitizing of the self,

171 cf. Morelli, 19. 172 Elrod, 40. 173 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 13. 174 See for example, Elrod, 32. 175 For this section see ibid., 37-43. 176 The language of "poles" seems popular and will be used here, however it might be better to conceive of these as "elements," as the synthesis is the positive third, something qualitatively other than its constituents (above, not between the poles), yet the first order relation may perhaps be seen to have poles. 177 See Elrod, 33-36. 51

and an infinite coming back to itself in the finitizing process."178 Elrod's second

grouping is "Body-Soul: Spirit." The tension here is similar to that in the grouping

above: body, says Elrod, is not a static substance but is "the on-going consistently

changing facticity of each existing individual subject."179 The soul is difficult to define but is also connected to the imagination and is the opposite of the limiting physical side

of being. Spirit has already been explained but here may be understood as a break with

the self s natural body-soul immediacy. "Reality-Ideality: Spirit (as Consciousness)"180

is another level of the same phenomenon. For Hegel, reflection leads to reality; it does

not simply proceed from it. Hegel defines reflection as the possibility of the understanding to penetrate immediacy and reach the abstract, "But Kierkegaard defines

reflection as the possibility of the relationship of reality and ideality and consciousness as

the relationship itself."181 Reality is the immediate world insofar as it is left unconsidered. The ideal emerges with reflection. Reflection's task is to "posit the

finitely determined self (reality) as infinitely determinable (ideality)."182 Reflection leads

to tension between reality and ideality and this is the advent of consciousness or spirit.

Fourth is "Possibility-Necessity: Freedom,"183 necessity seems much like the

finite pole: the self has a certain necessity imposed on it from its position in the world; the self has firm limits. This may be clarified by Kierkegaard's discussion of moving at

the "spot:" "The self becomes an abstract possibility; it flounders in possibility until

exhausted but neither moves from the place where it is nor arrives anywhere, for

178 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 30. 179 Elrod, 37. 180 See ibid., 43-53. 181 ibid., 45. 182 ibid., 48. 183 ibid., 53-65. 52 necessity is literally that place; to become oneself is literally a movement in that place."184 Again will be noted the connection to the theme of finitude and infinitude: the self is confined by necessity, abstract possibility leads nowhere but it is possible to move within necessity. Possibility is what saves the self from meaninglessness, it is connected with the future and with hope. This movement is undertaken in freedom, but as Colledge says, "all freedom is by definition, situated."185 Elrod makes the helpful observation that

Kierkegaard does not equate freedom with choice as Sartre does: for Kierkegaard, choice presupposes consciousness and it is possible to remain unconscious.186 Freedom is not the liberum arbitrium but might be defined as the mode of conscious existence: "The self is freedom."188

The final grouping is "Time and the Eternal: The Instant" and it seems that this set is very different from the others. Time for Kierkegaard is infinite succession, but this makes the ideas of past, present, and future difficult: every temporal moment is infinitely divisible and therefore the present can find no foothold around which to structure past and future. The present requires the eternal, something not to be understood as infinite time but as a reality outside time. Only contact with the eternal allows for the existence of the present.190 According to the pseudonym Haufniensis, "The moment is that ambiguity in which time and eternity touch each other, and with this the concept of temporality is posited, whereby time constantly intersects eternity and eternity constantly

184 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 36. 185 Colledge, 15. 186 Elrod, 61. 187 Colledge, 15. 188 ibid. 189 Elrod, 65-69. 190 Vigilius Haufniensis, [S0ren Kierkegaard], The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte with Albert B. Anderson, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 8, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 85-86. 53 pervades time. As a result, the above-mentioned division acquires its significance: the present time, the past time, the future time."191 It is through the spirit that that eternity is

accessed. The spirit is eternal. Before spirit begins reflection on the synthesis,

spirit/eternity is dormant; when the spirit awakes so does eternity: "As soon as the spirit

is posited, the moment is present."193 The moment is thus the moment of selfhood.

It is clear then that, even before the relation to God is explicitly considered, there

are strong elements of a "relational" ontology, of esse-ad, in Kierkegaard. Even leaving

the God-relation unmentioned, the constitution of the self involves a reflexive esse-ad;

the self has a "being toward" itself: "The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is

the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation.. ,"194 This relation permeates all

facets of the self: spirit, synthesis, relation, and the "base pairs." So prevalent is the idea

of relation in Kierkegaard's definition of the self that it may be difficult to see any sort of

esse-in.

In considering the place of the esse-in it is useful to clarify how this somewhat

alien terminology applies to Kierkegaard's idea of the self. Henninger, on whose work

Juntunen draws, notes that there were generally two demands in the medieval theory of

relations: that the relation be understood as an accident adhering in a subject and that the

relation involve more than one subject. Henninger then continues, "If one's theory must

respond to both of these demands, one conceives of a real relation as existing in one

thing, yet depending on and somehow 'referring to' another thing. In scholastic

terminology, there are two aspects to the being of a real relation: a being-in {esse-in) and

191 ibid., 89. 192 ibid., 90. 193 ibid., 88. 194 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 13. Presumably the non-Christian self is incurvatus in se in this relation. 54 a being-toward (esse-ad)."195 Thus esse-in and esse-ad are both understood first as aspects of a relation inhering in a subject, not as the subject itself; for Kierkegaard, however, the relation is not simply something inhering in the subject but itself constitutes the subject. Confusion results in that, on the level of the self proper, what should be the esse-in element turns out to be composed of reflexive esse-ad. Finitude and Infinitude are for example not accidents adhering in the self but are the essence of the self, of becoming concrete.

This is certainly different than the scholastic vision but is not entirely opposed to it; there is perhaps some place for a discussion of substance or essence in Kierkegaard.1 6

As has been noted, Colledge sees Kierkegaard to understand spirit as "the essence of human being."197 He can say this because, "Kierkegaard's reorientation of philosophy does indeed proceed by 'de-essentializing' it, but in so doing he does not banish essentialist onto-metaphysical categories as much as redeploy them so that they are placed in the service of existential thinking."198 Seen this way, Kierkegaard's ontology does have an element of esse-in. Colledge defines this esse-in element in Kierkegaard as

"the - albeit minimalist and dynamic - 'essence' or common factors involved in all human being; the definitively human way of being."1 Kierkegaard's "essences," his

195 Henninger, 175. 196 To some extent such terminology is arbitrary. Sontag says for example,".. .man is an achieved synthesis, not a given substance." (Frederick Sontag, "The Self," in Concepts and Alternatives in Kierkegaard, vol. 3, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 100- 107, (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980), 105.) This is in contrast to Diem's view: "This substance as being which has come to be through transition and is now persistent is for Kierkegaard the existing ego of historical becoming..." (Hermann Diem, Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Existence, trans. Harold Knight, (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1959), 36.) Both scholars agree that the self is not a given substance but Sontag appears reluctant to call it a substance at all, preferring to stay with more relational terminology; Diem (or his translator) has no problem calling the synthesis (which is a relation) a substance. 197 Colledge, 9. 198 ibid., 6-7. 199 ibid., 7-8. 55

esse-in, are non-traditional essences; they are never devoid of an esse-ad, describing as they do the dynamic "how" of being instead of a static "what." It seems that

Kierkegaard's difficulty with this scholastic terminology is centred more around the idea

of essences and accidents than esse-in and esse-ad. These terms may be applied to his

thought though they must be "redeployed" outside of the Aristotelian framework. The

internal relations that constitute the self are an esse-in. This becomes clearer when the

esse-in and esse-ad are discussed in relation to the esse naturae and the esse gratiae.

According to Juntunen's description of the Finnish Lutherbild: "The esse-ad

aspect refers to how in both esse naturae and esse gratiae a person is continuously nihil

ex se and needs to receive God's creative love in order to remain in existence. The esse-

in aspect refers to how the result of this creative love is ontologically something more

than an event, namely a factum (factum naturae, factura gratiae)."200 Distinguishing between the factura naturae and factura gratiae, Juntunen says, "Even in esse naturae

the person is totally dependent on God, but here God's effect causes & factura, whose principle of action is the created human essence. In the realm oiesse gratiae the principle of action does not belong to the created essence of the believer but is a

901

participation in the uncreated reality of Christ's person." In what follows it will be

argued that Kierkegaard understands the esse-in and esse-ad elements in the esse naturae,

the being of non-Christians (the process of becoming leading to Religiousness B), in a

manner similar to that of the Finnish Lutherbild?02 Following this Kierkegaard's

200 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 152. 201 ibid., 155. 202 This statement should be qualified by mentioning that, as previously noted, the esse-ad element of Kierkegaard's self is much more pervasive than the Finnish Lutherbild's. In Kierkegaard's definition of the self it is not easy to separate the two elements. 56 understanding of the esse gratiae, the being of Christians, will be examined for

correspondence to the Finnish LutherbilcTs participation in Christ.

Juntunen notes that he has not proved decisively that Luther conceives of the esse naturae as a matter of continual reception of being from God,203 but it seems that this is the view of Kierkegaard. In Kierkegaard's opinion everyone possesses some sort of God- relation {esse-ad). In his Journals Kierkegaard says, "God is really the terminus medius in everything a man undertakes. The difference between the religious and the merely human person is that the latter is not aware of this..." Furthermore, "Precisely because

God cannot be an object for man, since God is subject...: when one denies God, he does

God no harm but destroys himself; when one mocks God, he mocks himself." This

also seems to be the position of Anti-Climacus who speaks of the "complete dependence of the relation (of the self)".206 This can be interpreted as meaning that the individual is

continually nihil ex se and must continually receive being from God. Indeed, it is helpful to interpret Anti-Climacus through the Christian Discourses where Kierkegaard says, "A human being cannot bear to have his 'creations' be something in relation to himself; they

are supposed to be nothing, and therefore he calls them, and with disdain, 'creations.'

But God, who creates from nothing, omnipotently takes from nothing and says,

907

'Become'; he lovingly adds, 'Become something even in relation to me.'" This

certainly sounds like an esse-ad, a being toward God; moreover, it also sounds like a

203 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 151. 204 Kierkegaard, Journals, 1336, (V A 42). 205 Kierkegaard, Journals, 1349, (VIIA 201). 206 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 14. 207 Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 127. This call to "become" is in the domain of the esse naturae and it seems that one can stay there if one rejects it: "If a person selfishly wants to keep for himself this something into which love made him, selfishly wants to be this something, then he is, in the worldly sense, strong- but God is weak." {ibid., 128-129.) The esse gratiae comes when a person suffers and becomes weak in him or herself and God becomes strong in him or her. {ibid.) This will be discussed shortly. 57 description of esse-in. Kierkegaard and Juntunen thus seem to understand the being of a person in a similar fashion, as "God's creation ofa factum, an existing thing, which possesses some intrinsic being and duration (facta praestan f), even though it is

90S nonetheless totally dependent on God's continuous causal sustenance." Kierkegaard's conception of the self in its esse naturae, in both it's esse-ad and esse-in aspects at least, therefore appears similar to that of the Finnish Lutherbild; both are always in relation to

God even while possessing their own intrinsic ontological moments.

Comparison of Kierkegaard's and the Finnish Lutherbild's approach to the esse gratiae is more complicated. It seems first of all that the esse-ad element does not essentially change. As has been seen, everyone Christian or not has a relation to God.

This may appear to put Kierkegaard in the camp of the Finnish Lutherbild's enemies, where the "distinction between esse naturae and esse gratiae is one between two modes of existentialist self-understanding." Indeed, spirit, the substance of the self, is strongly connected to consciousness. Nevertheless, becoming a Christian cannot be reduced to a change in consciousness; the position of Climacus ought to hint at this:

".. .there is no direct transition to becoming a Christian, but, on the contrary, this is the qualitative leap." There is certainly a change in self-understanding that comes with

Christianity but this alone does not qualify as a qualitative change; either this change in consciousness leads to a deeper change, or the deeper change is separate but connected to the change in consciousness.

This change comes when one becomes or begins to become a Christian and it may be expressed in terms of esse-in. This might best be discussed in terms of Kierkegaard's 208 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 143. 209 ibid., 136. 210 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 381. 58 theory of the stages.211 The self in its esse naturae moves through the stages before

Religiousness B in a process of "repetition." This is an important category and some time should be taken to review it; according to Morelli, "Repetition is at once a transcendence of one's past accomplishment and a positing of the self (the identical self) which one is to be."212 Repetition may be defined in contrast to Platonic recollection: recollection is trapped in the past; repetition remembers the past, anticipates the future, binds time to the present and projects it forward, giving time over to eternity which unites them. Connecting repetition with the preceding metaphysics of the self, it may be said,

"Repetition is the act in which an individual subjectively genuinely appropriates the entrance and continued presence of the eternal in human history." It is the method by which synthesis is achieved. It will be noted also that synthesis cannot ever be ultimately and stably achieved without God's special help. Repetition may then be seen to provide a point from which to enter the discussion of the esse gratiae in Kierkegaard.

In terms of the Finnish Lutherbild, it is participation in Christ that constitutes the esse gratiae; one might then reasonably expect to find some commensurability between repetition and participation. For Kierkegaard, there are three modes of repetition: A, B, and C. A and B are immanent but C is transcendent: "Repetition C holds together all time, not in a static present, but in the infinite presence of the eternal in the finite

211 Very briefly, the stages are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The religious stage is further broken down into Religiousness A (immanent religion) and Religiousness B (paradoxical religion - Christianity). 212 Morelli, 18. 213 A. Freire Ashbaugh, "Platonism. An Essay on Repetition and Recollection," in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 9- 26, (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981), 16. 214 ibid., 18. 215 Jorgen Pedersen, "Augustine and Augustinianism," in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 54-97, (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981), 18. 59 presence of historical subjectivity."216 Repetition C thus creates the synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of time and eternity. Repetition C may furthermore be spoken of as participation in eternity: according to Dupre, "Through the Absolute, time participates in eternity, the present that never passes."217 This "participation" of time in eternity is furthermore to be connected specifically to Christ: Climacus speaks of the "consequence of the appearance of the god [Guden] in time, which prevents the individual from relating himself backward to the eternal, since he now moves forward in order to become eternal

918 in time through the relation to the god in time." Becoming eternal in time, participating in eternity, cannot be done in any other way than by relation to Christ; it is only possible in the esse gratiae. Participation in eternity constitutes a break with immanence; again according to Climacus, "The paradoxical-religious breaks with immanence and makes existing the absolute contradiction - not within immanence but in opposition to immanence. There is no immanental underlying kinship between the temporal and the eternal, because the eternal itself has entered into time and wants to establish kinship there." It seems that this statement may be interpreted as either the eternal's wanting to simply establish kinship in time, or eternity's wanting to establish kinship precisely at the point where it has entered history, in the person of Christ.

In any case, kinship with the eternal in time seems to be a matter of esse-in.

According to Pedersen's summary, "The question of whether or not eternity can constitute the inwardness of temporal subjectivity becomes one with the question of

216 ibid., 23. 217 Louis Dupre, Kierkegaard As Theologian, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), 42. Granted this "participation" is not the language of Kierkegaard but it seems fitting. 218 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 584. 219 ibid., 573. Also, "If a break is to establish itself, the eternal itself must define itself as a temporality, as in time, as historical, whereby the existing person and the eternal in time have eternity between them." (ibid., 532.) 60 whether or not eternity can enter history, which is in turn the question of whether or not

Christ's incarnation is possible."220 The "inwardness of temporal subjectivity" is the language ofesse-in. Christ is the point at which, and in whom, eternity enters history; perhaps Christ Himself is the point at which, and the person by whom, eternity constitutes the "inwardness of temporal subjectivity."

Participation in Christ may also be hinted at by Kierkegaard's emphasis on the phrase "the Fullness of Time" from Galatians 4:4. Haufniensis connects this with "the moment," and thus with repetition and becoming a self: "The pivotal concept in

Christianity, that which made all things new, is the fullness of time, the fullness of time is the moment as the eternal..." ' Climacus too discusses the moment and the fullness of time: "And, now, the moment. A moment such as this is unique. To be sure, it is short and temporal, as the moment is; it is passing, as the moment is, past, as the moment is in the next moment, and yet it is decisive, and yet it is filled with the eternal. A moment

999 such as this must have a special name. Let us call it: the fullness of timer

Climacus/Kierkegaard thus connects the fullness of time with the moment of synthesis, the moment of participation in the eternal, and ends by alluding to Christ. This might be interpreted as Kierkegaard the Christian poet saying, through Climacus, that just as God sent His Son into the world in the fullness of time, so God sends Christ into the Christian 99^ in the fullness of time. It seems that the way in which the fullness of time is used to designate the coming to faith may at least be seen to point to the presence of Christ in that faith, in that moment. Elrod seems to understand the dynamics of the moment in a

220 Pedersen, 24. 221 Haufniensis, [Kierkegaard], Anxiety, 90. 222 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Fragments, 18. 223 Climacus does say that one becomes a Christian only in the fullness of time. cf. ibid., 591. 61

similar way: "Now, for the individual, existing in faith, the past is the sinful self, the

future his eternal, divine ground already actualised as the Deity in time, and the present

the instant of their unification. When time and eternity intersect in the present instant, the

timely self is completely grounded in its eternal, divine ground, thereby restoring its

994

original and pristine unity." Elrod does not draw out the implications of this statement

with respect to participation in Christ but he does explicitly refer to union with Christ, the

ground of being, in the moment. In the fullness of time, one might even speak of a perichoresis of the beings of Christ and the Christian in the area of the esse-in; the self is 99^

united with, grounded in, Christ and thereby made whole within itself.

It seems then that the next thing to explore is how exactly the self may be said to

be made whole, the syntheses to be actualised, in Christ. For this, it is necessary to return

to Anti-Climacus and the Sickness Unto Death. Here the "wholeness" of the self is

spoken of as the overcoming of despair, "the misrelation in the relation of a synthesis that 99/:

relates itself to itself." Again, the break involved in overcoming this misrelation

should be emphasised; very simply, ".. .the self must be broken in order to become 997

itself..." Anti-Climacus speaks of existence after this break, after becoming oneself,

as resting "transparently" in God; the formula for faith is "in relating itself to itself and in 224 Elrod, 230. 5 Climacus says that to base one's eternal happiness on historical knowledge, "The existing person must have lost continuity with himself, must have become someone else (not different from himself within himself), and now, by receiving the condition from the god, becomes a new creation." (Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 576.) There is talk of new creation and a loss of continuity here. Elrod explains the phrase in parentheses saying that the individual "does not cease to exist within the dynamic self- structure which is his being." (Elrod, 207.) Similarly Diem says, "There can be no question of a change in the essence of the being which is in the process of becoming, otherwise the subject of becoming would no longer be the same; the change lies in its mode of being." (Diem, 26) Becoming "someone else" might nevertheless be understood to refer to the creation of a factura gratiae; the Christian has the same self- structure but now the structure is stable because Christ is present. 226 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 15. 227 ibid., 65. 62 willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it." This word "transparent," while somewhat ambiguous, is connected to the fullness of time and may also be seen to denote a sort of participation.

Transparency is first clearly indicative of a change in awareness. Glenn says that transparency is "the self s awareness of its ontological and ethical status (in particular its creaturehood and sinfulness), both as a part of the human race and as a specific individual, especially in its relation to God as Creator, Judge, and Redeemer."230 He is correct to point out that Kierkegaard connects transparency with ignorance;231 the one in despair acts "to keep himself in the dark."232 If transparency were simply a new state of self-understanding, then Kierkegaard would be very close to the "old" forensic justification that the Finns criticise. Transparency, however, extends beyond epistemology, beyond simple awareness. This is hinted at by what Morelli says in connecting "transparency" with "infinite reflection:" "The self... is reflected infinitely in God in so far as the self in all ways and ever is standing before God. The self rests transparently in God, in so far as there is no opaqueness, no barrier, behind which or from within which God is absent."235 Darkness and transparency may be understood in

228 ibid., 49 229 It is true that it might also be the case that, coming as it does from a Christian work but a Christian work dealing more with the life before the Christian life, "transparency" is the state immediately before participation, but it seems more accurate to view it as connected to the "moment" where the non-Christian life and the Christian life intersect. 230 John D. Jr. Glenn, "The Definition of the Self and the Structure of Kierkegaard's Work," in The Sickness unto Death, vol. 19, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 5-21, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987), 15. 231 ibid. 232 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 48. 233 This should be understood with respect to Kierkegaard's high doctrine of sin; sin is not a negation but a position, (cf. ibid., 106.) not ignorance, not simply a category of epistemology, but wilful: "Sin is: before God in despair not to will to be oneself, or before God in despair to will to be oneself." (ibid., 81.) To rest transparently in God is to be in a qualitatively new state, different from the opaque state of sin. 234 For Kierkegaard's treatment of infinite reflection see ibid, 14. 235 Morelli, 25. 63 ontological and not simply epistemological terms; this might also to point to a union with

God, for union is the most intense way to say that there is no barrier between the self and

God. Indeed his Journal, Kierkegaard seems to connect what he means by transparency to union with God:

According to Christian doctrine man is not to merge in God through a pantheistic fading away or in the divine ocean through the blotting out of all individual characteristics, but in an intensified consciousness 'a person must render account for every careless word he has uttered,' and even though grace blots out sin, the union with God still takes place in the personality clarified through this whole process.236

In Christianity there is a merging of the human being with God. Such a merging or union involves an intensified consciousness and takes place in the "personality" of which consciousness is a part; union does not necessarily consist only in an intensification of consciousness but it does involve that. This union with God in transparency is furthermore specifically union with Christ; according to Anti-Climacus, "Qualitatively a self is what its criterion is. That Christ is the criterion is the expression, attested by God, for the staggering reality that a self has, for only in Christ is it true that God is man's goal and criterion, or the criterion and goal." There is a qualitative change in the self when

Christ becomes its criterion, and it seems from the wording of this statement that the self is somehow its criterion, Christ.239 Again, this may be understood in a way compatible

236 Kierkegaard, Journals, 3887, (II A 248). 237 Martin Heinecken, who in a summary of Kierkegaard on the point of "transparency" quotes Tillich's "accepting one's own acceptance," says, "This is the mystical union of the believer with Christ and this is the real cure for despair - this complete openness about oneself before the One who accepts unconditionally." (Martin J. Heinecken, The Moment Before God: An Interpretation of Kierkegaard, (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1965), 209.) Heinecken speaks of "mystical union" but seems to understand it in terms of a change in self-understanding. It seems either that he is using the term mystical union rather loosely or that there is something more to this than simply accepting one's own acceptance. 238 Anit-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 114. 239 Awareness of God is connected to the self s consciousness. Anti-Climacus connects transparency to conscience saying, ".. .the person sitting in a showcase is not as embarrassed as every human being is in his transparency before God. This is the relationship of conscience. The arrangement is such that through the 64 with the terminology ofperichoresis; it would appear to suggest a new factum gratiae, a qualitatively different sort of esse-in. Kierkegaard's use of terms like the "fullness of time" and "transparency" thus seem to suggest some sort of participation in Christ that may be understood in relation to the Finnish Lutherbild.

Is it possible now to reach a better-defined definition of Christ's ontological indwelling by breaking down Kierkegaard's relational definition of the self? This process is all very speculative but there are essentially three levels in the self where one might search for grounds on which to speak of Christ's indwelling: each element in the base pairs of the syntheses, the relation between these, and synthesis/spirit - that relation's relating itself to itself.240 It seems reasonable to consider whether or not indwelling at each level is possible and what this might mean. Commentators such as

Deed have noted that each of the three syntheses in Sickness seem to have one "pole" connected with the divine.241 Deed, however, does not seem to consider difference between the esse naturae and the esse gratiae of these "poles." In seeking to understand this difference, Colledge is very helpful,

.. .under the influence of the eternal, the reflexive hyperbolic poles (the infinite, the possible, and the ideal) are all transformed into states that are sustainable and stable (i.e., 'eternalized') as well as filled with an intensity appropriate for the fulfilment of spirit. In terminology borrowed from the Concept of Irony, the 'external infinity' of imagination (that takes the individual beyond and away from itself) is replaced by the 'internal' or 'true infinity' of the inwardness of faith.242

conscience the report promptly follows each guilt, and the guilty one himself must write it." {ibid., 124.) This definition still involves simple awareness, but perhaps Christ also dwells in the conscience. 240 There is also the relation to God. This has already been discussed as participation of the self in general terms. 241 Deed, 31-32. 242 Colledge, 17. Similar things happen with possibility and ideality. 65

Considering the preceding discussion, especially that around the "fullness of time," it seems legitimate to speak of the "eternalising" of these elements as their participation in

Christ. This participation in Christ furthermore seems to constitute a new type of esse-in.

Is Christ Himself the "eternalised" elements, or is it rather that through union with Christ the elements become "eternalised?" There is not enough information to form a definite conclusion but the possibility of either is not excluded and the difference between them does not seem major. If Christ is present here, at the lowest levels of the self, then He must be present in all the levels that build on this. The whole self appears to be involved here; the "base pairs" are eternalised and the higher synthesis is stabilised; the eternal spirit is posited; and the self exists in a state of perichoresis with Christ, being penetrated or charged by Him. It is true that Kierkegaard's whole conception of the self is something foreign to the Finnish Lutherbild. The penetration of Christ Himself into the internal self-relation thus seems to signify a slightly different version of ontological participation than that of the Finnish Lutherbild, but it is nonetheless an ontological participation. In any case, the indwelling of Christ will now become clearer considered in theological terms. 66

Christology

The previous chapter dealt mostly with the ontology of Kierkegaard's non-

Christian pseudonymous works. The Sickness Unto Death, by the Christian Anti-

Climacus, was also included because it deals mainly with what leads up to the Christian life, rather than the Christian life itself. It was argued that the ontology presented here did not exclude the idea of Christ's indwelling and in fact suggested several areas of commensurability. All this roughly corresponded to the "philosophical" aspect of the

Finnish program, the challenging of the Neo-Kantian presuppositions of previous Luther scholarship. This next section deals mostly with Kierkegaard's explicitly Christian works: his own acknowledged work and especially Anti-Climacus' Practice in

Christianity, which continues where Sickness left off. This discussion corresponds to the larger part of the Finnish program, the "theological" indwelling of Christ. It also involves considering the challenge that the Finns make to the description of indwelling, and thus to the or do salutis, presented in the Formula of Concord. In what follows,

Kierkegaard's "theological" understanding of Christ's indwelling will considered in detail: the main points of Kierkegaard's Christology will be outlined with special emphasis on its connections to that of the Finnish Lutherbild; this will lead into a discussion of Kierkegaard's understanding of Christ's presence in His Word and an introduction to Kierkegaard's own understanding of participation in Christ.

Mark C. Taylor notes that "Kierkegaard's interpretation of Christ is the keystone of his entire philosophical and theological position."243 This may seem self-evident but some are unable to recognise it. David Law notes for example that scholars often deny

243 Mark C. Taylor, "Christology," in Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard, vol. 5, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 167-206, (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980), 167. 67 that Kierkegaard has any sort of traditional Christology because he does not make

explicit mention of traditional Christological themes such as the Trinity or the relationship between the two natures of Christ.244 In Law's opinion, Kierkegaard "simply

accepts the Christ-event as a brute fact and then attempts to work out the existential

consequences of this fact. The decisive issue is not 'Who or what is Christ?' but 'What

does Christ mean to me?'"245 This seems like an accurate assessment and one that is

supported by Kierkegaard's own words.246 Nevertheless, before one can relate

subjectively to Christ, one must know who He is; getting this right is very important to

Kierkegaard and his purposes. Kierkegaard was even something of a theological

conservative, generally content to affirm traditional Christian dogma. In For Self-

Examination for example, he writes, "Lutheran doctrine is excellent, is the truth. With regard to this excellent Lutheran doctrine, I have but one misgiving. It does not concern

Lutheran doctrine - no, it concerns myself: I have become convinced that I am not an

947 honest soul but a cunning fellow." Theory is good and is not to be rejected; the problem is with people and the use they make of it. The context of this particular remark is a discussion of the relationship between faith and works but it applies equally well to

Christology. As with the Lutheran doctrine of grace and works, Christological dogma is

excellent but useless if not subjectively apprehended; according to Anti-Climacus, "Jesus

Christ is the object of faith; one must either believe in him or be offended; for to 'know'

simply means that it is not about him. Thus history can indeed richly communicate Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 182. 245 ibid., 183. 246 The attitude again shows Kierkegaard's essential similarity to Luther; in the Journals Kierkegaard says, "Wonderful! The category 'for you' (subjectivity, inwardness) with which Either/Or concludes (only the truth with builds up [opbygger]) is Luther's own. I have never really read anything by Luther. But now I open up his sermons - and right there in the Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent he says 'for you,' on this everything depends..." Kierkegaard, Journals, 64, (VIII1 A 465). 247 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 24. 68 knowledge, but knowledge annihilates Jesus Christ."248 Christological dogma is the same as historical knowledge in that it can easily be taken as a substitute for faith, used to avoid true encounter with Jesus Christ. In attempting to communicate the importance of this encounter, however, Kierkegaard speaks very clearly about Christ and what he says may be understood under the traditional categories of Christ's Person and Work.249

What he says is furthermore quite in line with the thinking250 of the Finnish Lutherbild.

Considering first Christ's person, insofar as it can be separated from His work, one finds that Kierkegaard has a very orthodox opinion of the divine and human natures existing together in paradox in the person of Christ. Many statements could be chosen to illustrate this; a typical one is the following one made by Anti-Climacus:

And now the God-man! He is God but chooses to become this individual human being. This, as said before, is the most profound incognito or the most impenetrable unrecognizability that is possible, because the contradiction between being God and being an individual human being is the greatest possible, the infinitely qualitative contradiction... It is a strange kind of dialectic: that he, omnipotent, binds himself and does it so omnipotently that he actually feels bound, suffers under the consequence of his loving and free decision to become an individual human being - to that degree there was earnestness in his becoming an actual human being.251

Christ then is clearly both God and man, God become man, the "infinitely qualitative contradiction" or the "absolute paradox"252. In this statement and in general, Kierkegaard does not theorise about how the two natures are joined but prefers to emphasise the depth

248 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 33. 249 For helpful discussions of the person and work of Christ see Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, Chapter 7 and Sponheim, Chapter 5. 25 Kierkegaard would doubtless rather speak of existing than thinking but thinking is a good place to start. 251 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 13-2. See also for example, Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Fragments, 55. 252 See for example, Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 561. 69 of their unity, the earnestness of God in the Incarnation. As with all of Kierkegaard's thought earnestness is essential.

Commenting on this trend in Kierkegaard's Christology, Law summarises the view of H. Roos saying, "Kierkegaard goes a stage further than the orthodox position and introduces a new element, namely, that God is bound by his human form." This is however not such a new position. In his Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, quoted in Article 8 of the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, Luther says to those who would try to separate Christ's divinity and humanity in any way: "No, comrade, wherever you place God for me, you must also place the humanity for me. They simply will not let themselves be separated and divided from each other. He has become one person and does not separate the humanity from himself as Master Jack takes off his coat and lays it aside when he goes to bed." 5 The context of this remark is a discussion of the real presence in the Lord's Supper but the principle is the same: (particularly as opposed to

Calvinist theology) the two natures of Christ cannot be conceived of separately, cannot be separated in any way. Kierkegaard is a Lutheran on this point; using exactly the same analogy as Luther, he say, "But this form of a servant is not something put on like the king's plebeian cloak, which just by flapping open would betray the king; it is not something put on like the light Socratic summer cloak, which, although woven from nothing, yet is concealing and revealing - but it is his true form."255 For neither Luther nor Kierkegaard, is Christ's humanity to be taken off like a coat. This point is furthermore particularly relevant to the Finnish program. As previously noted, the Finns

253 Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 185. 254 Martin Luther, "Confession Concerning the Lord's Supper," ed. and trans. Robert H. Fischer, in Word and Sacrament III, 158-371, Luther's Works, vol. 37, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961), 219. 255 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Fragments, 32. 70 distance themselves from Osiander who separated the two natures of Christ, making

Christ's human nature and human action inconsequential. Kierkegaard may be seen to

share the same anti-Osiandrian position: Christ's human nature and suffering are

fundamental. If Kierkegaard speaks of the indwelling of Christ, then this indwelling

should be conceived of in Lutheran and not Osiandrian terms.

Kierkegaard and the Finnish Lutherbild then share a common basic conception of the person of Christ. A similar basic agreement exists concerning the work of Christ, the

Atonement, though this is slightly more complicated. As noted, the Finns see Luther as holding a specific atonement theory where Christ is the "greatest sinner" (maximus peccator). When outlining this, Mannermaa admits that it "has not yet been studied

sufficiently"256 but says basically that it consists of Christ's taking of sin on Himself and

destroying it in His person. Christ does this by His death but the Christian shares in the

victory through participation in the person of Christ. This particular atonement theory

does seem to be one of the less developed portions of the Finnish program and appears to have some odd corollaries.257 Its basic purpose seems to be to establish Christ's work on the cross and His dwelling in the Christian as equally necessary for atonement. The

theory might be described as substitutionary atonement with the stipulation that this

atonement be made effective through the mechanism of participation. Considering each

"half of this theory, it is not difficult to find parallels in Kierkegaard.

Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 16. 257 Mannermaa says for example, "After the Logos has become flesh, there is no sin at all anywhere else but in his person." {ibid., 15.) It does not seem that Mannermaa can be entirely correct in this position; it is true at least that the idea needs clarification before it can be accepted as Luther's own. This sentence at least seems to leave out the cross and thus tend toward Osiandrianism. 258 Seen this way, it is simply a form of the old Lutheran maxim of "Justification by Grace through Faith" and Kierkegaard does not argue with "Justification by Grace through Faith." 71

As with his understanding of the person of Christ, Kierkegaard's atonement

theory is criticised by some but is basically orthodox. He often seems content simply

to say that Christ's "death on the cross is the sacrifice of Atonement for the sin of the

world..."260 In another passage he goes into more detail on the substitutionary nature of

the Atonement: "Oh, but yet, also in this respect [being a sinner], even though in another

way, he put himself completely in your place. If he, if the Redeemer's suffering and

death is the satisfaction for your sin and guilt - if it is the satisfaction, then he does

indeed step into your place... did he not and does he not then put himself completely in

your place?" Christ's death is a sacrifice for sin and guilt whereby Christ puts Himself

in the place of the Christian. This may be compared to passages in Luther's Lectures on

Galatians, the major source for the Finnish explanation of Luther's atonement theory; a

typical passage here reads, "In short, He has and bears all the sins of all men in His body—not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these

sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with

His own blood." Both Kierkegaard and the Finnish Lutherbild then agree that the

Atonement fundamentally involves Christ's putting Himself in the place of the Christian.

It seems furthermore that neither Kierkegaard nor the Finnish Lutherbild are strict

universalists when it comes to salvation: Christ's works on the cross does not simply

redeem everyone in the world. The Atonement must be apprehended in some way to

become effective. Kierkegaard is clear that Christ did not die for people in general: "The

sacrifice he [Christ] offered he did not offer for people in general, nor did he want to save

259 See some examples in Law, Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian, 199. 60 Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 280. 261 Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 123. Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4, 211. 72 people in general - and it cannot be done in that way either. No, he sacrificed himself in order to save each one individually..."263 This does not yet imply indwelling but it does show that the Atonement is always between God and the individual, not God and the race. Elsewhere Kierkegaard gives a basic description of what the Atonement between

God and the individual looks like: "If justice then were to fly into a rage, what more does it want than the death penalty; but that penalty has been paid, and his death is your hiding place."264 Christ's work on the cross has created a hiding place for the Christian but a hiding place is only effective when a person is in fact hiding there. It seems that

Kierkegaard could agree with the theology expressed by Juntunen: "Christ's work as reconciling death and resurrection... does not yet explain how it is possible for people to believe in Christ and his salvific work, how to apprehend Christ and his righteousness for oneself in justifying faith, how forgiveness and Christ's victory over sin become a reality for me and in me." 6 Whether or not Kierkegaard understands the dynamics of this process in the same way as the Finnish Lutherbild is the question.

Is hiding in Christ to be understood as union with Christ, Christ's dwelling in the

Christian? In a longer passage from "Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins," the discourse from which the preceding language of hiding in Christ is taken, Kierkegaard seems to suggest that this is indeed the case,

Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 272. 264 Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 186. 265 Kierkegaard says, "Behold, every morning the sun rises over the earth at day's dawning. Its rays penetrate everywhere at every point; there is no place so remote that the sun's rays do not illuminatingly penetrate there... But he, humankind's eternal sun - his acquaintance with human kind also penetrates to everyone everywhere like rays of light, but he makes a distinction. There are also those he does not know, those to whom he will say: 'I do not know you, I never knew you,' those to whom he will say this even though they insist that they know him!" (Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 272-273.) These on whom Christ does not shine, whom He does not know, are not hiding in Him. 266 Juntunen, "The Christological Background," 22. 73

He [Christ] died once for the sins of the whole world and for our sins; his death is not repeated, but this is repeated: He died also for you, you who receive in his body and blood the pledge that he died also for you, at the Communion table where he gives you himself as a hiding place. O safe hiding place for the sinner!... he gives you himself as a hiding place. It is not a few grounds of comfort that he gives you; it is not a doctrine he communicates to you - no, he gives you himself. Just as the night spreads, hiding everything, so also did he sacrifice himself and became the hiding place behind which lies a sinful world that he saved. Through this hiding place, justice does not break, even in softened form, as when the sun's rays break through colored glass - no, powerless, it breaks against this hiding place and does not break through. He gave himself for the whole world as a hiding place, also for you, just as for me.267

This is a remarkable passage; it does two things: first it emphasises that Christ Himself is the Christian's hiding place, and second it provides a poetic description of the state of hiddenness. The fact that Christ Himself is the hiding place, that he gives Himself to the

Christian, does not require itself to be understood as the ontological indwelling of Christ but it does suggest it. This is a communion discourse where, in Kierkegaard's orthodox

Lutheran understanding, the real presence of Christ is received.268 Here Christ gives both a pledge of forgiveness and His very Self. It seems difficult to think about justification in terms other than some sort of participation in Christ; Christ does not create and give any hiding place, least of all some doctrine or other, but creates and gives Himself as a hiding place. This hiding in Christ may furthermore be understood in a way suggested by perichoresis; poetically it might very well be described as something of a "dance." The forgiveness of an individual Christian's sin is because Christ gives Himself to that

Christian, and because that Christian hides in the Christ so given.269 The Christian hides

Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 187. 268 Here Kierkegaard does say again that Christ is a hiding place for the whole world but the emphasis is on His giving Himself to the Christian and being a hiding place for him or her. 269 All this may be understood too with reference to Kierkegaard's relatively small emphasis on Easter. Kierkegaard seems generally to prefer to speak of the events of Good Friday and because he devotes few words to Easter, it is easy to see him as gloomy. The "positive" note in Kierkegaard comes not in Easter but in his understanding of the Ascension: "He ascends into heaven; no one else has ever been victorious in 74 in Christ but not in the way he or she might hide in a cave for example; a cave is not a person (who is furthermore God) and a cave cannot die for one's sins.270 It seems that forgiveness for Kierkegaard is through hiding in Christ; this hiding in Christ does not

971 come after the forgiveness of sins.

Another related way to examine what Kierkegaard thinks about the work of Christ is to ask what he says about "forensic" and "effective" justification. If these are simultaneous, then Kierkegaard agrees with the Finnish Lutherbild against the Formula of Concord when it says, "indwelling follows the preceding righteousness of faith, which is precisely the forgiveness of sins and the gracious acceptance of poor sinners on

979 account of the obedience and merit of Christ." In the Postscript, Climacus expresses some distaste for the forensic metaphor; it seems to introduce a third party into the matter: "There is always some naivete and externality as soon as a third party talks about that which essentially pertains to the individual specifically in his isolation before

such a way!... For no one else has the end ever been such a triumph!" (Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 65.) Jensen notes that for Luther, the risen Christ's presence "is precisely God's right hand of omnipresence." (Robert W. Jenson, "The Sacraments," In Christian Dogmatics, 289-394, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973), 359.) Perhaps Kierkegaard shares something of this idea that the Ascension is what is decisive in Christ's ability to come to us. 270 Kierkegaard says, ".. .Christ is grace and the giver of grace." Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 143. To better understand the description of justification presentrd above, it is useful to return to the idea of resting "transparently" in God, as indeed is suggested by the simile of coloured glass. The Christian in Christ is transparent but Christ is opaque. If a transparent object is completely covered, then visually speaking, (In this metaphor, visual appearance is the existence medium.) it is no longer transparent but is visually one with its covering. To become transparent in Christ is then to become opaque in Christ, to be coloured with His colour. 271 Arnold B. Come discusses repentance, the encounter with God's forgiveness, and new life, as Kierkegaard's ordo salutis. He concludes that "the 'order' is not sequential;" (Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 263.) it is rather that "Kierkegaard describes it as a 'way' and a 'life' in which each of the three elements is repeated again and again... The order is circular, or is a spiral..." (ibid., 264.) In the context of this study it seems that Kierkegaard's ordo salutis is more of a point than a spiral (This might be a more Lutheran and less Calvinist manner of speaking; the emphasis is on justification rather than regeneration.), though the Christian life certainly looks like the (horizontal) spiral that Come describes. 27 Tappert, Formula of Concord, 548-549, quoted in Mannerma, Christ present in Faith, 4 and Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective," 27-28. 75

God."273 Whether or not this distaste for forensic language puts Kierkegaard into

essential agreement with the Finnish Lutherbild is another question. It is true that "hiding

in Christ" may for example be said to transform the Christian's sin "ontologically;" sin is

"hidden in such a way as when what was red like blood becomes whiter than snow, hidden so that sin is transformed into purity and you yourself dare to believe yourself justified and pure..." but Kierkegaard uses other metaphors as well. In the discourse

entitled "Love Hides a Multitude of Sins" in Works of Love, Kierkegaard describes the

forgiveness of sins using the conflicting metaphors of hiding and uncreating and these are

closely related to the forensic and effective aspects of justification. Kierkegaard says for

example: "Forgetting... is therefore not the opposite of recollecting but of hoping. To

hope is in thinking to give being; to forget is in thinking to take away being from that

which nevertheless exists, to blot it out." This suggests something of a paradox: sin

exists with no being. Saarinen, a member of the Finnish school, sees Kierkegaard as

operating with two models here, one ontological and one of attitude.276 It seems that

Saarinen is correct here and that Kierkegaard is saying something similar to the Finnish

Lutherbild.

This also has implications for understanding Kierkegaard's attitude towards the

total sense ofsimul iustus etpeccator. Andrew Burgess seems to say the same thing as

Saarinen with respect to the discourse "Love Hides a Multitude of Sins:" "What begins as

simple puzzles about human forgiveness ends up as an apparently irresolvable paradox

273 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 530. 274 Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 185. 275 S0ren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 16, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 296. 276 Risto Saarinen, God and the Gift: An Ecumenical Theology of Giving, Unitas Books, ed., Michael Root, (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2005), 65. 76 about divine forgiveness, that all the sins removed by God's forgiveness continue to exist behind God's back."277 Burgess reads this as being in line with the Lutheran formula simul iustus etpeccator. If justification is only forensic then this formula need not be understood as paradoxical; it deals simply with different reference frames. If however justification is forensic and effective then a paradox is needed to preserve the total aspect;

Burgess' identification of a paradox here in Kierkegaard is perhaps correct. It is a complicated issue but one may consider Kierkegaard more in line with Bielfeldt than

Jenson on this point and this will have implications for how he might be said to understand the word "participation."

Having shown that there is significant agreement between Kierkegaard and the

Finnish Lutherbild on the "order" of justification, it may also be shown that Kierkegaard echoes the Finnish Lutherbild's language of Christ as favour and gift. The entire preceding discussion might have been spoken of under the headings of Christ as favour and gift; though showing that Kierkegaard thinks of Christ as gift does not say anything with respect to the "order" of justification, it does show his commonality with the Finnish

Lutherbild and it is useful here to underscore it. For Kierkegaard the crucifixion shows

God's favour and gift in Christ but God's favour is also shown in the simple fact that

Christ the gift is given to the world. One particularly remarkable description of Christ as gift comes from Climacus's parable of the great king who loved a lowly maiden in the

Andrew Burgess, "Kierkegaard's Concept of Redoubling and Luther's SimulJustus," in Works of Love, vol. 16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 39-55, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999), 48. 78 The Incarnation may have been in fact more painful in certain respects than the crucifixion, ".. .for God it is always an abasement to be a human being, even if he were emperor over all emperors, and essentially he is no more abased by being a poor lowly man, mocked, and, as Scripture adds, spat upon." (Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 40.) 77

Philosophical Fragments?19 Early in the parable Climacus actually brings up the issue of union: ".. .erotic love is jubilant when it unites equal and equal and is triumphant when it makes equal in erotic love that which was unequal."280 Erotic love however could not truly make the king and the maiden equal in marriage: the king would still be king and the maiden would still see herself as lowly. Climacus concludes, "If, then, the unity could not be brought about by an ascent, then it must be attempted by a descent... In order for unity to be effected, the god must become like this one [the lowest person]."281

Note here that Climacus speaks explicitly of unity and concludes further that, as mentioned, "the god" achieves this in a way the king or Socrates cannot.282 It seems then that Kierkegaard can agree with the Finnish Lutherbild when it asserts that Christ is a gift and a grace to effect union between God and the Christian.283

279 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Fragments, 26-32. 280 ibid., 27. 2U ibid., 31. 282 ibid., 32. The fact that the parable is about a marriage is also significant. According to Mannermaa, "The core of Luther's concept of participation finds expression in the notion of the 'happy exchange,' according to which Christ takes upon himself the sinful person of the human being and bestows his own righteous person upon that humanity." (Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective," 32.) Luther deals with this idea of happy exchange in detail in the Freedom of a Christian where he says that a benefit of "faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31— 32]... The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his." (Martin Luther, "The Freedom of a Christian," trans. W.A. Lambert, in Career of the Reformer 1, 343-376, Luther's Works, vol. 31, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957), 351.) Both Luther and Climacus thus speak of union in terms of marriage. 283 Christ is then grace and gift for Kierkegaard but how is this related to his preferred language of prototype and redeemer? The category of redeemer broadly encompasses grace and gift. Is the idea of Christ as prototype compatible with the idea of indwelling? In a very concise prayer, Kierkegaard says, "Help us all, each one of us, you who both will and can, you who are both the prototype and the Redeemer, and in turn both the Redeemer and the prototype, so that when the striving one droops under the prototype, crushed, almost despairing, the Redeemer raises him up again; but at the same moment you are again die prototype so that he may be kept in the striving... Yet you left your footprints, you the holy prototype for the human race and for every individual, so that by your Atonement the saved might at every moment find the confidence and boldness to want to strive to follow you." (Kierkegaard, Judge for Yourself., 147.) The prototype appears to perform two functions: the first is the traditional Second Use of the Law, to condemn the Christian, the second describes what a Christian does after the Redeemer has come, but both functions 78

This parable of Christ as gift, and larger strand of Kierkegaard's thought, may also find resonance with the assertion that it is Christ, not elevated human love, that is the form of faith. If elevated human love were the proper conception of faith, then the king would have been content to bring the maiden up to his level instead of coming down to hers. That he chooses to come down to her level shows at least that faith has more to do with Christ's love than with human love. Kierkegaard then seems to agree with the

Finnish Lutherbild that Christ is the form of faith, not the elevated love of human beings; his thinking about Christ can be ordered in the categories grace and gift; he appears to understand justification as involving the indwelling of Christ thus sharing the Finnish

Lutherbild"s potential complaint with the Book of Concord; and he basically shares the

Finnish Lutherbild's conception of the person and work of Christ. It might nevertheless be objected here that these conclusions are somewhat provisional. This is true and at this point the issue should be approached from a fresh angle: Christ's presence in His Word.

In the Neo-Kantian scheme, Christ Himself cannot be present in the word about

Him. It seems that a Neo-Kantian would have to say that, while God may speak, He remains separate from the word about Him and from the believer. The word that the believer appropriates is not ontologically connected to God; God Himself is not in this word, or is not this word. Neither the Finnish Lutherbild nor Kierkegaard is able to affirm this position. This is already clear in the case of the Finnish Lutherbild, for whom

"The presence of Christ's word and the word about Christ in faith are the presence of

God himself." Kierkegaard believes something very similar. To demonstrate this, it is useful to begin with Kierkegaard's theory of communication. In considering this it will are always present. If it is true that Kierkegaard understands part of the work of the Redeemer to be indwelling, then the prototype is simply the expression of this indwelling. 284 Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12. 79 be seen that Kierkegaard's program of indirect communication is fundamentally about

communicating Christ. This indirect communication may be understood from the human

side but the divine action must not be discounted. The person of Christ cannot be

separated from His communication, the word about him; Christ is ontologically present in

His Word and in the Christian.

Kierkegaard understood that communication is a complex process. According to the theory of communication presented by Climacus in the Postscript,

The form of a communication is something different from the expression of a communication. When a thought has gained its proper expression in the word, which is attained through the first reflection, there comes the second reflection, which bears upon the intrinsic relation of the communication to the communicator and renders the existing communicator's own relation to the idea.285

Communication is not simply words; words are the form of a communication and are

formed from the first reflection, objectivity, but these words must be reflected upon and

appropriated subjectively for the communication to be expressed. This is the theory behind the first authorship, where Kierkegaard was communicating indirectly through his pseudonyms. What Kierkegaard wanted to communicate was his Christianity and,

according to him, Christianity is an existence-communication not a doctrine. Because his readers generally knew the doctrine, he did not focus on that, the form of the

communication, but attempted to bring forth the "second reflection," the expression.

This however worked only up to a point and Kierkegaard eventually concluded,

Yet the communication of the essentially Christian must end finally in 'witnessing.' The maieutic cannot be the final form, because, Christianly understood, the truth doth not lie in the subject (as Socrates understood it),

Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 76. cf. Kierkegaard, Journals, 676, (X 2 A 146). 80

but in a revelation which must be proclaimed... since Christianity still is 287

Christianity, the one who uses the maieutic must become a witness.

The maieutic could make people more receptive to Christianity, help them become subjective, but Kierkegaard eventually decided that he did need to proclaim some very basic doctrine, and more than that, to witness to this communication. Thus Kierkegaard decided to abandon the indirect communication of his non-Christian pseudonyms and to witness as himself, and as the ideal Christian Anti-Climacus. This did not mean however that he abandoned the basics of the theory and goals of communication outlined in the

Postscript. He simply took a different approach; as Anti-Climacus says, the difference is that the pseudonyms leave the communicator out and the new strategy does not.

According to Anti-Climacus, "Any communication concerning existing requires a communicator; in other words, the communicator is the reduplication of the communication; to exist in what one understands is to reduplicate." Kierkegaard is a communicator who must now include himself in the communication, but he exists in a greater communicator - Jesus Christ.

Moreover, when communicating Christ all direct communication becomes indirect communication: "But this communication still cannot be called indirect communication just because there is a communicator who himself exists in what he communicates. If, however, the communicator himself is dialectically defined and his own being is based on reflection, then all direct communication is impossible."290

Kierkegaard's later pseudonymous authorship then amounts to more direct indirect communication, and this indirect communication is to be understood in terms of the m ibid., 1957, (IX A 221). 288 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 133-134. 289 ibid., 134. 290 ibid. 81

person of Christ. From Anti-Climacus' description of Christ's existing in what He

communicates, one might already be reminded of the Finnish Lutherbild's idea of

Christ's presence in His Word. Indeed Anti-Climacus makes this idea explicit: "He

stands by his word or he himself is his word; he is what he says - in this sense, too, he is

9Q1

the Word." Furthermore what Christ communicates in His Word is essentially

Himself, the paradox: Christ is a sign of contradiction, "a sign that intrinsically contains a

contradiction in itself."292

Appropriating this indirect communication, referred to as becoming contemporary

or coming to faith, may be understood more from the human side or more from the

divine side;294 it may be discussed more or less explicitly as Christ's coming in His Word

to dwell in the hearer. Diem for example forms his explanation of Christ's

communication in a way that a Neo-Kantian might accept, describing appropriation in

terms of human action: ...the self-attestation of Jesus in the first place draws the attention of mankind to the fact and presence of revelation; secondly, it imparts the necessary knowledge for the understanding of it; and, thirdly, at the same time, it claims to be able to demand authoritatively the decision against scandalisation. In the self-attestation of Jesus these three aspects of His self-communication are not separable, since He is the way, the truth and the life.295

What Diem says is accurate as far as it goes but nothing is said here about the presence of

Christ in the process of appropriation. Here Christ communicates a message about

Himself but in a way that places the onus on the believer; Christ communicates

291 ibid., 14. 292 ibid., 124-125. 2931 , Contemporaneity is faith: "This contemporaneity is the condition of faith, and, more sharply defined, it is faith." (ibid., 9) 294 Here one is reminded of Sponheim's diastatic and synthetic poles. 295 Diem, 88. 82 knowledge that cannot be understood directly and so must be related to passionately through choice. This is a traditional reading of Kierkegaard and one that he himself often

296 suggests.

The indirect communication that is Christ should however also be understood in a more ontological manner and appropriation should be understood in terms of Christ's action in the believer. The "self-attestation of Jesus" cannot ever be separated from the person of Jesus; all communication about Jesus, as essentially indirect communication, involves the inner self-attestation of Jesus. In inwardly appropriating Christ's communication about Himself one makes a choice but one also touches the eternal, or is touched by the eternal. In the last chapter of the present study, Christ was spoken of as the "condition" and the "fullness of time;" Anti-Climacus too speaks of Christ's "eternal contemporaneity."297 Contemporaneity involves contact with this eternal life, this eternal person, this eternal Word.298 In this respect, it is not surprising to see Anti-Climacus making another explicit and unambiguous statement about Christ's presence in His

Word: See, this is why Christian truth cannot be presented for observation or discoursed upon as observations. It has, if I may say so, its own ears with

Anti-Climacus says for example, "Because of the communicator the communication contains a contradiction, it becomes indirect communication; it confronts you with a choice: whether you will believe him or not." Indirect communication here is simply something that necessitates a choice. (Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 134.) 297 ibid., 64. He says in detail, "Thus every human being is able to become contemporary only with the time in which he is living - and then with one more, with Christ's life upon earth, for Christ's life upon earth, the sacred history, stands alone by itself, outside history." {ibid.) 298 Some see here a weakness in Kierkegaard's Christology. Law says of Kierkegaard's view, ".. .it endangers Christ's historicity.. .this reduces Christ's historicity to an abstraction... History is merely the abstract counterpart to the equally abstract concept of eternity. The result of this is that Christ ceases to be a living, breathing, historical individual and becomes merely the point at which eternity intersects time. With this, both the humanity of Christ and the concept of salvation history are in danger of being eliminated." (David R. Law, "Kierkegaard's Christology," Theology 99 (May-June 1996): 209.) It seems that Law is referring mostly to Climacus and ignoring what Kierkegaard says elsewhere. Certainly Kierkegaard focuses on the suffering of the historical Jesus and His Atoning work in history as well as His entering the life of the individual from outside history; Christ does not cease being an historical person. 83

which to hear; indeed, it seems to be all ears. It listens as the speaker speaks; one cannot speak about it as about an absentee or a merely objective presence, because, since it is from God and God is in it, it is present in a totally unique sense as it is being spoken about, and not as an object. Instead, the speaker becomes its object; the speaker evokes a spirit who examines him as he is speaking.299

Whereas Mannermaa speaks of Luther's understanding of Christ's presence in His Word as coming from the nature of the Trinity,300 Anti-Climacus refrains from theoretical discussion. He is content simply to assert that God is in His Word. The Word of God is not an object that can be observed like other objects, cannot be reduced to direct communication; it is rather the indirect communication that examines the one who would observe. It seems furthermore clear that, while describing the Word as "all ears" may be metaphorical, God's ontological presence in this Word is not. It may also be noted that whereas the Finnish Lutherbild would seem to put the emphasis on the hearer of the

Word and its coming to dwell in him, Kierkegaard, in this passage at least, puts the emphasis on the speaker; it would not be a stretch to understand speaking as a metaphor for life as a whole, so that whatever a Christian does, the Word is present examining him or her. The believer rests transparently in the Word. Kierkegaard appears to be concerned here with the Word's ability to examine faith rather than to create it, something that coincides with his general shift in emphasis as regards Luther: that is self- examination as opposed to justification.302 Anti-Climacus' shift from the hearer to the speaker is a difference with respect to the Finnish Lutherbild, but under this lies a greater commonality; these are both "ontological" theories of God's presence in His Word. For

299 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 234. 300 Mannermaa says for example, "God is in relation to himself in the movement of Word (Deum Patrem sibi suum apud se verbum proferre) at the same time that he is this movement of the Word..." (Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?," 12.) 301 cf. Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 234. 302 See "Appendix 1." 84

neither theologian does God remain separate from His Word; for both the Word is a

living active thing, a Divine Subject rather than an object.

Furthermore, in addition to Kierkegaard's above emphasis on the Word's

examination of the speaker, he also says much to suggest that the Word comes to dwell in

the hearer. This phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by scholars: in a comment on this

general trend in Kierkegaard's thought, Sponheim says, "He [the Christ] so 'utters'

himself as to enter the life of the other(s) and this utterance of love becomes salvatory 'to

those who receive him'." The idea of Christ 'uttering' Himself may be used to

interpret much of what Anti-Climacus' says in Practice. For example, at the end of the

work he makes the statement: "We pray for those who are servants of the Word, those

whose task it is, as far as a human being is capable of it, to draw people to you... As far

as a human being is capable of it - for indeed you are the only one who is capable of

drawing to yourself, even if you are able to use everything and everyone - to draw all to yourself." Here Christ is clearly said to use the communication of preachers to draw to

Himself; it is Christ Himself who draws in the word about him. Anti-Climacus says that

in the case of Christ, "The helper is the help."305 Christ's drawing is then itself (or

Himself) Christ.

At this point, the language of participation begins to seem appropriate. This is

similar to but different from Platonic participation;306 as a Platonist participates in the truth, so too Kierkegaard's Christian participates in the Truth that is Jesus Christ. That this participation is not exactly Platonic is suggested by Anti-Climacus' statement: "No

303 Sponheim, 196. 304 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 262. 305 ibid., 15. 6 In light of the previous chapter, this participation is defined by repetition rather than recollection. 85 human being, with the exception of Christ, is the truth."3 7 Christ is the truth and human beings are not, yet every individual must strive to express this truth approximately,

The being of truth is not the direct redoubling of being in relation to thinking, which gives only thought-being, safeguards thinking only against being a brain-figment that is not, guarantees validity to thinking, that what is thought is - that is, has validity. No, the being of truth is the redoubling of truth within yourself, within me, within him, that your life, my life, his life expresses the truth approximately in the striving for it. That your life, my life, his life is approximately the being of the truth in the striving for it, just as the truth was in Christ a life, for he was the truth.308

Truth is a life, is a life in Christ and is Christ. Striving for the truth is another way of conceiving of participation in the Truth. In both Christ and the Christian the Truth is a life, the difference being that Christ's life is Himself and the Christian's life is not himself but is Christ. In more explicit language, Anti-Climacus continues, "That is, only then do I in truth know the truth, when it becomes a life in me. Therefore Christ compares truth to food and appropriating it to eating, for just as, physically, food by being appropriated (assimilated) becomes the life sustenance, so also, spiritually, truth is both the giver of life and the sustenance of life, is life." 9 Again, one lives because one's food lives. Anti-Climacus speaks about "swallowing" Christ and then giving Him back

% 1 0 in replica. The Christian thus does not become Christ but takes Him in and seeks to give Him back as best as he or she is able. In all of this there is still the infinite qualitative difference between Christ and the Christian. It is true that faith "reaches" over this gap but it does not abolish it. This implies a sort of participation in the being of

307 ibid., 204. 308 ibid.,..,..„ 205. It might also be noted that "Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth." (ibid., 205.) 309 ibid., 206. 310 ibid., 243. 311 ibid., 139. 86

Christ that might be understood asperichoresis. A tentative conclusion may be reached that Kierkegaard's participation is more like Bielfeldt's than Jenson's.

In any case, the idea of participation is strong in Kierkegaard. Attaching great significance to the fact that Christ speaks of Himself as "the Truth and the Way and the

Life"312, Kierkegaard expands his language of participation to include these two additional terms. Perhaps the most complete expression of the idea is from one of

Kierkegaard's Communion discourses:

...you do not only receive this pledge in the same way as you receive from another person a pledge that he bears this feeling for or this attitude toward you. No, you receive the pledge as a pledge that you receive Christ himself. As you receive the pledge, you receive Christ himself. In and with the visible sign, he gives you himself as a cover over your sins. Since he is the Truth, you do not find out from him what truth is and now are left to yourself, but you remain in the Truth only by remaining in him; since he is the Way, you do not find out from him the way you are to go and now, left to yourself, must go your way, but only by remaining in him do you remain on the way; since he is the Life, you do not have life handed over by him and now must shift for yourself, but you have life only by remaining in him - in this way he is also the hiding place. Only by remaining in him, only by living yourself into him are you under cover, only then is there a cover over the multitude of your sins. This is why the Lord's Supper is called communion with him. It is not only in memory of him, it is not only as a pledge that you have communion with him, but it is the communion, this communion that you are to strive to preserve in your daily life by more and more living yourself out of yourself and living yourself into him, in his love, which hides a multitude of sins.

Here then seems to be Kierkegaard's version of the Finnish Lutherbild's theology. It is complicated and poetic and it includes talk of human striving but Kierkegaard does speak about the ontological indwelling of Christ, of the Christian's union with Christ. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Christian participates in these only by remaining in

Christ, by Christ's giving of Himself (in a non-Osiandrian way). This is furthermore seen

ibid., 207. Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 188. 87 as the basis for justification, the hiding of sins. For Kierkegaard too, justification is inseparable from participation. 88

Christian Action - Love

The discussion so far has focused on Kierkegaard's "theory" of the indwelling

Christ. It has been argued that he understands this in a manner similar to the Finnish

Lutherbild. Neither one of these, however, would be satisfied to leave the discussion here; of the two Kierkegaard is especially concerned with "practice," the outworking of the divine indwelling. In this last phase of the current study, the self and theology, the work of the two previous chapters, will be brought together in a consideration of the

Christian's life. Simply put the present discussion will focus on suffering, willing, and loving. Love especially is an important theme for both Kierkegaard and the Finnish

Lutherbild; willing is connected to loving, and both involve suffering.

Kierkegaard sees suffering as a constructive part of the Christian life. In the words of Climacus, "Essentially, the religious address has [the task] of uplifting through suffering^ Suffering in Kierkegaard's thought is a complex concept but, very briefly, it derives from spiritual trial (i.e. Anfaegtelse or Anfechtung, the temptation to flee from

God), from the impossibility of being able to give direct expression to the God- relationship, and from the hatred of the world. All of these are related; what concerns the present discussion is how they are related to the indwelling of Christ. Both Kierkegaard and the Finnish Lutherbild conceive of suffering within a fairly traditional Theology of the Cross. Two things are noteworthy here: the kenosis of Christ and the "kenosis" of the

Christian, God's making the Christina into nothing in order to create something from him

314 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 436. Emphasis and parentheses appear in the text. 89 or her. Christ's kenosis was touched on in the previous chapter; it is the suffering of the

Christian that will be considered here.

For Luther according to Juntunen, the Christian must undergo God's alien work:

".. .when God justifies a person, he makes him/her into nothing (redigere ad nihilum / annihilare)."316 The Christian is made "nihil ex se" such that he or she is nothing before

God. Moreover, "The 'annihilatio' and '' deificatio"1 of a person are simultaneous and describe the same thing from two sides.. ."317 Both of these are the action of Christ. This

110 is furthermore a constant process. Does Kierkegaard also view suffering in this way?

In places he certainly does. Perhaps most significant here is his For Self-Examination.

In the third chapter of this work, entitled "It is the Spirit Who Gives Life," Kierkegaard, though he does not use these exact terms, treats both the "annihilatio' and 'deificatio' of a

Christian. Kierkegaard first makes it clear that Christianity is a new life: "This life- giving in the Spirit is not a direct heightening of the natural life in a person in immediate continuation from and connection with it - what blasphemy! how horrible to take

Christianity in vain this way! - it is a new life... mark this well, death goes in between, dying to, and a life on the other side of death - yes, that is a new life."319 He furthermore makes it clear that it is the Spirit Himself who works this dying to, "The life-giving Spirit is the very one who slays you; the first thing the life-giving Spirit says is that you must enter into death, that you must die to..." This is very near to what the Finns

315 Christ's kenosis is related to this; as implied in Juntunen's statement, it is a form of suffering to have one's illusions broken by Christ's self-sacrificial love. 316 Juntunen, "The Notion of 'Gift' (Donum) in Luther's Thinking," 62. 317 ibid. 318 See for example ibid. 319 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 76. 0 ibid. It might also be noted here that Kierkegaard often implies that the human him or herself is responsible for this dying to. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard says that the human "must come to know the deeper love from God - that is, in self-denial he must become what every human being can become (since 90 understand Luther to say: "Christ is the one who transfers a sinner to Christ himself and who changes the sinner."321 In For Self-Examination Kierkegaard speaks of the Spirit

• ^99 whereas the Finns speak of Christ. This however does not seem to be a major issue.

In For Self-Examination, "dying to" is described as a difficult process but a

necessary one. It is necessary to die to all forms of selfishness because "it is only through

your selfishness that the world has power over you; if you are dead to your selfishness, you are also dead to the world."323 In the moment of death, the Spirit brings new life: It is when all confidence in yourself or in human support, and also in God in an immediate way, is extinct, when every probability is extinct, when it is dark as on a dark night - it is indeed death we are describing - then comes the life-giving Spirit and brings faith. This faith is stronger than the whole world; it has the power of eternity; it is the Spirit's gift from God, your victory over the world in which you more than conquer.

Faith, hope, and love, the gifts of the Spirit, all come only after the death of their human

equivalents: "faith is against understanding; faith is on the other side of death"; the

Spirit brings hope "against hope, because according to that purely natural hope there was

no more hope"; regarding love, "do not selfishly love even one single person - not

until you in love of God have learned to hate yourself.. ."32? This work of the Spirit may

also be related to the indirect communication of the person of Christ spoken of in the last

self-denial is related to the universally human and thus is distinguished from the particular call and election), an instrument for God." (Kierkegaard, Works, 364.) Self-denial then seems to be within human power. One might distinguish between self-denial and dying to: a human can deny him or herself but only the Spirit can bring Christian death. It might also be that being related to the universally human does not preclude Kierkegaard's conceiving of self-denial in terms of the work of the Spirit. He might also simply be describing the paradox of divine and human responsibility; the Spirit both slays and orders one to "enter into death." 321 Peura, "Christ as Favour and Gift," 62. 322 Kierkegaard here is contrasting the Holy Spirit to the Hegelian Spirit. Furthermore both Luther and Kierkegaard were orthodox Christians and could say that the Spirit brings Christ; to some extent one may use either Person equivalently. 323 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 77. 324 ibid., 82. 325 ibid. 326 ibid. 327 ibid., 84. 91 chapter. Kierkegaard himself conceives of this work in terms of communication:

"IOC

".. .spiritually understood, the communication of the life-giving Spirit begins in death."

Kierkegaard's theory of indirect communication involves taking information away from the listener as well as imparting new information: ".. .the secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free, and for that very reason he must not communicate himself directly.. ."329 For Kierkegaard, it appears that God too uses this principle in His communication - Christ. Christ is freedom but His indwelling begins in death.

One might now reasonably inquire into the role of the human person in all of this.

If it is God who works suffering, death and new life, what is the role of the human being?

According to the Finnish Lutherbild this role is very passive: One must pass through this agony [the destruction of one's efforts at self- justification] and, ultimately, through the cross in order to achieve a true cognitio sui. Only in this way is one made vacuum and capax Dei. And this doctrine implies that, according to Luther, the modus of the existence of a Christian is always passio (Gewirktwerden): a person is neither inwardly nor outwardly active; one experiences only what God affects in oneself.330

It seems that if Christ is to work in a person, then He will work all things in that person.

This is in line with Kierkegaard's above statements regarding the work of the Spirit, but

Kierkegaard was a dialectician and this idea does not seem to cohere with many of his other statements: speaking of suffering Kierkegaard says for example, "That which distinguishes the Christian narrow way from the common human narrow way is the

Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Postscript, 74. Mannermaa, "Justification and Theosis," 39. 92 voluntary."331 This issue is a fundamental one in Kierkegaard's thought and encompasses more than voluntary suffering. Early in this study, objections to the union motif in Kierkegaard based on his language of "infinite qualitative difference" were considered. This objection was countered at the outset but the equally problematic objection, that Christ's indwelling seems to do away with human will and freedom, has not been sufficiently considered up to this point.

In dealing with this objection, it is first necessary to define what is meant by "free will" in Kierkegaard's thought. Provisionally, it might be defined as the ability to choose

God.332 Kierkegaard certainly does often speak of choice. In a significant passage from

Practice, Anti-Climacus says, "He [Christ] wants to draw the human being to himself, but in order truly to draw him to himself he wants to draw him only as a free being to himself, that is, through a choice." This choice is however dialectic. Arnold B. Come is one scholar who seems to emphasises the "free will" aspect of this dialectic; while acknowledging that Kierkegaard attributes the creation of the possibility of choice to

God, Come summarises Kierkegaard's thought saying, "I choose my self absolutely - even though it is God who gives me my very being and existence, even though it is God who gives the possibility 'both to will and to do.' The actual willing and doing must be

'l'XA mine.'''' The choice for God is thus conceived of as fundamentally a human action.

331 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 67. Note that even here this is not unambiguously the solely human voluntary 332 In Christian theology this has been an issue at least since the time of Augustine who, crassly stated though without necessarily implying that he was inconsistent, found himself arguing for free will against the Manicheans and against it in opposition to the Pelagians. 333 Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 160. Anti-Climacus goes on to speak about Christ being composite, the lowly one and the exalted one; neither side can be taken alone therefore a choice must be made to take both, {ibid., 160-161). 34 Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 284. 93

lie

Come elaborates when commenting on a passage in Sickness, where Anti-Climacus says that Christ cannot remove the possibility of offence: "It would seem, then, that this condition set by God's own omnipotent determination, namely, to leave room for the human person to accept God's 'merciful grace' or to be offended, means that, for

Kierkegaard, grace is resistible." Grace is resistible if the point is pressed but this does not necessarily mean that God "leaves room" for the human to accept it.

Kierkegaard says for example, "Freedom really is freedom only when, in the same moment, the same second, it is (freedom of choice), it rushes with infinite speed to bind itself unconditionally by the choice of attachment, the choice whose truth is that there can be no question of any choice."338 Freedom it seems is only freedom when it chooses without choosing. This is of course a paradox. In another Journal entry, Kierkegaard makes what is perhaps a less paradoxical commenton the issue: "However, as soon as a will wills to become involved with God, this will must go. This is the meaning of dying to the world. That a will wills to involve itself with him is precisely what God wants, but

335 See Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Sickness, 126. 336 Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 287. Come is correct that for Kierkegaard "grace is resistible" but this is really a Calvinist paradigm and Come's statement is not quite accurate for the more Lutheran thinking Kierkegaard. In the Calvinist paradigm (including Arminianism, which is a reaction within the same paradigm), one can have double predestination; this is in contrast to Luther in the Bondage of the Will for example, where he develops a theory of single predestination, to life, and refuses to make a conclusion about predestination to death. This issue will not be treated systematically here but it seems that "resistible grace" is only needed when one hears about God predestining people to hell. (One must then naturally engage in theodicy.) When one focuses on Christ's predestination to life, one is not so interested in whether or not grace can be resisted. Resistible grace seems to have more to do with the hidden God than the revealed one, more to do with death than life. Like Luther, Kierkegaard focuses on the revealed God. 338 Kierkegaard, Journals, 1261, (X 2 A 428). Commenting on an earlier part of this entry, that basically says the same thing, Come says, "In other words, I cannot choose to decide what is good and evil, but that I choose either one or the other is all-decisive as to whether I become the self that God has given to me. The determination of 'the plan of salvation' and the nature of love/reconciliation is totally outside my choice, but that I choose it, that I say 'yes - on that hangs the fulfilment of the plan and accomplishment of love." (Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 285.) It seems simpler to understand Kierkegaard's words as referring to the paradox of total human and divine responsibility. If Come is correct and the choice/no choice refers to two different things, this must be in a secondary sense. 94

the next comes as a matter of course if God and this will are to be bound together."

This seems to imply that there can be some initial action which is the human's own, even

if immediately this action becomes the action of the united human/God will.

Kierkegaard however can also speak in a way that leaves no room for purely human

action: "No, with regard to gaining the forgiveness of sins, or before God, a person is

capable of nothing at all. How would it even be possible, since, after all, even in

connection with the slightest thing of which a person is capable, humanly speaking, he is

capable of nothing except through God!"341 Commenting on this vein in Kierkegaard's thought, Bragstad presents a view very different from Come's: "There remains, as well, a note of freedom in all this - not an omnipotent freedom, but a freedom constituted by

God. This is not to be confused with 'free choice,' since it is in no way 'free;' quite the

contrary, it is very much dependent."342 Freedom for Kierkegaard is not liberal

democratic freedom, constituted by the individual, but Christian freedom, constituted by

God.

Nevertheless, it is correct for the human to say that the willing is "mine."

Abrahim Khan comments on some Journal entries where Kierkegaard speaks of the

delusion that one is oneself in control of grace. He draws attention to the way in which

Kierkegaard wishes to correct this and at the same time preserve the need for human

striving for Salighed (usually translated "eternal happiness"): "This is subtly done by

339 Kierkegaard, Journals, 5038, (XI 2 A 239). 340 Perhaps in the leap over the abyss to faith, one is capable of moving to the edge of the precipice and looking over, but one must wait for God's push and God's wings, whatever this might mean in concrete human life. Then again, even this image seems Semi-Pelagian (or Quarter-Pelagian). In any case it seems that in this context, Kierkegaard brings up the initial will not to show its power but to show that it must go. 1 Kierkegaard, Without Authority, 135. This particular passage even seems to imply a universal sort of participation in God. Presumably it is particularly participation in Christ that is required for the forgiveness of sins. William R. Bragstad, "Luther's Influence on Training in Christianity," The Lutheran Quarterly 28 (August 1976): 270. 95 interpreting Salighed as being acquired through a personal task. That is, it cannot be acquired by proxy. Each person must secure or acquire it for himself. The conception of

Salighed requires a personal task - that of acquiring an intense or deeply and absolutely passionate interest in Salighed."242, This seems like the proper way to interpret the matter: faith, analogous to the process of acquisition of Salighed, is understood to be a personal task requiring personal effort. This does not exclude the possibility that it is a work of God. Comparing Kierkegaard to Kant on this point, Green points out that in the

Fragments, it is said both "faith is not an act of will" and "belief is not a knowledge but an act of freedom, an expression of will."345 Explaining this Green says, "When

Kierkegaard says that faith is 'not an act of will,' therefore, he is saying that the choice that faith represents has its point of departure in God... not in the initiative of the believer. But Kierkegaard is not denying Kant's claim that faith is experienced as a choice."346 Faith then is to be experienced as a choice, as human passion and action.

According to Kierkegaard Faith is then properly spoken of both as human action and as divine action. The question is now whether or not Kierkegaard understands this divine action to be a result of Christ's indwelling. To begin answering this question it is interesting to consider some "horse" analogies; both Luther and Kierkegaard use horses to consider the issue of choice. Furthermore, these analogies are analogies for the indwelling of Christ and they make clear how powerful this indwelling is, how little room

343 Abrahim H. Khan, Salighed as Happinessl, The Kierkegaard Monograph Series, ed. Alastair McKinnon, (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1985), 93. 344 Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Fragments, 62. 345 ibid., 83. 346 Green, 134. Sponheim says something similar; commenting on one of the passages where Kierkegaard says that one must work strenuously and then acknowledge that it counts for nothing, he notes, "One might object that one needs to grant the human self fuller place to render this seriousness psychologically possible. But, beyond that, one must say that on the terms of this discussion the human self is not granted place sufficient to make such seriousness ontologically possible." (Sponheim, 158.) is left for human imitative. In Luther's case a highly significant passage comes from the

Bondage of the Will:

Thus the human will is placed between the two like a beast of burden. If God rides it, it wills and goes where God wills, as the psalm says: "I am become as a beast [before thee] and I am always with thee" [Ps. 73:22 f.]. If Satan rides it, it wills and goes where Satan wills; nor can it choose to run to either of the two riders or to seek him out, but the riders themselves contend for the possession and control of it.347

This image is not original to Luther348 but he has his distinctive emphasis. While this passage does not seem to form any part of the Finnish program, the implications for union with Christ are clear: just as Christ dwells in the Christian, so the rider rides the horse.349 In For Self-Examination Kierkegaard compares Christ with the royal coachman

and people with the horses He drives. 5 In Kierkegaard's analogy there was once a fine team of horses. They were first driven by their owner but became weak and slovenly.

They were then entrusted to the royal coachman who made them fit once again.

According to Kierkegaard, the owner "drove the horses according to the horses' understanding of what it is to drive; the royal coachman drove them according to the

coachman's understanding of what it is to drive." Kierkegaard explains the parable

347 Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans, and ed. E. Gordon Rupp, Philip S. Watson et ah, vol. 33, Luther's Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 65-66 348 See Harry J. McSorley, Luther: Right or Wrong?, (New York: Newman Press, 1969), 336-338. Some form of the analogy has been used by Origin, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin. Luther's probably came from the pseudo-Augustinian work Hypomnesticon contra pelagianos et caelestinianos vulgo libri Hypognosticon sex. 349 McSorley contends that this analogy removes a person's personhood. (McSorley, 339.) He therefore concludes, "It is regrettable that Luther did not combat the Pelagianism of his day as Augustine had done: not by denying the natural free will - or by appearing to do so - but by affirming clearly both the existence of natural free will and the necessity of grace." (ibid., 353.) It would be interesting to compare in detail the analogies of Augustine, Luther and Kierkegaard. It will be seen though that if McSorley is correct in his appraisal of Augustine, then Kierkegaard must be more like Luther; Kierkegaard like Luther is concerned with Christ Himself and no other version of grace. 350 See also Kierkegaard, Judge for Yourself, 107-109. 351 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 86. The analogy begins on the preceding page. TCO ASA saying that there was a time when the "Deity himself was the coachman. In more detail, addressing the Holy Spirit, Kierkegaard says,

Certainly a person experiences a shudder like death's shudder when you, in order to become the power in us, take power away from him. Oh, but if even animals at a later moment understand how good it was for them that the royal coachman took the reins, although it surely made them shudder at first and they at first rebelled, but in vain - should not a human being quickly be able to understand what a blessing it is to him that you take the power and give life!354

This analogy is not exactly the same as Luther's but it is very close. One difference is that it is not Christ or Satan that drives the horses; it is rather Christ or the horses own will. The horses are thus not exactly "will" but entire persons. The horses are also acknowledged to be capable of rebellion. In general then, one might say that

Kierkegaard's analogy gives a little more autonomy to the horses/people. Nevertheless, the images are equivalent on another level. Kierkegaard compares the royal coachman's taking of the reigns to the Holy Spirit's becoming the power in a person. Like the horse and rider then, the horse and coachman should be considered as existing in union. The

ICC horses do rebel but it is in vain: in both cases the driver, Christ Himself, is in control.

Again too much should not be made of the analogy, but in neither case do the horses seek out their riders. For both a Finnish reading of Luther here and for Kierkegaard, Christ is the power working in Christians.

The most important power that Christ works in Christians is love; both

Kierkegaard and the Finnish Lutherbild agree on this point. In his Christian Discourses,

352 ibid. 353 In the corresponding analogy in Judge for Yourself! (107.) Kierkegaard speaks of the royal coachman's use of the whip saying that he has "concentrated himself totally in giving the lash, is totally in the lash..." This is perhaps not so different from Christ's presence in His Word. Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 87. 355 Maybe grace is in fact irresistible. 98

Kierkegaard identifies God's imparting of strength to God's giving of love: "Therefore,

to be without God is to be without strength; to be strong without God is therefore to be

strong - without strength. It is like being loving without loving God, that is, to be loving

- without love, for God is love."356 God gives both strength and love and furthermore is

love. For Kierkegaard strength is for loving. Indeed, defining will as the ability to

choose God is not a full Christian conception of the term; the fundamental choice for

Kierkegaard at least, is the choice to love God and the neighbour. The discussion about

the will is really a discussion about loving and love is thus another perspective from

which to view the entire preceding discussion. Come, for example, goes so far as to say

that love is the entire basis for Kierkegaard's ontology:

Kierkegaard's ontology neither is an abstract conceptualisation of eternal verities that totally transcend the exigencies of temporal, spatial existence, nor is it a merely 'regional' ontology of an anthropological type. Rather, in his 'Christian reflections (deliberations)' in Works of Love, he explores a dynamic, living 'being' that ties everything together, and for him the ultimately adequate designation for it can only be: Love.

Come is certainly correct that Kierkegaard operates with an ontology of love. True, he

says that Kierkegaard does not have a "regional" ontology and in the preceding chapters

it was argued that he does, but this is mostly a case of semantics. At least in what has been argued up to this point, it was not implied that this "region" included only the

human person. The relation of the self to God was outlined and it was argued that Christ

should be understood as part of the ontology of the self.358 Understanding Christ in terms

Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, 130. 357 Arnold B. Come, "Kierkegaard's Ontology of Love," in Works of Love, vol. 16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 79-119, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999), 92. 358 In the above statement, Come seems correct in saying that for Kierkegaard, Love ties "everything" together, though "everything" is probably best understood as "all people." True Kierkegaard would probably agree that the entire universe was created in love but he really only develops this thought with respect to human beings. 99 of Love does not invalidate this: it is simply another way of speaking about Christ's indwelling.

According to Kierkegaard's thinking, love is a relationship among three, "First there is the one who loves, next the one or the ones who are the object; but love itself is present as the third." In Christian love at least, this love is God Himself: "In erotic love and friendship, preferential love is the middle term; in love for the neighbor, God is the middle term." Again and again in Works of Love Kierkegaard makes it clear that

Love is God, ".. .the only true object of a human being's love is love, which is God, which therefore in a more profound sense is not any object, since he is Love itself."

There are doubtless several ways to read statements like this but the most obvious seems to be that the Christian loves by God. Love is love363 and a Christian loves with a love that is itself God. This is in accord with Mannermaa's assessment of Luther on faith: "... the object of faith is a person who is present, and therefore he is, in fact, also the

359 Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 301. 360 It is possible to interpret certain of Kierkegaard's statements as meaning that everyone, Christian or not, participates in God's love. Miiller notes, "Love's presence as God-given dowry is itself the fundamental thought in Kierkegaard's anthropology, extracted from the basic idea of creation." (Paul Miiller, Kierkegaard's Works of Love: Christian Ethics and the Maieutic Ideal, trans, and ed. C. Stephen and Jan Evans, (C.A. Reitzel, 1992), 14.) It is true that Kierkegaard does speak of "the dowry of good nature and of love that God has basically bestowed on every person..." (Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 159.) Kierkegaard nevertheless differentiates between Christian and unchristian love: "Does not paganism offer examples of erotic love and friendship so perfect that the poet looks back to them for instruction? But no one in paganism loved the neighbor; no one suspected that he existed. Therefore what paganism called love, as distinguished from self-love, was preference." {ibid., 53.) The participation of the pagan in God's love is an important issue to consider but slightly outside the scope of the present study. 361 ibid., 58. Also, "The love-relationship requires threeness: the lover, the beloved, the love - but the love is God." {ibid., 121.) 362 ibid., 264-265. 363 Kierkegaard says for example, "Love cannot infinitely compare itself with itself, because it infinitely resembles itself in such a way that this only means that it is itself. In the infinite comparison there is no third factor; it is a redoubling, and therefore it is no comparison." {ibid., 182.) "Redoubling" will be discussed shortly. 100

'subject.'"364 In other words, "God is both the object and subject, the actor and act, of

faith." Kierkegaard would be able to affirm this statement with respect to love.

As in the case of the Finnish program, Kierkegaard's conception of indwelling

love may be related back to his understanding of justification. The logic that Mannermaa

identifies in Luther is simple: "Faith in itself is not the fulfilment of the law, i.e., of the

commandment to love. On the other hand, love is the fulfilment of the law. But even if

faith is not the fulfilment of the law, it nevertheless imports love along with it, and love is

the fulfilment of the law." Kierkegaard might resist the application of this logic to his

thought on the grounds that people might take it in vain, but he seems to agree with the

essentials. In fact he says something very similar; for Kierkegaard too love is the

fulfilling of the Law. One Journal entry is given this exact title: "Love is the Fulfilling of

the Law." Here Kierkegaard says, "(a) the law is the skeleton, the bony structure, the

dehydrated husk. Love is the fullness, (b) love is not malingering in fulfilling the law - partiality - softness - no, it truly fulfils the law and more."367 Moreover Kierkegaard

elsewhere speaks of the person of Christ as love and as the fulfilling of the Law: "Yes, he

was Love, and his love was the fulfilling of the Law."368 Because God as love is present

in the Christian, as has been shown above, it seems legitimate to say that Christ in the

Christian fulfils the Law. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard would want to emphasise that the

Christian is not him or herself God: "Naturally no human being is love; he is, if he is in

love [Kjerlighed], one who loves. Yet love is everywhere present where there is one who

Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 26. Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating?," 12. Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 309. Kierkegaard, Journals, 2403, (VII1 A 225). Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 99. 101 loves."369 Love, God, is present in the one who loves without destroying individual identity. It seems that the Christian participates in love but not exactly in a Platonic form; the Christian is not Love itself but it seems that he or she is "penetrated" by love in a way that could be described by perichoresis.

God's presence as indwelling love may also be considered according to what the

Finns say about the unity between God's attributes and His being. The Finns attach great significance to Luther's use of "the Hebrew manner of speaking:" "According to this way of speaking, the properties of God constitute the essence ofGod..."J,u Because God dwells in the Christian, the Christian shares in these properties. Mannermaa quotes

Luther:

And so we are filled with "all the fullness of God." This phrase, which follows a Hebrew manner of speaking, means that we are filled in all the ways in which He fills [a person]. We are filled with God, and He pours into us all His gifts and grace and fills us with His Spirit, who makes us courageous. He enlightens us with His light, His life lives in us, His 1-71

beatitude makes us blessed, and His love causes love to arise in us.

Being filled with God is being filled with the love that is God and this causes love to arise in the Christian. This passage may be set next to a highly significant passage in Works of

Love: But a temporal object never has redoubling [Fordoblelse] in itself; just as the temporal vanishes in time, so also it is only in its characteristics. When, however, the eternal is in a human being, this eternal redoubles in him in such a way that every moment it is in him, it is in him in a double mode: in an outward direction and in an inward direction back into itself,

369 ibid., 301. Describing Christ's love in particular, Kierkegaard says, "This, then, is Christian love. Even if it is not or was not like this in any human being (although by abiding in love every Christian works so that his love might become like this), it was, however, like this in him who was love, in our Lord Jesus Christ." (ibid., 99.) This passage however need not be read to in a way that contradicts Christ's indwelling. The Finnish Lutherbild would not want to imply that Christ's indwelling makes it so that Christians no longer do wrong, and "abiding in love" may be read as a reference to abiding in Christ - Christ's indwelling. The Christian loves with God's love. 370 Mannermaa, "Participation and Love," 308. 371 Luther, WA 17/1:438, 14-28, quoted in Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith 23. but in such a way that this is one and the same, since otherwise it is not redoubling. The eternal is not only in its characteristics but is in itself in its characteristics. It not only has characteristics but is in itself in having the characteristics.372

This is perhaps Kierkegaard's most complete statement on redoubling with respect to

love and it not unrelated to the Finnish Lutherbild's "Hebrew manner of speaking." A

temporal object is only in its characteristics (outward direction), while the eternal is in its

characteristics (outward direction) but is also in itself in having its characteristics (inward

direction). The characteristics of the eternal, God, are thus the essence of the eternal,

God. The eternal, love, is in a human being and it redoubles, moving and existing inward

and moving and existing outward. This may be understood with regard to the discussion

of the synthesis of the self: "When the synthesis is actualised, each element in man's

existence contains a doubleness in that it simultaneously has a temporal and an eternal

expression."373 As has been argued, the indwelling person of Christ is to be seen as the basis for this actualisation of the synthesis or redoubling.

It is certainly possible to argue this point. Come interprets the above quotation as

Kierkegaard's saying, "When the eternal (God) reduplicates itself in a human-being, this

involves the eternal (Kierkegaard maintains) in a constant and simultaneous twofold

orientation (a kind of motion!): in an outward direction into the human-being and an

Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 280. The above is a general description of the eternal; Kierkegaard identifies love as a specific characteristic in the next paragraph. 37 "Redoubling," in "Notes" in Kierkegaard, Journals, p. 908. Kierkegaard uses two related words, redoubling (Fordoblelse) and reduplication {Reduplikatiori). {ibid.) In redoubling "the weight is on the ontological, that is, on being, which already exists, whereas in his use of the word 'reduplication' Kierkegaard points to the ethical task that must first be actualised." ("Reduplication," in "Notes" in Kierkegaard, Jounals, p. 910.) Come argues that there is no essential difference between the terms and that the word "redouble" means in English something different than what Kierkegaard intends. (Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 73.) These matters do not seem to be of great concern in the discussion of the term in the present study. 103 inward direction 'back into itself.'"374 Come is correct in drawing attention to the motion involved in redoubling375 but, as with his statements on the will, it seems that

Kierkegaard's words do not suggest Come's reading here. The eternal is in a human being and it is in the human being that the eternal redoubles. Perhaps Kierkegaard could also say that the eternal redoubles into a human being but not that this is the only redoubling that takes place.376 This is an important point regarding the indwelling of

Christ: if God is seen to redouble only into the human being, then Come may be correct to continue, ".. .the fact that the Eternal always and essentially moves 'in an inward direction back into itself means that God never resides as such in, nor becomes identical

"inn with, that to which he moves 'in an outward direction.'" Certainly God never becomes identical with the human being, but this need not imply that He does not dwell in the human being; it might be said instead that the eternal goes "back into itself within the human being, not necessarily back to itself somewhere outside of the human being. The eternal after all is said to be "in a human being;" God as such does seem to reside in the human being.

374 Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 11. Redoubling is a moving. Kierkegaard believes that being filled with God creates both action and being. According to Burgess, redoubling "is both an ontological and ethical matter." (Burgess, 43.) Kierkegaard says, "Note the redoubling here: the one who loves is or becomes what he does." (Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 281.) When love dwells on itself, it is like an arrow that instead of flying, considers its flight. At that moment it falls to the ground. (See ibid., 182.) In the preface to the second part of Works of Love, Kierkegaard says about his writings, "They are Christian deliberations, therefore not about love but about works of love." (ibid., 207.) This point must be emphasised: Love is always active loving. 376 Andrew Burgess understands the passage to speak of two redoublings: "In the vertical dimension, all the initiative belongs to the eternal, God, who graciously enters into human life to transform it. This is the first 'redoubling' Kierkegaard describes in the preface. But then from that redoubling arises a second redoubling, within human life, when human beings, transformed by grace, show forth that love in a double way, inwardly, by becoming more loving, and outwardly by showing this love toward other people." (Burgess, 54.) This is something closer to the view taken in the present study. 377 Come, Kierkegaard as Theologian, 78. Elsewhere Come interprets the passage: "In otiier words, when God as eternal love moves out of itself toward the other, this movement is not an emanation or extension of God's own being but a reduplication of God's kind of being in the human individual." (Come, "Kierkegaard's Ontology of Love," 108.) Come's is nevertheless a common reading of Kierkegaard. Daphne Hampson is

another who reads Kierkegaard without reference to the indwelling of Christ. In her work, Christian Contradictions, one of her central theses is that Kierkegaard represents an improvement on Luther through his increased and more modern emphasis on the

self.378 In discussing Kierkegaard's theology of love, she then naturally tends to focus on the autonomy of human selfhood: "Kierkegaard says, of the human, that he must form a

'heart' (a core we may say) out of which he loves. Such language contrasts directly with

Nygren's language, whereby the human is a mere 'channel' between God and neighbour." In support of this statement she quotes Works of Love:

It is said of certain plants that they must form a heart. In like manner one may also say of a person's love: If it is actually to bear fruit and thus be known by its fruit, it must first of all form a heart... How rarely does the eternal get so much control over a person that love in that person begins to establish itself eternally or to form the heart. Yet this is the essential condition for bearing love's own fruit by which it is known.

It may be true that forming a heart does imply something different from acting as a channel. This however does not imply that the heart thus formed is not itself from God's indwelling, or that the heart is itself God's indwelling, or that the heart is so "permeated" by God that both of these are correct; Hampson seems to set up a false dichotomy.

Indeed only a few pages earlier in Works Kierkegaard uses another metaphor, that of a spring: "Just as the quiet lake originates deep down in hidden springs no eye has seen, so also does a person's love originate even more deeply in God's love. If there were no

Representative of this view is for example Hampson: "For Kierkegaard is concerned that the self come to itself... Kierkegaard has both: the Lutheran sense that one can only be a self as one relates to God, and the sense that the self does indeed come to itself." (Daphne Hampson, Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 276.) With this sort of thesis it is not surprising that she should underestimate the importance of Christ's indwelling. Indwelling implies a different sort of self than the one Hampson imagines. 37 ibid., 260. Andres Nygren was a prominent Swedish Lutheran bishop and theologian who used the channel analogy. 380 Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 12. 105

gushing spring at the bottom, if God were not love, then there would be neither the little

lake nor a human being's love."381 True this image is a lake and not a "channel" but this

difference is insubstantial. In fact, considering Kierkegaard's emphasis on love's

Ton

movement, it might actually be better to think of the lake as a channel/6" What is

important is that the source of the lake's water is the spring, a spring that might be said to

dwell in it. The lake's source is not external to it. Martin Heinecken's assessment seems

accurate: "Man was made in, for, and by love and only as he becomes the clear channel

for that love is he a true human being." If Christ's indwelling is understood as perichoresis, then the Christian may be seen both to have a heart from which he or she

loves and to be a channel for God's love.

As with willing, Christian action understood as love is a paradox of divine and

human responsibility. Kierkegaard talks about one being spiritually tested saying ".. .if

he honestly and faithfully perseveres, he will gain the best powers, but they are not his "10 A

own; he has them in self-denial." Elaborating he says, "Precisely this becomes the

contradiction in blessedness and terror: to have an omnipotent one as one's co-worker.

An omnipotent one cannot be your co-worker, a human being's co-worker, without its

signifying that you are able to do nothing at all; and on the other hand, if he is your co-

381 ibid., 10. 382 The lake is probably chosen to show the hiddenness of love, something a direct "channel" analogy would not do, its source being more apparent. 383 Heinecken, 353. The question again arises as to what extent non-Christians are connected to this love. At the beginning of the "lake" analogy, Kierkegaard says, "Love's hidden life is in the innermost being, unfathomable, and then in turn is in an unfathomable connectedness with all existence." (Works, 9.) This love then might be from creation and not from Christ's indwelling, the new creation but this cannot be correct when considered with the emphasis on "dying to" shown in some other works and the emphasis that the Spirit brings new life. 384 Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 362. 106 worker, you are able to do everything." Perhaps Kierkegaard's most noteworthy

description of the paradox of the divine co-worker is the story of the child Ludvig from

Judge for Yourself!, already touched on in the introduction to the present study. In this

story Ludvig's mother pushes his stroller but lets him think that he is doing it:

Think of little Ludvig! He has now become an adult and therefore very well understands the true situation - that it was his mother who pushed the stroller. Thus he has another joy from this childhood recollection: remembering his mother's love that could think of something like that to delight her child. But now he is an adult; now he actually can do it himself. Now he is perhaps even tempted to think that he himself actually is able - until that recollection of childhood reminds him how much he is, in a far higher sense, still in the same situation as the child, that when the adult works it really is someone else - it is God who is working.

Sponheim notes regarding a similar passage in the same work, "The beauty of such a passage may win praise from one's ear but its logic riles the mind. Kierkegaard was too

'ion

concerned with consistency to permit himself many such passages." It is true that such

a passage is paradoxical and Kierkegaard was fundamentally concerned with human TOD

action but this passage is not inconsistent, nor is it so isolated. He is clear that the

Christian is to joyfully live himself (or herself) out of himself and into God. It is God

who is really working when the Christian is working. It is Christ who indwells who is the

true agent of good works. Like Ludvig, Kierkegaard takes delight in the paradox of

385 ibid., 362. This may be the way to interpret statements such as: "But if one will reflect on omnipotence, he will see that it also must contain the unique qualification of being able to withdraw itself again in a manifestation of omnipotence in such a way that precisely for this reason that which has been originated through omnipotence can be independent." (Kierkegaard, Journals, 1251, (VII 1 A 181).) The context of this quotation is a comment on theodicy. Here it seems Kierkegaard is pondering one side of the paradox. 386 Kierkegaard, Judge For Yourself!, 186. 387 Sponheim, 152. 388 Judge For Yourself! comes from 1851 but already in 1843 Kierkegaard wrote, "You wanted to give thanks to God at all times, but even this was very imperfect. Then you understood that God is the one who does everything in you and who then grants you the childlike joy of regarding your thanksgiving as a gift from you." (Soren Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 5, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 46.) having an omnipotent co-worker. This is all quite consistent with the Finnish

Lutherbild:

Luther understands the participation of the believer in Christ as something so 'ontologically intense' that the actions which Christ works in a Christian can be considered the actions of this Christian in question himself... Christ does not work in a Christian only as an extrinsic 'power' (Macht), but also as the principle of spiritual being and spiritual action who gives himself to the Christian in such a way that Christ becomes intrinsic in the Christian. It is understandable, then, that Luther can speak about the cooperatio of the believer with God in the spiritual realm of existence and, at the same time, claim that a person is always spiritually nihil ex se.

Kierkegaard would seem to agree: a Christian's works are God's work but may be considered the Christian's own work; Kierkegaard speaks of God as working both externally and internally; the Christian cooperates with God but can do nothing of him or herself. This is furthermore another way to consider justification; because God is present in the Christian as love, the Law of love can actually be fulfilled. In spite of the fact that a Christian never acts perfectly from this love, he or she is in a state of perichoresis with

Christ.

Granted the particular image in this parable, that of a human mother, may be somewhat problematic: a child does not have an ontological union with its mother. Nevertheless, considered in the context of this study, this quotation speaks to God's action in Christ in the Christian. 90 Juntunen, "Luther and Metaphysics," 156. 108

Conclusion

Kierkegaard understands the Christian life as participation in Jesus Christ. This participation is not of the "linear" sort that might be said to exist in Platonism or

Neoplatonism; the type of participation Kierkegaard imagines, explicitly and implicitly, is dialectic and paradoxical, better described by the word perichoresis. The use of this word here is provisional due to its already long and complex use in Christological and

Trinitarian discourse. Nevertheless, it is an appropriate term insofar as it implies an

"ontologically real" presence of the Person of Christ in the Christian, in his or her faith, in a paradoxical union of still separate entities. This understanding of Christ's presence, whereby He both preserves and does away with the "infinite qualitative difference" between God and human beings, allows the maintained use of the total sense of the

Lutheran axiom simul iustus etpeccator; it also allows for the partial sense of this phrase in that as the Christian grows in faith he or she comes to live less from him or herself, from the old Adam, and more and more from Christ, thus becoming an integrated and authentic self. All of this is perfectly in line with Kierkegaard's polemic against the

Hegelian system that seeks to merge humanity into God; it is a challenge to Kierkegaard scholarship that approaches the "infinite qualitative difference" undialectically; and it builds on work such a Sponheim's that seeks to draw attention to the nearness of God and humanity in Kierkegaard's thought. In faith, as Kierkegaard understands it, God in Christ comes to dwell in individual human beings.

This description of Kierkegaard's understanding of the presence of, or union with,

Christ in faith has been obtained with help from Luther as interpreted by the "Finnish" school founded by Tuomo Mannermaa. When Kierkegaard's ontology, his Christology, and his theory of Christian love are examined with help from the categories of this

Finnish Lutherbild, it is seen that Kierkegaard and Luther are quite similar. First, both would take issue with certain Neo-Kantian presuppositions as they have been applied in theology. Like the Finnish Lutherbild, Kierkegaard believes that the being of God is accessible to the Christian. Kierkegaard's metaphysics, as outlined mainly in the pseudonymous works, do not make his conception of the indwelling of Christ explicit but do seem to suggest it at several points, notably in the description of Christ as the point where eternity enters time, and the description of the self as a relational entity having certain eternal characteristics; though Kierkegaard's conception of the self is much more modern and therefore more complex than Luther's, the being of a Christian, the esse gratiae, is nonetheless constituted by a new type of internal being, esse-in, which is in some way Christ Himself. Kierkegaard's understanding of Christ's presence in the

Christian becomes more clearly defined when it is examined from the perspective of

Christ's action. His Christological conception of Christ's indwelling presence, like his ontological one, is similar to that of the Finnish Lutherbild. Christ is spoken of as making substitutionary atonement, but this seems to require some sort of participation in

His person to be effective. In all this, Kierkegaard's position is not Osiandrian; like

Luther he refuses to separate the two natures of Christ. It seems then that Kierkegaard

does however take issue with the authors of the Formula of Concord, conceiving of the indwelling of Christ as coinciding with justification, not happening after, but Kierkegaard is perhaps more dialectical than the Finnish Lutherbild here. This is a provisional

statement as there is more than one way to develop the conclusions of the Finnish program. Kierkegaard no less than Luther would want it understood that God's 110 justification is unconditional; God accepts sinners. Justification is a matter of the Gospel

and not of the Law. If justification depends on something in the human, even if this is

Christ Himself, then it seems that Gospel is in danger. Perhaps Kierkegaard would want

to say that Christians are imputed the righteousness of Christ in Christ's faith creating

and sustaining presence, not because of it. Furthermore, the dialectical nature of this

indwelling, whereby Christ's righteousness is at one time internal and external to the believer, whereby sin continues to exist with no being, may do much to mitigate the

argument with the Formula of Concord. There remains the fact that Kierkegaard, again

like the Finnish Lutherbild, simply believes that Christ is truly in His Word; in the words

spoken about Christ, Christ Himself is always present. It would seem then that from the

moment a person comes to faith, trusting God and internalising the Word, Christ must be

present, both strengthening and examining the Christian. Perhaps even more than the

Finnish Lutherbild, Kierkegaard conceives of Christ's indwelling in terms of action. In

suffering, willing, and loving Christ is the primary actor. Nevertheless, the works of the

Christian are paradoxically the work of each; Christ is the omnipotent co-worker.

This view of Kierkegaard and Luther, as in essential concordance concerning the

indwelling of Christ, does much to revise conventional understandings of their

relationship. Kierkegaard perceived the greatest problem in his society to be laxity, not

severity as Luther had done and much has been made of Kierkegaard's increased

emphasis on the Law with respect to Luther. In dealing with indwelling, Kierkegaard

does treat it differently than Luther, not only with respect to his conception of the self and

his potentially more paradoxical conception, but in his emphasis on self-examination and

human action and responsibility. This is implied for example in the way that Anti- Ill

Climacus describes Christ's presence in His Word; it is an examining presence. Perhaps there may be an element of Law in Kierkegaard's conception of indwelling that is not present in the Finnish Lutherbild's; Christ's indwelling presence, especially in the

conscience, means that the Christian becomes more aware of his or her own sin and is

driven even faster to seek refuge at the cross. Kierkegaard's concern for self-examination

also explains why the indwelling of Christ is explicitly mentioned in relatively few

works; it can easily give rise to a new and more sever form antinomianism: if Christ works in me why should I work at all? Nevertheless Kierkegaard agrees with Luther on the basics of justification and, as is now seen, on Christ's indwelling; if any Law is

involved here than so is the Gospel. Highlighting the motif of Christ's presence in faith

allows one to look at Kierkegaard's preaching of Law in a new light. If Christ dwells in

the Christian's heart justifying him or her and giving new life, the power to fulfil the

Law, then Kierkegaard's corrective can be understood as just that, a corrective and not a

new Christianity. This being the case, it seems that the animosity often perceived between Luther and Kierkegaard on the point of the Law should be reconsidered; if

Kierkegaard's preaching of the Law is more sever than Luther's, than his conception of

the Gospel, God's infinite love and mercy, is the same.

The present study is nevertheless only an initial work; there remains much to be

clarified. Kierkegaard was a dialectician and, as has been repeatedly acknowledged, it is possible to read him in a way where Christ always stays essentially separate from the

individual human being. Kierkegaard does speak of Christ's essential separateness and

of the Christian's position before God. More research might be able to better integrate

this way of speaking with his thoughts on union, or perhaps they will remain paradoxical. 112

Second opinions are needed. Kierkegaard's thoughts on union also simply need to be

further explored and documented. Some attention has been given to the way in which

Kierkegaard's understanding of the indwelling of Christ appears at different times in his life, though in general it was simply assumed that he was consistent. Examining his work with an eye to looking for any change in his opinion might be illuminating. Furthermore,

Kierkegaard's pseudonyms and various different ways of writing should be considered

more carefully. Some attempt was made to take these into account but a more systematic

effort is perhaps required. Expanding on the work presented here, one might also wish to

trace the various sources of the union with Christ motif in Kierkegaard. More

importantly, the relationship between Kierkegaard's use of the terms God, Christ, Spirit,

and the eternal needs to be elucidated. The use made in the present study of term perichoresis must also be clarified; it may be that this term carries too much baggage to be used satisfactorily in this context; its relation to its usage elsewhere must be clarified

and this may in turn yield a deeper understanding of Christ's indwelling, though one that

is perhaps not exactly described in the work of Luther or Kierkegaard. The question of the non-Christian's general ontological relation to God versus the Christian's specific relation to Christ also needs further consideration. None of these points however

invalidate the conclusions presented above.

The present study has developed an important theme that has been generally underrepresented in Kierkegaard studies. It also provides another way of considering

Kierkegaard's relationship to Luther and Lutheranism. Much of this of course assumes that the Finnish Lutherbild represents at least a fairly accurate picture of Luther.

Reaction to the present study, the use of a "union with Christ" hermeneutic to interpret 113

Kierkegaard, might also inform the Finnish program. Indeed some effort has already been made to clarify the Finnish use of the word "participation." In Kierkegaard's case at least, it does not seem that the hermeneutic of Christ's presence in faith is the only one; there are others that have been legitimately used in the past and remain legitimate, such as "faith and reason," "passionate commitment," etc.; perhaps "union with Christ" is also simply one way of reading Luther. Indeed, the Finns feel it necessary to show that their program is consistent with the older paradigm of the Theology of the Cross.

The results of this study might also find a wider application than scholarly debates around the thought of Kierkegaard and Luther. One of the major applications of the

Finnish research has been in ecumenical dialogue. True, Kierkegaard is not as important a figure for Lutherans as is Luther but he is not insignificant. Kierkegaard did not found a denomination and did not leave a systematic theology and perhaps for this reason he has also become popular with Christians of various backgrounds; while Kierkegaard is not as significant for Lutherans as Luther himself, perhaps neither does he have the negative stigma attached to Luther by many non-Lutherans. It might then be interesting to use him as a basis for ecumenical dialogue, though such dialogue would probably tend to be more accepted among academics than among the masses. Kierkegaard is furthermore respected in the secular world of philosophy and understanding the very

Christian idea of Christ's indwelling in faith might form the basis for some apologetics.

What Kierkegaard says about the indwelling of Christ though is perhaps most important for Christians in their daily lives. It seems today that there is a tendency, at least in many of the old mainline churches, to focus on God's presence, especially on the sacraments, without focusing on Christ's work on the Cross, a tendency to celebrate God's presence 114 in a vague sort of way and to avoid speaking about sin. It is hopped that what has been said here about Christ's presence in the word about Him, the word of the cross, and the paradoxical nature of this presence that still acknowledges sin, may do something to correct this one-sided trend. Finally, there is simply the benefit of understanding more about the indwelling of Christ for the Christian life. It is joy and strength to consider and to live by the Christ in Paul's words, ".. .it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20, NRSV.) 115

Appendix 1: Luther and Kierkegaard

At this point in time there is no definitive work on Kierkegaard's relation to

Luther, though there is a number of articles and a few books that devote some pages to the issue. The question is complicated by Kierkegaard's accidental knowledge of Luther and by the odd sort of reciprocal influence they seem to exert on each other: though

Kierkegaard lived three centuries after Luther, in the twentieth century he has influenced

Luther by influencing Luther's interpreters;391 there is then the fact that Kierkegaard is often read and interpreted by Lutheran theologians. The following is an attempt to summarise the main currents in the scholarship and to untangle the two theologians. The nature of Kierkegaard's knowledge and opinion of Luther will be considered in detail; evaluations that see the two as more and less similar will be considered; certain key issues will be seen to constantly emerge; and the implications for the present study will be briefly considered.

In Kierkegaard's Denmark Luther had become a "virtual cipher" even in theological circles.393 Lee Barrett notes that "Kierkegaard would have informally imbibed Lutheran categories through his immersion in the liturgy, sermons, and family conversations. Through all of these channels, formal and informal, he would have

Both theologians were very important to the dialectical theologians of the early twentieth century. Craig Hinkson notes that the discovery of Luther's lost Romans Lectures and the related work of Karl Holl and the Luther Renaissance caused Kierkegaard's works to be read in a certain light. At the same time, Kierkegaard's writings directly influenced Karl Holl and, through Holl and the dialectical theology, indirectly influenced other Luther scholars such as Paul Althaus. (Craig Q. Hinkson, "Luther and Kierkegaard: Theologians of the Cross," The InternationalJournal of Systematic Theology 3, no. 1 (March 2001): 28.) 392 Craig Q. Hinkson, "Will the Real Martin Luther Please Stand Up! Kierkegaard's View of Luther vs. the Evolving Perceptions of the Tradition," in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 37-76, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002), 37 393 Regin Prenter, "Luther and Lutheranism," in Kierkegaard and Great Traditions, vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 121-172, (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981), 122. 116 become cognizant of the dominant motifs in the Lutheran heritage." This is true to a point but such channels would nevertheless provide only a very indirect exposure to

Luther's own thought. Another superficial exposure to Luther would have come in

Kierkegaard's university study.395 He would have read various texts dealing with

Lutheran doctrine and become familiar with the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of

Concord.396 Kierkegaard did however make something of an effort to read Luther for himself and according to Craig Hinkson, ".. .Kierkegaard's knowledge of Luther was more profound than that possessed by any major figure of his day." This may be true; as Regin Prenter notes, "His [Kierkegaard's] keen eye for what is essential may in some cases compensate for the lack of thorough knowledge." Kierkegaard's most intense reading of Luther began in 1847, a time when he began to find a special kinship with

Luther. His reading consisted mainly of Luther's sermons, particularly a Danish translation of Luther's postils?" This was however not a rigorously academic reading.

Prenter summarises the situation:

He [Kierkegaard] is not very interested in getting a solid and comprehensive knowledge of Luther's own thought. He reads Luther for his own "edification". He seeks in Luther an ally in the struggle against his philosophical and theological opponents, not so much in the public area - for he rarely quotes Luther in his works - as in his own mind. Thus Kierkegaard is not very eager to find Luther's opinion in his works. He seems more interested in finding his own opinions restated and confirmed by Luther.400

394 Lee Barrett, "Faith, Works, and the Uses of the Law: Kierkegaard's Appropriation of Lutheran Doctrine," in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself., vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 77-109, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002), 77. 395 Prenter, 126. 396 Barrett, "Faith, Works, and the Uses of the Law," 79 397 Hinkson, "Will the Real Martin Luther Please Stand Up!," 38. 398 Prenter, 126. 399 ibid., 124. 400 ibid., 125-126. Johannes Slok presents basically the same evaluation. (Johannes Slok, "Kierkegaard and Luther," in A Kierkegaard Critique, Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thulstrup, eds., 85-101, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 85-86.) 117

This assessment seems accurate; Kierkegaard does use Luther as an ally in his published works and the references there are generally of a different sort than the more numerous references in the Journals. 01 Concerning Kierkegaard's published works, the references to Luther before 1848 are more or less inconsequential, though in the Postscript

Kierkegaard does claim Luther as an ally against "objectivity." It is in Works of Love that a new interest in Luther begins to appear, an appeal to Luther's "anguished conscience," against the lax Christianity of Kierkegaard's own day.402 This same thinking may be seen in Practice in Christianity, a work that Prenter sees as most significant: it "interpreted according to Kierkegaard's 'Editor's Preface' and the 'Moral' at the end of number 1, is the unsurpassed expression of what might be called

Kierkegaard's personal Lutheranism."403 In the "Editor's Preface" Kierkegaard says,

"The requirement should be heard - and I understand what is said as spoken to me alone

- so that I might learn not only to resort to grace but to resort to it in relation to the use of grace.'" Here is a very Lutheran emphasis on the Law and then the Gospel and new active life. Kierkegaard's most detailed published assessment of Luther comes in For

Self-Examination. At the beginning of the work Kierkegaard acknowledges the need for

Luther's reform: "There was a time when the Gospel, grace, was changed into a new

Law, more rigorous with people than the old Law... At that time there appeared a man from God and with faith, Martin Luther; with faith (for truly this required faith) or by

401 Prenter has produced a very detailed summary of Kierkegaard's reference to Luther and much of what follows is based on it. See Prenter, 127-166. 402 Prenter understands the following passage to be especially significant: "Therefore, take away from the essentially Christian the possibility of offence, or take away from the forgiveness of sins the battle of the anguished conscience (to which, according to Luther's excellent explanation, this whole doctrine is to lead), and then close the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement that stand open all day!" (Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 201.) 403 Prenter, 140. 404 Kierkegaard, "Editor's Preface" in Anti-Climacus, [Kierkegaard], Practice, 7. 118

faith he established faith in its rights. His life expressed works - let us never forget that -

but he said: A person is saved by faith alone. The danger was great."405 Luther was thus

needed but brought danger with him. In Kierkegaard's own society this latent danger had

become expressed: Kierkegaard's Danes said, "Excellent! This is something for us.

Luther says: It depends on faith alone. He himself does not say that his life expresses

works, and since he is now dead it is no longer an actuality. So we take his words, his

doctrine - and we are free from all works - long live Luther!"406 Thus publicly at this

point (1851), Kierkegaard seems to have a basically positive evaluation of Luther; it is

simply that people wilfully misunderstood his teaching.

Privately, in terms of the journals, matters are slightly more complicated.407

Prenter divides Kierkegaard's entries on Luther into two significant periods, 1848-1854

and 1854-1855. Up to 1854, Kierkegaard had a generally positive attitude toward Luther

but negative appraisals become more and more common until they take over in the 1854-

1855 period. In an important and often quoted entry from 1847, Kierkegaard seems to

describe how his personal interest in Luther began, "Wonderful! The category 'for you'

(subjectivity, inwardness) with which Either/Or concludes (only the truth which builds

up [opdygger]) is Luther's own. I have never really read anything by Luther. But now I

open up his sermons - and right there in the Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent he

says 'for you,' on this everything depends.. ."408 There are some very positive statements

shortly after this one as well, including the glowing: "Today I have read Luther's sermon

according to plan; it was the Gospel about the ten lepers. O, Luther is still the master of

405 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 16. 406 ibid. 407 Prenter notes that from 1849-1855 Kierkegaard was almost daily preoccupied with Luther, yet publicly silent about him. Prenter, 135. 408 Kierkegaard, Journals, 2464, (VIII 1 A 465). 119 us all." Nor are all the statements Kierkegaard makes so simple; he also writes entries that show a deep understanding of and appreciation for Luther's "justification by grace through faith." In particular, Prenter quotes two passages that "form the most genuinely

Lutheran utterance to be found in Kierkegaard."410 The first one reads,

As the individual develops God appears to him more and more infinite, he feels a continually increasing distance to God. The doctrine of the example can no longer occupy the leading place. Faith comes first, Christ as a gift. The ideal has become infinitely sublime. My striving, therefore, is to myself changed into a mad nothing, if it aims at being like the ideal, or a divine joke of some sort, though I am seriously striving. This is expressed by saying that I rest in faith... that satisfaction has been given, the belief that I am saved by faith alone. Thus Luther is perfectly right.411

Here is described the breaking down of a person under the Law and the coming of the

Gospel of forgiveness. The second passage is very similar:

It is not at all the endeavour of man which achieves the atonement, but it is the joy at the atonement, because compensation has been given, it is that joy which produces the honest endeavour. Very much the same as when Luther says: it is not the good works which make man good, but the good man, who performs good works, i.e. man is the habitual factor, that which is more than all single works. And a good man you are, according to Luther, through faith. Therefore first faith.412

Justification then is by faith not works; this is good Lutheran (and Christian) theology. It does not seem that Kierkegaard ever renounces this position. He does however come to

speak of a problem in its application; saying for example, "Luther's corrective, when it independently is supposed to be the sum total of Christianity, produces the most refined kind of secularism and paganism."413

4uy Kierkegaard, Journals, 64, (VIII 1 a 642). 410 Prenter, 152. 411 Kierkeggard, (X, 2 A 207) quoted in Prenter, 151. Prenter quotes a much longer portion of the passage. 412 Kierkegaard, (X, 2 A 208) in Prenter, 152. Again, Prenter quotes a much longer passage. It should be noted here that Kierkegaard is using language which seems to contradict the Finnish Luther. 413 Kierkegaard, Journals, 711, (XI 1 A 28). 120

Gradually Kierkegaard furthermore became convinced that it was not simply that

Luther had been taken in vain, but that Luther had encouraged this. Prenter notes in particular Kierkegaard's criticism that Luther was not a dialectician and thus that Luther yielded to worldliness and reduced the absolute demand of Christianity. There are numerous references to this in the Journals; representative might be, "Luther is the very opposite of 'the apostle.' 'The apostle' expresses Christianity in God's interest, comes with authority from God and in his interest. Luther expresses Christianity in man's interest, is essentially the human reaction to Christianity in God's interest." 15 Luther undialectically stressed faith over works and thus did away with works, making

Christianity into a purely human phenomenon. Representative of Kierkegaard's break with Luther was the removal of the "Editor's Preface" and the "Moral" from the 1855 edition of Practice in Christianity. Kierkegaard thus became a "corrective" to Luther's

"corrective;" the two are actually very similar. In the estimation of Ernest Koenker: "It was because he [Kierkegaard] shared so much with Luther that... he must break with him on the very points for which he commends Luther."416

In summary then, Kierkegaard began reading Luther in a personal way in 1847.

He particularly appreciated Luther's emphasis on subjectivity and the "anguished conscience." For a short time Kierkegaard was something of a good Lutheran,

Prenter, 155 and 161. Amusingly, Prenter further notes, "It may also be said that he has a perplexed mind and rather confused, or that he is not clear. In statements of this type Kierkegaard only wants to say that Luther does not say the same as he himself." (Prenter, 155.) 415 Kierkegaard, Journals, 104, (XI 2 A 266). 416 Koenker, 232. Koenker identifies seven of these points: 1) Luther was a needed corrective but then the corrective created a new corruption by becoming the norm; 2) Christ is a gift and it is faith that makes one good but this leads to cheap grace; 3) The Christian is free, especially from corrupt ecclesiastical authority; however, not all are true Christians and the Church then becomes a democracy; 4) Luther speaks with a certain authority but Luther's certainty comes from a more fundamental insecurity; 5) Luther experienced proper fear and trembling but his followers do not and therefore corrupt his teaching; 6) There was a dialectical element in Luther's faith but Luther also removed the dialectical element from faith; 7) Luther has the category "for you" but then accepted this as a result eliminating the need for action, {ibid., 232- 240.) This is a different way of breaking down what has been said above. 121 understanding the Christian life as the hearing of the strict requirement, realising that it was impossible to fulfil, receiving Christ as a gift, and a life of joyful response. Luther was perceived as a needed corrective but one that was too easily "taken in vain."

Gradually however Kierkegaard began to emphasise a break with the world and voluntary suffering, and came to see Luther as a root of the problem he was fighting.

Having thus examined Kierkegaard's attitude towards Luther, it may now be asked, did Kierkegaard understand Luther and thus was his quarrel with Luther himself legitimate? Prenter, at least, thinks that Kierkegaard fundamentally misunderstood

Luther. In For Self-Examination, after talking about how Protestantism has become worldliness, Kierkegaard says,

Luther - this man of God, this honest soul! - overlooked or perhaps really forgot a certain something that a later age, especially ours, may perhaps stress only far too much. He forgot - once again, you honest soul! - he forgot what he himself was too honest to know, what an honest soul he himself was, something I must stress, and not on account of my virtue but for the sake of the truth. Lutheran doctrine is excellent, is the truth. With regard to this excellent Lutheran doctrine, I have but one misgiving. It does not concern Lutheran doctrine - no, it concerns myself: I have become convinced that I am not an honest soul but a cunning fellow. Thus it certainly becomes most proper to pay a little more attention to the minor premise (works, existence, to witness to and suffer for the truth, works of love, etc.), the minor premise in Lutheran doctrine. Not that the minor premise should now be made the major premise, not that faith and grace should be abolished or disparaged - God forbid - no, it is precisely for the sake of the major premise, and because I am the kind of fellow I am, it certainly becomes most proper to pay more attention to the minor premise in Lutheran doctrine - for in relation to "honest souls" nothing needs to be done.417

Prenter says that Kierkegaard misunderstands Luther here; Kierkegaard sees faith and grace as separate from works in a way that Luther does not.418 For Luther according to

Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 24. 418 Prenter, 134. Others essentially share Prenter's reading of Kierkegaard. Walter Lowrie notes that Kierkegaard was not in sympathy with "the position characteristic of the Reformers" (Lowrie, 375.): "In 122

Prenter, "If faith and works are separated they both are changed into that self-asserting attitude before God, which may be called "works" {pars pro toto)... Faith is an attitude of man before God comprehending both the religious ("faith") and the moral ("works") dimension of man's existence."419 There is an "organic relationship between faith and works which is essential in Luther's conception of Christianity." Had Kierkegaard understood Luther this way, it might have also mitigated his criticism that Luther was no dialectician. It should be noted however that not everyone agrees with Prenter's reading of the above quotation. Craig Hinkson says, "The identification of justification by grace through faith alone as Lutheranism's 'major premise,' and works of love as its 'minor premise,' is set forth in Luther's sermon from 1520, On the Freedom of a Christian.,"421

Hinkson goes on to restate Luther's famous two theses that the Christian is the free lord of all and the bound slave of all. These certainly do appear to constitute a major and a minor premise. The question is whether or not the language of major and minor premise necessarily involves a separation of faith and works. Prenter asserts that for Luther, there is no separation. Is it possible that this is also the case for Kierkegaard and that his language is simply misleading? Earlier in For Self-Examination, the "ghost" of Luther does say to Kierkegaard,

No, my friend, faith is a restless thing. It is health, but stronger and more violent than the most burning fever, and it is useless for a patient to protest that he has no fever when the physician feels it in his pulse, but neither will a healthy person say that he has a fever when the physician, by feeling the pulse, feels that it is not the case - likewise, when one does not feel the pulse of faith in your life, you do not have faith either. view of his insistence upon 'double reflection', the reduplication of thought in 'existence', it must have seemed to him that 'faith alone" was not only monstrous but impossible, equivalent to 'faith without works'." (Lowrie, 375.) Lowrie however does not discuss the views of Luther himself. 419 Prenter, 135. 420 ibid., 136. 421 Hinkson, "Will the Real Martin Luther Please Stand Up!," 42. 422 Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination, 18. 123

Here Kierkegaard too sees an organic relation between faith and works. It seems that

Kierkegaard is simply offering his particular response to the age-old Lutheran problem of antinomianism, of the need to preach the Law to those whose works should be organically connected to their lives of faith.

The question becomes, in his preaching of the Law does Kierkegaard do something fundamentally different from Luther? Does he actually separate faith from works? Does he preach the Law in such a way as to make faith into works? Many such as Hinkson do not think so and they will be discussed shortly. Now however it is illuminating to stay with Prenter's case for a fundamental dissonance between the two regarding the distinction between Law and Gospel. He sees Kierkegaard as using the

Law in very different way than Luther: "Anyone who is familiar with Luther's thoughts on law and gospel will be startled when he learns that according to Kierkegaard the whole content of the law is - Christ as example, i.e. the imitation of Christ. According to

Luther Christ as example does not belong to the realm of the law at all, but solely to that of the gospel." For Luther according to Prenter, Christ comes into the realm of Law as the redeemer, not as an even harsher law. When one is redeemed in the realm of the

Gospel Christ is the example "in the sense of the good shepherd who walks in front of the sheep whom he has already rescued from the evil powers, clearing the way for them, that they may easily follow him."424 For Kierkegaard however Christ as example is a painful imperative not a joyful response. It seems that Prenter would say that in contrast to

Luther, Kierkegaard understands the Christian life to be ruled by the Law and not the

Gospel and that this constitutes a qualitative difference between them. For Kierkegaard,

423 Prenter, 143. 424 ibid., 145. there are then two classes of Christians (at least at one point in his thought process) - the

strict ones who follow Christ as example and redeemer and the others who fall short and

simply rely on the redeemer.425 This distinction is, according to Prenter, alien to Luther:

In confessing our sin before God we do not admit that we are not - yet - Christians in the strict sense. What we admit is that we are not true men. Sin is inhumanity because it is man's rebellion against the mercy of his creator. Avowing this inhumanity and therefore taking refuge in God's mercy in Jesus Christ, promised us in the Gospel, we are Christians in the strictest sense. And at the same time we have become truly human in sharing the true humanity of Jesus Christ. The imitation follows as a fruit of faith, the true being a Christian. It is not a step in the direction of becoming Christian.426

Again the difference between Luther and Kierkegaard according to Prenter is that the knowledge of sin breaks a Christian constantly so that he relies on God's grace; for

Kierkegaard, it is the human being's knowledge that he or she is not a Christian that

causes him or her to rely on God's grace. For Kierkegaard, faith is removed from the

centre of the Christian life and becomes "a single element in the process of 'becoming a

497 Christian'." According to Prenter, Kierkegaard's "own 'Lutheranism' was not that of

498

Luther himself." Kierkegaard appears to share much with Luther but this is only a

formal similarity; Kierkegaard's thought is in an entirely different context from Luther's

and "It therefore seems futile to 'compare' Luther and Kierkegaard. They are too

different to be compared. They have to be studied separately."429 Prenter is thus very much against any attempt to "harmonise"430 Luther and Kierkegaard.431 In contrast to

425 ibid., 145-146. 426 ibid., 149-150 427 ibid., 155. 428 ibid., 170. 429 ibid., 170-171. mcf.ibid., 171. 431 Koenker seems to essentially agree with Prenter. He does not try to harmonise Luther and Kierkegaard and concludes, "For both men their suffering became, by a secret, divine alembic, a healing 125 those scholars who say that Kierkegaard's use of "the Law" was essentially the same as

Luther's and Lutheranism's, with simply an increased emphasis, he says that Kierkegaard came through a more "Lutheran" period to a different conception of what it meant to become a Christian.

Prenter's approach is "Kierkegaard on Luther." This yields a picture of

Kierkegaard that is perhaps biased toward dissonance. No less than with the

"harmonisers" there are methodological problems with Prenter's approach. At the beginning of his study, Prenter notes, "What was Kierkegaard's attitude toward Luther?

If we succeed in answering this question properly, it goes without saying where and why the two great Christian thinkers agree and where and why they differ."432 This however assumes that Kierkegaard properly understood Luther; as Prenter himself seems to admit, there are problems with assuming this. Kierkegaard certainly understood Luther but perhaps not quite well enough to criticise him the way he did. A contrasting approach to the question, with its own methodological problems, is offered by Johannes Slok433:

The problem may be formulated as follows: regardless of what Kierkegaard personally thought of Luther and of how his views on him may have changed over the years, it may be asked whether Kierkegaard has any essential points in common with Luther in his approach to the problems of life and his conception of Christianity, or whether his situation is so different that it is actually meaningless to compare him with the great reformer.434

Slok, like some of the scholars already mentioned, sees Luther and Kierkegaard as essentially concordant. It is true that while Prenter's approach emphasises dissonance,

Sl0k's emphasises harmony, a reading of Kierkegaard through the lens of Luther. for their own lives and for the church. On such grounds both Luther and Kierkegaard are patients and doctors of Christianity." (Koenker, 250.) 432 Prenter, 122. 433 Prenter was aware of and explicitly rejected Skrtc's approach, cf. ibid., 121-122. 434 Slok, 86-87. 126

Nevertheless, Slok appears to reach some valid conclusions. He is correct that one must

consider context: "If we blithely consider an author's opinions in isolation from the

phenomena against which they are directed, we at once distort his opinions; even if we

reproduce them with strict accuracy, they nevertheless become distorted and one-sided.

Accordingly, it is impossible to make a direct comparison between Kierkegaard and

Luther."435 Slok's approach then is to look for commensurability by compensating for

differences in the two thinkers' contexts and their diametrically opposed polemics.

According to Slok, Luther's context was the medieval ordering of society into the

different estates, where only the religious estate could live the authentic Christian life.

Luther challenged this system with "the idea that the nature of a man cannot be

determined by something external."436 This was a challenge to external secular authority.

God became the only external factor that determined a person. In this paradigm, all

people are essentially equal (before God); their external positions do not matter. The

nature of good works is prescribed by God primarily in the Decalogue and furthermore in

the feudal ordering of society: "the commandments of the Decalogue are the lines along

which a man may live his life within the estate to which he is born, in the vocation he has been given, and in the office which he consequently holds."437 Society may thus assign a

person his duty and obedience.438

Slok notes that society had changed by Kierkegaard's time. Two important ideas

here were the essential equality and freedom of all people. Dealing first with equality,

Slok identifies two important phenomena: the equality of all people before the law and

435 ibid., 87. 436 ibid., 89. 437 ibid., 92. 438 ibid., 87-95. 127 the idea that any ethical claim on a person must be based on the idea of the fundamental equality of all people. The second idea here is much more pronounced in Kierkegaard than in Luther. Since Luther's time society's objective forms had disappeared. Instead of being ordered by God, society was ordered by people and authority was based on mutual consent: "Human life had become relative, deprived of its validity and transformed into sheer arbitrariness."439 In Luther's time neither objective ethical requirements nor the idea that existence was genuine were questioned. For Kierkegaard as well as Luther it is faith that makes a work good, but by Kierkegaard's time the nature of the work was no longer so clear; it could not be dictated by any external form. For

Kierkegaard, the most important thing was inner self-determination. This described the content of one's existence and was the only way to have an authentic life. For

Kierkegaard, in the quest for inner self-determination the individual meets God, becomes a true self, and goes back out into the world; for Kierkegaard, "Not only is the individual under the obligation to fulfil the claims made by the existence to which he is restored, but that obligation is preceded by another primary obligation to help one's neighbor to live in the same way, i.e., by virtue of the same inner self-determination."440 Kierkegaard thus says that to love the neighbour is to help him love God.441 Sl0k's summary is very astute:

Accordingly, Kierkegaard was, to a far greater extent than Luther, under the pressure of having to proclaim the Law before he could proclaim the Gospel; he had to set forth the requirement in its infinity in order that life in finitude could be jolted out of bourgeois emptiness and made authentic... the Law which must first be proclaimed is, in a certain sense, more exacting. It must become independent of life in the world; it must have a content and a significance of its own. However, this does not invalidate the assertion that its function remains the same, viz., to restore

439 ibid., 97. 440 ibid., 99. 441 See Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 107. the individual to his given existence in concrete duties and concrete rights.442

Slok's conclusion is thus very different from Prenter's: the state of his society required that Kierkegaard preach the Law much more harshly than Luther; the Law's emphasis also had to be shifted, becoming less external and much more internal (though for Luther the law was also fundamentally concerned with an internal reality). Kierkegaard's preaching of the Law was essentially the same as Luther's; it was simply that the Law required one's inner-self determination to replace societal norms in directing good works.

An interesting variation on Slok's view is presented by Daphne Hampson. She argues that in presenting Lutheran thought to his generation, Kierkegaard said something different from Luther but not fundamentally different. Rather than framing this in terms of the Law like Slok, she talks about the "self." Kierkegaard is concerned that the self become itself, unlike Luther who was a pre-modern thinker and unconcerned with such issues.443 Hampson says,

...Kierkegaard's way of conceptualising the self is profoundly Lutheran. The self is only itself as it is grounded each moment in God. Yet it is also the case that Kierkegaard has woven into his conception themes that the Lutheran tradition from which he came has typically lacked. There is the sense of a reciprocal relationship between the self and God. The self can, as it were, stand its ground before God, relating to God as to an 'other', a relationship which Kierkegaard designates in terms of love. As we have said, love, reciprocity and a sense of self would seem to be corollaries each of the other. Kierkegaard is consequently able to introduce the language of being drawn to God in a relationship of love. We have moved a long way from the typical structure of Lutheran faith.444

442 Sick, 100. 443 cf. Hampson, 276. She notes that Lutheran thought may speak of progress in relation to the self but "it is only found in the sense of becoming more fully the self that we are, that is to say learning more constantly to live from God. But that is something different from saying that the self acquires greater integration in itself." {ibid., 277.) 444 ibid., 281-282. 129

Hampson perhaps over-dramatises her point but it is a similar one to Slok's. Luther has much less emphasis on problems of the "self." Christianity must be appropriated by the self but other than that the self is fairly well defined by societal norms. This is not the case by Kierkegaard's time. Theologically, this may be stated in terms of the Law, and philosophically, in terms of the self. Kierkegaard then says basically the same thing as

Luther.445

A number of scholars also present variations on this view. Martin J. Heinecken says for example, "If what he [Kierkegaard] says is understood, it means as violent an upheaval in theology as at the time of the Reformation, for Kierkegaard is only saying again to this generation what Luther said to his." 46 When considering Luther and

Kierkegaard, Heinecken seems to interpret Luther in Kierkegaardian categories; he says that Luther and Kierkegaard are both existential thinkers, both have the same quarrel with reason, both speak of the necessity of the subjective apprehension of faith, both respect the hiddenness of God, both distinguish between a theology of the cross and a theology of glory and believe that Christianity involves both joy and suffering, and both reject making efforts at systematising. 7 Craig Hinkson's seems to exactly echo Heinecken:

"By its emphasis upon praxis, Kierkegaard's theologia crucis combats the danger of grace being 'taken in vain' within the Lutheran context. As such, it assumes the very

445 Hampson might not agree with this statement. It depends on how important one considers Kierkegaard's emphasis on the self. For a Christian this is presumably secondary next to what is said about Christ's work. 446 Heinecken, 17. 447 ibid.. Heinecken also says, "Both protest that a man cannot give direct expression to the God- relationship, but that he must be faithful in his calling and show love in the place where God has put him." {ibid.) This seems to contradict the better presented cases of both Prenter and Slok. Heinecken then also interprets Kierkegaard in terms of Luther and does a bit of violence here. function that Luther's theology had possessed in an earlier Catholic context." This idea is further repeated by Martin Ballester: "Luther emphasizes the believer's appropriation of Christ's salvific work; Kierkegaard, its concrete realization.

Kierkegaard balances Luther."449 Bruce Kirmmse says that Kierkegaard merely shifts the emphasis from grace to works,450 and "This division between Law and Gospel runs through the whole of SK' s authorship like a fault line.. ."451 William R. Bragstad argues that Kierkegaard, like Luther sees faith as a gift from God in which humans can do nothing (though it might be noted here that unlike Luther, Kierkegaard may see the breaking down of a person so that he or she comes to rely on grace as a human work).

Yet in Kierkegaard, there is an element of qualified freedom whereby one is free to give back to God what is God's own.452 Finally Lee Barrett concludes that in For Self-

Examination and Judge for Yourself!, Kierkegaard uses "Christ as Prototype" first to convict the individual of sin and drive him to seek God's mercy, and to motivate and guide his performance of works. These uses correspond to the second and third uses of the Law in traditional Lutheran Theology.453 Kierkegaard then is not separating faith from works but simply preaching the need for works, preaching the Law.

448 Hinkson, "Luther and Kierkegaard," 45. He too goes on to list the similarities between Luther and Kierkegaard: the centrality of the cross, glory being hidden under its opposite, the importance of personal appropriation, the understanding of sin, the scandal to reason, the necessity of God's work in granting faith, faith against the understanding and experience, spiritual trial and the constant necessity to be condemned and justified ever anew, (ibid., 38-45.) 449 Martin Gelabert Ballester, "Doctrine and Discipleship: A Luther/Kierkegaard Dialog," Theology Digest 30 (Spring 1982): 17. 450 Bruce H. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Merold Westphal, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 311. 451 *M/., 312. 452 Bragstad, 268-270. 453 Barrett, "Faith, Works, and the Uses of the Law," 107. While Barrett says that the third use of the Law involves motivating good works, (ibid., 107), he later says, "Although the performance of works is motivated by faith, nevertheless this impetus still requires intentional effort in order to produce action." (ibid., 108.) It seems that it is false to understand the law as a motivator in Lutheran theology. The law is 131

In scholarly opinion then there seem to be two basic views on the relationship between Luther and Kierkegaard: dissonance and harmony, those represented here by

Prenter who believe that Kierkegaard said something truly different from Luther and those represented by Slok who believe that he merely shifted emphases; harmony may again be subdivided into more qualified harmony and less qualified harmony, those who see Kierkegaard's shift in emphasis as substantial and those who see it as more or less insubstantial. The debate seems to centre around the Lutheran categories of Law and

Gospel and whether or not Kierkegaard and Luther understand them in the same way.

The "harmonisers" say that Luther and Kierkegaard were essentially the same in their understanding of justification by grace through faith but that Kierkegaard found it necessary to preach the Law with much more intensity, not so that it became something else than for Luther, but so that it accomplished something else: the Law demands self- determination, helps the individual become a self. This is in contrast to the dissonance group who see Kierkegaard as creating an impossible Christianity determined by the Law such that justification is no longer strictly by grace through faith.

The present study approaches the question of Law and Gospel from a slightly different angle than has been done in the past. Christ's indwelling is a Gospel phenomenon. Highlighting this motif in Kierkegaard's thought allows one to look at

Kierkegaard's preaching of Law in a new light. If Christ dwells in the Christian's heart justifying him or her and giving new life, the power to fulfil the Law, then Kierkegaard's corrective can be understood as just that, a corrective and not a new Christianity.

Koenker is particularly interesting in this regard: as opposed to most scholars who

rather only a guide; it is only the Gospel that motivates. Perhaps there is some confusion regarding the nature of "intentional effort". 132

consider the relationship between Luther and Kierkegaard, he actually draws attention to the presence of Christ motif in Luther. Unfortunately he omits it in Kierkegaard:

Kierkegaard could have little sympathy for Luther's conception of Christ the Savior as being in the believer, making it possible for the individual to have what Christ has, guiding him to renewal. Though in both Luther and Kierkegaard Christ is the picture of what happens to the believer, still the process is seen along radically different lines. Luther's is a mystical identification based on the believer's being cemented together with Christ through faith. The imitatio Christi is the clothing with Christ's righteousness, power, and life. For Luther, the "putting on of Christ" need not entail suffering the same things Christ suffered. Kierkegaard's is a constant, passionate striving to imitate the pattern. Each individual spirit relives the cruciform character of the Messiah's life.454

This is a restatement of the dissonance position using Luther's idea of union with Christ

as prime evidence. An understanding of how this idea also operates in Kierkegaard might alter Koenker's conclusion. It would also provide a new way to consider the harmony position.

Finally a few words should be said here about method. Valid arguments can be made for both Prenter and Slok's approach. Both take it for granted that the theologians

are commensurable455 and they compare them. The most objective way to compare the two is to look at what Kierkegaard says about Luther. This approach tries to minimise the scholar's bias; moreover it seems obvious that Kierkegaard's own words must count

for something. How much they count for depends on how well Kierkegaard understood

Luther and how it served him to represent Luther in his polemical context. While this

approach minimises scholarly bias, it maximises Kierkegaard's own bias. This is a very

important point: if Kierkegaard misrepresents Luther, in his own mind or his writing or

454 Koenker, 245. 455 It is true that Prenter does say of Luther and Kierkegaard, "They are too different to be compared. They have to be studied separately." (Prenter, 170-171.) Nevertheless, Prenter himself compares them. "Harmonised" would probably be a clearer word than "compared" here. 133 both, then what he says about him cannot be taken as a totally transparent basis for describing their relationship. Their thought must then be more rigorously compared; their respective projects must be considered holistically. Even Prenter who favours the

"Kierkegaard on Luther" approach must do this. Slok's approach then is not so different.

He simply seems to read Kierkegaard as more sympathetic to Luther and believes that it is legitimate to portray their goals as essentially the same within their different contexts.

The present study is more in line with Slok's approach because a comprehensive reading of Kierkegaard does reveal a union with Christ motif similar to that which drives the

Finnish program. Differences in context, in ways of thinking and speaking, must be considered and accounted for if there is to be an attempt at comparison; whether or not there is essential similarity or difference remains the essential question. 134

Appendix 2: Reception of the Finnish Program

Reaction to the Finnish project has been mixed. It has been well received in ecumenical dialogue and many Lutherans and other Protestants generally appreciate the new perspective. Some however find that they must ultimately reject it; then there are those who reject it immediately. In terms of formal ecumenical dialogue, significant common statements, greatly influenced by the project, between the Finnish Lutheran

Church and the Russian Orthodox Church were adopted in Kiev (1977), Turku (1980), and Jarvenpaa (1992). In August 1995 in Limassol Cyprus the Lutheran-Orthodox Joint

Commission adopted the first Lutheran-Orthodox common statement made at a world level, "Understanding of Salvation in the Light of the Ecumenical Councils."456 The

Finnish perspective may also lead to significant convergence with the Roman Catholic

Church.457 Veli-Matti Karkkainen, a Finnish Pentecostal with connections to the

Mannermaa school, sees significant convergence with charismatic theology. The ecumenist Robert Jenson offers a glowing but odd summary of the value of the Finnish

Lutherbild: "As a systematician, I have found I can do very little with Luther as usually interpreted. And the sort of Lutheranism that constantly appeals to that Luther has been

This brief history is from Risto Saarinen, "Salvation in the Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 167- 181, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998). 457 See for example, ibid., 170. William T. Cavanaugh for example is a Catholic who sees significant convergence between Luther and Aquinas, "Without using Aquinas's Aristotelian categories of act and potentiality, substance and accidents, Luther comes to a very similar conclusion about the attributes of God; whatever is in God is God." William Cavanaugh, "A Joint Declaration? Justification and Theosis in Aquinas and Luther," The Heythrop Journal 41 (2000): 276. 458 Karkkainen, Veli-Matti Karkkainen, One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification, Unitas Books, (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004), 68. Karkkainen takes this even beyond ecumenism into the area of inter-religious dialogue, suggesting that "the idea of union is also the dominant motif of all religions." {ibid., 4.) This may be a stretch: one need only think of Judaism or Islam. Moreover the indwelling of Christ, especially as apprehended in the word about Him, is certainly not compatible with union with the divine as understood in any non-Christian thought form. It is nevertheless interesting to see the optimism that the Finnish program generates. 135 an ecumenical disaster. With Luther according to the Finns, on the other hand, there can be much systematically and ecumenically fruitful conversation."459

While not all Protestants share Jenson's seemingly negative evaluation of their tradition, most seem to appreciate the new emphasis on forgotten themes. Paul Louis

Metzger, after observing that many Westerners are becoming dissatisfied with traditional

Western Christianity, and therefore looking to Eastern Orthodoxy and non-Christian eastern religions, says, "To the extent that Evangelicals look to Luther's doctrine of faith and salvation as the basis for their own, embracing a moderate form of mystical union with Christ, far from pushing the boundaries, they will actually return Evangelical orthodoxy to its Reformation center."460 For Metzger, Luther's view and the Finnish explanation of it forms the only real alternative to deism, Catholicism, or pantheism.

Allen Jorgenson has used the Finnish Lutherbild to criticise John Milbank's understanding of Luther and the Reformation and the supposed legitimisation of the distinction between sacred and secular. Because Christ dwells in them, "Christians who engage their vocation in both the world and the church intensify the presence of the church in a hidden mode. ! There is also much potential dialogue between the Finnish project and the "New Perspective on Paul." According to Karkkainen, "My hunch is that much of what the Mannermaa School is saying is in line with the new

Jenson, "Response by Robert Jenson," in Union With Christ, 21. Regarding this particular passage Simojoki notes, "In other words, give me the Luther I need." (Anssi Simojoki, "Martin Luther at the Mercy of His Interpreters: The New Helsinki School Critically Evaluated," in A Justification Odyssey: Papers Presented at the Congress on the Lutheran Confessions (2001), ed. John A. Maxfield, 117-136, (St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2002), 120.) 460 Paul Louis Metzger, "Mystical Union with Christ: An Alternative to Blood Transfusions and Legal Fictions," Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 202. 461 Allen G. Jorgenson, "Luther on Ubiquity and a Theology of the Public," The International Journal of Systematic Theology 6, no. 4 (2004): 367. 136 understanding...' Many then understand the Finnish Perspective to open new avenues of thought in traditional Western Protestant Theology.

Some however have more reservations than others. According to Mark A.

Seifrid,

...I have to express my appreciation for the fresh emphasis on Luther's conception of union with Christ in Professor Jenson's work and in his English publication of the work of Mannermaa and other Finnish scholars... Yet this understanding of justification is largely alien to American evangelicals, perhaps to Protestants as a whole, and almost certainly to a broad spectrum of biblical scholars.453

This view, that the Finns are creating a phantasm, is also well represented. The debate becomes much more important in Lutheran circles in particular. Jenson notes, "There are of course two big questions. Is the Finnish Luther the real one? And if he is - or even if he is not - should we agree with him?"464 This provides a helpful way to present the dissenting views. Jenson's second question will be considered first. In Lutheran circles, this question becomes the question of Luther (or perhaps the erroneously constructed, but still good theology of Finnish Lutherbild) versus Lutheranism. Carl Braaten asks, "In the case of fundamental disagreement between Luther's theology and the Lutheran

Confessions on an issue so crucial as justification, which is normative?"465 Mannermaa himself presents a "band-aid" solution when he says that, though his interpretation of

Veli-Matti Karkkainen, "Salvation as Justification and Theosis: The Contribution of the new Finnish Luther Interpretation to our Ecumenical Future," Dialog 45, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 79. In reviewing a series of books on the Finnish project, Douglas Harink says, "One might also get the impression that the doctrine of justification begins with Luther and that the crucial question is how to interpret Luther rather than how to interpret Paul. That certainly seems to be the case for Mannermaa..." (Douglas Harink, "Setting it Right," The Christian Century, (14 June 2005), 22.) Mannermaa certainly is a Luther scholar and not a Paul scholar. Exactly how the New Paul's authority relates to that of the Finnish Lutherbild is an interesting question, perhaps a fundamental question, yet it is not part of the present study. 463 Mark A. Seifrid, "Paul, Luther, and Justification in Gal 2:15-21," Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 229. 464 Jenson, "Response to Mark Seifrid," 246 465 Carl E. Braaten, "Response to Simo Peura, 'Christ as Favor and Gift'," in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 70-75, (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 72. 137

Luther does contradict some things in the Formula of Concord, the Formula also

instructs its readers to examine Luther's Commentary on Galatians, a major text in the

Finnish program, for the proper view of justification. One might then see this text as

overriding what the Formula itself says earlier. He further notes that Luther is still an

important teacher for the world's Lutherans.466 An irenic but perhaps overly optimistic proposal is offered by Kurt Marquart who chooses not to dwell on the distinction made between justification and Christ's indwelling in the Formula, but instead asserts that the

Formula's primary intent is to combat Osiander and that it therefore does not wish to

separate Christ's Person from His Work.467 This is an interesting proposal but the weight

of scholarly opinion seems to be against it.

The Confessions also have their more hard-line defenders. Anssi Simojoki asserts

that while the doctrine of Christ's inhabitation is fundamental, it is perfectly alright to understand it as subsequent to justification. He furthermore takes issue with what he

perceives to be the Finnish method: "Indeed, in the place of sola scriptura we find the

principle of solus Luther."469 This is an ad hoc argument but Simojoki legitimately

points out that the Finnish evidence is not conclusive: "The reader, at least, needs more

text material, fewer assurances!"470 Similar criticism comes from Timothy J. Wengert, a

noted Reformation scholar and one of the editors of the current translation of the Book of

Concord. In his review of Union with Christ, he criticises Simo Peura's interpretation of

Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 5-6. Kurt E. Marquart, "Luther and Theosis," The Concordia Theological Quarterly 64, no. 3 (July 2000): 202. 468 Simojoki, 130. 4 ibid., 128. In condescending terms, Simojoki says, "Naturally, Mannermaa was exaggerating, but his point of the presence of Christ was welcome as the song of blackbirds after a long and chilly month of March namely the dominance of the dry and intellectual Lundensian theology in the North." {ibid., 125.) He also blames Mannermaa for the Joint Declaration, the Porvoo Agreement, and the ordination of women. (ibid.,Ui.) 470 ibid., 129. Luther's use of the word "gift," saying that he does not consider the historical background of Luther's work in the linguistic work of Melanchthon and Erasmus.

Furthermore, the Finnish interpretation argues only against neo-Kantian "German" scholars and ignores other important schools of Luther scholarship such as that of Heiko

Oberman.472 Wengert presents some rather damning criticism:

Countless times the present reviewer also encountered passages in Luther torn from their historical and exegetical contexts in order to serve greater ecumenical ends... In short, this book will help readers to know what Finnish theologians think of their own tradition. Here one sees what happens when modern ecumenical agendas and old-fashioned pietism become the chief spectacles through which to view an historical figure. If readers want to understand Luther's radical approach to justification by faith alone, this book will finally disappoint.473

Wengert thus answers both of Jenson's questions in the negative.

Others are more reserved with their criticism. Dennis Bielfeldt, who has thought a great deal about the Finnish project, says, ".. .1 sometimes am disquieted by the thought that the results of their research may reflect their own presuppositions almost as much as the findings of the neo-Kantian Luther scholars obviously reflected theirs. I hope this is not the case." 7 Bielfeldt shows that some of the textual support used by Peura in particular is a little weak.475 He also draws attention to five questions posed to the Finns by Klaus Schwarzwaller.476 Schwarzwaller questions whether the Finns see a unifying idea that is not there, whether they make distinctions Luther did not, whether they take

471 Timothy Wengert, "Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther," Theology Today 56, no. 3 (1999): 432. 472 ibid., 434. 473 ibid. 474 Bielfeldt, "Response to Sammeli Juntunen," 163. 475 For example, "Surely most theologians can concur that Christ (God's name) is the 'good of his saints' without thereby advocating deification!" (Dennis Bielfeldt, "Deification as a Motif in Luther's Dictata Super Psalterium," The Sixteenth Century Journal 28, no. 2 (1997): 416.) 476 Klaus Schwarzwaller, "Verantwortung des Glaubens," in Freiheit ah Liebe bei Martin Luther, ed. Dennis Bielfeldt and Klaus Schwarzwaller (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995), 133-158, quoted in Bielfeldt, "Deification as a Motif," 417-418. 139

Luther too literally, whether they are overly mathematical and not doxological in their reasoning and description of the Christian life, and whether God is subsumed in the discussion of being. Trueman presents another good summary of the case against the

Finns. It seems his criticism forms three points: the Finns do not read Luther in his historical context, they do not appear to look at how his writing and thought developed

477 and they see an impossible distance between Luther and later Lutheranism. Trueman says,

If, as the Finns appear to want to do, one wishes to argue the inherently unlikely scenario that Luther's theology is closer to that of Gregory Palamas than to those confessions composed within his own life time by Wittenberg colleagues engaged in exactly the same theological debates, discussions, and projects as Luther, and with which he seems to have been quite satisfied, then the burden of proof must lie with the revisionists and not with the Reformation scholars. 78

He further wonders if the Finns are simply opposing the pre- and post-Reformation

Luthers.479 Trueman's logic, that of an historian, is difficult to fault.

In the final analysis, it does not seem that the Finns can be completely right.

Nevertheless, their questioning of earlier scholarship is generally appreciated; the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. One might also wish to answer the question implied by

Jenson: "Even if the Finns are wrong about Luther, is what they propose still good theology?" Even if the Finnish Lutherbild turns out not to have a firm basis in Luther, it may be worth considering it for its own sake.

477 Carl R. Trueman, "Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle," Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 242-243. 478 ibid., 243. 479 ibid. Bibliography

Primary Sources - Kierkegaard Anti-Climacus. [S0ren Kierkegaard]. Practice in Christianity. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 20. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. Anti-Climacus. [Soren Kierkegaard]. The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 19. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Climacus, Johannes. [S0ren Kierkegaard]. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 12.1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Climacus, Johannes. [S0ren Kierkegaard]. Philosophical Fragments. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 7. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Eremita, Victor ed. [Soren Kierkegaard]. Either/Or. Vol. 2. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 4. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Haufhiensis, Vigilius. [S0ren Kierkegaard]. The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Edited and Translated by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Kierkegaard, S0ren. Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 17. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Kierkegaard, S0ren. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 5. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Kierkegaard, S0ren. For Self-Examination and Judge For Yourself. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 21. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Kierkegaard, S0ren. Journals and Papers. 7 Vols. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1957. Kierkegaard, S0ren. Without Authority. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 18. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. 141

Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Kierkegaard's Writings, no. 16. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Primary Sources - Luther and the Lutheran Confessions Luther, Martin. "Confession Concerning the Lord's Supper." Edited and translated by Robert H. Fischer. In Word and Sacrament III, 158-371. Luther's Works, Vol. 37. Edited by Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1961.

Luther, Martin. "The Freedom of a Christian." Translated by W.A. Lambert. In Career of the Reformer I, 343-376. Luther's Works, Vol. 31. Edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957. Luther, Martin. Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4. Translated and edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan. Luther's Works, Vol. 26. Edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963. Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will. Translated and Edited by E. Gordon Rupp, Philip S. Watson et al. Vol. 33, Luther's Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972. Tappert, Theodore G., ed. and trans. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959.

Primary-Secondary Sources - The Finnish Lutherbild (Material Written by Members of the Finnish School) Juntunen, Sammeli. "Luther and Metaphysics: What Is the Structure of Being according to Luther?" In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 129-160. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Juntunen, Sammeli. "The Christological Background of Luther's Understanding of Justification." The Seminary Ridge Review 5, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 6-36. Juntunen, Sammeli. "The Notion of 'Gift' (donum) in Luther's Theology." In Luther Between Present and Past: Studies in Luther and Lutheranism. Ulrik Nissen, Anna Vind, Bo Holm and Olli-Pekka Vainio, eds., 53-69. Helsinki: Luther- Agricola-Society, 2004. Mannermaa, Tuomo. "Doctrine of Justification and Trinitarian Ontology." In Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson. Colin E. Gunton, ed., 139-145. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000. Mannermaa, Tuomo. "Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten 142

and Robert W. Jenson, 25-41. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Mannermaa, Tuomo. "Participation and Love in the Theology of Martin Luther." In Philosophical Studies in Religion, Metaphysics, and Ethics, 303-311. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Society, 1997. Mannermaa, Tuomo. "Why Is Luther So Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 1-20. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Christ Present in Faith: Luther's View of Justification. Edited with an introduction by Kirsi Stjerna. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Peura, Simo. "Christ as Favor and Gift: The Challenge of Luther's Understanding of Justification." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 42-69. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Peura, Simo. "The Essence of Luther's Spirituality." The Seminary Ridge Review 2, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 16-33. Peura, Simo. "What God Gives Man Receives: Luther on Salvation." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 76-95. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Raunio, Antti. "Natural Law and Faith." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 96-124. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Saarinen, Risto. "Salvation in the Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 167-181. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Saarinen, Risto. God and the Gift: An Ecumenical Theology of Giving. Unitas Books, ed., Michael Root. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2005. Vainio, Pekka. "Christ for us and Christ in Us." In Luther Between Present and Past: Studies in Luther and Lutheranism. Ulrik Nissen, Anna Vind, Bo Holm and Olli- Pekka Vainio, eds. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 2004.

Secondary Sources Ashbaugh, A. Freire. "Platonism. An Essay on Repetition and Recollection." In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 9-26. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981. 143

Ballester, Martin Gelabert. "Doctrine and Discipleship: A Luther/Kierkegaard Dialog." Theology Digest 30 (Spring 1982): 15-19. Barrett, Lee. "Faith, Works, and the Uses of the Law: Kierkegaard's Appropriation of Lutheran Doctrine." In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself.. Vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 77-109. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Bielfeldt, Dennis. "Deification as a Motif in Luther's Dictata Super Psalterium." The Sixteenth Century Journal 28, no. 2 (1997): 401-420. Bielfeldt, Dennis. "Response by Dennis Bielfeldt." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 161- 166. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Bielfeldt, Dennis. "The Ontology of Deification." In Caritas Dei: Beitrdge zum Verstdndnis Luthers und der gegenwdrtigen Okumene: Festschrift fur Tuomo Mannermaa zum 60. Geburtstag. Oswald Bayer, Robert W. Jenson and Simo Knuuttila, eds., 90-113. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 1997. Braaten, Carl E. "Response to Simo Peura, 'Christ as Favor and Gift'." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 70-75. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Bragstad, William R. "Luther's Influence on Training in Christianity.'1'' The Lutheran Quarterly 28 (August 1976): 257-271. Burgess, Andrew. "Kierkegaard's Concept of Redoubling and Luther's Simul Justus." In Works of Love. Vol. 16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 39-55. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999. Cavanaugh, William. "A Joint Declaration? Justification and Theosis in Aquinas and Luther." The Heythrop Journal 41 (2000): 265-280. Colledge, Richard J. "Kierkegaard's Subjective Ontology: A Metaphysics of the Existing Individual." The International Philosophical Quarterly 44, no. 1 (March 2004): 5-22. Come, Arnold B. "Kierkegaard's Ontology of Love." In Works of Love. Vol.16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 79-120. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999. Come, Arnold B. Kierkegaard as Theologian: Recovering My Self. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997. Crisp, Oliver D. "Problems with perichoresis." In Divinity and Humanity, 1-33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Deede, Kristen. "The Infinite Qualitative Difference: Sin, the Self, and Revelation in the Thought of Soren Kierkegaard." International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 53 (2003): 25-48. 144

Diem, Hermann. Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Existence. Translated by Harold Knight. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1959. Dupre, Louis. Kierkegaard As Theologian. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963. Elrod, JohnW. Being and Existence in Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Works. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Glenn, John D. Jr. "The Definition of the Self and the Structure of Kierkegaard's Work." In The Sickness unto Death. Vol. 19, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 5-21. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987. Gouwens, David J. Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Green, Ronald M. Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Hampson, Daphne. Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Harink, Douglas. "Setting it Right." The Christian Century, 14 June 2005, 20-25. Heinecken, Martin J. The Moment Before God: An Interpretation of Kierkegaard. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1965. Henninger, Mark G. Relations: Medieval Theories 1250-1325. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1989. Hinkson, Craig Q. "Luther and Kierkegaard: Theologians of the Cross." The InternationalJournal of Systematic Theology 3, no. 1 (March 2001): 27-45. Hinkson, Craig Q. "Will the Real Martin Luther Please Stand Up! Kierkegaard's View of Luther vs. the Evolving Perceptions of the Tradition." In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!. Vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 37-76. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Jenson, Robert W. "Response by Robert W. Jenson." In Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 21- 24. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Jenson, Robert W. "Response to Mark Seifrid, Paul Metzger, and Carl Trueman on Finnish Luther Research." Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 245-250. Jenson, Robert W. "The Sacraments," In Christian Dogmatics, 289-394. Edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973. Jorgenson, Allen G. "Luther on Ubiquity and a Theology of the Public." The InternationalJournal of Systematic Theology 6, no. 4 (2004): 351-368. Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. "Salvation as Justification and Theosis: The Contribution of the new Finnish Luther Interpretation to our Ecumenical Future." Dialog 45, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 74-82. Karkkainen, Veli-Matti. One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification. Unitas Books. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004. 145

Khan, Abrahim H. Salighed as Happiness! The Kierkegaard Monograph Series, ed. Alastair McKinnon. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1985. Kirmmse, Bruce H. Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark. The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Merold Westphal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Koenker, Ernest B. "Soren Kierkegaard on Luther." In Interpreters of Luther: Essays in Honour ofWilhelm Pauck, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, 231-252. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968. Law, David R. "Kierkegaard's Christology." Theology 99 (May-June 1996): 206-210. Law, David R. Kierkegaard as Negative Theologian. Oxford Theological Monographs, eds. P.S. Fiddes et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard. Harper Torchbooks/The Cloister Library. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Marquart, Kurt E. "Luther and Theosis." The Concordia Theological Quarterly 64, no. 3 (July 2000): 182-205. McSorley, Harry J. Luther: Right or Wrong? New York: Newman Press, 1969. Metzger, Paul Louis. "Mystical Union with Christ: An Alternative to Blood Transfusions and Legal Fictions." Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 201-213. Morelli, Elizabeth A. "The Existence of the Self Before God in Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death." The Heythrop Journal 36 (January 1995): 15-29. Miiller, Paul. Kierkegaard's Works of Love: Christian Ethics and the Maieutic Ideal. Translated and edited by C. Stephen and Jan Evans. C.A. Reitzel, 1992. O'Brian, Travis. "Being and Givenness in Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Authorship." Philosophy Today 50, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 170-182. Pedersen, Jorgen. "Augustine and Augustinianism." In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 54-97. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981. Prenter, Regin. "Luther and Lutheranism." In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 121-172. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981. Rose, Timothy. Kierkegaard's Christocentric Theology. Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2001. Seifrid, Mark A. "Paul, Luther, and Justification in Gal 2:15-21." Westminster TheologicalJournal 65 (2003): 215-230. Simojoki, Anssi. "Martin Luther at the Mercy of His Interpreters: The New Helsinki School Critically Evaluated." In A Justification Odyssey: Papers Presented at the Congress on the Lutheran Confessions (2001), ed. John A. Maxfield, 117-136. St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2002. 146

Sl0k, Johannes. "Kierkegaard and Luther." In A Kierkegaard Critique. Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thulstrup, eds., 85-101. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Sponheim, Paul. Kierkegaard on Christ and Christian Coherence. The Library of Philosophy and Theology, eds., John Mclntyre and Ian T. Ramsey. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1968. Sontag, Frederick. "The Self." In Concepts and Alternatives in Kierkegaard. Vol. 3, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 100-107. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980. Taylor, Mark C. "Christology." In Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard. Vol. 5, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 167-206. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980. Thulstrup, Niels. Kierkegaard's Relation to Hegel. Translated by George L. Stengren. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Trueman, Carl R. "Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle." Westminster Theological Journal 65 (2003): 231-244. Wengert, Timothy. "Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther." Theology Today 56, no. 3 (1999): 432-434. Yeago, David S. "The Catholic Luther." In The Catholicity of the Reformation, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson eds. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996.

Sources Consulted but not Cited Andic, Martin. "Love's Redoubling and the Eternal Like for Like." In Works of Love. Vol. 16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 9-38. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999. Barrett, Lee C. "Authorial Voices and the Limits of Communication in Kierkegaard's Signed Literature: A Comparison of Works of Love to For Self-Examination and Judge For Yourself!" In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!. Vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 13-35. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Barrett, Lee. "The Joy in the Cross: Kierkegaard's Appropriation of Lutheran Christology in 'The Gospel of Sufferings'." In Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Vol. 15, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 257-285. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Cochrane, Arthur C. The Existentialists and God. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956. Collins, James. The Mind of Kierkegaard. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953. 147

Fabro, Cornelio. "Aristotle and Aristotelianism." In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 27-53. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981. Gil, Jerry H. "Kantianism." In Kierkegaard and Great Traditions. Vol. 6, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 223-229. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1981. Hannay, Alastair. "Spirit and the Idea of the Self as a Reflexive Relation." In The Sickness unto Death. Vol. 19, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 23-38. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987. Law, David R. "Cheap Grace and the Cost of Discipleship in Kierkegaard's For Self- Examination." In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself. Vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 111-142. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Martens, Paul. '"You Shall Love: Kant, Kierkegaard, and the Interpretation of Matthew 22:39." In Works of Love. Vol. 16, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 39-55. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999. Martens, Paul. "The Emergence of the Holy Spirit in Kierkegaard's Thought: Critical Theological Developments in For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself7" In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!. Vol.21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 199-222. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Mattes, Mark C. The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology. Lutheran Quarterly Books. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004. Podmore, S. D. "The Lightning and the Earthquake: Kierkegaard on the Anfechtung of Luther." The Heythrop Journal 47, no. 4 (2006): 562-578. Rae, Murray. "Kierkegaard, Barth, and Bonhoeffer: Conceptions of the Relation between Grace and Works." In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!. Vol. 21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 143-167. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Rae, Murray. Kierkegaard's Vision of the Incarnation: By Faith Transformed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Saarinen, Risto. "Forgiveness, the Gift, and Ecclesiology." Dialog 45, no. 1 (2006): 55- 62. Saarinen, Risto. "The Word of God in Luther's Theology." The Lutheran Quarterly 4 (Spring 1990): 31-44. Shults, F. LeRon. "The futurity of God in Lutheran theology." Dialog 42, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 39-49. Soe, N. H. "Christ." In Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard. Vol. 5, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, eds. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulova Thulstrup, 55-70. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Boghandel, 1980. 148

Stjerna, Kirsi. "Rethinking Lutheran Spirituality." The Sewanee Theological Review 46, no. 1 (Christmas 2002): 29-47. Walsh, Sylvia. "Dying to the World and Self-Denial in Kierkegaard's Religious Thought." In For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself1'. Vol.21, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 169-197. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. Walsh, Sylvia. Living Christianly: Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Christian Existence. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Wyschogrod, Michael. Kierkegaard and Heidegger: The Ontology of Existence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1954.