Kierkegaard and Christian Philosophy

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DOMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JOSEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XIV OCTOBER, 1951 No. 4 KIERKEGAARD AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY KIERKEGAARD gave a good deal of thought to the fate of his own lifework and reputation at the hands of posterity. He wanted to avoid scholarly embalmment and to discourage the growth of a Kierkegaardian cult, but on both counts his wishes were denied him. Minute scliolars and enthusiasts have found him a fair subject for their attentions , and there is certainly room for both scholarship and enthusiasm in any assessment of his mind and personality. But if these qualities are divorced from critical independence of outlook, they serve only to betray him and to give us a false impression. Kierkegaard could never tolerate personal adulation or an indiscriminate reception of his message. Like Bergson and Marx, he repudiated in advance any attempt to attach an " ism " to his name: Kierkegaardianism seemed as ridiculous to him as Socratism, since both thinkers located truth in the personal relation of man to man. Similarly, his conception of 441 442 JAMES COLLINS truth as demanding an individual, responsible decision about the meaning of one's life led him to warn against a merely disinterested analysis of his teaching. This does not rule out a legitimate study of his mind in accord with the canons of historical research. But Kierkegaard requested the historian of philosophy and religion to present his thoughts in such a way that they would offer a constant challenge in regard to their relevance for contemporary problems. In avoiding these two abuses, Kierkegaard nevertheless looked forward to the advent of both his poet and his critic. The former personage would be one possessing sufficient insight and sympathy to grasp the meaning of his life and convey to others something of its original venturesomeness. To a man whose own days were spent in the shadow of misunderstanding, this hope of an eventual transparency before men as well as God was a great support. He did not conceive his poet's function as one of vindicating all his moves but as one of securing an honest hearing for all the evidence and perspectives upon which he himself had acted. One consideration which conditioned all of Kierkegaard's actions· was the idea that, like Luther, he was called upon to be a corrective of the peculiar cultural and religious situation of his own day. Hence he consistently refused to regard his position as an ultimate standard , but only as the standard which was most needed during his lifetime. This does not mean that he denied permanent norms of thought and conduct or that he tried to disregard them. It is rather an acknowledgment of his own limitations, his proclivity towards the onesided and paradoxical, and the specially unbalanced condition of his own world. Thus he felt the need for more than a poet. He expected that there would be a critical sifting of his convictions and an integration of them with a norm, a normal outlook. It is unlikely that any single individual can successfully claim to be the poet or the critic hailed from afar by Kierkegaard. The work of understanding and evaluating him is a cooperative one, one which may be carried out in several different ways. KIERKEGAARD AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY 448 This is evident from a survey of his various critics. The great majority of them can be classified among either the existentialist philosophers or the crisis theologians. In their different ways, they have called attention to his general importance and to many particular points of interest. Their estimates of his mind, however, often stand in sharp mutual contrast, leaving open the question of his basic contribution to the human search after truth. A majority of the existentialists want a Kierkegaard from whom the sting of living one's life before God and eternity has been removed. But the atheistic, temporalistic interpretation is forced to discard or explain contrariwise all the convictions which he considered most valuable and unambiguous . For their part, the crisis theologians have retained most of his religious beliefs. But...