Kierkegaard and the Catholic Tradition: Conflict and Dialogue

8 Kierkegaard and the Communion of Saints

200 eight Kierkegaard and the Communion of Saints The one knight of faith cannot help the other at all. Johannes de Silentio The emphasis with which Kierkegaard describes the “individual” in his or her relationship to God may sound splendid, yet it nevertheless adds up to an obvious loss for the communion of saints. Hans Urs von Balthasar Can Balthasar’s accusation above be sustained with justice?1 Is it the case that Kierkegaard is an individualist of the sort that Silentio’s pseudony­ mous passage would seem to suggest he is, or does Kierkegaard himself have more to say on this question than does his pseudonym? The nascent or “buried” faith Benedict XVI discusses bears some interesting com­ parisons with Kierkegaard’s motifs of process in redemption. Yet, after recalling, this time under the papal seal, his earlier concept of purgatory, Benedict asks this question of his concept of purgatory: “if ‘Purgatory’ is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge, and Savior, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is par­ ticularly close to the other?”2 Benedict’s answer to this question draws on his convictions that “no one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone.”3 He goes Kierkegaard and the Communion of Saints · 201 on to say, “As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that oth­ ers may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.”4 When we apply this to the question of purgatory it raises the question of com­ merce between the blessed in heaven, those undergoing purification in purgatory, and the pilgrim Church on earth.5 Kierkegaard never seems to have dealt in any great detail with this question, but there is reason to suspect he would not have received it very favorably, both because he seems not to have dealt much with the present state of the dead and because his Lutheran heritage is not always amenable to the transfer of spiritual benefits.6 On this latter point it is worth noting that, although Luther can be portrayed as more of an individualist than he was, it is clear that an important aspect of his reform was to call Christians to more personal accountability for their own standing before God. On this point, when Luther was discussing the practice of offering a Mass for someone else, he writes, “Therefore, let this irrefutable truth stand fast: Where there is a divine promise, there every one must stand on his own feet; his own personal faith is demanded. . . . It is absolutely impossible to commune on behalf of anyone else.”7 Of course, it does not follow for Luther that there is anything wrong or ineffective about intercessory prayer, since Luther distinguishes communing on behalf of a person (which he rejects) and praying, in the course of a Mass, for a person (which he accepts).8 Although we have no systematic treatment of intercessory prayer from the pen of Kierkegaard, I know of no reason why he could not accept it, and this practice might secure certain benefits for the living.9 Thus, putting aside for the time being the question of whether ben­ efits can be sought for the dead, let us recall that St. Francis de Sales insisted that penance and contrition could also be called a certain kind of “purgatory,” as “everything can be that serves to purge away our of­ fences.”10 For the Catholic tradition, only venial sins and temporal pun­ ishments for sin are cleansed in purgatory, as opposed to permanently unrepented and fully consensual mortal sins, which are given their rec­ ompense in hell. Yet, there are two ways in which this purification can be expanded. First, as we have noted, the purification of “purgatory” may occur in this life as well. Second, the exchange in purifying “spiri­ 202 · Sin, Justification, and Community tual goods” that the Catholic Church understands by the communion of saints allows the benefits of certain works and prayers of the faithful to be applied to others. Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the...