Summer Reading with Korrektiv
The two Jonathans have started up a dialogue with, and around, Kierkegaard’s Stages On Life’s Way, and I’ll be sure to join in whenever I have something to add. Probably even more often than that. If I have any longer comments to make I’ll make an effort to copy them here, including this quotation from B16, found in Salt of the Earth:
(Seewald) Christianity was never so widespread around the world as it is today. But the salvation of the world doesn’t automatically go along with the expansion.
Ratzinger In point of fact, the quantitative expansion of Christianity, which, after all, is measured by the number of professing Christians, doesn’t automatically imply the improvement of the world, because not all who call themselves Christians really are Christians. Christianity works only indirectly, through men, through their freedom, on the shaping of the world. It is not itself already the establishment of a new political and social system, which would banish calamity.
I think this quotation is instructive for a number of reasons. The first is that I think it fits in with Kierkegaard’s conception of one of the chief problems of ‘Christendom’, and the chief task of one who would profess himself a Christian in such a culture. And certainly the idea that “Christianity works only indirectly, through men, through their freedom” is an idea to which Kierkegaard would be sympathetic. Though not, I don’t think, in complete agreement. One of Ratzinger’s chief concerns is, of course, ‘Christianity’ but I think Kierkegaard would substitute the word – the actual person – ‘Christ’ in adapting the above quotation. I’m also reminded of Auden (himself a very careful reader of Kierkegaard) and his comment that nobody but Christ himself and perhaps the saints are really worthy of being called ‘Christians’. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how comfortable Kierkegaard would have been with ‘the salvation of the world’, so concerned was he with the salvation of ‘the individual’. And there, it seems to me, is the rub.
A second reason is that I’ve always harbored the suspicion (which I can’t really support) that Kierkegaard was secretly, perhaps even unbeknownst to himself, working towards the Roman Catholic Church, based mainly on my understanding (admittedly pretty fuzzy) of his attitudes towards state-sponsored Christianity. I also wonder whether his problems vis-à-vis marriage aren’t somehow connected to a call to celibacy, to which of course the Roman Catholic Church has been such a steadfast witness. I think that others have suggested this is at least possible as well. I realize there are good reasons to doubt either of these assertions to be true, but perhaps it’s worth throwing out in just this sort of brainstorming session.
Here’s a question for Kierkegaard scholars: what were Kierkegaard’s reflections (if any) on the doctrine of the Trinity? Or of Christ considered in light of Christological developments by theologians in the ancient church? Did he concern himself with contemporary views of Christological issues? I guess t hat’s several questions.
(Seewald) Christianity was never so widespread around the world as it is today. But the salvation of the world doesn’t automatically go along with the expansion.
Ratzinger In point of fact, the quantitative expansion of Christianity, which, after all, is measured by the number of professing Christians, doesn’t automatically imply the improvement of the world, because not all who call themselves Christians really are Christians. Christianity works only indirectly, through men, through their freedom, on the shaping of the world. It is not itself already the establishment of a new political and social system, which would banish calamity.
I think this quotation is instructive for a number of reasons. The first is that I think it fits in with Kierkegaard’s conception of one of the chief problems of ‘Christendom’, and the chief task of one who would profess himself a Christian in such a culture. And certainly the idea that “Christianity works only indirectly, through men, through their freedom” is an idea to which Kierkegaard would be sympathetic. Though not, I don’t think, in complete agreement. One of Ratzinger’s chief concerns is, of course, ‘Christianity’ but I think Kierkegaard would substitute the word – the actual person – ‘Christ’ in adapting the above quotation. I’m also reminded of Auden (himself a very careful reader of Kierkegaard) and his comment that nobody but Christ himself and perhaps the saints are really worthy of being called ‘Christians’. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how comfortable Kierkegaard would have been with ‘the salvation of the world’, so concerned was he with the salvation of ‘the individual’. And there, it seems to me, is the rub.
A second reason is that I’ve always harbored the suspicion (which I can’t really support) that Kierkegaard was secretly, perhaps even unbeknownst to himself, working towards the Roman Catholic Church, based mainly on my understanding (admittedly pretty fuzzy) of his attitudes towards state-sponsored Christianity. I also wonder whether his problems vis-à-vis marriage aren’t somehow connected to a call to celibacy, to which of course the Roman Catholic Church has been such a steadfast witness. I think that others have suggested this is at least possible as well. I realize there are good reasons to doubt either of these assertions to be true, but perhaps it’s worth throwing out in just this sort of brainstorming session.
Here’s a question for Kierkegaard scholars: what were Kierkegaard’s reflections (if any) on the doctrine of the Trinity? Or of Christ considered in light of Christological developments by theologians in the ancient church? Did he concern himself with contemporary views of Christological issues? I guess t hat’s several questions.
posted by Quin Finnegan at 12:37 PM
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