EDIFYING DISCOURSES A Selection S0REN KIERKEGAARD Edited with an Introduction by Paul L. Holmer Translated by David F. and Lillian Marvin Swenson t harper torchbooks / The Cloister Library HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com edifying discourses: A Selection Copyright © 1958 by Paul L. Holmer Printed in the United States of America All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written per- mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Brothers 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N. Y. This selection of the Discourses is reprinted by arrangement with the fol- lowing publishers: aucsburg publishing house for "Preface," "The Expecta- tion of Faith," "Every Good and Perfect Thing is From Above," "Love Shall Cover a Multitude of Sins" from Edifying Discourses, vol. I; "The Lord Gave and the Lord Hath Taken Away" from Edifying Discourses, vol. II; "Remember Now Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth" and "The Expec- tation of an Eternal Happiness" from Edifying Discourses, vol. Ill; "Man's Need of God Constitutes his Highest Perfection" from Edifying Discourses, vol. IV; "Love Conquers All" from Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life; "The Narrowness is the Way" and "The Glory of Our Common Humanity" from The Gospel of Suffering. These Discourses have been trans- lated from the Danish by David F. and Lillian Marvin Swenson, copyright 1941, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948 by Augsburg Publishing House. Princeton university press for "The Unchangeableness of God" from For Self- Examination and Judge for Yourselves! translated by David Swenson, copy- right 1944, by Princeton University Press. First Harper Torchbook edition published 1958 Library of Congress catalogue card number: 58-jioj Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com CONTENTS PAGE Introduction by Paul L. Holmer vii Preface 1 i. The Expectation of Faith 2 ii. Every Good and Perfect Thing is From Above 29 in. Love Shall Cover a Multitude of Sins 50 iv. The Lord Gave and the Lord Hath Taken Away, Blessed Be the Name of The Lord 67 v. Remember Now Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth 87 vi. The Expectation of an Eternal Happiness 109 vii. Man's Need of God Constitutes his Highest Per- fection 136 viii. Love Conquers All 177 ix. The Narrowness is the Way 209 x. The Glory of Our Common Humanity 230 xi. The Unchangeableness of God 253 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com INTRODUCTION TO THE TORCHBOOK EDITION by Paul L. Holmer Thou plain man [wrote Kierkegaard toward the close of his life]! The Christianity of the New Testament is infinitely high; but observe that it is not high in such a sense that it has to do with the difference between man and man with respect to intel- lectual capacity, etc. No, it is for all. Thou plain man! I have not separated my life from thine; thou knowest it, I have lived in the street, am known to all; . Thou plain man! I do not conceal from thee the fact that, according to my notion, the thing of being a Christian is infinitely high, that at no time are there more than a few who attain it, as Christ's own life attests, if one considers the generation in which He lived, and as also His preaching indicates, if one takes it lit- 1 erally. Yet nevertheless it is possible for all. .. - It is with this explicit appeal to plain people that all of the discourses in this book were written. Each discourse is calcu- lated to bring the reader, whatever his aesthetic and intellec- tual capacity, into conversation about religious and Christian concerns. For this reason, among others, Kierkegaard sug- gests that they should be read in privacy and preferably aloud. Their simplicity and repetitive style make them extremely effective devotional essays. Not every discourse, however, is equally adapted to every 1 Attack Upon "Christendom," translated by Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), pp. 287-88. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Vlll INTRODUCTION reader. Kierkegaard therefore suggested in subtle ways that the person whom he calls "with joy and gratitude, 'my' reader" will be self-chosen. Kierkegaard knew of no way to assure himself of his audience; therefore, he likens his dis- courses to the objects which the bird, his reader, fixes with his eye, flies down to pluck off, and takes away unto himself. It is a safe surmise that each reader can easily enough discover those discourses which are peculiarly adapted to his own interests and needs, and begin there. Kierkegaard flatters his readers by supposing that they are willing and able to explore those needs and interests native to themselves. He seeks to address himself to the universally human in each of us. However, against those who have iden- tified the universally human as rationality or as aesthetic sensibility or as an endowment with natural rights, Kierke- gaard insists that the truly universal and distinctively human factor lies in subjectivity and inwardness. Furthermore, by developing our capacities for interest, for enthusiasm and passion, we become ethical and religious subjects. The dis- courses are efforts, then, to stimulate and also to discipline our feelings, wishes, and hopes. Kierkegaard does not try to convey results as much as to elicit in his reader a self-activity and a process of appropriation. His conviction is that every man is potentially a being of spirit. This means in effect that the awakening of inwardness is the beginning of the relation- ship to God. If the reader should discover that these discourses speak poignantly to him, he may want to read more of them. The first eight discourses included in this selection are chosen from twenty-one printed in five small volumes: Edifying Dis- courses Vols. I-IV (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1943-1944) and Thoughts on Crucial Situations (same publisher, 1941); the next two, numbers IX and X, are Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com INTRODUCTION IX from The Gospel of Suffering and What We Learn From the Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air, respectively, where ten discourses are published under the single title, The Gospel of Suffering (Augsburg Publishing House, 1948); the last discourse in this selection, "The Unchangeableness of God," accompanies Walter Lowrie's translation of For Self- Examination (Oxford University Press, 1941), another and substantial work in a religious mood. All of the above essays were translated by David F. Swenson or his wife and widow, Lillian Marvin Swenson. The story of Kierkegaard's life is essentially the story of his authorship. His early years seem like the seedtime for a writing career; his last years, when his pen was relatively quiet, are like a benediction upon a work already done. The period between, about nine or ten years, is strenuous but resolute. From 1842 to 1851, Kierkegaard wrote about thirty- five books and the bulk of his twenty-volume journal. When giving an account of his literature, he said it was like a single movement, accomplished in one breath. 2 S0ren Aabye Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen in 1813 and died in 1855. A desultory youthful period, including study at the University of Copenhagen, was climaxed by a broken engagement. This event, so common to the rest of the world, became for Kierkegaard in 1841 the precipitating cause of his entire authorship. By 1843 his writing career was launched and books began to pour forth in profusion. Either/Or in two volumes, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Dread, The Stages, on Life's Way and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript were published within the thirty-six-month period ending in February, 1846. Besides being some of the finest literature 2 On My Work As an Author in The Point of View, translated by Walter Lowrie (Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 146-47. Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com X INTRODUCTION penned in Scandinavia, if not all of Europe, these pages in- clude as well the most discriminating philosophic reasoning. Oddly enough, though, these are not all of Kierkegaard's works even for this brief period. For at intervals during these same months he also published seven smaller volumes of religious discourses. These accompanied in a certain manner the above-noted longer works. The first series of books were issued under pseudonyms, this not so much to secure anonym- ity as to fulfill a certain pedagogical intention. The second series, the religious discourses, were published under Kierke- gaard's own name. Kierkegaard asserted that the use of his own name was crucial evidence, despite the somewhat ambiguous nature of his writings, that he was, from first to last, a religious author. The early literature from 1843 to 1846 has then two strands. The first which is pseudonymous is also philosophical and argumentative. In obedience to the pedagogical principle which says that one who teaches must begin where the learners are, Kierkegaard creates authors who are ideal repre- sentations of the kind of existence they describe. From Either/Or through the Postscript, a transition is effected, from an aesthetic view of life which is hedonistic and largely a quest for immediate satisfactions, through an ethical view which is dutiful and describes existence as a responsible and obliged sojourn, into the religious view. The Postscript, to- gether with the Fragments, carries the depiction, again pseudonymously, from a mild kind of religiousness, perhaps akin to Ralph Waldo Emerson's Unitarian Christianity, to a more severe and demanding form of Christianity, that which is paradoxical and even entails suffering.