https://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Provocations.pdf
Acclaim for Provocations
Richard Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary
Kierkegaard’s writings seem to get more “contemporary” every year.
This well-selected collection of writings should be read and re-read by
everyone who is attempting to minister to our present generation.
William Willimon, Duke University Chapel
Moore has done us a great service in sifting through Kierkegaard and
giving us his essential writings. Here is a book to be savored, enjoyed,
and yes, provoked by.
Donald Bloesch, author, The Crisis of Piety
An important and helpful guide to Kierkegaard’s spirituality.
Gregory A. Clark, North Park University
Since Kierkegaard scholarship has become a cottage industry, it is has
become possible to exchange Kierkegaard’s passion for a passion for
Kierkegaard’s works. Moore’s introduction and collection retrieve the
passion that animates Kierkegaard himself. That passion, with all its
force, still addresses the reflective reader.
Vernon Grounds, Chancellor, Denver Seminary
The editor needs to be congratulated on discerning in the overwhelm
ing task of choosing the best when everything is of the highest quality.
This book is an outstanding addition to Kierkegaard publications. It
will influence readers to become enthusiastic students of his Christ-
centered thought.
Daniel Taylor, author, The Myth of Certainty
I discover in Kierkegaard an honesty, passion, and insight into the hu
man condition and the life of faith that speaks to my deepest needs.
Kierkegaard is one of a small handful of thinkers with whom every re
flective Christian must come to terms.
Clark H. Pinnock, author, Flame of Love
Provocations brings Søren Kierkegaard, a fountain of deep wisdom
and radical faith, to readers who might otherwise have difficulty un
derstanding him. Here one finds many solid and well-chosen excerpts
from across the entire literary corpus of this most paradoxical prophet
and insightful philosopher.
Arthur F. Holmes, author, Fact, Value, and God
…Provides a helpful overview of Kierkegaard’s thinking that cannot
be gained from reading just one or two of his books. Provocations cap
tures his spirit and core concerns without neglecting lesser themes,
while preserving his style and readying the reader for his major works.
Diogenes Allen, author, Spiritual Theology
A comprehensive selection from Kierkegaard’s massive output, ar
ranged so as to give the reader an appreciation of the main themes and
preoccupations of Kierkegaard’s thought.
Colin Brown, Fuller Theological Seminary
Moore has provided enough introductory material to enable the
reader to understand Kierkegaard’s thought in the context of his life
and times. Otherwise, his judicious selection lets the texts speak for
themselves. Here is a book for meditation, for quiet reading, for faith
and for understanding.
Kelly James Clark, author, When Faith Is Not Enough
With its excellent introduction and astute selections of texts, this book
unleashes the ferociously important Kierkegaard. This work admira
bly clarifies Kierkegaard’s often opaque but passionate thoughts on
faith, freedom, and the meaning of life.
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p r o v o c a t i o n s
Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard
Compiled and Edited by
Charles E. Moore
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
i to will one thing 1
1 Dare to Decide 7 Suspending the Ethical
2 Either/Or 8 To Need God Is Perfection
3 Under the Spell 9 Purity of Heart
of Good Intentions 10 Emissaries from Eternity
4 The Greatest Danger 11 God Has No Cause
5 The Task 12 An Eternity in Which
6 Against the Crowd to Repent
ii truth and the passion
of inwardness
13 Truth Is the Way
14 The Road Is How
15 Two Ways of Reflection
16 The Weight of Inwardness
17 Christ Has No Doctrine
18 Faith: The Matchless
Lack of Logic
49
19 Passion and Paradox
20 The Folly of Proving
God’s Existence
21 Answering Doubt
22 Alone With God’s Word
23 Followers not Admirers
24 Fear and Trembling
iii the works of love 91
25 God’s Triumphant Love 30 Love Builds Up
26 Neighbor Love 31 Love’s Like-for-Like
27 The Greater Love 32 Love Abides – Forever!
28 Love the Person You See 33 When Love Is Secure
29 Love’s Hidden Need
iv anxiety and the gospel
of suffering 125
34 Nebuchadnezzar
35 The War Within
36 Sickness Unto Death
37 The Dynamics of Despair
38 Consider the Lilies
39 Behold the Birds of the Air
40 The Royal Coachman
41 The Invitation
v
42 When the Burden Is Light 44 To Suffer Christianly
43 A Dangerous Schooling
christian collisions 169
45 The Offense 51 Gospel for the Poor
46 What Says the Fire Chief? 52 How God Relates Inversely
47 Christianity Does 53 Undercover Clergy
Not Exist 54 “First the Kingdom of God”
48 What Madness 55 Childish Orthodoxy
49 The Echo Answers 56 Kill the Commentators!
50 The Tax Collector 57 Church Militant
vi thoughts that radically cure:
excerpts and aphorisms 209
58 Anxiety and Despair
59 Becoming Christian
60 The Bible
61 Christ
62 Christendom and
Counterfeit Christianity
63 The Cross
64 The Crowd
65 Decisiveness
66 Doctrine and Theology
67 Doubt and Skepticism
68 The Eternal
69 Existence and the
Existential
70 Faith and Reason
71 Following Jesus
72 Forgiveness
73 Freedom
74 God
75 God’s Love
76 Grace
77 The Human Condition
78 The Individual
79 Inwardness and Subjectivity
80 Love
81 Obedience
82 Passion
83 Politics and the State
84 Prayer
85 Preaching and Proclamation
86 Purity
87 Repentance
88 Sacrifice and Self-Denial
89 Silence and Solitude
90 Sin
91 Spiritual Trial
92 Suffering
93 Tribulation and Persecution
94 Truth
95 Venturing and Risk
96 Witness
97 Works
98 Worship
Index of Parables and Stories 417
Sources 419
Annotated Bibliography 427
Introduction
Søren Kierkegaard has been accused of being one of
the most frustrating authors to read. He has also been praised as
one of the most rewarding. Frustrating, because his style is so
dense, his thought so complex, and his words so harsh. Reward
ing, because embedded within his writings and journals are
metaphors and truths so deep and vivid that they can overwhelm
you with an almost blinding clarity. Kierkegaard is not one to be
read lightly, lest you get burned.
The purpose of this collection is twofold. The first is to make
Kierkegaard accessible. Even for the brightest, Kierkegaard is
tough going. Walter Lowrie, Kierkegaard’s most devoted biog
rapher, writes: “Kierkegaard exacts of his reader a very great ef
fort. He declines to make things easy for him by presenting a
‘conclusion,’ and he obliges him, therefore, to approach the goal
by the same difficult path he himself has trod.”
Even Kierkegaard’s fellow Danes found him difficult. This is
unfortunate. Contained within his writings are some of the
richest, most illuminating passages on faith and commitment
ever penned. To help unearth some of these treasures, I have
taken the liberty to abridge lengthy pieces, paraphrase complex
passages, and tighten and simplify convoluted constructions.
Secondly, this collection is meant to present in as concise a
way as possible the “heart” of Kierkegaard. By heart I mean first
those pieces that are concerned with the core themes of his pro
lific output, second, those that exemplify the essence of his
thought, and last but not least, his passion.
Kierkegaard’s Central Passion
Kierkegaard wrote industriously and rapidly, and under a vari
ety of pen-names, presenting various esthetic, ethical, and reli
gious viewpoints on life. His writings display such a wide range
of genre and style, and his thought covers such a variety of sub
jects that even he himself felt compelled to write a book to ex
plain his agenda. Despite this, Kierkegaard was single mindedly
driven. He writes in his Journal: “The category for my under
taking is: to make people aware of what is essentially Christian.”
Two things are noteworthy. First, Kierkegaard aims to make us
aware. “I have worked for a restlessness oriented toward inward
deepening.” “My whole life is an epigram calculated to make
people aware.” In short, Kierkegaard’s task was not the intro
duction of new ideas, a theology or philosophy of life. Rather,
he said “My task is in the service of truth; and its essential form
is obedience.” Kierkegaard was fundamentally existential: “to
keep people awake, in order that religion may not again become
an indolent habit…” His aim was to provoke the individual so
as to become an individual in the truth. The last thing Kierke
gaard wanted to do was to leave his reader the same – intellec
tually enlightened yet inwardly unchanged.
Early in his life, Kierkegaard made the discovery that one
must “find a truth which is true for me – the idea for which I
can live and die.” Part of the human predicament was that we
are all interested in far too many things and thus are not decid
edly committed to any one thing. As he writes in his Journal:
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not
what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must
precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what
God really wishes me to do…What good would it do me if the
truth stood before me, cold and naked, not caring whether I recog
nized her or not, and producing in me a shudder of fear rather than
a trusting devotion? Must not the truth be taken up into my life?
That is what I now recognize as the most important thing.
Kierkegaard’s central task as an author, therefore, was to help
the reader make the truth his own. He deliberately and carefully
plotted his entire authorship to show his readers what it means
to exist, and what inwardness and subjectivity signify. His strat
egy was to help them take a decisive stand: “I wish to make
people aware so that they do not squander and dissipate their
lives.”
Secondly, Kierkegaard is concerned with what is essentially
Christian: “Through my writings I hope to achieve the follow
ing: to leave behind me so accurate a characterization of Chris
tianity and its relationships in the world that an enthusiastic,
noble-minded young person will be able to find in it a map of
relationships as accurate as any topographical map from the
most famous institutes.”
Of what does this map consist? In Practice of Christianity, Ki
erkegaard writes: “If anything is to be done, one must try to in
troduce Christianity into Christendom.” The backdrop to his
entire authorship was a Danish Lutheranism that had degener
ated into a nominal state-religion. Three things, in particular,
marred the church of his day: (1) Intellectualism – the “direct
mental assent to a sum of doctrines”; (2) Formalism – “battal
ions upon battalions” of unbelieving believers; and (3) Pharisa
ism – a herd of hypocritical clergy that ignore the Christianity
they were hired to preach. It was in this climate that Kierkegaard
felt compelled to reintroduce Christianity. He sought to provide
a kind of map that would, for the sake of Christian truth, steer
people away from Christendom. “An apostle’s task is to spread
Christianity, to win people to Christianity. My task is to disabuse
people of the illusion that they are Christians – yet I am serving
Christianity.”
By Christianity Kierkegaard did not mean a system of cor
rect doctrine or a set of behaviors: “The struggle is not between
orthodoxy and heterodoxy. My struggle, much more inward, is
about the how of the doctrine. I say that someone can accept the
whole doctrine, but in presenting it he destroys it.” Kierke
gaard’s contention was that despite sound doctrine, or the what
of faith, “the lives people live demonstrate that there is really no
Christianity – or very little.” Genuine Christianity, according to
Kierkegaard, is anything but doctrine. It is a way of being in the
truth before God by following Jesus in self-denial, sacrifice, suf
fering, and by seeking a primitive relationship with God. Un
fortunately, doctrine is what people want. And the reason for
this is “because doctrine is the indolence of aping and mimick
ing for the learner, and doctrine is the way to power for the
teacher, and doctrine collects people.”
Kierkegaard’s thinking originated in a violent revulsion for
the spurious spirituality of his day. His difficulty was to find a
way out of the confusion that consistently undermined any
thing truly Christian. How in the world are we to get out of the
mess of Christendom, he wondered, when millions, due to the
accident of geography, are Christians? How are we to get Chris
tendom to drop its whole mass of nominal members when “it is
the interest of the clergyman’s trade that there be as many
Christians as possible?” How, exactly, are we to become Chris
tian, especially when “one is a Christian of a sort?”
Kierkegaard’s strategy was to act as a corrective. He explains:
“The person who is to provide the corrective must study the
weak sides of the established order scrupulously and penetrat
ingly and then one-sidedly present the opposite – with expert
one-sidedness.” This revelation is important to keep in mind
while reading Kierkegaard. All the same he said, “a corrective
made into the norm is by that very fact confusing.” Therefore,
one should not lift his thought up and turn it into a norm. He
felt his situation to be desperate, so he sounded the alarm ac
cordingly. Yet he did not do this as some self-proclaimed
prophet. He wrote as one who was without authority and who
himself needed reforming: “What I have said to myself about
myself is true – I am a kind of secret agent in the highest ser
vice. The police use secret agents, too…But the police do not
think of reforming their secret agents. God does.”
Kierkegaard was adamant about his own Christian deficiency:
“For my part I do not call myself a ‘Christian’ (thus keeping the
ideal free), but I am able to make it evident that the others are still
less than I.” This is not meant as a judgment. Kierkegaard’s hope
was to arouse, to expose the deception he, as well as everyone else,
was under. He never felt worthy of doing this. But he was com
pelled to strike out.“I want to make the crowd aware of their own
ruin. Understand me – or do not misunderstand me. I do not in
tend to strike them (alas, one cannot strike the crowd) – no, I will
constrain them to strike me.”
Kierkegaard in Context
In reading Kierkegaard it would be a mistake to ignore the in
ner anguish of his own personal life. The currents of his
thought spring forth from within, as much as they do from his
broader cultural setting. Although a complete biography of Ki
erkegaard is beyond the scope of this introduction, it is impor
tant for our purposes to understand the four significant crisis
relationships in his life. These relationships constitute Kierkeg
aard the man, and grasping them is paramount in understand
ing him as a writer.
The Earthquake
Kierkegaard’s father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was 57, his
mother, Ane Sørensdatter Kierkegaard, 45, when he was born in
1813. Outwardly his childhood was happy and calm. Morally
and intellectually he was formed by his father, and he could af
terwards say that “everything was done to develop his mind as
richly as possible.” Because he was his father’s youngest child
and his favorite, the intimacy between them was great. But Ki
erkegaard describes his upbringing as “an insane upbringing.”
His father was a pietistic, gloomy spirit, an old man whose mel
ancholy sat like a weight on his children.
Kierkegaard’s family was plagued by both physical and psy
chological instability. Only two of the children lived past age
thirty-four. Three of his sisters, then two of his brothers, then
his mother, had died in rapid succession. Kierkegaard’s father
was convinced that he would outlive all of his children, a con
viction his son apparently shared. Kierkegaard’s brother Peter
was forced to resign his position as bishop because of emo
tional difficulties. Inwardly, Kierkegaard felt a gnawing sense of
“silent despair.” From childhood on he always felt under the
power of “a monstrously brooding temperament.” In an 1846
journal entry he reflects:
An old man who himself was extremely melancholy gets a
son in his old age who inherits all this melancholy – but who
also has a mental-spiritual elasticity enabling him to hide his
melancholy. Furthermore, because he is essentially and emi
nently healthy of mind and spirit, his melancholy cannot domi
nate him, but neither is he able to throw it off; at best he
manages to endure it.
Early on Kierkegaard realized that there was a strange incon
sistency between his father’s piety and his inner unrest. In an
other journal entry he writes:
The greatest danger for a child, where religion is concerned, is not
that his father or teacher should be an unbeliever, not even his be
ing a hypocrite. No, the danger lies in their being pious and God-
fearing, and in the child being convinced thereof, but that he
should nevertheless notice that deep within there lies hidden a ter
rible unrest. The danger is that the child is provoked to draw a con
clusion about God, that God is not infinite love.
Eventually, a break occurred between Kierkegaard and his fa
ther (1835). It was no doubt related to his father’s confession of
his childhood cursing of God and of his sexual impropriety.
(Kierkegaard’s mother, his father’s second wife, had been one of
the family’s maids. Kierkegaard’s father had seduced her, dis
covered she was pregnant, and felt compelled to marry her.) On
discovering the reality of his father’s weaknesses – Kierkegaard
had always admired his strict piety – he was shattered. As he
described it later, the revelation was “a great earthquake, a ter
rible upheaval that suddenly forced on me a new and infallible
interpretation of all phenomena.” At first, the discovery dis
turbed Kierkegaard’s entire moral outlook, throwing him into a
period of dissipation and despair during which he completely
neglected his theological studies at the University. Eventually,
however, Kierkegaard began to suspect that his life was to be
spent for some extraordinary purpose.
Prior to the death of Kierkegaard’s father (1838), the two
managed to reconcile. Kierkegaard realized that his father had
left an indelible mark on his life. His call to a life of religious
service, his intellectual gifts, his sense of absolute obedience,
and even his melancholy were all part of an inheritance for
which he came to be grateful. He saw that he had been mistaken
concerning his family’s curse and now felt under obligation to
redeem his promise to his father and complete his university
studies, which he did over the next two years.
Broken Engagement
At this time Kierkegaard became engaged to sixteen-year-old
Regine Olsen, whom he had felt attracted to for little over a
year. Next to his father, no aspect of Kierkegaard’s life is as im
portant as was his relationship to Regine. The day after his en
gagement, however, Kierkegaard felt he had made a mistake: He
saw that he could never conquer his melancholy and felt unable
to confide in Regine as to the causes of it. “I would have to keep
too much from her, base the whole marriage on a lie.”
To break off an engagement was in those days a serious mat
ter, and socially speaking, placed the woman in an unfavorable
light. To save Regine, therefore, Kierkegaard resolved to take all
the blame on himself for the broken engagement. This he did in
the most bizarre manner: for the next several months he posed
as an irresponsible philanderer, noisily showing off in public
and striving to turn appearances against himself by every
means in his power. Not surprisingly, he quickly aroused the in
dignation of public opinion and the disapproval of friends.
Everyone was fooled, except Regine. When the break finally
came in 1841, he wrote: “When the bond broke, my feeling was
this: either to plunge into wild dissipation, or into absolute
religiousness – though of a different kind from that of the
parson’s.”
Kierkegaard chose the latter. But he also chose something
else: the writer’s life. “From that moment, I dedicated my life
with every ounce of my poor ability to the service of an idea.”
Less than a month after breaking off his engagement Kierke
gaard sailed for Berlin, where he began to write. It came over
him like a torrent, driving him incessantly on during the next
ten years – a period in which he produced thirty-five books and
twenty volumes of journals (In 1843 he published no fewer than
six books, the first being his biggest, Either/Or).
The “Corsair” Affair
Kierkegaard’s authorship proceeded along two lines, the aes
thetic and the religious. The purpose of the first was “to repre
sent the various life-views on existence.” Using pen-names and
an “indirect method,” Kierkegaard sought to beguile his reader
into the truth. His strategy was one of “entrapment” – to sur
round the reader with the alternatives before him, put them in
contradiction to each other, and then help him see the many
false ultimates by which people live their lives.
As for the second, Kierkegaard authored a string of discourses
and works intended to enlighten readers by making them directly
aware of what the Christian ideal really was. As far as Kierke
gaard’s writing went, he was able to realize this goal; as for his re
ception as a thinker with something serious to say, things took an
unexpected twist: The Corsair, a gossipy tabloid weekly, reviewed
Either/Or in such a way that Kierkegaard felt he had been made a
laughingstock.
In actual fact, Goldschmidt, the publisher of Corsair, ad
mired Kierkegaard’s intellectual and writing gifts; after the pub
lication of Either/Or he even hosted a banquet in Kierkegaard’s
honor. Yet Kierkegaard, offended by all the attention, tried to
distance himself from the “scandalous” paper and did not at
tend. On top of that, he sought to retaliate by publishing a caus
tic pseudonymous article, which let loose a fire storm of fury
that lasted well over a year. Week after week Kierkegaard was
ridiculed, caricatured, parodied. His long nose, thin legs and
the uneven length of his trousers became a standing joke. His
wealth and his alms-giving, his drives and his walks were all
over-exaggerated and discussed in detail.
Kierkegaard was deeply hurt. Publicly, he displayed indiffer
ence, but his journals refer to the incident for the next three
years and show a deep hurt. He became an object of ridicule,
with a nickname: “Either-or”. Secretly, he complained that his
little article created “more of a sensation…than all my writing
put together.” “I am positive that my whole life will never be as
important as my trousers.”
The Corsair affair embittered Kierkegaard and drove him
once and for all to pen and paper. There could be no thought of
retiring to a peaceful parsonage in the country. That would be
fleeing from persecution. In fact, Kierkegaard felt that the event
was providential, insofar as it clarified and affirmed his asser
tion that Christianity and “the public” are opposite terms. He
now saw that God had entrusted him with a specific mission: to
speak directly to his contemporaries about the colossal decep
tion of Christendom. In the end, the incident only “put new
strength into my instrument, forced me to publish even more.”
Attack Upon Christendom
The event that brought Kierkegaard’s attack upon Christendom
to a head-on collision was the death of Bishop Mynster. Myn
ster, the Primate of the Danish Church, had been a family friend
and pastor for many years, and Kierkegaard revered him highly.
But after Kierkegaard published Practice in Christianity, which
attacks clerical Christianity, Mynster was incensed, and the two
became irreparably estranged.
In January, 1854, Mynster died. Martensen, Mynster’s succes
sor, declared Mynster to be “one of the holy chain of witnesses
for the truth which extends through the centuries down from
the time of the Apostles.” The claim pushed Kierkegaard over
the edge. It seemed like blasphemy, a corruption of all Christian
values, to speak of Mynster in such a way. “Bishop Mynster a
witness for the truth!” he exploded. “You who read this, you
know well what in a Christian sense is a witness for the truth…
It is absolutely essential to suffer for the teaching of Christian
ity. The truth is that Mynster was worldly-wise – weak, plea
sure-seeking, and was great only as a declaimer.”
In a series of pamphlets entitled The Instant, Kierkegaard now
turned agitator and addressed himself directly to the people.
Little by little, Christianity had been weakened by removing all
the difficulties of faith. “In the splendid palace chapel a stately
court preacher, the cultivated public’s elite, advances before an
elite circle of fashionable and cultivated people and preaches
emotionally on the text of the Apostle, ‘God chose the lowly and
despised’ – and nobody laughs!” “This is the falsification of
which official Christianity is guilty: it does not make known the
Christian requirement – perhaps because it is afraid people
would shudder to see at what a distance from it we are living.”
Here Kierkegaard broke with all that had gone before; he was
now engaged “not in communication, but assault.” “Strictly
speaking, it is not I who am ringing the alarm bell; I am starting
the fire in order to smoke out illusions and knavish tricks; it is a
police raid, and a Christian police raid, for, according to the New
Testament, Christianity is incendiarism.”
The swiftness and mercilessness of his attack seem to have
left his contemporaries without a defense. But the immense ex
ertions of the last months shattered him too. His strength, as
well as his money, was gone. After fainting in the streets of
Copenhagen on October 2, 1855, he was hospitalized.
Kierkegaard died on November 11, 1855. To the end, Kierke
gaard would not retract a word he wrote and refused commun
ion from a priest. He was at peace, he said, and felt his life’s
calling had been fulfilled. Dying was but a crown on his work.
Basic Themes
The story of Kierkegaard’s life is actually the inward drama of a
deeply religious thinker. His relationships with his father,
Regine, Goldschmidt, and Mynster were such that they turned
his inner anguish into a kind of redemptive suffering on behalf
of his contemporaries. In the crucible of his melancholy and in
the chamber of his own relationship with God, there emerged a
vision of faith and earnestness that influenced some of the
greatest thinkers in the twentieth century.
Kierkegaard’s thought, however, cannot be easily catego
rized. Some see him as the originator of Existentialism. Others
identify him as a mystic. Still others argue that he was a quintes
sential ascetic. One thing is clear: Kierkegaard stands against
every form of thinking that bypasses the individual or enables
the individual to escape his responsibility before God. He also
made an absolute demand that “idea” should be translated into
existence (being and doing), which is exactly what his contem
poraries, in his opinion, failed to do: “Most systematizers stand
in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a
great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in
their great systematic structure. But in spiritual matters this
will always be a crucial objection. Metaphorically speaking, a
person’s ideas must be the building he lives in – otherwise there
is something terribly wrong.”
This does not mean that Kierkegaard advocated a loose
string of contradictory ideas. Far from it! His thought possesses
an intricate pattern. He carefully weaves together numerous
themes, and does so in such a way that the reader is left with
clear options. But these options are not in terms of beliefs or
theories. These would only rob life of its tension. Again,
Kierkegaard’s primary aim was to excite the reader to choose –
to force the reader into self-examination. This has to be kept in
the forefront whenever an attempt is made to summarize his
thought.
In what follows I hope to place Kierkegaard in the context of
certain recurring themes in his writings, and thus provide con
text for the selections of this book.
The Spheres of Existence
To become a genuine self, an individual in the truest sense, was
of central concern to Kierkegaard. He often wrote of “stages on
life’s ways” or “spheres of existence” – different levels on which
people live out their lives: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the reli
gious. To become genuinely human, as a Christian individual,
involves a movement toward the religious sphere of existence, a
sphere that includes but also transcends the other two spheres.
The aesthetic life is life immediately lived – a life lived for
“the moment.” It is the lifestyle in which people are absorbed in
satisfying their “natural” desires and impulses, whether physi
cal, emotional, or intellectual. These people are solely con
cerned with their own happiness and believe that the key to
happiness is found in externals – who they know, what they do,
the roles they play, what they possess, where they live, and so on.
They live for enjoyment, on the surface of life. They are observ
ers, spectators, tasters, but not serious participants. They have
no real inner life, no real self to offer to others. Their well-being
is determined by the choices or moods of others and by forces
that extend beyond their control. When they make decisions,
they are not internalized. Thus, when things go wrong, aesthetic
persons never accept responsibility or blame. Such people are
apathetic, indifferent, and unintegrated. They are unable to
commit themselves to any one thing. Something better might
always come along, and so they split their energies in different
directions.
The aesthetic life is certainly not restricted to the senses. Ki
erkegaard also criticizes the philosopher who is solely concerned
with ideas – intellectual systems that leave the thinker un
changed, with no reason to choose this or that. For Kierkegaard,
Hegel is the typical speculative thinker. Like all intellectualizers,
he confuses thought with existence. He assumes that truth can be
formulated into a system of ideas or a set of doctrines. In doing
this the philosopher becomes a mere observer of life. He forgets
that he exists, that he must choose and act and take responsibility
for what it is he knows. The speculative thinker makes Christian
ity into theology, instead of recognizing that a living relationship
to Christ involves passion, struggle, decision, personal appropria
tion, and inner transformation.
To move toward authentic personal existence, to become a
Christian, is to move beyond the aesthetic sphere and into the
ethical. The ethical life recognizes the significance of choice.
Here one accepts his duty as a moral actor. The person lays
aside his many desires or impulses, his careless “freedom,” and
heeds his conscience, takes responsibility, and fulfills his moral
obligations. Aesthetic freedom is really enslavement to the pas
sions and as such leads a person to the brink of despair. By con
trast, ethical freedom is the enjoyment and fulfillment of doing
one’s duty. The person who lives at this level tries to realize in
his life what is of eternal, universal value. Such a life recognizes
that within the soul there is something (i.e. the eternal) that
cannot be satisfied by a sensory life. Hence the realization of
enduring values – justice, freedom, peace, love – and respect
for the moral law within propel the ethical self forward into a
life of responsibility, of caring beyond one’s own immediate in
terests. Herein lies true freedom: the ability to fulfill one’s duty,
to move from what is to what ought to be.
The ethical involves both choice and resolution. It also in
volves struggle, because the realization of ethical values takes
effort and time. Therefore an authentic, fully realized indi
vidual is one who is unified from within, whose actions are one,
and who accepts responsibility for his commitments. Unlike
someone who lives at the aesthetic level, the ethical individual is
not swayed by his every emotion or by the opinions of others.
The key to the ethical sphere is freedom. A “bad choice,”
therefore, is better than no choice at all. The aesthetic person
drifts along with the currents around him. The person who
lives ethically, however, determines these very currents. It is not
enough to just do one’s duty. One must passionately choose the
path. Life is an either/or, not just between good and evil, but
between choosing and not choosing. The person who lives in
the ethical sphere lives intentionally, intensively. Such a person
possesses character and conviction, and is thus willing to sacri
fice himself for something greater than oneself.
As admirable and as necessary as he finds the ethical sphere,
however, Kierkegaard believes that life must ultimately be lived
on yet another level: the religious sphere. This sphere has noth
ing to do with institutional religion per se. Rather, an individual
lives religiously when he or she realizes that the ethical life is in
sufficient for solving life’s riddles and choices. The ethical life
fails to adequately deal with exceptional situations. Doing one’s
duty isn’t always simple, especially when different duties con
flict or when one’s various obligations cannot all be fulfilled.
Consequently, there is something higher than universal duty
and this Kierkegaard calls the “Absolute.”
A fully actualized person has to see himself “before God,” to
see himself as he really is. When this occurs, the wide chasm be
tween oneself and God becomes apparent, both because of the
sins one has committed but also because of one’s failure to ful
fill completely his moral duty. The ethical individual, if he is
truly honest with himself, is one who lives in constant fear and
dread precisely because of his inability to fulfill the moral law
and his hesitation to give himself absolutely. In fact, the most
ethical person is precisely the one who feels most inadequate.
As the image of God, each person instinctively knows that God
is higher than the moral law and greater than any set of values.
His conscience tells him that the highest commitment one can
make is to God – the very ground of every moral value. God’s
will, not some abstract law, is what finally matters. And because
no human can measure the demands of God, one must ulti
mately surrender to God in a leap of faith.
To illustrate the difference between the ethical and religious
spheres, Kierkegaard cites Abraham, the “father of all those who
believe.” Abraham, a righteous man, is the paragon of faith be
cause instead of heeding the moral law – “Thou shall not kill” –
he heeded God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham acted as
a true individual because his relationship to God, not to the
moral law, was primary in his life. He did not merely perceive
God through morality or reduce God to the moral law. As a
man of faith, Abraham subjected everything, including his ethi
cal actions, to God. He was willing to sacrifice Isaac for the sake
of his own relationship to God. He acted because God com
manded him to act. He stood before God, answering to no one
but God.
When an individual stands before God he no longer sees
himself as self-sufficient. He recognizes his own inability to
transform himself. The religious person strives to allow himself
to be transformed by God. Such transformation includes three
things: (1) Infinite resignation – dying to the world, the willing
ness to sacrifice any finite good for the sake of God. (2) Suffer
ing – undergoing a transformation of the self, though not by
the self. It is the process of undergoing “self-annihilation” so
that God, not self, can do his transforming work. (3) Guilt – the
feeling of one’s inability to give oneself completely, unreserv
edly, to God.
The religious person, though committed to many of the
same ethical ideals as the ethical person, believes that those ide
als are ultimately incapable of fulfillment, not because of exter
nal barriers but because of his own inner condition. He
recognizes his sinful state. The person of faith relates himself to
God not in self-confident action, but in repentance. He knows
that he not only fails to fulfill his chosen ideals, but that he fails
to have ideals of sufficient worth. To put it differently, he knows
that his chosen “ideals” are themselves insufficient and incom
plete. Thus Kierkegaard says: “An ethic which ignores sin is an
absolutely idle science.” Allowing oneself to be transformed by
God is, in short, more important than fulfilling one’s duty.
Herein lies the significance of Christianity and the gospel.
Genuine Christian existence is different from religious exist
ence in general. The religious person believes that the key to
finding God is to recognize and realize his own guilt and need.
The true Christian, however, recognizes that he, by himself,
cannot do even this. He realizes that even his understanding of
God, let alone of himself, is incomplete and thus defective. He
acknowledges that there is an abyss between him and God, an
“infinite qualitative difference between man and God.” True
awareness of sin comes not from within but only through God’s
revelation to the individual. Sin’s corruption is total, and one’s
ability to choose is itself a gift. The distinguishing mark of a
truly Christian existence is, according to Kierkegaard, the cen
tral paradox of the Gospel – the fact that God, the Eternal, be
comes a human being. This, unlike the truths of the ethical life
or religious insight, cannot be known by means of intuition
only. It comes in revelation and is received by faith: the highest
passion of inwardness.
Subjectivity and Truth
Kierkegaard expends great efforts contrasting objective think
ing and subjective truth. For him, faith is not a belief but a cer
tain way of being in the truth that extends beyond reason’s
ability to grasp. By “subjectivity” Kierkegaard does not mean
subjectivism: a belief is true because one believes it to be true.
He is concerned with the degree to which a person “lives
within” the truth he confesses. To him subjectivity means turn
ing away from the objective realm of facts – that can be learned
by detached observation and abstract thinking – and immers
ing oneself in the subjective, inward activity of discovering
truth for oneself. At its highest pitch, subjectivity culminates in
faith – an infinite passion that is both rationally uncertain and
paradoxical. Faith requires risk, which objective certainty ab
hors. But this is the distinctive mark of Christian faith. Faith
means to wager everything and to suffer for the truth, despite
the offenses of the Incarnation and the Cross.
Faith, therefore, requires a leap. It is not a matter of galvaniz
ing the will to believe something there is no evidence for, but a
leap of commitment. “The leap is the category of decision” –
the decision to commit one’s being totally to a God whose exist
ence is rationally uncertain and whose redemption is utterly an
offense. This is why, according to Kierkegaard, all proofs for the
existence of God and the deity of Christ fail. To try and prove
God’s existence by means of a purely neutral, objective stand
point is completely backwards. It is to go back to the aesthetic
sphere. To the contrary, God is known by way of passionate,
undivided commitment. Besides, Christianity is not a doctrine
to be taught, but rather a life to be lived. “Proofs” are thus not
only unconvincing but irrelevant. God is spirit and therefore
can only be known in a spiritual (i.e., subjective, inward) way.
The how of one’s existence is what is decisive. Herein lies the
importance of commitment; an act of the will that transcends
reason’s requirement.
Again, we may refer to Abraham. Here was a man willing to
commit infanticide in the name of God. “How then did
Abraham exist? He believed. This is the paradox which keeps
him upon the sheer edge and which he cannot make clear to
any other person, for the paradox is that he as the individual
puts himself in an absolute relation to the Absolute.” God re
quires of each of us this degree of commitment: an absolute re
lation to the Absolute. Such commitment can be terrifying as
God leads us “out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fath
oms of water.” And just as Jesus Christ produced certain effects
on his contemporaries, to be his in faith one must be a contem
porary of his and have vital, decisive contact with him now.
There is no such thing as a second-string disciple.
The Single Individual
Kierkegaard understood that the key to the inwardness of faith
was the individual. The “single individual” is paramount in his
thought and contains several meanings. First, it means to stand
alone before God and come to an awareness of God. The sooner
I realize that I stand naked before God, the more authentic I
will become. Second, an individual is a unified, integrated self
ordered by a single purpose. “Purity of heart,” Kierkegaard ex
plains, “is to will one thing.” Third, an individual is a respon
sible self, who in freedom gives account for one’s decisions or
failures to decide. One’s true self is constituted by the decisions
one makes. Lastly, to be an individual is to exist as a unique self
that possesses a dignity above the race, the crowd.
In each of the above senses, Kierkegaard is careful to point
out that before God the individual stands over and against the
crowd. In his mind, “It is impossible to edify or be edified en
masse.” Being an individual resists the conformity-ideals of the
crowd and its ideologies. “A crowd in its very concept is the un
truth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual com
pletely impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his
sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction.” Inauthentic
ity lies precisely in the attempt to live “as a numeral within a
crowd, a fraction within the earthly conglomeration.” For Ki
erkegaard, where there is the crowd, “there is externality, and
comparison, and indulgence, and evasion.”
Wherein lies salvation? There is salvation in only one thing,
in becoming a single individual. The truly spiritual person is
able to endure isolation, to pause “to deepen oneself in inward
ness” before God and his Word. Although in this life one may
find solace in the crowd from God’s radical demands, “In eter
nity you will look in vain for the crowd. You will listen in vain to
find where the noise and the gathering is, so that you can run to
it.” In actual fact, “For the Infinite One, there is no place, the in
dividual is himself the place.”
Passion and Existence
The backdrop of the above themes provides the framework for
Kierkegaard’s insistence that the modern age, including the
church, lacks passion: “Our age is without passion. Everyone
knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and
all the different ways we can go, but nobody is really willing to
move.” Kierkegaard understood present society as a mass of
spectators who live vicariously at second and third hand. His
own image of society is of a drunken peasant who lies asleep in
the wagon and lets the horses take care of themselves: “When
you listen to what he says in a cold and awful dread, you scarcely
know whether it is a human being, or a cunningly contrived
walking stick in which a talking machine has been concealed.”
The malady of our age is mediocrity. It is easy to think that
with all the busyness of modern life people are actually living
engaged lives. In actual fact, however, very few live with passion,
or on the basis of conscience. Everything is calculated in a way
that whatever we do is reduced to the reasonable or unreason
able, or worse yet, to the law of least resistance. Suffering is to be
avoided at all costs. In the name of unconditional freedom op
tions remain open, but in the process, people drift along.
“There are many people who arrive at conclusions in life much
the way schoolboys do; they cheat their teachers by copying the
answer book without having worked the problem themselves.”
This cheating one’s way through life is perhaps exemplified
in today’s preoccupation with the external and with one’s tem
poral circumstances. Kierkegaard reminds us that “in the world
of spirit, to change place is to be changed oneself.” This, how
ever, is precisely what scientific man abhors. We believe the key
to happiness lies outside ourselves. We are thus obsessed with
material benefits and results. We make our happiness depen
dent on situations outside ourselves and blame others in the
process if things don’t turn out well. “In all our ‘freedom,’ we
seek one thing: to be able to live without responsibility.”
Kierkegaard is convinced that Christendom is nothing but a
lifeless outer shell of mediocrity. “Think of a very long railway
train – but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christen
dom is like this…Christendom is tranquillity – how charming,
the tranquillity of not moving from the spot.” Kierkegaard ar
gues that true Christianity is first and foremost a demand. “It is
the deepest wound that can be dealt to a person designed to col
lide with everything on the most appalling scale.” In short, faith
is the passion of sacrifice and self-denial, a way of being in the
world that suffers ridicule and persecution from the established
order with its religious hypocrisy. For this reason, “The will of
Christ is this: an examination in which one cannot cheat.”
With these thoughts as a backdrop, the reader will
note several things in the selections that follow. First, since
Kierkegaard’s primary concern is with Christian existence, the
selections that follow are explicitly oriented in that direction.
Kierkegaard is not interested in a general theory of human ex
istence, religious or otherwise. His aim is to compel the reader
to live contemporaneously with Christ. Second, some of Kier
kegaard’s terminology is technical. You may find it helpful,
therefore, to turn to the final section where the selections are
shorter and often easier to understand. But as you read, keep in
mind the overarching thrust behind his thought. It is less im
portant to grasp every nuance of his thought than to respond
inwardly to his appeal. Lastly, read slowly. Allow yourself to un
dergo self-examination. As Kierkegaard reminds us: “It is true
that a mirror has the quality of enabling a person to see his im
age in it, but to do this he must stand still.”
Charles E. Moore
February 1999
i t o
w i l l
o n e
t h i n g
1 Dare to Decide
Can there be something in life that has power over
us which little by little causes us to forget all that is good? And
can this ever happen to anyone who has heard the call of eter
nity quite clearly and strongly?
If this can ever be, then one must look for a cure against it.
Praise be to God that such a cure exists – to quietly make a deci
sion. A decision joins us to the eternal. It brings what is eternal
into time. A decision raises us with a shock from the slumber of
monotony. A decision breaks the magic spell of custom. A deci
sion breaks the long row of weary thoughts. A decision pro
nounces its blessing upon even the weakest beginning, as long as
it is a real beginning. Decision is the awakening to the eternal.
One could say that all this is very simple. It is just a matter of
moments, make a decision and all is well. Dare like a bold
swimmer to plunge into the sea, and dare to believe that the
weight of the swimmer will go to the goal against all opposing
currents.
Yet, our approach must begin differently from this. First, we
must reject the devil’s web of deception. Making decisions is of
ten dangerous, or rather, talking about them is. Before you learn
to walk you have to crawl on all fours; to try to fly right before
walking is a dangerous set-up. Certainly there must be great de
cisions, but even in connection with them the important thing
is to get under way with your decision. Do not fly so high with
your decisions that you forget that a decision is but a beginning.
How wretched and miserable it is to find in a person many
good intentions but few good deeds. And there are other dan
gers too, dangers of sin. With all your good intentions, you
must not forget your duty, neither should you forget to do it
with joy. And strive to carry your burdens and responsibilities
in a surrendered way. If you don’t, there is a danger of losing
your decisiveness; of going through life without courage and
fading away in death.
So what about the decision, which was after all meant so very
well? A road well begun is the battle half won. The important
thing is to make a beginning and get under way. There is noth
ing more harmful for your soul than to hold back and not get
moving.
The path of an honest fighter is a difficult one. And when the
fighter grows cool in the evening of his life this is still no excuse
to retire into games and amusement. Whoever remains faithful
to his decision will realize that his whole life is a struggle. Such a
person does not fall into the temptation of proudly telling oth
ers of what he has done with his life. Nor will he talk about the
“great decisions” he has made. He knows full well that at deci
sive moments you have to renew your resolve again and again
and that this alone makes good the decision and the decision
good.
In the end, the arch-enemy of decision is cowardice. Coward
ice is constantly at work trying to break off the good agreement
of decision with eternity. When the minister preaches a sermon
against pride, he has many listeners. But if he wants to warn his
listeners against cowardice, things look very different. His lis
teners look around to see if there is any such miserable fellow
among them. A cowardly soul – after all, that is the most miser
able thing one can imagine, that is something one simply can’t
endure. We can put up with one who is spoiled or decadent in
some way or another, even if he is proud, but only if he is not a
coward.
And yet the separation of cowardice and pride is a false one,
for these two are really one and the same. The proud person al
ways wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he
wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man
but with God. He wants to have a great task set before himself
and to carry it through on his own accord. And then he is very
pleased with his place. Many have taken the first leap of pride
into life, many stop there. But the next leap is different.
How? The proud person, ironically, begins looking around
for people of like mind who want to be sufficient unto them
selves in their pride. This is because anyone who stands alone
for any length of time soon discovers that there is a God. Such a
realization is something no one can endure. And so one be
comes cowardly. Of course, cowardice never shows itself as
such. It won’t make a great noise. No, it is quite hidden and
quiet. And yet it joins all other passions to it, because cowardice
is very comfortable and obliging in associating with other pas
sions. It knows very well how to make friends with them.
Cowardice settles deep in our souls like the idle mists on
stagnant waters. From it arise unhealthy vapors and deceiving
phantoms. The thing that cowardice fears most is decision; for
decision always scatters the mists, at least for a moment. Cow
ardice thus hides behind the thought it likes best of all: the
crutch of time. Cowardice and time always find a reason for not
hurrying, for saying, “Not today, but tomorrow”, whereas God
in heaven and the eternal say: “Do it today. Now is the day of
salvation.” The eternal refrain of decision is: “Today, today.” But
cowardice holds back, holds us up. If only cowardice would ap
pear in all its baseness, one could recognize it for what it is and
fight it immediately.
Cowardice wants to prevent the step of making a decision. To
accomplish this it takes to itself a host of glorious names. In the
name of caution cowardice abhors any over-hastiness. It is
against doing anything before the time is ripe. Besides, “Is it not
best to speak of a continued endeavor, which is by far the supe
rior act, rather than of a sudden decision?” Ah, not decision, but
continual striving, continuous endeavor; what a glorious ex
pression. What a glorious deception!
Whereas decision reminds us of the end to come, cowardice
turns us away from finality. Hence, cowardice is adaptable and
takes pride in being able to meet various opinions in different
ways. If, for example, someone’s ideas are first-rate, then cow
ardice will argue: “Well if such a one as you is so well equipped,
then why hurry? Why limit yourself so?” What pride! And the
thing of it is that for such a person it is not that the task is too
easy but that it is too difficult.
Or consider the person whose advantages are few. Cowardice
is now quick to sing a different tune: “What you’ve got is far too
little to make a good beginning.” This, of course, is particularly
stupid. If we always need more to begin with we would never
begin. But “God does not give us the spirit of cowardice, but the
spirit of power, and of love and of self-control” (1 Tm. 1:7).
Cowardice does not come from God. One who wants to build a
tower sits down and makes an estimate as to how high he can
build it. But if no decision is ever made then no tower is ever
built. A good decision is our will to do everything we can within
our power. It means to serve God with all we’ve got, be it little
or much. Every person can do that.
In the end, failure to decide prevents one from doing what is
good. It keeps us from doing that great thing to which each of
us is bound by virtue of the eternal. This does not mean that
everything is decided once a decision is made, nor does it mean
that only in great decisions is one lifted to a higher plane – a
place where one now no longer needs to bother about little
things, petty things. Such thinking amounts to nothing more
than a fine show.
We must not support high and important things while ig
noring the practical, daily stuff of life. Indeed, decision is some
thing truly great; the life of eternity shines over decision. But
the light of eternity does not shine on every decision. Decision
may be once and for all; but decision itself is only the first thing.
Genuine decision is always eager to change its clothes and get
down to practical matters. The real significance of decision is
that it gives us an inner connection. Decision gets us on our
way, and here there are no longer little things. Decision lays its
demanding hand on us from start to finish. Cowardice, on the
other hand, wants only to concern itself with the really impor
tant, big things, not in order to carry something out whole
heartedly but to be flattered by doing something that is noble
and great. Yet hiding behind the exalted is nothing but an ex
cuse for not conquering all the little things one has omitted,
simply because they were little.
Therefore, don’t be fooled. It may well be that with great de
cisions others will marvel at you. All the same, you miss the one
thing that is needful. You may be honored in this life, remem
bered by monuments set up in your honor, but God will say to
you: “You unhappy person. Why did you not choose the better
path? Confess your weakness and face it.”
Perhaps just in this weakness God will meet you and come to
your aid. This much is certain: the greatest thing each person
can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally –
weaknesses, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than
good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too of
ten made under the guise of weakness.
Therefore, dare to renew your decision. It will lift you up
again to have trust in God. For God is a spirit of power and love
and self-control, and it is before God and for him that every de
cision is to be made. Dare to act on the good that lies buried
within your heart. Confess your decision and do not go ashamed
with downcast eyes as if you were treading on forbidden ground.
If you are ashamed of your own imperfections, then cast your
eyes down before God, not man. Better yet, in weakness decide
and go forth!
2 Either/Or
A choice! Do you, my listener, know how to express
in a single word anything more magnificent? Do you realize,
even if you were to discuss year in and year out how you could
mention nothing more awesome than a choice, what it is to
have choice! For though it is certainly true that the ultimate
blessing is to choose rightly, yet the faculty of choice itself is still
the glorious prerequisite. What does it matter to the young
lover to take inventory of all the outstanding qualities of her
fiancé if she herself cannot choose? And, on the other hand,
whether others praise her beloved’s many perfections or enu
merate his faults, what more magnificent thing could she say
than when she says, He is my heart’s choice!
A choice! Yes, this is the pearl of great price, yet it is not in
tended to be buried and hidden away. A choice that is not used
is worse than nothing; it is a snare in which a person has
trapped himself as a slave who did not become free – by choos
ing. It is a good thing that you can never be rid of it. It remains
with you, and if you do not use it, it becomes a curse. A choice –
not between red and green, not between silver and gold – no, a
choice between God and the world! Do you know anything in
comparison to choice? Do you know of any more overwhelm
ing and humbling expression for God’s condescension and ex
travagance towards us human beings than that he places
himself, so to say, on the same level of choice with the world,
just so that we may be able to choose; that God, if language dare
speak thus, woos humankind – that he, the eternally strong
one, woos sapless humanity? Yet, how insignificant is the young
lover’s choice between her pursuers by comparison with this
choice between God and the world!
A choice! Or is it perhaps an imperfection in the choice un
der discussion here that a human being not only can choose but
that he must choose? Would it not be to the young lover’s ad
vantage if she had a zealous father who said, “My dear girl, you
have your freedom, you yourself may choose, but you must
choose.” Or would it be better that she had the choice but coyly
picked and picked and never really chose?
No, a person must choose, for in this way God retains his
honor while at the same time has a fatherly concern for human
kind. Though God has lowered himself to being that which can
be chosen, yet each person must on his part choose. God is not
mocked. Therefore the matter stands thus: If a person avoids
choosing, this is the same as the presumption of choosing the
world.
Each person must choose between God and the world, God
and mammon. This is the eternal, unchangeable condition of
choice that can never be evaded – no, never in all eternity. No
one can say, “God and world, they are not, after all, so absolutely
different. One can combine them both in one choice.” This is to
refrain from choosing. When there is a choice between two,
then to want to choose both is just to shrink from the choice “to
one’s own destruction” (Heb. 10:39). No one can say, “One can
choose a little mammon and also God as well.” No, it is pre
sumptuous ridicule of God if someone thinks that only the per
son who desires great wealth chooses mammon. Alas, the
person who insists on having a penny without God, wants to
have a penny all for himself. He thereby chooses mammon. A
penny is enough, the choice is made, he has chosen mammon;
that it is little makes not the slightest difference.
The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world
hatred of God. This is the colossal point of contention, either
love or hate. This is the place where the most terrible fight must
be fought. And where is this place? In a person’s innermost be
ing. Whether the struggle is over millions or over a penny, it is a
matter of loving and preferring God – the most terrible fight is
the struggle for the highest. What immeasurable happiness is
promised to the one who rightly chooses. If anyone is unable to
understand this, the reason is that he is unwilling to accept that
God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch
but in order to be chosen. Therefore, each person must choose.
Terrible is the battle, in a person’s innermost being, between
God and the world. The crowning risk involved lies in the pos
session of choice.
Whatsoever a person chooses, when he does not choose God
he has missed the either/or, or rather he is in perdition with his
either/or. So then: either God/…What does this either/or sig
nify? What does God demand by this either/or? He demands
obedience, unconditional obedience. If you are not obedient in
everything unconditionally, without qualification, you don’t
love him, and if you don’t love him – then you hate him. If you
are not obedient in everything unconditionally, then you are
not bound to him, and if you are not bound to him then you
despise him.
If you can become absolutely obedient, then when you pray,
“Lead us not into temptation” there will be no ambiguity in
you, you will be undivided and single before God. And there is
one thing that all Satan’s cunning and all the snares of tempta
tion cannot take by surprise – an undivided will. What Satan
spies with keenness of sight as his prey, what all temptation
aims at certain of its prey, is the ambiguous. When unclarity re
sides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the
stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is waver
ing, there is disobedience down at the bottom.
Where there is no ambiguity, Satan and temptation are pow
erless. But with the merest glimpse of wavering, Satan is strong
and temptation is enticing, and keen-sighted is the evil one
whose trap is called temptation and whose prey is called the
human soul. Of course, it is not really from Satan that tempta
tion comes, but ambiguity cannot hide itself from him. If he
discovers it, temptation is always at hand. But the person who
surrenders absolutely to God, with no reservations, is abso
lutely safe. From this safe hiding-place he can see the devil, but
the devil cannot see him. And if with absolute obedience he re
mains in his hiding-place, then he is “delivered from the evil
one.”
There is a tremendous danger in which we find ourselves by
being human, a danger that consists in the fact that we are
placed between two tremendous powers. The choice is left to us.
We must either love or hate, and not to love is to hate. So hostile
are these two powers that the slightest inclination towards the
one side becomes absolute opposition to the other. Let us not
forget this tremendous danger in which we exist. To forget is to
have made your choice.
3 Under the Spell
of Good Intentions
There is a parable in the Scriptures that is seldom
considered yet very instructive and inspiring. “There was a man
who had two sons. The father went to the first and said, ‘Son, go
and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’;
but afterward he changed his mind and went. And the father
went to the second son and said the same and he answered, ‘I
will go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his
father?” (Mt. 21:28–31). We could also ask in another manner:
which of these two was the prodigal son? I wonder if it was not
the one who said “Yes,” the one who not only said “Yes,” but
said, “I will go, sir,” as if to show his unqualified, dutiful submis
sion to his father’s will.
Now, what is the point of this parable? Is it not meant to
show us the danger of saying “Yes” in too great a hurry, even if it
is well meant? Though the yes-brother was not a deceiver when
he said “Yes,” he nevertheless became a deceiver when he failed
to keep his promise. In his very eagerness in promising he be
came a deceiver. When you say “Yes” or promise something, you
can very easily deceive yourself and others also, as if you had al
ready done what you promised. It is easy to think that by mak
ing a promise you have at least done part of what you promised
to do, as if the promise itself were something of value. Not at all!
In fact, when you do not do what you promise, it is a long way
back to the truth.
Beware! The “Yes” of promise keeping is sleep-inducing. An
honest “No” possesses much more promise. It can stimulate; re
pentance may not be far away. He who says “No,” becomes al
most afraid of himself. But he who says “Yes, I will,” is all too
pleased with himself. The world is quite inclined – even eager –
to make promises, for a promise appears very fine at the mo
ment – it inspires! Yet for this very reason the eternal is
suspicious of promises.
Now suppose that neither of the brothers did his father’s will.
Then the one who said “No” was surely closer to realizing that
he did not do his father’s will. A “no” does not hide anything, but
a yes can very easily become a deception, a self-deception; which
of all difficulties is the most difficult to conquer. Ah, it is all too
true that, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
It is the most dangerous thing for a person to go backwards
with the help of good intentions, especially with the help of
promises; for it is almost impossible to discover that one is really
going backwards. When a person turns his back on someone
and walks away, it is easy to see which way he is going. That is
that! But when a person finds a way of turning his face towards
him who he is walking away from, and in so doing walks back
wards while appearing to greet the person, giving assurances
again and again that he is coming, or incessantly saying “Here I
am” – though he gets farther and farther away by walking back
wards – then it is not so easy to become aware. And so it is with
the one who, rich in good intentions and quick to promise, re
treats backwards farther and farther from the good. With the
help of intentions and promises, he maintains the honest im
pression that he is moving towards the good, yet all the while
he moves farther and farther away from it. With every renewed
intention and promise it seems as if he is taking a new step for
ward but in reality he is only standing still, no, he is really taking
another step backward.
The good intention, the “Yes,” taken in vain, the unfulfilled
promise leaves a residue of despair, of dejection. Beware! Good
intention can very soon flare up again in more passionate dec
larations of intention, but only to leave behind even greater
desperation. As an alcoholic constantly requires stronger and
stronger drink, so the one who has fallen under the spell of
good intentions and smooth-sounding declaration constantly
requires more and more good intentions. And so he keeps him
self from seeing that he is walking backwards.
We do not praise the son who said “No,” but we need to learn
from the gospel how dangerous it is to say, “Lord, I will.” A
promise with respect to action is somewhat like a changeling
(an infant secretly changed for another) – one needs to be very
watchful. In the very moment a child is born the mother’s joy is
greatest, because her pain is gone. When because of her joy she
is less watchful – so says the superstition – evil powers come
and put a changeling in the child’s place. In the crucial initial
moment when one sets out and begins, a dangerous time in
deed, enemy forces come and slip in a changeling promise, thus
hindering one from making a genuine beginning. Alas, how
many have been deceived in this manner, yes, as if cast under a
spell!
4 The Greatest Danger
Imagine a kind of medicine that possesses in full
dosage a laxative effect but in a half dose a constipating effect.
Suppose someone is suffering from constipation. But – for
some reason or other, perhaps because there is not enough for a
full dose or because it is feared that such a large amount might
be too much – in order to do something, he is given, with the
best of intentions, a half dose: “After all, it is at least something.”
What a tragedy!
So it is with today’s Christianity. As with everything qualified
by an either/or – the half has the very opposite effect from the
whole. But we Christians go right on practicing this well-inten
tioned half-hearted act from generation to generation. We pro
duce Christians by the millions, are proud of it – yet have no
inkling that we are doing just exactly the opposite of what we
intend to do.
It takes a physician to understand that a half dose can have
the opposite effect to that of a full dose. Common sense, cool-
minded mediocrity never catches on. It undeviatingly contin
ues to say of the half-dosage: “After all, it is something; even if it
doesn’t work very well, it is still something.” But that it should
have an opposite effect – no, mediocrity does not grasp that.
The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not her
esies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no,
but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity
served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces
the majestic as cordiality. Perpetually polite, so small, so nice,
tampering and meddling and tampering some more – the re
sult is that majesty is completely defrauded – of course, only a
little bit. And right here is the danger, for the infinite is more
disposed to a violent attack than to becoming a little bit de
graded – amid smiling, Christian politeness. And yet this po
liteness is what our Christianity amounts to. But the very
essence of Christianity is utterly opposed to this mediocrity, in
which it does not so much die as dwindle away.
Today’s orthodoxy essentially has its abode in the cordial
drivel of family life. This is utterly dangerous for Christianity.
Christianity does not oppose debauchery and uncontrollable
passions and the like as much as it is opposes this flat medioc
rity, this nauseating atmosphere, this homey, civil togetherness,
where admittedly great crimes, wild excesses, and powerful ab
errations cannot easily occur – but where God’s unconditional
demand has even greater difficulty in accomplishing what it re
quires: the majestic obedience of submission. Nothing is fur
ther from obeying the either/or than this sweet family drivel.
Consider what Christ thinks about mediocrity! When the
apostle Peter, for instance, with good intentions wanted to keep
Christ from being crucified, Christ answered: “Get behind me,
Satan! You are an offense to me” (Mk. 8:33).
In the world of mediocrity in which we live it is assumed that
only crackpots, fanatics, and the like should be deplored as of
fensive, as inspired by Satan, and that the middle way is the
right way, the way that alone is exempted from any such charge.
What nonsense! Christ is of another mind: mediocrity is the
worst offense, the most dangerous kind of demon possession,
farthest removed from the possibility of being cured. To “have”
religion on the level of mediocrity is the most unqualified form
of perdition.
The advantages and benefits of earthly life are bound up in
mediocrity. But genuine religion has an inverse relationship to
the finite. Its aim is to raise human beings up so as to transcend
what is earthly. It is a matter of either/or. Either prime quality,
or no quality at all; either with all your heart, all your mind, and
all your strength, or not at all. Either all of God and all of you,
or nothing at all!
We clever humans, however, prefer to treat faith as if it were
something finite, as if it were something for the betterment and
enjoyment of temporal life. It is supposed to bring us meaning
and fulfillment, happiness and direction. This kind of religion
is nothing but a deception. If you were honest and if you would
look at it more closely, you would see that this really is con
tempt for religion, a dangerous and culpable irreligion. True
faith insists on being an either/or. To treat it as if it were like
drink and food is fundamentally to scorn it. But this is precisely
the way of mediocrity.
5 The Task
Why is it that people prefer to be addressed in
groups rather than individually? Is it because conscience is one
of life’s greatest inconveniences, a knife that cuts too deeply? We
prefer to “be part of a group,” and to “form a party,” for if we are
part of a group it means goodnight to conscience. We cannot be
two or three, a “Miller Brothers and Company” around a con
science. No, no. The only thing the group secures is the aboli
tion of conscience.
It is the same with busyness. A person can very well eat let
tuce before it has formed a heart, yet the tender delicacy of the
heart and its lovely coil are something quite different from the
leaves. Likewise, in the world of spirit, busyness, keeping up
with others, hustling hither and yon, makes it almost impos
sible for an individual to form a heart, to become a responsible,
alive self. Every life that is preoccupied with being like others is
a wasted life, a lost life.
A sparrow, a fly, a poisonous insect is an object of God’s con
cern. It is not a wasted or lost life. But masses of mimickers, a
crowd of copycats are wasted lives. God has been merciful to us,
demonstrating his grace to the point of being willing to involve
himself with every person. If we prefer to be like all the others,
this amounts to high treason against God. We who simply go
along are guilty, and our punishment is to be ignored by God.
By forming a party, by melting into some group, we avoid
not only conscience, but martyrdom. This is why fear of others
dominates this world. No one dares to be a genuine self; every
one is hiding in some kind of “togetherness.” Sensitive organs
are shielded and not in immediate contact with objects, so us
ordinary people are afraid to come into personal, immediate
contact with the eternal. Instead, we rely on traditions and the
voice of others. We are content to be a specimen or a copy, liv
ing a life shielded against individual responsibility before the
Truth.
True individuality is measured by this: how long or how far
one can endure being alone without the understanding of oth
ers. The person who can endure being alone is poles apart from
the social mixer. He is miles apart from the man-pleaser, the one
who manages successfully with everyone – he who possesses no
sharp edges. God never uses such people. The true individual,
anyone who is going to be directly involved with God, will not
and cannot avoid the human bite. He will be thoroughly mis
understood. God is no friend of cozy human gathering.
Yes, in the purely human world the rule is this: Seek out the
help and opinion of others. Christ says: Beware of men! The
majority of people are not only afraid of holding a wrong opin
ion, they are afraid of holding an opinion alone. In the physical
world water puts out fire. So too in the spiritual world. The
“many”, the mass of people, put out the inner fire – beware of
men!
According to the New Testament to be a Christian means to
be salt. Christianity addresses this question to each individual:
Are you willing to be salt? Are you willing to be sacrificed, in
stead of belonging to the crowd, which seeks to profit from the
sacrifice of others? Here again is the distinction: to be salt or to
melt into the mass; to let others be sacrificed for us on behalf of
the Truth or to let ourselves be sacrificed – between these two
lies an eternal qualitative difference.
The deep fault of the human race is that there are no indi
viduals any more. We have become split in two. When a book
has become old and shabby, the binding separates and the pages
fall out. Similarly, in our time we are disintegrated. Our under
standing, our imaginations do not bind us in character. We are
spineless wimps who only flirt with the highest. How can we
ever possibly avoid the dizziness that comes from fear of people
in the midst of this whirlpool of millions where everything is
either crowds or movements? What faith it takes to believe that
one’s life is noticed by God and that this is enough!
Wanting to hide in the crowd, to be a little fraction of the
group instead of being an individual, is the most corrupt of all
escapes. Granted, it will make life easier, but it will do so by
making it more thoughtless. Yet the question is that of the re
sponsibility of each single individual – that each of us is an au
thentic, answerable self. It is a cop-out to make a racket along
with a few others for a so-called conviction. We ought, before
God, to make up our own minds about our convictions, and
then live them out regardless of the others. Eternity will single
each person out as individually responsible – the busy one who
thought he was safe in some group or some enterprise, and the
poorest wretch who thought he was overlooked.
Every person must render account to God. No third person
dares venture to intrude upon this accounting. God in heaven
does not talk to us as to an assembly; he speaks to each individu
ally. This is why the most ruinous evasion of all is to be hidden
away in a herd in an attempt to escape God’s personal address.
Adam attempted this when his guilty conscience led him to
imagine that he could hide himself among the trees. Similarly, it
may be easier and more convenient, and more cowardly too, to
hide yourself among the crowd in hope that God will not recog
nize you from the others. But in eternity each shall individually
render an account. Eternity will examine each person for all
that he has chosen and done as an individual before God.
It will be horrible on judgment day, when all souls come to
life again, to stand utterly alone, alone and unknown by all, and
yet candidly, exhaustively known by him who knows all. No one
may ever pride himself at being more than an individual. Nor
can anyone despondently think that he is not an individual. No,
each one can and shall render account to God. Each one has the
task of becoming an individual.
6 Against the Crowd
We warn young people against going to dens of in
iquity, even out of curiosity, because no one knows what might
happen. Still more terrible, however, is the danger of going
along with the crowd. In truth, there is no place, not even one
most disgustingly dedicated to lust and vice, where a human
being is more easily corrupted – than in the crowd.
Even though every individual possesses the truth, when he
gets together in a crowd, untruth will be present at once, for the
crowd is untruth. It either produces impenitence and irrespon
sibility or it weakens the individual’s sense of responsibility by
placing it in a fractional category. For instance, imagine an indi
vidual walking up to Christ and spitting on him. No human be
ing would ever have the courage or the audacity to do that. But
as part of a crowd, well then they somehow have the “courage”
to do it – dreadful untruth!
The crowd is indeed untruth. Christ was crucified because
he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he
addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an
interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he
was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. There
fore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very
fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is
needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions.
But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.
His work is to be involved with all people, if possible, but always
individually, speaking with each and every person on the side
walk and on the streets – in order to split apart. He avoids the
crowd, especially when it is treated as authoritative in matters
of the truth or when its applause, or hissing, or balloting are re
garded as judges. He avoids the crowd with its herd mentality
more than a decent young girl avoids the bars on the harbor.
Those who speak to the crowd, coveting its approval, those who
deferentially bow and scrape before it must be regarded as be
ing worse than prostitutes. They are instruments of untruth.
For this reason, I could weep, even want to die, when I think
about how the public, with its daily press and anonymity, make
things so crazy. That an anonymous person, by means of the
press, day in and day out can say whatever he wants to say, what
he perhaps would never have the courage to say face-to-face as
an individual to another individual, and can get thousands to
repeat it, is nothing less than a crime – and no one has respon
sibility! What untruth! Such is the way of the crowd.
7 Suspending the Ethical
The ethical dimension of existence has to do with
the universal, of doing what is unconditionally right. The ethi
cal applies to everyone and at every moment. It possesses its
own validity. That is, it has nothing outside itself as its end or
purpose. It has no further to go. By contrast, the single indi
vidual is the particular that has its purpose in the universal. The
individual’s task is always to express himself within the confines
of duty, to limit his particularity and to forgo his own interests
so as to fulfill his universal duty. Thus, as soon as an individual
wants to assert himself in his particularity, in direct opposition
to the universal, he sins. Only by recognizing this can he again
reconcile himself with the universal. He can free himself only by
surrendering to the universal in repentance.
If this is the highest that can be said of our existence, then the
ethical and a person’s happiness are identical. The philosopher
is proved right. The ethical is the universal and, in turn, the di
vine. The whole of human existence is entirely self-enclosed,
and the ethical is at once the limit and completion of our lives.
Doing one’s duty becomes sufficient, with the result that God
becomes an invisible, vanishing point, an impotent thought un
related to my life. His being is no more than the ethical itself,
which fills all existence.
But what about the question of faith? Is the ethical the final
reality? No. The philosopher goes wrong when it comes to this
question. Actually, he fails to protest loudly and clearly enough
against the honor and glory given to Abraham as the father of
faith. If the ethical is final, if it is the ultimate determination of
life’s meaning, then Abraham should really be remitted to some
lower court for trial and exposed as the murderer he is.
Now faith is just this paradox, that the single individual,
though under the demands of the universal, is higher than the
universal. If that is not faith, then Abraham is done for and faith
has never existed in the world. If the ethical life is the highest
and nothing incommensurable is left over, except in the sense
of what is evil, then one needs no other categories than those of
the philosophers. Goodbye to Abraham! But faith is just this
paradox, that the single individual, though bound by the uni
versal, is higher than the universal. As a single individual, as the
particular, he stands in an absolute relation to the Absolute. The
ethical is thus suspended. Faith is this paradox.
The story of Abraham contains just such a suspension of the
ethical. Abraham acts on the strength of the absurd. As a single
individual before God he found himself to be higher than the
universal. This paradox cannot be mediated – there is no middle-
term to explain it. If Abraham had tried to find an explanation,
he would have been in a state of temptation, and in that case he
would have never sacrificed Isaac, or if he had done so he would
have had to return as a murderer repentant before the universal.
In his action Abraham overstepped the ethical altogether. He
had a higher aim outside it in relation to which he suspended it.
How else could one ever justify Abraham’s action? Not in terms
of the ethical. How could any point of contact ever be discov
ered between what Abraham did, or planned to do, and the uni
versal other than that Abraham overstepped it? It was not to
save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to ap
pease angry gods. Abraham’s whole action stands above and
apart from the universal. It is ultimately a private undertaking,
an act of purely personal conscience. To judge Abraham’s action
according to the ethical – in the sense of the moral life – is there
fore quite out of the question. In so far as the universal was there
at all, it was latent in Isaac, concealed as it were in his loins, and
it would have to cry out from Isaac’s mouth: “Don’t do it, you
are destroying everything.”
Then why does Abraham do it? For God’s sake, and what is
exactly the same, for his own. He does it for the sake of God be
cause God demands this proof of his faith. He does it for his
own sake in order to be able to produce the proof.
Abraham’s situation is a kind of trial, a temptation. But what
does that mean? What we usually call a temptation is something
that keeps a person from carrying out a duty, but here the
temptation is the ethical itself (“Thou shalt not kill”) which
would keep him from doing God’s will. But what then is duty?
In Abraham’s case, duty is found in the doing of God’s will,
which is itself higher than the universal. His duty transcends
the ethical.
Now when the ethical is suspended, as in Abraham’s case,
how or in what way, does the individual in whom it is sus
pended exist? Does this mean he sins? Not necessarily. Take a
child for example. In one sense a child’s bad behavior is not sin
because the child is not yet fully conscious of its own existence.
Looked at ideally, however, the child sins; he falls short from the
demands of the ethical. Does this mean Abraham also sinned?
No. Then how did Abraham exist? He had faith. He lived by and
in faith. That is the paradox that kept him at the summit and
which he could not explain or justify to himself or to anyone
else. His faith was grounded in the paradox that as the single
individual he was higher that the universal. He had an absolute
relation to the Absolute. Was he justified? His justification is,
once again, the paradox. He was not justified by being virtuous,
but by being an individual submitted to God in faith.
This doesn’t mean that the ethical is to be done away with.
No. Only that it receives an entirely different expression, so that
for example, love of God can cause the knight of faith to love his
neighbor in a way that is quite opposite from what is usually
demanded by the ethical. Unless this is how it is, faith has no
place in existence. Faith becomes a temptation, and Abraham,
since he gave into it, is done for.
But faith’s paradox is precisely this, that the single individual
is higher than the universal, that the individual determines his
relationship to the universal through his relation to the Abso
lute (i.e. God), not his relation to the Absolute through his rela
tion to the universal. That is, to live by faith means that one has
an absolute duty to God and to God alone. In this tie of obliga
tion the individual relates himself absolutely, as the single indi
vidual, to the Absolute – the God who commands. This duty
alone is absolute and for this reason the ethical, for the person
of faith, is relegated to the relative. In fear and trembling, this is
faith’s paradox – the suspension of the ethical.
Any way we look at it, Abraham’s story contains a suspension
of the ethical. He has, as the single individual, become higher
than the universal. This is the paradox of faith that cannot be
explained. How Abraham got himself into it is just as inexpli
cable as how he stayed in it. If this is not how it is with Abra
ham, then he is not even a tragic hero, but a murderer. To want
to go on calling him the father of faith, to talk of this to those
who are only concerned with words, is thoughtless. A tragic
hero can become a human being by his own strength, but not
the knight of faith. When a person sets out on the tragic hero’s
arduous path there are many who are ready to lend him advice.
But he who walks the narrow path of faith no one can advise,
no one can understand. Faith is a miracle, and yet no human
being is excluded from it.
8 To Need God Is Perfection
With respect to physical existence, one needs little,
and to the degree that one needs less, the more perfect one is. In
a human being’s relationship with God, however, it is inverted:
the more one needs God the more perfect he is. To need God is
nothing to be ashamed of but is perfection itself. It is the sad
dest thing in the world if a human being goes through life with
out discovering that he needs God!
For what is a human being after all? Is he just one more orna
ment in the vast array of creation? And what is his power? What
is the highest he is able to will? Well, we do not want to defraud
the highest of its price, but we cannot conceal the fact that the
highest is realized only when a person is fully convinced that he
himself is capable of nothing, nothing at all. What rare domin
ion – not rare in the sense that only one individual is born to be
king, since everyone is born to it! What rare wisdom – not rare
because it is offered to just a few who are educated, but because
it is offered to all, and accessible to all! True, if a person turns
outward, it will probably seem as if he were capable of accom
plishing something amazing, something that satisfies him,
something that draws enthusiastic admiration. From a human
perspective, humankind may well be the most glorious cre
ation, but all its glory is still only in the external and for the ex
ternal. Does not the eye aim its arrow outward every time
passion and desire tighten the bowstring? Does not the hand
grasp outward, is not his arm outstretched, and is not his inge
nuity all-conquering? Deception!
A human being is great and at his highest only when before
God he recognizes that he is nothing in himself. Consider
Moses or the so-called works of Moses. What is the deed of even
the greatest hero; what are demolishing mountains and filling
rivers compared with having darkness fall upon all Egypt! But
these were not really Moses’ works. Moses was capable of noth
ing at all, for the work was the Lord’s. Do you see the difference?
Moses – he did not make decisions and formulate plans while
the council of the common sense listened attentively – Moses
was capable of nothing at all. If the people had said to him, “Go
to Pharaoh, because your word is powerful, your voice is trium
phant, your eloquence irresistible,” he would have answered,
“Oh, you fools! I am capable of nothing, not even of giving my
life for you if the Lord does not so will. I am capable only of
submitting everything to the Lord.” Or if the people who
thirsted in the desert had appealed to Moses, saying, “Take your
staff and order the rock to give water,” would not Moses have
answered, “What is my staff but a stick?”
A person who knows himself perceives that he, in and of
himself, is actually capable of nothing. The same applies to the
internal world. Are any of us capable of anything there, either?
If a capability is actually to be a capability, it must have some kind
of opposition. Without opposition, one is either all-powerful or
one’s capability is something entirely imaginary. In the internal
world of spirit, opposition can come only from within. In this
way, we struggle with ourselves. If a person does not discover
this conflict, his understanding is faulty and consequently his
life is imperfect; but if he does discover it, he will understand
that he himself is capable of nothing at all.
Such self-knowledge we are referring to is really not compli
cated. But is one not able, then, to overcome oneself by oneself?
How can I be stronger than myself? When we speak of over
coming oneself by oneself, we really mean something external,
so that the struggle is unequal. Take, for example, someone who
has been tempted by worldly prestige but who conquers himself
so that he no longer reaches out for it. If he is to guard his soul
against a new vanity, he will have to admit that he is not really
able to overcome himself. He understands that with will power
alone he creates in his innermost being temptations of glory,
fear, despondency, of pride and defiance, and sensuality greater
than those he meets in the external world. For this reason he
struggles with himself. Victory proves nothing with regard to
this greater temptation. If he is victorious in facing the tempta
tion with which the surrounding world confronts him, this
does not prove that he would be victorious if the temptation
were as terrible as he is able to imagine it. He knows deep
within himself that he is capable of nothing at all.
In one sense, to need God and to know that this is a human
being’s highest perfection, makes life more difficult. However,
insofar as a person does not know himself, he does not actually
become conscious in the deeper sense that God is. The person
who realizes that he is capable of nothing cannot undertake the
slightest thing without God’s help, without becoming conscious
that God is. We sometimes speak of learning to know God from
the events of past history. We open up the chronicles and read
and read. Well, that may be fine, but how much time it takes,
and how dubious the outcome frequently is! But someone who
is conscious that he is capable of nothing has every day and eve
ry moment the precious opportunity to experience that God
lives. If he does not experience it often enough, he knows very
well why that is. It is because his understanding is faulty and he
believes that he himself is, after all, capable of something.
This does not mean that a person’s life becomes easy simply
because he learns to know God in this way. On the contrary, it
can become that much more difficult. But in this difficulty his
life acquires a deeper meaning. Should it mean nothing to him
that he continually keeps his eyes on God, knowing that he
himself is capable of nothing at all, yet with the help of God he
is indeed capable? Should it mean nothing to him that he is
learning to die to the world, to esteem less and less the things
that fade away? Finally, should it not have meaning for him that
he most vividly and confidently understands that God is love,
that God’s goodness passes all understanding?
We are not saying that to need God is to sink into a dreaming
admiration and some visionary contemplation. No. God does
not let himself be taken in vain in this way. Just as knowing our
selves in our own nothingness is the condition for knowing
God, so knowing God is the condition for the sanctification of a
human being by God’s assistance and according to his inten
tion. Wherever God is, there he is always creating. He does not
want a person to be spiritually soft and to bathe in the contem
plation of his glory. He wants to create a new human being. To
need God is to become new. And to know God is the crucial
thing. Without this knowledge a human being becomes noth
ing. Without this knowledge, he is scarcely able to grasp that he
himself is nothing at all, and even less that to need God is his
highest perfection.
Purity of heart is to will one thing: “Draw near to
God and he will draw near to you. Wash your hands, you sin
ners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (Jas. 4:8).
Only the pure in heart can see God, and therefore, draw near to
him. And only by God’s drawing near to the pure in heart can
they maintain this purity.
The person who in truth wills only one thing can will only
the Good, and the person who wills only one thing when he
wills the good can will only the Good in truth. Let your heart,
therefore, will in truth only one thing, for therein is the heart’s
purity.
In a certain sense only a few words are needed to describe the
Good. The Good, without condition, qualification, or compro
mise, is absolutely the only thing that a person can and should
undividedly will. The person who tries to will anything else will
discover that he does not truly will one thing. It is a delusion, an
illusion, a deception to try and do so. For in his innermost be
ing he is, and is bound to be, double-minded. The Good alone
can be willed as one thing.
Although pleasure, honor, riches, and power and all that this
world has to offer appear to be one thing, they are not. These
can never in all circumstances remain the same. They are always
subject to constant change. Each in its own way consists of a
multitude of things, a dispersion, the sport of changeableness,
and the prey of corruption! For example, in the pursuit of plea
sure, look at how so many seek for one pleasure after another. In
such a pursuit, variety is the watchword. But this is utterly fu
tile. How can one will one thing that can never in itself remain
the same thing? When a person wills in such a fashion he not
only becomes double-minded, but self-divided; at complete
odds with himself. He wills first one thing and then immedi
ately another, and sometimes the opposite, and so and so on.
What does such a person really will? New pleasures; something
new! change! change! Ask him now if he really wills one thing.
Ask him if he wills at all!
The fact is that the worldly ideal is not one thing at all. In es
sence it is unreal. Its so-called unity is actually nothing but
emptiness concealed by a multiplicity. In the short-lived mo
ment of experience the worldly goal is nothing but a vacuous
diversion. For what else is desire in its boundless extreme but
nausea? What else is earthly honor at its dizzy pinnacle but con
tempt for existence? What else is the overabundance of wealth
but poverty? No matter how much all the earth’s gold hidden in
covetousness may amount to, it is infinitely less than the tiniest
bit hidden in the contentment of the poor! What else is worldly
power other than dependence? What slave in chains is as unfree
as a tyrant!
Everyone who in truth wills one thing will eventually be led
to will the Good. Though it may sometimes be that a person
innocently begins by willing one thing that is not in the deepest
sense the Good, he will, little by little, be transformed so as to
will the Good. For example, romantic love has sometimes
helped a person along the right road – he faithfully tries to will
one thing, namely, the happiness of his love. In the deepest
sense, however, falling in love is still not the Good. At best it is a
formative educator that will lead to the willing of one thing and
to the willing of the Good.
Only the Good is one thing. It alone is one in its essence and
the same in each of its expressions. Take true love as an illustra
tion. One who genuinely loves does not love but once. Nor does
he offer part of his love, and then again another part. No, he
loves with all of his love – not a bit here and a bit there. It is
wholly present in each expression. He continues to give it away
as a whole, and yet he keeps it intact as a whole, in his heart.
Wonderful riches! When the miser has gathered all the world’s
gold in sordidness – then he has become poor. Yet when the
lover gives away his whole love, he keeps it entire – in the purity
of the heart.
If we in truth will one thing, then this one thing must be such
that it remains unconditionally unaltered. In willing it we can
win eternal constancy. If, however, what we will continually
changes, then we become double-minded and unstable. This is
nothing else than impurity. The one who wills anything other
than the Good will become divided. And as the coveted object
is, so becomes the coveter.
Let us not be deceived in this matter of willing one thing.
The one who desires the Good, for instance, for the sake of
some reward also fails to will one thing. He is double-minded.
This is not difficult to see. The Good is one thing; the reward is
something else. To will the Good for the sake of reward is not to
will one thing but two. If a man loves a woman for the sake of
her wealth, who will call him a lover? To will the Good for the
sake of reward is hypocrisy – sheer duplicity! The person who
in truth wills the Good thinks only of the Good, not of some
resulting benefit. For the Good is its own reward. In fact, the
pure in heart understands that here on earth the Good is often
rewarded by ingratitude, by lack of appreciation, by poverty, by
contempt, by many afflictions, and now and then by death. Of
course, these are inconsequential for the one who in truth wills
only one thing.
Neither can one who wills the Good do so out of fear of pun
ishment. In essence, this is the same thing as willing the Good
for the sake of a reward. The one who wills in truth one thing
fears only doing wrong, not the punishment. In fact, he who
does wrong, yet sincerely wills the Good, actually desires to face
the consequences – so that the punishment, like medicine, may
heal him. He understands that punishment only exists for the
sake of the sinner. It is a helping hand. It goads one to press on
further toward the Good, if one really wills it. On the other
hand, the one who is divided considers punishment or hardship
as a sickness. He fears all worldly setback for there is nothing
eternal in him.
True, fear deceptively offers to help us. It too offers to keep us
on the right track. Yet the one who strives in fear never becomes
God’s friend. Fear is a deceitful aid. It can sour your delight,
make life arduous and miserable, make you old and decrepit;
but it is never able to help you toward the Good. The Good will
not tolerate any alien helper.
Those who live in fear may indeed desire heaven but not for
itself. They anxiously do what they really would rather not do,
or at least what they have no pleasure in doing. Their satisfac
tion consists solely in avoiding, never gaining, something. What
emptiness! They are blinded to the fact that the Good wants
only that they humbly and gladly follow its beckoning. For the
Good there exists no limitation. It contains the impetus of eter
nity and possesses the Infinite’s open road before it. Fear, on the
other hand, is a dry nurse for the child – it has no milk. It is an
anemic disciplinarian for the youth – it has no lasting beckon
ing power. Only one thing can help us to will the Good in truth:
the Good itself.
As the Good itself is only one thing, so it alone wishes to be
what helps us along. But the Good is not something external to
us, like a slave who comes against his will when the master uses
the whip. The place and the path are within each of us. And just
as the place is the blessed state of the striving soul, so the path is
the striving soul’s continual transformation.
10 Emissaries from Eternity
Providence watches over each one of us as we jour
ney through life providing us with two guides: repentance and
remorse. The one calls us forward. The other calls us back. Yet
they do not contradict each other, these two guides, nor do they
leave the traveler in doubt or confusion. Rather, these two
guides eternally understand each other. For the one calls for
ward to the Good, the other back from the evil. This is precisely
why there are two of them, because in order to make our jour
ney secure we must look ahead as well as look back.
When a long procession is about to start, there is first a call
from the person who is in the lead, but everyone waits until the
last one has answered. The two guides call to a person early and
late, and if he pays attention to their calls he finds the road and
can know where he is. Likewise, Eternity’s two guides call out to
us early and late, and when we listen to their call, we know
where we are and where we are going. Of these two, the call of
remorse is perhaps the better. For the eager traveler who travels
casually and quickly along the way does not get to know it as
well as does the traveler with his burden. The eager traveler hur
ries forward to something new, away from experience, but the
remorseful one, the one who comes along afterward, labori
ously gathers up the experience.
These two guides call to us early and late. And yet, no, when
remorse calls out it is always late. The call to find the road again
by seeking God in the confession of sins is always at the elev
enth hour. When remorse awakens guilt, whether it be in one’s
youth, or in the twilight of one’s life, it does so always at the
eleventh hour. It does not have much time at its disposal. It is
not deceived by a false notion of a long life. For in the eleventh
hour one understands life in a wholly different way than in the
days of youth or in the busy time of adulthood or in the final
days of old age. If we repent at any other hour of the day we fool
ourselves – we fortify ourselves by a false and hasty conception
of the insignificance of our guilt.
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as
fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of ro
mantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as
a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a
holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repen
tance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come
“all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter
words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety
that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or
the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that
the right moment to repent is not always the one that is imme
diately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a
tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desper
ate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes
repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However
clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter
how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They
are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs
of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually power
ful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very
reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance
wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single
draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt,
away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining
that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved
to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sen
tence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to
a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became
known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day
a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The re
formed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time
the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud
voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice.
Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he
had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never
led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repen
tance he might remember what he had once been.
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come
and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment
before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed,
even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to
confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetful
ness. One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One
can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and in
wardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her
time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent.
Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The
longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better
it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of
preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act
that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person
changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for
confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession
one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted.
He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just
talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession
is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything,
all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept
from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with
whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive
him either by talk or by silence. When we confess to God, there
fore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master
for the administration entrusted to him because his master
could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor
when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to
whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not
previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden
in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-
knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know
something about those who confess, rather those who confess
find out something about themselves.
11 God Has No Cause
There are those who talk about God’s cause, and
about wanting to serve that cause. This is all very fine, but how,
exactly, is this to be interpreted? The common view thinks that
God has a cause in the human sense of the word, that he is some
kind of advocate, interested in having his cause win and there
fore eager to help the person who would serve his cause, and so
forth. If we follow this line of thinking God becomes a minor
character who arrives at the embarrassing dilemma of needing
human beings.
No, no! God has no cause, is no advocate in this sense. For God
everything is infinitely nothing. Any second he wills it, every
thing, including all opposition to his cause, becomes nothing.
Wanting to serve God’s cause can never mean the same thing as
coming to his aid. No, to serve God’s cause is to face examina
tion. If someone wants to serve his cause, it is not God who
loses his balance and sublimity; no, he fixes his attention upon
this volunteer – observantly – and sees how he conducts him
self, whether he has integrity and resolve. Because God is not
interested in temporal causes, because he is infinitely the con
quering Lord, precisely for that reason he examines. He is quite
able to accomplish his will alone.
This is why the more one is involved with God the more rig
orous everything becomes. It is out of God’s infinite love that
he involves himself with every human being. The very fact that
God permits evil people to thrive in this world is a mark of his
infinite majesty. Do you not understand this frightful punish
ment, that God overlooks them? God’s punishment is upon
those he chooses to have nothing more to do with. And yet he
always accomplishes what he wills.
We usually think that when we honestly want to serve God’s
cause, God will also help us along. Well, how? In a material way?
By a successful outcome, prosperity, earthly advantage, or the
like? But in that case everything gets turned around and it no
longer remains God’s cause but a finite endeavor. Besides,
maybe I am only a cunning fellow, who really does not want to
serve God but in a deceptive, pious way to cheat God to my ad
vantage. Perhaps I even think that God is in a bind and is made
happy as soon as someone volunteers to serve his cause. Utter
nonsense and blasphemy! No, God is spirit – and our task is to
be transformed into spirit. But spirit is absolutely opposed to
being related to God by way of temporal benefits. Such is God’s
sublimity – and yet this is the infinite love of God!
Yes, infinite love, so infinite that God desires to involve him
self with every human being, with every weak, foolish, carnal
heart who tries to make him into a nice uncle, a really fine
grandfather whom we can make good use of.
God is infinite love and for this reason has no cause. He will
not suddenly overpower a person and demand that he instantly
become spirit. If that were the case we would all perish. No, he
handles each person gently. His is a long operation, an upbring
ing in love. Yes, there are times when one gasps and God
strengthens with material blessings. But there is one thing God
requires unconditionally at every moment – integrity – that one
does not reverse the relationship and try to prove his relation
ship to God or the truth of his cause by good fortune, prosper
ity, and the like. God wants us to understand that material
blessings are a concession to our weakness and very likely
something he will withdraw at some later date to help us make
true progress, not in some finite endeavor but in passing the
examination.
12 An Eternity in Which to Repent
Let me tell a story. Somewhere in the Orient there
lived a poor old couple. They possessed nothing but poverty.
Naturally, anxiety about the future increased as they grew older.
They did not assail heaven with their prayers, for they were too
pious for that; but nevertheless they continually cried to heaven
for help.
Then it happened one morning that the wife, going out to
the oven, found a precious stone of great size upon the hearth.
She immediately showed the stone to her husband, who saw at
once that they were well supplied for the rest of their life. A
bright future for this old couple – what joy! Yet, God-fearing as
they were, and content with little, they resolved that since they
had enough to live upon for another day, they would sell the
jewel not that day, but the following. And then a new life would
begin.
That night the woman dreamed that she was transported to
paradise. An angel took her around and showed her all the glo
ries an oriental imagination could invent. Then the angel led
her into a hall where there were long rows of armchairs adorned
with pearls and precious stones, which, the angel explained,
were for the devout. Finally the angel showed her the chair that
was intended for her. Looking more closely, the woman saw a
large jewel was missing from the back of the seat. She asked the
angel how that had come about.
Now be alert, here comes the story! The angel answered,
“That was the precious stone you found on the hearth. You re
ceived it in advance, and so it cannot be inserted again.”
In the morning the woman related the dream to her hus
band. She felt they should hold on to the stone for a few years
longer rather than let the precious stone be absent throughout
eternity. And her devout husband agreed. So, that evening they
laid the stone back on the hearth and prayed to God that he
would take it back. In the morning, sure enough, it was gone.
Where it had gone the old couple knew: it was now in its right
place.
Oh, remember this well! You may perhaps be cunning
enough to avoid suffering and adversity in this life, you may
perhaps be clever enough to evade ruin and ridicule and in
stead enjoy all the earth’s goods, and you may perhaps be fooled
into the vain delusion that you are on the right path just be
cause you have won worldly benefits, but beware, you will have
an eternity in which to repent! An eternity in which to repent,
that you failed to invest your life upon that which lasts: to love
God in truth, come what may, with the consequence that in this
life you will suffer under the hands of men.
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most
yourself! Even if it were possible in relation to the eternal to take
something in advance, you would yet be deceiving yourself by
taking something in advance – and gain an eternity in which to
repent.
ii t r u t h
a n d
t h e
p a s s i o n
o f
i n w a r d n e s s
13 Truth Is the Way
Truth is not something you can appropriate easily
and quickly. You certainly cannot sleep or dream yourself into
the truth. No, you must be tried, do battle, and suffer if you are
to acquire truth for yourself. It is a sheer illusion to think that in
relation to truth there is an abridgment, a short cut that dis
penses with the necessity of struggling for it. With respect to
acquiring truth to live by, every generation and every individual
must essentially begin from the beginning.
What is truth, and in what sense was Christ the truth? The
first question, as is well known, was asked by Pilate (Jn. 18:38),
and it is doubtful whether he ever really cared to have his ques
tion answered. Pilate asks Christ, “What is truth?” That it did
not occur to Pilate that Christ was the truth demonstrates pre
cisely that he had no eye at all for truth. Christ’s life was the
truth (Jn. 14:6). To this end was Christ born, and for this pur
pose did he come into the world, that he should bear witness to
the truth. What, then, is the fundamental confusion in Pilate’s
question? It consists in this, that it occurred to him to question
Christ in this way; for in questioning Christ he actually de
nounced himself; he revealed that Christ’s life had not illu
mined him. How could Christ enlighten Pilate with words
when Pilate could not see through Christ’s own life what truth is!
Pilate’s question is extremely foolish. Not that he asks, “What
is truth?” but that he questions Christ, he whose life is expressly
the truth and who at every moment demonstrates more power
fully by his life what truth is than all the most profound lectures
of the cleverest thinkers. Though it makes perfect sense to ask
any other person, a thinker, a teacher, or whoever, “What is
truth?” to ask Christ this it is the greatest possible confusion.
Obviously Pilate is of the opinion that Christ is just a man, like
everyone else. Poor Pilate! Pilate’s question is the most foolish
and confusing question ever asked by man. It is as if I were to
ask someone standing right before me, “Do you exist?” How
can that person reply? So also with Christ in relation to Pilate.
Christ is the truth. “If my life,” he might say, “cannot open your
eyes to what truth is, then what can I say? For I am the truth.”
As with Pilate, in our day Christ as the truth has also been
abolished: we take Christ’s teaching – but abolish Christ. We
want truth the easy way. This is to abolish truth, for Christ the
teacher is more important than the teaching. Just as Christ’s life,
the fact that he lived here on earth, is vastly more important
than all the results of his life, so also is Christ infinitely more
important than his teaching.
Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only
true explanation of it; the only true way of acquiring it. Truth is
not a sum of statements, not a definition, not a system of con
cepts, but a life. Truth is not a property of thought that guaran
tees validity to thinking. No, truth in its most essential character
is the reduplication* of truth within yourself, within me, within
him. Your life, my life, his life expresses the truth in the striving.
Just as the truth was a life in Christ, so too, for us truth must be
lived.
*Reduplication is Kierkegaard’s term meaning to exist in what one understands, to
manifest the truth in one’s life. It means to live out in life the challenges of thought, to
be what one says.
13 Truth is the Way
Therefore, truth is not a matter of knowing this or that but of
being in the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an
infinite difference here, best seen in Christ’s response to Pilate.
Christ did not know the truth but was the truth. Not as if he did
not know what truth is, but when one is the truth and when the
requirement is to be in the truth, to merely “know” the truth is
insufficient – it is an untruth. For knowing the truth is some
thing that follows as a matter of course from being in the truth,
not the other way around. Nobody knows more of the truth
than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be
in the truth; it is to have the truth for one’s life. This always costs
a struggle. Any other kind of knowledge is a falsification. In
short, the truth, if it is really there, is a being, a life. The Gospel
says that this is eternal life, to know the only true God and the
one whom he sent, the truth (Jn. 17:3). That is, I only know the
truth when it becomes a life in me.
Truth is not a deposit of acquired knowledge, the yield. This
might have been if Christ had been, for example, a teacher of
truth, a thinker, one who made a discovery. But Christ is the
way as well as the truth. His teaching is infinitely superior to all
the inventions of any and every age, an eternity older and an
eternity higher than all systems, even the very newest. His
teaching is the truth – not in terms of knowledge, but in the
sense that the truth is a way – and as the God-man he is and re
mains the way; something that no human being, however zeal
ously he professes that the truth is the way, dare assert of
himself without blasphemy.
Christ compares truth to food and appropriating it to eating
it (Jn. 6:48–51). Just as food is appropriated (assimilated) and
thereby becomes the sustenance of life, so also spiritually, truth
is both the giver and the sustenance of life. It is life. Therefore
one can see what a monstrous mistake it is to impart or represent
Christianity by lecturing. The truth is lived before it is under
stood. It must be fought for, tested, and appropriated. Truth is
the way. And when the truth is the way, then the way cannot be
shortened or drop out unless the truth itself is distorted or
drops out. Is this not too difficult to understand? Anyone will
easily understand it if he just gives himself to it.
14 The Road Is How
There is a generally accepted metaphor that com
pares life to a road. To compare life to a road can indeed be
fruitful in many ways, but we must consider how life is unlike a
road. In a physical sense a road is an external actuality, no mat
ter whether anyone is walking on it or not, no matter how the
individual travels on it – the road is the road. But in the spiri
tual sense, the road comes into existence only when we walk on
it. That is, the road is how it is walked.
It would be unreasonable to define a highway by how it is
walked. Whether it is the young person who walks it with his
head held high or the old decrepit person who struggles along
with head bowed down, whether it is the happy person hurry
ing to reach a goal or the worrier who creeps slowly along,
whether it is the poor traveler on foot or the rich traveler in his
carriage – the road, in the physical sense, is the same for all. The
road is and remains the same, the same highway. But not the
road of virtue. We cannot point to the road of virtue and say:
There runs the road of virtue. We can only show how the road
of virtue is walked, and if anyone refuses to walk that way, he is
walking another road.
The dissimilarity in the metaphor shows up most clearly
when the discussion is simultaneously about a physical road
and a road in the spiritual sense. For example, when we read in
the Gospel about the good Samaritan, there is mention of the
road between Jericho and Jerusalem. The story tells of five
people who walked “along the same road.” Spiritually speaking,
however, each one walked his own road. The highway, alas,
makes no difference; it is the spiritual that makes the difference
and distinguishes the road. Let us consider more carefully how
this is.
The first man was a peaceful traveler who walked along the
road from Jericho to Jerusalem, along a lawful road. The second
man was a robber who “walked along the same road” – and yet
on an unlawful road. Then a priest came “along the same road”;
he saw the poor unfortunate man who had been assaulted by
the robber. Perhaps he was momentarily moved but went right
on by. He walked the road of indifference. Next a Levite came
“along the same road.” He saw the poor unfortunate man; he
too walked past unmoved, continuing his road. The Levite
walked “along the same road” but was walking his way, the way
of selfishness and callousness. Finally a Samaritan came “along
the same road.” He found the poor unfortunate man on the
road of mercy. He showed by example how to walk the road of
mercy; he demonstrated that the road, spiritually speaking, is
precisely this; how one walks. This is why the Gospel says, “Go
and do likewise.” Yes, there were five travelers who walked
“along the same road,” and yet each one walked his own road.
The question “how one walks life’s road” makes all the differ
ence. In other words, when life is compared to a road, the meta
phor simply expresses the universal, that which everyone who is
alive has in common by being alive. To that extent we are all
walking along the road of life and are all walking along the same
road. But when living becomes a matter of truth, then the ques
tion becomes: How shall we walk in order to walk the right road
on the road of life? The traveler who in truth walks life’s road
does not ask, “Where is the road?” but asks how one ought to
walk along the road. Yet, because impatience does not mind be
ing deceived it merely asks where the road is, as if that decided
everything as when the traveler finally has found the highway.
Worldly wisdom is very willing to deceive by answering cor
rectly the question, “Where is the road?” while life’s true task is
omitted, that spiritually understood the road is: how it is
walked.
Worldly sagacity teaches that the road goes over Gerizim, or
over Moriah, or that it goes through some science or other, or
that the road is certain doctrines, or certain behaviors. But all
this is a deception, because the road is how it is walked. It is in
deed as Scripture says – two people can be sleeping in the same
bed – the one is saved, the other is lost. Two people can go up to
the same house of worship – the one goes home saved, the
other is lost. Two people can recite the same creed – the one can
be saved, the other is lost. How does this happen except for the
fact that, spiritually speaking, it is a deception to know where
the road is, because the road is: how it is walked?
15 Two Ways of Reflection
There are two ways of reflection. For objective re
flection, truth becomes an object, and the point is to disregard
the knowing subject (the individual). By contrast, in subjective
reflection truth becomes personal appropriation, a life, inward
ness, and the point is to immerse oneself in this subjectivity.
Now, then, which of the ways is the way of truth that matters for
an existing person?
The way of objective reflection turns the individual into
something accidental, and thus turns existence into an indiffer
ent, vanishing something. The way of objective truth turns
away from the knowing subject. The subject and subjectivity
become unimportant, and correspondingly, the truth is a mat
ter of indifference. Objective validity is paramount. Any per
sonal interest is subjectivity. For this reason the objective way is
convinced that it possesses a security that the subjective way
does not have. It is of the opinion that it avoids the danger that
lies in wait for the subjective way, and at its extreme this danger
is madness. In its view, a solely subjective definition of truth
make lunacy and truth indistinguishable. But by staying objec
tive one avoids becoming a lunatic. However, is not the absence
of inwardness also lunacy?
It is true that subjective reflection turns inward, but in this
inward deepening there is truth. Lest we forget, the subject, the
individual, is an existing self, and existing is a process of becom
ing. Therefore truth as the identity of thought and being is
an illusion of the abstract. The knower is first and foremost an
existing person. In other words, thinking and being are not au
tomatically one and the same. If the existing person could actu
ally be outside himself, the truth would then be something
concluded for him. However, for the truly existing person, pas
sion, not thought, is existence at its very highest: true knowing
pertains essentially to existence, to a life of decision and respon
sibility. Only ethical and ethical-religious knowing is essential
knowing. Only truth that matters to me, to you, is of significance.
Let me clarify the difference between objective and subjec
tive reflection. True inwardness in an existing subject involves
passion, and truth as a paradox corresponds to passion. In for
getting that one is an existing subject, one loses passion, and in
turn, truth ceases to be a paradox. If truth is the comprehen
sible, the knowing subject shifts from being human to being an
abstract thinker, and truth becomes an abstract, comprehen
sible object for his knowing. When the question about truth is
asked objectively, what is reflected upon is not the relation but
the what of the relation. As long as what one relates oneself to is
the truth, the subject is supposedly in the truth. But when the
question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual’s rela
tion to the truth is what matters. If only the how (not the what)
of this relation is in truth, then the individual is in truth, even if
he in this way were to relate himself to untruth.
When approached objectively, the question of truth is only
about categories of thought. Approached subjectively, however,
truth is about inwardness. At its maximum, the how of inward
ness is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite
is the essential truth. Decision exists only in subjectivity. Thus
the passion of the infinite, not its content, is the deciding factor,
for its content is precisely itself. In this way the subjective how
and subjectivity, not the objective what and objectivity, are the
truth.
Let us take the knowledge of God as an example. The way of
objectivity concerns itself with what is reflected upon, of
whether this is the true God. In the way of subjectivity, however,
the individual relates to God in such a way that this relation is
in truth a God-relation. Now, on which side is the truth? Is it on
neither side? Or, better yet, does it lie somewhere in between?
But how can this be? An existing person cannot be in two places
at once. He cannot exist as a subject-object.
God is a subject to be related to, not an object to be studied
or mediated on. He exists only for subjective inwardness. The
person who chooses the subjective way immediately grasps the
difficulty of trying to find God objectively. He understands that
to know God means to resort to God, not by virtue of objective
deliberation, but by virtue of the infinite passion of inwardness.
Whereas objective knowledge goes along leisurely on the long
road of deliberation, subjective knowledge considers every de
lay of decision a deadly peril. Knowing subjectively considers
decision so important that it is immediately urgent, as if the de
layed opportunity had already passed by unused.
Now, if the problem is to determine where there is more
truth, whether on the side of the person who only objectively
seeks the true God and the approximating truth of the God-
idea or on the side of the person who is infinitely concerned
that he in truth relate himself to God with the passion of his
need, then there can be no doubt about the answer. If someone
lives in the midst of Christianity and enters, with knowledge of
the true idea of God, the house of God, the house of the true
God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an
idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, al
though his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol – where,
then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God al
though he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to
the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol. The
distance between objective reflection and subjectivity is indeed
an infinite one.
16 The Weight of Inwardness
Truth is the work of freedom and in such a way
that freedom constantly brings forth truth. What I am referring
to is very plain and simple, namely, that truth exists for a par
ticular individual only as he himself produces it in action. If the
individual prevents the truth from being for him in that way, we
have a phenomenon of the demonic. Truth has always had
many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person
will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to per
meate his whole being, accept all its consequences, and not have
an emergency hiding place for himself and a Judas kiss for the
consequence.
There is a lot of talk about truth. But the task before us is to
vindicate certitude and inwardness, not in abstraction but in an
entirely concrete sense. Certitude and inwardness determine
whether or not the individual is in the truth. It is not a lack of
content that gives rise to arbitrariness, unbelief, mockery of re
ligion, but lack of certitude. Whenever inwardness and appro
priation are lacking, the individual is unfree in relation to the
truth, even though he otherwise “possesses” the whole truth. He
is unfree because there is something that makes him anxious,
namely, the good.
It is not my desire to use big words in speaking about the Age
as a whole. However, you can hardly deny that the reason for its
anxiety and unrest is because in one direction, “truth” increases
in scope and in quantity – via science and technology – while
in the other, certainty and confidence steadily decline. Our age
is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent
to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good.
Take the thought of immortality, for example. The person
who knows how to prove the immortality of the soul but who is
not himself convinced by it, and does not live by it will always
be anxious. Despite all his proofs, he shrinks from the truth of
immortality. He deceives both himself and others by pretend
ing that the proof is enough. In the process of trying to prove
immortality he forgets immortality, since immortality is pre
cisely what he fears. He remains anxious and is thus forced to
seek yet a further understanding of what it means to believe in
the soul’s immortality.
Without inwardness, an adherent of the most rigid ortho
doxy may be demonic. He knows it all. He genuflects before the
holy. He is ceremoniously flawless. He speaks of meeting before
the throne of God and knows how many times to bow. He
knows everything, but only like the person who can prove a
mathematical proposition when the letters are ABC, but not
when the letters are DEF. He is nonetheless anxious, especially
whenever he hears something that is not exactly the same as his
belief. He resembles the philosopher who has discovered a new
proof for the immortality of the soul and then, in peril of his
life, cannot produce the proof because he has forgotten his
notebooks! What is it that both of them lack? It is certitude.
With what industrious zeal, with what sacrifice of time, dili
gence, and writing materials the theologians and philosophers in
our time have spent to prove God’s existence! Yet to the same de
gree that the excellence of these proofs increase certainty declines.
What is it that such individuals lack? Again, it is inwardness.
But inwardness may also be lacking in an opposite direction.
So-called pious Christians are also unfree. They too lack the au
thentic certitude of inwardness. That is why they are so pious!
And the world is surely justified in laughing at them. If, for ex
ample, a bowlegged man wants to be a dancing master but is
not able to execute a single step, he is comical. So it is also with
the multitudes who are so religious. Often you can hear the pi
ous beating time, as it were, exactly like one who cannot dance
but nevertheless knows enough to beat time, yet who are never
fortunate enough to get in step. In order to reassure themselves,
the pious seize upon grandiose ideas that the world hates. They
battle ideas, but not with their lives. Such is the life of those who
lack inwardness.
Eternity is a very radical thought, and thus a matter of in
wardness. Whenever the reality of the eternal is affirmed, the
present becomes something entirely different from what it was
apart from it. This is precisely why human beings fear it (under
the guise of fearing death). You often hear about particular gov
ernments that fear the restless elements of society. I prefer to say
that the entire Age is a tyrant that lives in fear of the one restless
element: the thought of eternity. It does not dare to think it.
Why? Because it crumbles under – and avoids like anything –
the weight of inwardness.
17 Christ Has No Doctrine
A true believer is infinitely interested in what is
real. For faith this is decisive, and this interestedness does not
just involve a little curiosity but an absolute dependence on the
object of faith.
The object of faith, understood Christianly, is not a doctrine,
for then the relation is merely intellectual. Neither is the object
of faith a teacher who has a doctrine, for when a teacher has a
doctrine, then the doctrine is more important than the teacher.
The object of faith is the actuality and authority of the teacher;
that the teacher actually is. Therefore faith’s answer is absolutely
either yes or no. Faith’s posture is not in relation to a teaching,
whether it is true or not, but is the answer to the question about
a fact: Do you accept as fact that he, the Teacher, actually exists?
Please note that the answer to this is a matter of infinite con
cern. Of course, if the object of faith is only a human being,
then the whole thing is a sham. But this is not the case for
Christians. The object of Christian faith is God’s historical ex
istence, that is, that God at a certain point in time existed as an
individual human being.
Christianity, therefore, is not a doctrine about the unity of
the divine and the human, not to mention the rest of the logical
paraphrases of typical religious thought. Christianity is not a
doctrine but a fact: God came into existence through a particu
lar human being at a particular point in history.
Christianity is not to be confused with objective or scientific
truth. When Christ came into the world it was difficult to become
a Christian, and for this reason one did not become preoccu
pied with trying to understand it. Now we have almost reached
the parody that to become a Christian is nothing at all, but it is a
difficult and very involved task to understand it. Everything is re
versed. Christianity is transformed into a kind of worldview, a
way of thinking about life, and the task of faith consists in un
derstanding and articulating it. But faith essentially relates itself
to existence, and becoming a Christian is what is important. Be
lieving in Christ and wanting to “understand” his way by ar
ticulating it and elaborating on it is actually a cowardly evasion
that wants to shirk the task. To become a Christian is the ulti
mate, to want to “understand” Christianity, as if it were some
doctrine, is open to suspicion.
That one can know what Christianity is without being a
Christian is one thing. But whether one can know what it is to
be a Christian without being one is something else entirely. And
this is the problem of faith. One can find no greater dubious
ness than when, by the help of “Christianity,” it is possible to
find Christians who have not yet become Christians.
Faith, therefore, and the object of faith is not a lesson for
slow learners in the sphere of knowledge, an asylum for the ig
norant. Faith exists in a sphere of its own. The immediate iden
tifying mark of every misunderstanding of Christianity is that
faith is changed into a belief and drawn into the range of intel
lectuality – a matter of understanding, of knowledge. Infinite
interestedness in the actuality and authority of the Teacher, ab
solute commitment, becoming Christian – that is the sole pas
sion and object of faith.
18 Faith: The Matchless Lack of Logic
Can one come to know anything about Christ from
history? No. And why not? It is because Christ is the paradox,
the object of faith, and exists only for faith. About him nothing
can be known; he can only be believed. You cannot come to
know anything about Christ from history. Whether one learns
little or much about him, it will not represent who he is in real
ity. Obtaining historical facts makes Christ into someone other
than who he in fact is.
Can’t you at least demonstrate from history that Christ was
God, even though we might know little else? Let me ask another
question first: Can any more absurd contradiction be imagined
than wishing to prove that an individual person is God? Now
think of proving that! How can you make something that conflicts
with reason into something reasonable? You can’t, unless you
wish to contradict yourself. The so-called proofs for the divinity
of Christ that people claim Scripture sets forth – his miracles,
his resurrection, his ascension – are not, when you think about
it, in harmony with our reason. On the contrary, they demon
strate that believing in Christ’s works is a matter of faith.
What can all the miracles really demonstrate anyway? At
most that Jesus Christ was a great man, perhaps the greatest
who ever lived. But that he was – God – no, stop; that conclu
sion will surely miscarry.
How is it possible to observe the gradually unfolding results
of something and then arrive at, by some trick of deduction, a
conclusion different in quality from what you began with? Is it
not sheer insanity (providing humanity is sane) to let your
judgment become so altogether confused as to land in the
wrong category? A footprint is certainly the consequence of
some creature having made it. I may mistake it for that of a bird,
but on closer inspection, and by following the prints for some
distance, I may determine that some other animal made it. Fine.
But can I at some point reach the conclusion: ergo it is a spirit
that has walked along this way, a spirit – which leaves no print?
Precisely the same holds true whenever we try to infer from the
results of a person’s life that therefore he was God.
True, if God and humankind resemble each other so closely
so as to essentially belong to the same category of being, the
conclusion “therefore Christ was God” makes perfect sense. But
this is nothing but humbug. If that is all there is to being God,
then God does not exist at all! But if God belongs to a category
infinitely different from the human, why, then neither I nor any
one else can start with the assumption that Christ was human
and then logically conclude that therefore he was God. Anyone
with a bit of logical sense should be able to see this. The ques
tion of whether or not he was God lies on an entirely different
plane: each person must decide for himself whether or not he
will believe Christ to be what he himself claimed to be.
Faith protests against every attempt to approach Christ by
means of historical facts. Faith’s contention is that the
historian’s whole approach is – blasphemy. How strange! With
the help of history, that is, by looking at the results of Christ’s
life, we think we can arrive at the conclusion that he was God.
Yet faith makes the very opposite claim. Anyone who begins
with this kind of logic is guilty of blasphemy. The blasphemy is
18 Faith: The Matchless Lack of Logic
not so much the hypothetical assumption that Christ was a hu
man being, but in the thought that the results of his life can be
separated from who he was. When you scrutinize the facts, you
make Christ out to be just a man.
With regard to Christ we have only sacred history (which is
qualitatively different from the historian’s account). Christ is
the divine-human paradox that history can never digest or con
vert into a proof. Even with what we know of Christ’s life and of
all his brilliant works, they will pale in comparison to his com
ing again in glory! Or perhaps you think that Christ’s return
will be nothing more than the progressive result of his life in
history? No! Christ’s return will be something entirely different,
something that can only be believed. That Christ was God in
carnate in his lowliness and that he will come again in glory, all
this is far beyond the comprehension of history. This cannot be
inferred from “facts” or from history, no matter how match
lessly you regard them, except through a matchless lack of logic.
It is infinitely beyond history’s capacity to demonstrate that
God, the omnipresent One, lived here on earth as an individual
human being. History can indeed richly communicate knowl
edge, but such knowledge annihilates Jesus Christ. How strange,
then, that anyone ever wanted to use history to demonstrate
that Christ was God. Even if Christ’s life had manifested no as
tonishing results, it makes no difference. Besides, what’s so ex
traordinary about the fact that God’s life had extraordinary
results? To talk this way is sheer nonsense. No, God lived here
on earth, in true lowliness, and that is what is infinitely extra
ordinary – extraordinary in itself. The fact that he lived among
us is infinitely more important than all the extraordinary re
sults ever recorded in history.
19 Passion and Paradox
How shall we understand the truth in terms of
subjectivity? Here is a definition: The truth is an objective un
certainty held fast through personal appropriation with the
most passionate inwardness. This is the highest truth there can
be for an existing person. At the point where the road divides,
objective knowledge is suspended, and one has only uncer
tainty, but this is precisely what intensifies the infinite passion
of inwardness. Subjective truth is precisely the daring venture
of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the
infinite.
I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see
omnipotence and wisdom. However, I also see much that is
troubling and unsettling. The sum total of this is that God’s ex
istence is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness, the cer
tainty of his existence, is still so very great, precisely because of
this objective uncertainty. In a mathematical proposition abso
lute objectivity is given, but for that reason its truth is also an
indifferent truth and concerns me very little.
Now the definition of truth stated above is actually a para
phrasing of faith. No uncertainty, no risk. No risk, no faith.
Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of in
wardness and objective uncertainty. In other words, if I appre
hend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot
do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I
must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncer
tainty. I must see to it that in the objective uncertainty I am “out
on 70,000 fathoms of water” and still have faith.
This is not all. Truth as subjectivity, when it is in highest in
tensity, holds fast to more than objective uncertainty. When
subjectivity or inwardness is truth, then truth, objectively de
fined, is a paradox. Paradox shows precisely that subjectivity is
truth, for objectivity’s repulsion, the paradox, is the resilience
and barometer of inwardness.
Socrates’ great merit is precisely in being an existing thinker,
not a speculative thinker who forgets what it means to exist.
And this is indeed admirable. But let us now go further; let us
assume that the eternal, essential truth is itself the paradox.
How does the paradox emerge? By placing the eternal, essential
truth together with existing. The eternal truth itself has come
into existence in time. That is the paradox, and the highest
truth for an existing person.
Again, without risk, no faith; the more risk, the more faith.
Therefore, the more objective reliability, the less inwardness
(inwardness is subjectivity); the less objective reliability, the
deeper the possible inwardness. Hence, when the paradox is the
object of faith it thrusts away by virtue of the absurd, and the
corresponding passion of inwardness is faith. What, then, is the
absurd? The absurd is that the eternal truth has come into exist
ence in time, that God has come into existence, has been born,
has grown up, has come into existence exactly as an individual
human being, indistinguishable from any other human being.
Subjectivity is truth and if subjectivity is in existing, then,
if I may put it this way, Christianity is a perfect fit. Subjectivity
culminates in passion; Christianity culminates in paradox (God
in Christ; God on the Cross); paradox and passion fit each
other perfectly, for paradox perfectly fits a person situated in the
extremity of existence. Indeed, in the whole wide world there
are not to be found two loves who fit each other as do paradox
and passion, Christianity and faith.
Thus, if someone wants to have faith and reason too, well, let
the comedy begin. He wants to have faith, but he wants to as
sure himself with the aid of objective deliberation. What hap
pens? With the aid of reason, the absurd becomes something
else; it becomes probable, it becomes more probable, it may be
come to a high degree exceedingly probable, even demon
strable. Now he is all set to believe it, and he dares to say of
himself that he does not believe as shoemakers and tailors and
simple folk do, but only after long and careful deliberation.
Now he is all set to believe, but, lo and behold, now it has indeed
become impossible to believe. The almost probable, the prob
able, the to-a-high-degree and exceedingly probable, that he
can almost know, or as good as know, to a higher degree and
exceedingly almost know – but believe, that cannot be done, for
the absurd is precisely the object of faith and only that can be
believed with the passion of inwardness.
Christianity claims to be the eternal, essential truth that has
come into existence in time. It proclaims itself as the paradox
and thus requires the inwardness of faith – that which is an of
fense to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks, and an absurdity to
the understanding. It cannot be expressed more strongly: Ob
jectivity and faith are at complete odds with each other. What
does objective faith mean? Doesn’t it amount to nothing more
than a sum of tenets?
Christianity is nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it is in
wardness, an inwardness of existence that places a person deci
sively, more decisively than any judge can place the accused,
between time and eternity, between heaven and hell in the time
of salvation. But objective faith? It is as if Christianity was a
little system of sorts, although presumably not as good as the
Hegelian system. It is as if Christ – it is not my fault that I say
it – had been a professor and as if the apostles had formed a
little professional society of thinkers. The passion of inward
ness and objective deliberation are at complete odds with each
other. There is no way of getting around it. To become objec
tive, to become preoccupied with the “what” of Christianity, in
stead of with the “how” of being Christian, is nothing but a
retrogression.
Christianity is subjective; the inwardness of faith in the be
liever is the truth’s eternal decision. Objectively there is no truth
“out there” for existing beings, but only approximations, whereas
subjectively truth lies in inwardness, because the decision of
truth is in subjectivity. For how can decision be an approxima
tion or only to a certain degree? What could it possibly mean to
assert or to assume that decision is like approximation, is only
to a certain degree? I will tell you what it means. It means to
deny decision. The decision of faith, unlike speculation, is de
signed specifically to put an end to that perpetual prattle of “to
a certain degree.”
For an existing individual, therefore, there is no objective
truth “out there.” An objective knowledge about the truth or the
truths of Christianity is precisely untruth. To know a creed by
rote is, quite simply, paganism. This is because Christianity is
inwardness. Christianity is paradox, and paradox requires but
one thing: the passion of faith.
20 The Folly of Proving God’s Existence
Let us call the unknown God. It is only a name we
give to it. Now it hardly occurs to the understanding to want to
demonstrate that this unknown exists. If, namely, God does not
exist, then of course it is impossible to demonstrate it. But if he
does exist, then it is also foolishness to want to demonstrate it,
for in the very moment the demonstration commences, you
would presuppose his existence. Otherwise you would not be
gin, easily perceiving that the whole thing would be impossible
if he did not exist.
One never reasons in conclusion to existence, but reasons in
conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate
that a stone exists but that something, which exists, is a stone.
The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists
but that the accused, who does indeed exist, is a criminal.
Whether you want to call existence an addition or the eternal
presupposition, it can never be demonstrated.
If, for example, I wanted to demonstrate Napoleon’s exist
ence from his works, would this not be most curious? Isn’t it
Napoleon’s existence which explains his works, not his works
his existence? To prove Napoleon’s existence from his works I
would have in advance interpreted the word “his” in such a way
as to have assumed that he exists. Moreover, because Napoleon
is only a human being, it is possible that someone else could
have done the same works. This is why I cannot reason from the
works to his existence. If I call the works Napoleon’s works, then
the demonstration is superfluous, for I have already mentioned
his name. If I ignore this, I can never demonstrate from the
works that they are Napoleon’s. At least I cannot guarantee that
they are his. I can only demonstrate that such works are the
works of, say, a great general. However, with God there is an ab
solute relation between him and his works. If God is not a name
but a reality, his essence must involve his existence.
God’s works, therefore, only God can do. Quite correct. But,
then, what are God’s works? The works from which I want to
demonstrate his existence do not immediately and directly ex
ist. Are the wisdom in nature and the goodness or wisdom in
governance right in front of our noses? Don’t we also encounter
terrible tribulations here? How can I demonstrate God’s exist
ence from such an arrangement of things? Even if I began, I
would never finish. Not only that, I would be obliged to con
tinually live in suspense lest something so terrible happen that
my fragment of demonstration would be ruined.
The fool says in his heart that there is no God, but he who
says in his heart or to others: Just wait a little and I will prove it
to you – ah, what a rare wise man he is! If, at the moment he is
supposed to begin the demonstration, it is not totally unde
cided whether God exists or not, then, of course, he cannot
demonstrate it. And if that is the situation in the beginning,
then he will never make a beginning – partly for fear that he
will not succeed, because God may not exist, and partly because
he has nothing with which to begin.
In short, to demonstrate the existence of someone who al
ready exists is the most shameless assault. It is an attempt to
make him ludicrous. The trouble is that one does not even sus
pect this, that in dead seriousness one even regards it as a godly
undertaking. How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that
God exists unless one has already allowed himself to ignore
him?
A king’s existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and
submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the
king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series
of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the
king’s existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so
it is with demonstrating God’s existence. It is accomplished not
by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker’s pious
bungling.
21 Answering Doubt
Have you ever doubted? I wonder whether you
have ever born the marks of imitation? I wonder whether you
have forsaken all to follow Christ? I wonder, whether your life
has been marked by persecution?
Indeed, many have doubted. And there have been those who
felt obliged to refute their doubt with reasons. But these reasons
backfire and foster a doubt that gets stronger and stronger.
Why? Because demonstrating the truth of Christianity does not
lie in reasons but in imitation: what resembles the truth. Yet we
Christians prefer to take this proof away. The need for “reasons”
is already a kind of doubt – doubt lives off reasons. We fail to
notice that the more reasons one advances, the more one nour
ishes doubt and the stronger doubt becomes. Offering doubt
reasons in order to kill it is just like offering a hungry monster
food it likes best of all in order to eliminate it.
No, we must not offer reasons to doubt – at least not if our
intention is to kill it. We must do as Luther did, order doubt to
shut its mouth, and to that end we must keep quiet.
Those whose lives imitate Christ’s do not doubt such things
as Christ’s resurrection. And why not? Because their lives are so
strenuous, so much expended in daily sufferings that they are
unable to sit in idleness keeping company with reasons and
doubt, playing at evens or odds. Secondly, need itself quenches
the doubt. When it is for a good cause that you are despised,
persecuted, ridiculed, in poverty, then you will find that you do
not doubt Christ’s resurrection, because you need it.
Without a life of imitation, of following Christ, it is impos
sible to gain mastery over doubts. We cannot stop doubt with
reasons. Those who try have not learned that it is wasted effort.
They do not understand that imitation is the only force that,
like a police force, can break up the mob of doubts and clear the
area and compel them to go home and hold their tongues.
Recall that the Savior of the world did not come to bring a
doctrine; he never lectured. He did not try by way of reasons to
prevail upon anyone to accept his teaching, nor did he try to
authenticate it by demonstrable proofs. His teaching was his
life, his existence. If someone wanted to be his follower, he said
to that person something like this, “Venture a decisive act; then
you can begin, then you will know.”
What does this mean? It means that no one becomes a be
liever by hearing about Christianity, by reading about it, by
thinking about it. It means that while Christ was living, no one
became a believer by seeing him once in a while or by going and
staring at him all day long. No, a certain setting is required –
venture a decisive act. The proof does not precede but follows;
it exists in and with the life that follows Christ. Once you have
ventured the decisive act, you are at odds with the life of this
world. You come into collision with it, and because of this you
will gradually be brought into such tension that you will then
be able to become certain of what Christ taught. You will begin
to understand that you cannot endure this world without hav
ing recourse to Christ. What else can one expect from following
the truth?
This is also what Christ says, and this is the only proof pos
sible for the truth of what he represents: “If anyone will act ac
cording to what I say, he will experience whether I am speaking
on my own.” Venture to give all your possessions to the poor
and you will certainly experience the truth of Christ’s teaching.
Venture once to make yourself completely vulnerable for the
sake of the truth, and you will certainly experience the truth of
Christ’s word. You will experience how it alone can save you
from despairing or from succumbing, for you will need Christ
both to protect yourself against others and to maintain yourself
upright when the thought of your own imperfection would
weigh you down.
Yes, doubt will still come, even to the one who follows Christ.
But the only person who has a right to leap forward even with a
doubt is someone whose life bears the marks of imitation,
someone who by a decisive action at least tries to go so far out
that becoming a Christian can still be a possibility. Everyone
else must hold his tongue; he has no right to put in a word
about Christianity, least of all contra.
22 Alone With God’s Word
My listener, how highly do you value God’s Word?
Imagine a lover who has received a letter from his beloved. I as
sume that God’s Word is just as precious to you as this letter is
to the lover. I assume that you read and think you ought to read
God’s Word in the same way the lover reads this letter.
Yet you perhaps say, “Yes, but Scripture is written in a foreign
language.” Let us assume, then, that this letter from the beloved
is written in a language that the lover does not understand. But
let us also assume that there is no one around who can translate
it for him. Perhaps he would not even want any such help lest a
stranger be initiated into his secrets. What does he do? He takes
a dictionary, begins to spell his way through the letter, looks up
every word in order to obtain a translation.
Now let us imagine that, as he sits there busy with his task, an
acquaintance comes in. He knows that the letter has come, be
cause he sees it lying there, and says,“So, you are reading a letter
from your beloved.” What do you think the other will say? He
answers, “Have you gone mad? Do you think this is reading a
letter from my beloved! No, my friend, I am sitting here toiling
and moiling with a dictionary to get it translated. At times I am
ready to explode with impatience; the blood rushes to my head,
and I would just as soon hurl the dictionary on the floor – and
you call that reading! You must be joking! No, thank God, as
soon as I am finished with the translation I shall read my
beloved’s letter; that is something altogether different.”
So, then, with regard to the letter from his beloved, the lover
distinguishes between reading with a dictionary and reading
the letter from his beloved. The blood rushes to his head in his
impatience when he sits and grinds away at reading with the
dictionary. He becomes furious when his friend dares to call
this the reading of a letter from his beloved. But when he is fin
ished with the translation, he reads the letter. All the scholarly
preliminaries were regarded as nothing but a necessary evil so
that he could come to the point – of reading the letter from his
beloved.
We must not discard this metaphor too soon. Let us assume
that this letter contained not only an expression of affection,
but also a wish, something the beloved wanted her lover to do.
It was, let us assume, much that was required of him – so much
so that any third party would have good reason to think twice
about it. But the lover, ah, he is off at once to fulfill his beloved’s
wish. Now imagine that after some time the lovers meet and the
beloved says,“But, my dear, that was not what I asked you to do.
You must have misunderstood the word or translated it incor
rectly.” Do you think that the lover would now regret rushing
off to obey the wish, do you believe that he regrets the mistake?
And do you believe that he pleases his beloved less?
Think of a child, a bright and diligent student. When the
teacher assigns the lesson for the next day, he says, “I want you
to know your lesson very well tomorrow.” This makes a deep
impression on the pupil. He goes home from school and sets to
work at once. But he has not heard precisely how far they were
to study – so what does he do? It is the teacher’s admonition
that has impressed him. He probably reads twice as far as he ac
tually had to. Do you think the teacher will think less of him for
studying twice as hard? Think of another student. He, too,
heard the teacher’s admonition. He, too, did not hear exactly
how far they had to study. When he came home, however, he
says, “I must first find out how far we have to study.” So he goes
to one of his schoolmates, then to another. He doesn’t get home
until it is too late, and as a result he reads nothing at all!
Now think of God’s Word. When you read it in a scholarly
way, with a dictionary or a commentary, then you are not read
ing God’s Word. Remember what the lover said, “This is not
reading the letter from the beloved.” If you happen to be a
scholar, then please see to it that even with all your learned
reading you do not forget to read God’s Word. If you are not a
scholar, rejoice! Be glad that you can listen to God’s address
right away! And if in the listening you hear a wish, a command,
an order, then – remember the lover! – off with you at once to
do what it asks.
“But,” you say, “there are so many obscure passages in the
Bible, whole books that are practically riddles. Won’t the
scholar help me?” To that I would answer (before I have any
thing to do with this objection): “Any objection must be made
by someone whose life manifests that he has scrupulously com
plied with those passages that are already easy to understand. Is
this the case with you?” Yet this is exactly how the lover would
respond to the letter. If there are obscure passages but also
clearly expressed wishes, he would say, “I must immediately
comply with the wish – then I will see about the obscure parts.
How can I ever sit down and ponder the obscure passages and
not comply with the wish, the wish that I clearly understand?”
In other words, it is not the obscure passages in Scripture
that bind you but the ones you understand. With these you are
to comply at once. If you understood only one passage in all of
Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all. It will be this
passage God asks you about. Do not first sit down and ponder
the obscure passages. God’s Word is given in order that you
shall act according to it, not that you gain expertise in interpret
ing it.
Again, let us not be too quick to discard the metaphor of the
letter from the beloved. Would he not make sure to lock the
door so as to not be interrupted? Would he not want to be
alone, uninterruptedly alone with the letter? “Otherwise,” he
says, “I would not be reading the letter from my beloved.” And
so it is with God’s Word. The person who is not alone with
God’s Word is not reading God’s Word. Teachers and preachers
beware!
Yes, alone with God’s Word! My listener, allow me to make a
confession about myself here. I still do not dare to be utterly
alone with God’s Word. I don’t have the honesty and courage
for it. I dare not! If I open it – any passage – it traps me at once.
It asks me – indeed, it is as if it were God himself who does the
asking – “Have you done what you read there?” And then I am
trapped. Then either right into action or immediately a hum
bling confession. Oh, to be alone with Scripture; yet if you are
not, then you are not truly reading.
Being alone with God’s Word is a dangerous matter. Of
course, you can always find ways to defend yourself against it:
Take the Bible, lock your door – but then get out ten dictionar
ies and twenty-five commentaries. Then you can read it just as
calmly and coolly as you read newspaper advertising. With this
arsenal you can really begin to wonder, “Are there not several
valid interpretations? And what about the prospect of new in
terpretations? Perhaps there are five interpreters with one opin
ion and seven with another and two with a strange opinion and
three who are wavering or who have no opinion at all. So you
calmly conclude, “I myself am not absolutely sure about the
meaning of this passage. I need more time to form an opinion.”
Good Lord! What a tragic misuse of scholarship that it makes it
so easy for people to deceive themselves!
Can’t we be honest for once! We have become such experts at
cunningly shoving one layer after another, one interpretation
after another, between the Word and our lives, (much in the
way a boy puts a napkin or more under his pants when he is
going to get a licking), and we then allow this preoccupation to
swell to such profundity that we never come to look at ourselves
in the mirror. Yes, it seems as if all this research and pondering
and scrutinizing would draw God’s Word very close to us. Yet
this interpreting and re-interpreting and scholarly research and
new scholarly research is but a defense against it.
It is only all too easy to understand the requirements con
tained in God’s Word (“Give all your goods to the poor.”
“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.” “If any
one takes your coat, let him have your cloak also.” “Rejoice al
ways.” “Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations”
etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny
being able to understand God’s requirements. But it is tough on
the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly.
Herein lies the problem. It is not a question of interpretation,
but action.
23 Followers not Admirers
It is well known that Christ consistently used the
expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshippers,
or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a
teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.
Christ understood that being a “disciple” was in innermost
and deepest harmony with what he said about himself. Christ
claimed to be the way and the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). For
this reason, he could never be satisfied with adherents who ac
cepted his teaching – especially with those who in their lives ig
nored it or let things take their usual course. His whole life on
earth, from beginning to end, was destined solely to have fol
lowers and to make admirers impossible.
Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not
instructing it. At the same time – as is implied in his saving
work – he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the per
son who would join him, who would become a follower. This is
why Christ was born and lived and died in lowliness. It is abso
lutely impossible for anyone to sneak away from the Pattern
with excuse and evasion on the basis that It, after all, possessed
earthly and worldly advantages that he did not have. In that
sense, to admire Christ is the false invention of a later age, aided
by the presumption of “loftiness.” No, there is absolutely noth
ing to admire in Jesus, unless you want to admire poverty, mis
ery, and contempt.
What then, is the difference between an admirer and a fol
lower? A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An ad
mirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to
see that what is admired involves a claim upon him, and thus he
fails to be or strive to be what he admires.
To want to admire instead of to follow Christ is not necessar
ily an invention by bad people. No, it is more an invention by
those who spinelessly keep themselves detached, who keep
themselves at a safe distance. Admirers are related to the ad
mired only through the excitement of the imagination. To them
he is like an actor on the stage except that, this being real life, the
effect he produces is somewhat stronger. But for their part, ad
mirers make the same demands that are made in the theater: to
sit safe and calm. Admirers are only all too willing to serve
Christ as long as proper caution is exercised, lest one personally
come in contact with danger. As such, they refuse to accept that
Christ’s life is a demand. In actual fact, they are offended at him.
His radical, bizarre character so offends them that when they
honestly see Christ for who he is, they are no longer able to ex
perience the tranquillity they so much seek after. They know
full well that to associate with him too closely amounts to being
up for examination. Even though he “says nothing” against them
personally, they know that his life tacitly judges theirs.
And Christ’s life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly mani
fest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of
following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead
calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, it is all
too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower. And this can
happen very quietly. The admirer can be in the delusion that the
position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing
it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!
If you have any knowledge at all of human nature,
who can doubt that Judas was an admirer of Christ! And we
know that Christ at the beginning of his work had many admir
ers. Judas was precisely an admirer and thus later became a trai
tor. It is just as easy to reckon as the stars that those who only
admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors.
The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness;
but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Ad
miring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire
as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be
changed into exactly the opposite, to hate, jealousy, and revenge.
There is a story of yet another admirer – it was Nicodemus
(Jn. 3:1ff). Despite the risk to his reputation, despite the effort
on his part, Nicodemus was only an admirer; he never became a
follower. It is as if he might have said to Christ, “If we are able to
reach a compromise, you and I, then I will accept your teaching
in eternity. But here in this world, no, that I cannot bring myself
to do. Could you not make an exception for me? Could it not be
enough if once in a while, at great risk to myself, I come to you
during the night, but during the day (yes, I confess it, I myself
feel how humiliating this is for me and how disgraceful, indeed
also how very insulting it is toward you) to say “I do not know
you?” See in what a web of untruth an admirer can entangle
himself.
Nicodemus, I am quite sure, was certainly well meaning. I’m
also sure he was ready to assure and reassure in the strongest
expressions, words, and phrases that he accepted the truth of
Christ’s teaching. Yet, is it not true that the more strongly some
one makes assurances, while his life still remains unchanged,
the more he is only making a fool of himself? If Christ had per
mitted a cheaper edition of being a follower – an admirer who
swears by all that is high and holy that he is convinced – then
Nicodemus might very well have been accepted. But he was not!
Now suppose that there is no longer any special danger, as it
no doubt is in so many of our Christian countries, bound up
with publicly confessing Christ. Suppose there is no longer
need to journey in the night. The difference between following
and admiring – between being, or at least striving to be – still
remains. Forget about this danger connected with confessing
Christ and think rather of the real danger which is inescapably
bound up with being a Christian. Does not the Way – Christ’s
requirement to die to the world, to forgo the worldly, and his
requirement of self-denial – does this not contain enough dan
ger? If Christ’s commandment were to be obeyed, would they
not constitute a danger? Would they not be sufficient to mani
fest the difference between an admirer and a follower?
The difference between an admirer and a follower still re
mains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any
true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words,
phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes
Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not recon
struct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his
life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so for the fol
lower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength, with all
his will to be what he admires. And then, remarkably enough,
even though he is living amongst a “Christian people,” the same
danger results for him as was once the case when it was danger
ous to openly confess Christ. And because of the follower’s life,
it will become evident who the admirers are, for the admirers
will become agitated with him. Even that these words are pre
sented as they are here will disturb many – but then they must
likewise belong to the admirers.
24 Fear and Trembling
When Abraham and Isaac reached the place that
God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and ar
ranged the wood on it. He bound Isaac, lit the fire, drew his
knife, and thrust it into Isaac!
At that moment God stood by Abraham’s side in bodily form
and exclaimed: “What have you done? Oh wretched old man!
That was not what was asked of you at all. You are my friend, I
only wanted to try your faith! I called to you at the last moment.
Didn’t you hear me? I cried, “Abraham, Abraham, refrain!”
Didn’t you hear my voice?
Then Abraham answered God with a voice that betrayed a
half mystic adoration and a half disheveled weakness that be
longs to mental derangement: “Oh Lord, I did not hear you. Yet
now that you mention it, I seem to remember that I did hear
some kind of voice. Oh when it is you, my God, who commands
a father to murder his own child, then a man at such a time is
under terrible strain. Therefore, I did not hear your voice. And
if I had, dared I have believed it was yours? If you commanded
me to sacrifice my child, which you did command me to do,
and then at the decisive moment a voice is heard saying, ‘Re
frain,’ am I not obliged to believe it is the voice of the Tempter
that wants to keep me from fulfilling your will? I had journeyed
long, and now, when the moment at last had come, I was intent
on doing only one thing. My options were: Either I should have
assumed from the start that the voice that spoke to me, ‘Sacri
fice Isaac,’ was the Tempter’s voice, and then not gone forth as I
did, or when I had assured myself that it was indeed your voice
from the start, I should have concluded that this other voice,
this voice at the decisive moment, was the Tempter’s. It was the
latter I chose.”
So Abraham went home, and the Lord gave him a new Isaac.
But Abraham did not look upon him with any joy. When he
looked on him he shook his head and said, “This is not my
Isaac.”
But to Sarah he spoke differently. To her he said: “This is all
so very strange. That it was God’s demand that I should offer
Isaac is certain, absolutely certain. God himself cannot disavow
that. Yet when I took it seriously, it was a mistake on my part. It
was, in the end, not God’s will.”
Yet, as we know from the story (Gn. 22), it did not go like this
with Abraham. His obedience lies just in the fact that at the very
last moment he immediately and unreservedly obeyed as he
did. This is amazing. When a person has for a long time been
saying “A”, then humanly speaking he is rather bothered at hav
ing to say “B.” It is even harder, when one has actually drawn the
knife, to be able and willing, with implicit obedience, to recog
nize that after all no demand is made, that it is not necessary after
all to set forth to Mount Moriah with the purpose of sacrificing
Isaac. The decision whether to sacrifice one’s only child or to
spare him, oh, this is indeed great! Greater still, however, is it to
retain, even at the last moment, the obedience, and if I may ven
ture to say so, the agile willingness of an obedient soldier. Such
a one, even when he has almost reached his goal, does not mind
having to run back again, even if it renders all his running in
vain. Oh, this is great! No one was so great in faith as Abraham –
who can comprehend him?
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25 God’s Triumphant Love
Suppose there was a king who loved a humble
maiden and whose heart was unaffected by the wisdom that is
so often loudly preached. Let then the harp be tuned. Let the
songs of the poets begin. Let everyone be festive, while love cel
ebrates its triumph. For love is over-joyed when it unites equals,
but it is triumphant when it makes equal that which was un
equal. Let the king’s love reign!
But then there arose a sadness in the king’s soul. Who would
have dreamed of such a thing except a king with royal thoughts!
He spoke to no one about his sadness. Had he done so, each
courtier would doubtless have said, “Your Majesty, you are do
ing the girl a generous favor for which she could never thank
you enough.” This, however, would no doubt have aroused the
king’s wrath and, in turn, caused the king even more sorrow.
Therefore he wrestled with the sorrow in his heart. Would the
maiden really be happy? Would she be able to forget what the
king wished to forget, namely, that he was the king and she a
former lowly maiden? For if this happened, if the memory of
her former state awoke within her, and like a favored rival, stole
her thoughts away from the king, alluring her into the seclusion
of a secret grief; or if this memory at times crossed her soul like
death crossing over a grave – where then would the glory of
their love be? She would have been happier had she remained in
obscurity, loved by one of her own kind.
And even if the maiden were content to be as nothing, the
king would never be satisfied, simply because he loved her so.
He would much rather lose her than be her benefactor. What
deep sorrow there is slumbering in this unhappy love! Who
dares to rouse it?
When a believer sins he is still loved by God, God
longs for him to know this, and is thus concerned to make him
equal with himself. If equality cannot be established, love be
comes unhappy and incomplete. The revelation of God’s love
becomes meaningless, the two cannot understand each other.
How then might this relationship be established? One way
could be by the elevation of the disciple. God could lift the dis
ciple up to his own exultant state and this could well divert the
disciple with an everlasting joy. But God, the unselfish king,
would find no satisfaction in this. He knows that the disciple,
like the maiden, would be gravely deceived. For no deceit is so
terrible as when it is unsuspected, when a person is, as it were,
bewitched by a change of costume.
Perhaps unity could be brought about by God directly ap
pearing to the disciple and receiving his unhindered worship.
This would surely make the disciple forget about himself, much
in the way the king could have appeared in all his glory to the
humble maiden, making her forget herself in worshipping ado
ration. Alas! this might have satisfied the maiden but not the
king, who desires not his own exultation but hers. Nor would
she understand him, and this would make the king’s sorrow
even worse.
Not in this way, then, could love be made happy. Take an
analogy. God has joy in arraying the lily in a garment more glori
ous than Solomon. But if a flower and a king could understand
each other, what a sorry dilemma for a lily to be in! She would
wonder whether it was because of her raiment that God loved
her. What delusion! And whereas now she stands confident in
the meadow, playing with the wind as carefree as the breeze, she
would then languish and cease to have the courage to lift her
head.
Who grasps the contradiction of this sorrow: not to disclose
itself is the death of love; to disclose itself is the death of the be
loved. It was God’s longing to prevent this. The unity of love
will have to be brought about in some other way. If not by way
of elevation, of ascent, then by a descent of the lowest kind. God
must become the equal of the lowliest. But the lowliest is one
who serves others. God therefore must appear in the form of a
servant. But this servant’s form is not merely something he puts
on, like the beggar’s cloak, which, because it is only a cloak, flut
ters loosely and betrays the king. No, it is his true form. For this
is the unfathomable nature of boundless love, that it desires to
be equal with the beloved; not in jest, but in truth. And this is
the omnipotence of resolving love, deciding to be equal with
the beloved.
Look, then, there he stands – God! Where? There! Don’t you
see him? He is the God, and yet he has no place to lay his head,
and he does not dare to turn to any person lest that person be
offended at him. It is sheer love and sheer sorrow to want to ex
press the unity of love and then to not be understood.
God suffers all things, endures all things, is tried in all things,
hungers in the desert, thirsts in his agonies, is forsaken in death,
and became absolutely the equal of the lowliest of human be
ings – look, behold the man! He yields his spirit in death, on a
cross, and then leaves the earth. Oh bitter cup! More bitter than
wormwood is the ignominy of death for a mortal. How must it
be, then, for the immortal one! Oh bitter refreshment, more
sour than vinegar – to be refreshed by the beloved’s misunder
standing! Oh consolation in affliction to suffer as one who is
guilty – what must it be, then, to suffer as one who is innocent!
God is not zealous for himself but out of love wants to be
equal with the most lowly of the lowly. What power! When an
oak seed is planted in a clay pot, the pot breaks; when new wine
is poured into old wineskins, they burst. What happens, then,
when God the king plants himself in the frailty of a human be
ing? Does he not become a new person and a new vessel! Oh,
this becoming – how difficult it really is, and how like birth it
self! How terrifying! It is indeed less terrifying to fall upon one’s
face, while the mountains tremble at God’s voice, than to sit
with him in love as his equal. And yet God’s longing is precisely
to sit in this way.
26 Neighbor Love
If anyone asks, “Who is my neighbor?” then Christ’s
reply to the Pharisee, who asked this same question, contains
the only answer, for in answer to this question Christ turned
everything around. Christ says: “Which of these three, do you
think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the rob
bers?” The Pharisee answers correctly, “The one who showed
mercy to him” (Lk. 10:36). This means that by doing your duty
you easily discover who your neighbor is. The Pharisee’s answer
is contained in Christ’s question. He towards whom I have a
duty is my neighbor, and when I fulfill my duty, I prove that I
am a neighbor. Christ does not speak about recognizing our
neighbor but about being a neighbor yourself, about proving
yourself to be a neighbor, something the Samaritan showed by
his compassion. Choosing a lover, finding a friend, yes that is a
long, hard job, but your neighbor is easy to recognize, easy to
find – if you yourself will only recognize your duty and be a
neighbor.
In this way, Christ has thrust romantic love and friendship
from the throne, the love rooted in mood and inclination, pref
erential love. He does so in order to establish a spiritual love in
its place, love to our neighbor, a love which in all earnestness
and truth is inwardly more tender in the union of two persons
than romantic love is and more faithful in the sincerity of close
relationship than the most famous friendship. Let us not confuse
the matter. Christ does not ask for a higher love in addition to
praising friendship and romantic love. No, Christian love
teaches love for all people, unconditionally all.
The poet and Christ explain things in opposite ways. The
poet idolizes feelings and since he has only romantic love in
mind, believes that to command love is the greatest foolishness
and the most preposterous kind of talk: Love and friendship
contain no ethical task. Love and friendship are good fortune,
the highest good fortune. To find the one and only beloved is
good fortune, almost as great as to find the one and only friend.
For the poet, the highest task in life is to be properly grateful for
one’s good fortune. But one’s task can never be an obligation to
find the beloved or to find this friend. This is out of the question.
Christianity, however, dethrones feeling and good fortune
and replaces them with the shall. The point at issue between the
poet and Christ may be stated precisely in this way: romantic
love and friendship are preferential, the passion of preference;
Christian love, however, is self-renunciation’s love and there
fore trusts in the you shall. According to Christ, our neighbor is
our equal. Our neighbor is not the beloved, for whom you have
passionate preference, nor your friend, whom you prefer. Nor is
your neighbor, if you are well educated, the learned person with
whom you have cultural affinity – for with your neighbor you
have before God the equality of humanity. Nor is your neighbor
one who is of higher social status than you, and you love him
because he has higher social status. This is mere preference and
to that extent self-love. Nor is your neighbor one who is inferior
to you, and you love him because he is inferior to you, because
such love can easily be partiality’s condescension and to that
extent self-love.
No, Christian love, this you shall, means equality. In your rela
tionship to people of distinction you shall love your neighbor.
In relation to those who are inferior you are not to love in pity
but shall love your neighbor. Your neighbor is every person, for
on the basis of distinctions he is not your neighbor, nor on the
basis of likeness to you as in contrast to others. He is your
neighbor on the basis of equality with you before God.
We must take care not to be led into self-love. The more deci
sively and exclusively preference centers upon any one single
person, including husband and wife, the farther it is from lov
ing the neighbor. Husband, do not lead your wife into the
temptation of forgetting your neighbor because of love for you.
Wife, do not lead your husband into this temptation either!
Lovers may think that in their love they have the highest good,
but it is not so. No, love your beloved faithfully and tenderly,
but let love to your neighbor be the sanctifier in your covenant
of union with God. Love your friend honestly and devotedly,
but let love to your neighbor be what you learn from each other
in the intimacy of friendship with God!
Moreover, the person who does not see that his wife is first
his neighbor, and only then his wife, never comes to truly love
his neighbor, no matter how many people he loves, for he has
made an exception of his wife. To be sure, one’s wife or husband
is to be loved differently than the friend and the friend differ
ently than the neighbor, but this is not an essential difference.
The fundamental equality in love lies in the category neighbor.
Whatever your fate in romance and friendship, whatever your
privation, whatever your loss, the highest still stands: love your
neighbor! You can easily find him; him you can never lose. No
change can take your neighbor from you, for it is not your
neighbor who holds you fast – it is your love, this you shall,
which holds fast your neighbor.
In this sense love is blind. Perfection in the object has noth
ing to do with perfection in love. Precisely because one’s neigh
bor has none of the excellencies which the beloved, a friend, or
an admired one may have – for that very reason love to one’s
neighbor has all the perfections which none of these others
have. Let people debate as much as they want about which ob
ject of love is the most perfect – there can never be any doubt
that love to one’s neighbor is the most perfect love. Love to
one’s neighbor is determined by love. Since your neighbor is
unconditionally every person, all distinctions are indeed re
moved from the object. True love is recognizable only by love.
Therefore he who in truth loves, loves his neighbor. And he
who in truth loves his neighbor loves also his enemy. This is ob
vious; for the distinction of friend or enemy is a distinction in
the object of love, but the object of love to your neighbor is al
ways without distinction. Your neighbor is the absolutely un
recognizable distinction between one person and another; it is
eternal equality before God – enemies, too, have this equality.
Distinction, this or that quality – be it a virtue or a vice – is
selfishness’ confusing element that marks every person as dif
ferent. But neighbor is eternity’s mark, a mark found on every
human being. Take many sheets of paper and write something
different on each one. They do not, at first glance, resemble
each other. Then take every single sheet, do not let yourself be
confused by the differentiating inscriptions, and hold each one
up to the light and you shall see the same water-mark on them
all. Thus is neighbor the common mark, but you can see it only
by the help of the light of the eternal when it shines through
every such distinction.
To love one’s neighbor, therefore, means essentially to will to
exist equally for every human being without exception. If then
you really do meet the king, gladly and respectfully give him his
due. You should see in him his inner glory, the equality of glory,
the neighbor that his human magnificence only conceals. If you
meet a beggar – perhaps suffering in sorrow over him more
than he himself – you should nevertheless also see in him his
inner glory, the equality of glory, the neighbor which his
wretched outer garments conceal. Yes, then you shall see, wher
ever you turn your eye, your neighbor. In being king, beggar,
scholar, rich man, poor man, friend, enemy, we do not resemble
each other – in these ways we are all different. But in being a
neighbor we are all unconditionally alike.
27 The Greater Love
Worldly wisdom would have us believe that love is
a relationship between one person and another. Christ’s life
teaches that love is a relationship between three: person-God
person. However beautiful a love-relationship is between two
or more people – however complete all their enjoyment and all
their bliss in mutual devotion and affection are for them, and
even if all people praise this relationship – if God and the rela
tionship to God is left out, then this is not love but a mutual and
enchanting illusion. For only in love for God can one love in
truth. To help another human being to love God is to love an
other person. And to be helped by another human being to love
God is to be loved.
Love is by no means merely a human bond, no matter how
faithful and tender it is. As soon as you leave God out, the power
of human judgment becomes highest. Such judgment loses
sight of love altogether. As soon as a love-relationship does not
lead me to God, and as soon as I do not lead another person to
God, this love – even if it were the most blissful and joyous at
tachment, even if it were the highest good in the lover’s earthly
life – nevertheless is not true love.
Not only should the celibate belong solely to God, so should
the person who in love is bound to a woman or a man. He shall
not first seek to please his wife, but shall strive first that his love
may please God. Consequently, it is not the wife who shall teach
the husband how he should love her, or the husband his wife, or
a friend his friend, or associates their associates, but it is God
who shall teach each individual how he or she should love. Only
when the God-relationship determines what constitutes love is
love prevented from being some illusion or self-deception.
Love that does not lead to God, love that does not have the
single goal of leading us to love God, such love eventually
comes to a standstill. Moreover, it escapes the ultimate and
most terrible collision: in the love-relationship there is an infi
nite difference between God’s conception of love and ours. A
purely human conception of love can never comprehend that
anyone, through being loved as completely as possible by an
other person, would be able to stand in the other person’s way.
And yet, Christianly understood, this very thing is possible, for
to be loved thus can be a hindrance to one’s God-relationship.
So what is to be done? Christ knows how to remove the colli
sion without removing love. It demands only this sacrifice (in
many cases it is the greatest sacrifice possible): being willing to
accept that the reward for your love is to be hated. Wherever
someone is loved in such a way as to endanger another’s God-
relationship, there is a collision. And wherever this collision oc
curs, there is the requirement of a sacrifice that cannot be
humanly grasped. For the Christian view means this: to truly
love oneself is to love God; to truly love another person is,
though it mean being hated, to help the other person love God.
The world cannot seem to get it through its head that apart
from God love is a chimera. For God alone is love. Where love
is, God not only becomes the third party but essentially becomes
the only loved object, so that it is not the husband who is the
wife’s beloved, but it is God, and it is the wife who is helped by
the husband to love God, and conversely. The love-relationship
is a triangular relationship of the lover, the beloved, and love –
not love by itself but love in God. For ultimately it is God who
has placed love in us humans, and it is God who shall finally
decide what is love.
In matters of love it takes no time at all to become deceived.
It is so easy to get a quick, fanciful picture of what love is and
then be satisfied with the fancy. It is still easier to get a few
people to associate together in self-love, to be sought after and
admired by them till the end. But if your ultimate and highest
purpose is to have an easy and sociable life, then don’t have any
thing to do with Christ or his love. Flee from him, for he will do
the very opposite. He will make your life difficult and do this
precisely by making you stand alone before God.
Thus when a friend, a beloved, or other lovers and associates
notice that you want to learn from Christ what it is to love in
stead of learning from them, don’t be surprised when they say
to you, “Spare yourself. Give up this eccentricity. Why take life
so seriously? Cut out the straining, and let us all live a beautiful,
rich, and meaningful life in friendship and joy.” And if you give
in to the suggestions of this false friendship, you will surely be
loved and praised for it. But if you don’t, if in loving you will be
a traitor neither to God nor to yourself nor to the others, you
must expect your love to be refused and to be called selfish.
Even if you say nothing, the others will notice that your life con
tains, if it is truly related to God’s demand, an admonition, a
demand on them. It is this they want to do away with.
How many have been corrupted – divinely understood – by
such friendship, or by a woman’s love, simply because, de
frauded out of his God-relationship, he became far too at
tached to her while she in turn was inexhaustible in her praise
of his love? How many have relatives and friends corrupted by
their love because they got him to forget his God-relationship
and changed it to something people could shout about, admire,
without being sensitive to any admonition about higher things?
Do not appeal, therefore, to the judgment of others in order
to prove your love. Human judgment has validity only as far as
it agrees with God’s demand. No love between one person and
another can, in and of itself, ever be perfectly happy, ever per
fectly secure. Even the happiest love between two people has
still one danger, the danger that earthly love can become too in
tense, too important, so that the God-relationship is hindered.
You must always watch apprehensively, lest this danger overtake
you, lest you too should forget God, or that the beloved might
do so. Such apprehension may mean being hated by the be
loved. But only God, who is the one true source of love, is the
continuously happy, the continuously blessed object of love.
You should thus not watch too apprehensively; watch only in
adoration.
28 Love the Person You See
To love another in spite of his weaknesses and er
rors and imperfections is not perfect love. No, to love is to find
him lovable in spite of and together with his weakness and er
rors and imperfections. Let us understand each other.
Suppose there were two artists, and the one said,“I have trav
eled much and seen much in the world, but I have sought in
vain to find someone worth painting. I have found no face with
such perfection of beauty that I could make up my mind to
paint it. In every face I have seen one or another little flaw.
Therefore I seek in vain.” Would this indicate that this artist was
a great artist? In contrast, the second one said, “Well, I do not
pretend to be a very good artist, if one at all; neither have I trav
eled very much. But remaining in the little circle closest to me, I
have not found a face so insignificant or so full of faults that I
still could not discern in it a more beautiful side and discover
something glorious. Therefore I am happy in the art I practice,
though I make no claim to being an artist.” Would this not indi
cate that precisely this one was the artist, one who by bringing a
certain something with him found then and there what the
much-traveled artist did not find anywhere in the world, per
haps because he did not bring a certain something with him!
Was not the second of the two the real artist?
It is a sad upside-downness, altogether too common, to talk
on and on about how the object of love should be before it can
be loved. The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find
the object before you lovable – whether given or chosen – and
to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how
that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As
the apostle John reminds us: “He who does not love his brother
whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
(1 John 4:20)
Consider how Christ looked on Peter, once he had denied
Jesus. Was it a repelling look, a look of rejection? No. It was a
look such as a mother gives her child when the child is in dan
ger due to its own indiscretion. Since she cannot approach and
snatch the child from danger, she catches him off guard with a
reproachful but saving look. Was Peter in danger, then? Alas, we
do not understand how serious it is for one to betray his friend.
But in the passion of anger or hurt the injured friend cannot see
that it is the denier who is in danger. Yet the Savior saw clearly
that it was Peter who was in danger, not him, and that it was
Peter who needed saving. The Savior of the world did not make
the mistake of regarding his cause as lost because Peter did not
hurry to help him. Rather, he saw Peter as lost if he did not
hurry to save him.
Christ’s love for Peter was so boundless that in loving Peter
he accomplished loving the person one sees. He did not say,
“Peter you must first change and become another man before I
can love you again.” No, he said just the opposite: “Peter, you are
Peter, and I love you; love, if anything, will help you to become a
different person.” Christ did not break off his friendship with
Peter, and then renew it again when Peter had become a differ
ent man. No, he preserved the friendship and in this way helped
Peter to become another man. Do you think that Peter would
have ever been won again without such faithful love?
We foolish people often think that when a person has
changed for the worse we are exempted from loving him. What
a confusion in language: to be exempt from loving. As if it were
a matter of compulsion, a burden one wished to cast away! If
this is how you see the person, then you really do not see him;
you merely see unworthiness, imperfection, and admit thereby
that when you loved him you did not really see him but saw
only his excellence and perfections. True love is a matter of lov
ing the very person you see. The emphasis is not on loving the
perfections, but on loving the person you see, no matter what
perfections or imperfections that person might possess.
He who loves the perfections he sees in a person does not see
the person, and thus does not truly love, for such a person
ceases to love as soon as the perfections cease. But even when
the most distressing changes occur, the person does not thereby
cease to be. Love does not vault into heaven, for it comes from
heaven and with heaven. It steps down and thereby accom
plishes loving the same person throughout all his changes, good
or bad, because it sees the same person in all his changes. Hu
man love is always flying after the beloved’s perfections. Chris
tian love, however, loves despite imperfections and weaknesses.
In every change love remains with him, loving the person it
sees.
Alas, we talk about finding the perfect person in order to love
him. Christianity teaches us that the perfect person is the one
who limitlessly loves the person he sees. We humans always
look upward for the perfect object, but in Christ love looks
down to earth and loves the person it sees. If then, you wish to
become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as
you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love
him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no
longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferently away or
turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he
betrays and denies you. Love the person you see and see the per
son you love.
29 Love’s Hidden Need
Love is like a spring that lures by the murmuring
persuasion of its rippling. The stream almost begs one to go
along the path, and yet it does not wish to be discovered or its
secret revealed. Love is like the rays of the sun that invite us to
observe the glory of the world but reproachfully punish with
blindness the presumptuous who try, inquisitively and impu
dently, to discover the origin of the light. The suffering is always
most painful when the surgeon penetrates into the more vital,
hidden parts of the body. In the same way, the suffering is most
painful and most devastating when someone, instead of rejoic
ing in the works of love, wants the pleasure of penetrating it, by
disturbing it.
The hidden life of love, in its most inward depths, is unfath
omable, and still has a boundless relationship with the whole of
existence. As the quiet lake is fed by the flow of hidden springs,
which no eye sees, so a human being’s love is grounded in God’s
love. If there were no spring at the bottom, if God were not love,
there would be neither a lake nor human love. As the still waters
begin obscurely in the deep spring, so our love mysteriously be
gins in God’s love.
The life of love is hidden, and yet its hidden life is itself in
motion and has the eternal in itself. As still waters, however qui
etly they lie, are really running, so love flows, however still it is
in its hiddenness. But the still waters can dry up if the springs
stop; the life of love, on the other hand, has an eternal spring.
This life is fresh and everlasting. No cold can freeze it – it is too
warm for that; and no heat can dry it up – it is too fresh in its
own coolness for that. Let us therefore not disturb this hidden-
ness or give ourselves over to mere observation or introspection.
This hidden life of love is knowable by its fruits. Yes, in love
there is a need to be recognizable by its fruits. How beautiful it
is – that which marks the deepest poverty also signifies the
greatest riches! Need to have need and to be needy – how reluc
tantly we wish this to be said of us! Yet we pay the highest com
pliment when we say of a poet, “It is a need for him to write.”
Alas, even the most needy person has a rich life in comparison
to the only really poor person, who lived out his life and never
felt the need of anything! It is the lover’s greatest treasure to
need the beloved. It is the believer’s highest and true wealth to
need God. Ask the lover, or ask the believer if they could dis
pense with their need! It is the same with the recognizability of
love by its fruits. It would be the greatest torture if love was re
quired to keep hidden, to go unrecognizable. Would it not be as
if a plant, sensitive to the vigor and blessing of life in itself, did
not dare let it become known and kept the blessing to itself?
A tree, as Jesus puts it, is known by its fruits. But it is said of
certain plants that they must form hearts. The same must be
said of a person’s love; if it is really to bear fruit and be recogniz
able by its fruit, it must form a heart. Love, to be sure, proceeds
from the heart, but let us not forget that love itself forms the
heart. This is the essential condition for bearing love’s fruit.
As love itself is not to be seen, neither is it known by any
single expression. There is no word, not even the most sacred
word, which can guarantee that there is love in us. Likewise,
there is no deed, not even the best, of which we dare announce:
the one who does this is surely demonstrating love. No, it de
pends upon how each deed is done. True, there are special acts
29 Love’s Hidden Need
that we call works of love. But just because we make charitable
contributions, because we visit those in prison and feed the
poor does not necessarily mean we have love. Yes, it is quite pos
sible to perform works of love in an unloving, yes, even in a self-
loving way. When this is so, the “works of love” are in vain.
Consequently, how something is said, how it is meant, and how
the deed is done is the decisive factor in determining and recog
nizing true love. Yet even here there is nothing, no “in such a
way,” that unconditionally guarantees whether love is or is not.
Yes, love is known by its fruits. This does not mean we should
now get busy judging one another. By no means! Even if love is
recognizable by its fruits, let us not impatiently, suspiciously,
judgingly demand to always see these fruit in our relationships
with one another. We must believe in love. This is the first and
last thing to be said about love if you are to ever know what love
is. For where is love if there is miserable mistrust that insists
upon seeing the fruits. If mistrust sees something as less than it
actually is, then love sees something as greater than it is. Do not
forget that it is more blessed to believe in love. Therefore, the
last, the most blessed, the absolutely convincing evidence of
love remains: love itself, which is known and recognized by the
love in another. Like is known only by like. Only he who abides
in love can recognize love, and in the same way his love is to be
known.
30 Love Builds Up
To build up is to construct something from the
ground up. Everyone knows what the foundation of a house is.
But spiritually speaking, what is the foundation of the life of the
spirit? It is love. Love is the origin of everything, and love is the
deepest ground of the life of the spirit.
The foundation – love – is laid in every person in whom
there is love. And the edifice to be constructed, is love. It is love
that edifies. Love builds up, and when it builds, it builds up love.
Love is the ground; love is the building; love builds up. To build
up another is to build up love, and it is love that does the build
ing up. Love is the ground, and to build up means precisely to
construct from the ground up.
When we speak about the works of love, it must mean either
that we implant love in the heart of another or that we presup
pose that love is in the other’s heart and with this presupposi
tion build up love in him. One of the two must exist for building
up love. But can a person implant love in the heart of another?
No. It is God alone, the creator, who can implant love in a per
son, he who himself is love. All energetic and self-assertive zeal
in this regard, all thought of creating love in another person
neither builds up nor is itself up-building. It is unthinkable. No,
true love presupposes that love is in the other person’s heart, no
matter how hidden, and by this very presupposition builds love
up – from the ground up.
Love is not what you try to do to transform the other person
or what you do to constrain love to come forth in him; it is
rather how you constrain yourself. Only the person who lacks
love imagines himself able to build up love by constraining the
other. The true lover always believes that love is present; pre
cisely in this way he builds up. In this way he only entices forth
the good; he “loves up” love; he builds up what is already there.
For love can and will be treated in only one way – by being
loved forth.
To love forth love means to believe that love is present at the
base. The builder can point to his work and say, “This is my
work.” But love has nothing it can point to, for its very work
consists only in presupposing. If a lover did succeed (by presup
posing) in building up love in another person, when the build
ing stands, he must step aside and humbly say, “Indeed, I knew
it was there all the time.” Alas, love has no merit at all, for love’s
building does not stand as a monument to the skill of the
builder or, like the pupil, as a reminder of the teacher’s instruc
tion. The one who loves accomplishes nothing; he only brings
forth the love that is already there. The lover works quietly and
earnestly, and yet it is the powers of the eternal, not the strength
of his love, which are set in motion. The humility in love is the
secret of its power.
Love makes itself inconspicuous, especially when it works
hardest. In love’s work, our labor is reduced to nothing. The
building-up of love can thus be compared to the work of na
ture. While we sleep, creation’s vital forces keep on. No one
gives a thought to how they carry on, although everyone de
lights in the beauty of the meadow and the fruitfulness of the
field. This is the way love conducts itself. It presupposes that
love is present, like the germ in a kernel of grain, and if it suc
ceeds in bringing it to fruition, love is modest, as inconspicuous
as when it worked day and night.
Therefore, “Love is patient.” Patience means perseverance in
believing that love is fundamentally present. He who judges
that another lacks love takes the groundwork away, and thus
cannot build up. Love builds up with patience. Neither “is it ir
ritable or resentful,” for irritability and resentment ultimately
deny love in another. In fact, love bears another’s misunder
standing, his thanklessness, and his anger.
“Love does not insist on its own way,” neither does it “rejoice
at wrong.” He who seeks his own way pushes everything else
aside. He demolishes in order to make room for his own way,
which he wants to build up. Yes, the one who seeks to tear down
must be said to rejoice at wrong. But love rejoices in knowing
that love is already present; therefore it builds up. “Love bears
all things.” When we say of a very healthy person that he can eat
or drink anything, we mean that in his strength he draws nour
ishment out of even the poorest food. In the same way love
bears all things, continually presupposing that love is funda
mentally present, despite resistance – and thereby it builds up.
“Love believes all things.” Yes, to believe all things means to
believe that love is there – even though love is not apparent,
even though the opposite is seen. Mistrust takes the very foun
dation away. Unlike love, mistrust cannot build up. “Love hopes
all things.” Despite all appearances to the contrary, love firmly
trusts that love will eventually show itself, even in the deluded,
in the misguided, and in the lost. The father’s love won the
prodigal son again just because he hoped all things, believing
that love was fundamentally present. What more can we say?
“Love endures all things. It is not jealous or boastful; it is not
arrogant or rude; it is not irritable or resentful…”
Love builds up simply because it knows beyond any doubt
that love is present. Have you not, my reader, experienced this
yourself? If any person has ever spoken to you in such a way or
acted toward you in such a way that you felt yourself built up,
was it not because you quite vividly perceived that he or she
presupposed love to be present in you? We know that no one
can bestow the ground of love in another person’s heart. Love is
the ground, and we build only from the ground up, only by pre
supposing love. Take love away, cease from presupposing it –
then there is no one who builds up nor is there anyone who is
built up.
31 Love’s Like-for-Like
Jesus says, “Forgive, and you will also be forgiven”
(Mt. 6:14). That is to say, forgiveness is forgiveness. Your for
giveness of another is your own forgiveness; the forgiveness you
give is the forgiveness you receive. If you wholeheartedly forgive
your enemy, you may dare hope for your own forgiveness, for it
is one and the same. God forgives you neither more nor less
than as you forgive your trespassers.
It is an illusion to imagine that you have forgiveness while you
are slack in forgiving others. No, there is not a more exact agree
ment between the sky above and its reflection in the sea below,
than there is between forgiveness and forgiving. Is it not pure
conceit to believe in your own forgiveness when you will not
forgive others? For how in truth can you believe in forgiveness if
your own life is a refutation of the existence of forgiveness?! Yes,
to accuse another person before God is to accuse yourself,
like-for-like.
People so gladly deceive themselves, so gladly imagine that
they can have, as it were, a private relationship with God. But if
you complain of your enemies to God, he makes short work of
it and opens a case against you, because before God you too are
a guilty person. To complain against another is to complain
against yourself. You think that God should take your side, that
God and you together should turn against your enemy, against
him who did you wrong. But this is a complete misunderstand
ing. God looks without discrimination upon all. Go ahead. If
you intend to have God judge someone else, then you have
made God your judge as well. God is, like-for-like, simulta
neously your judge. If, however, you refuse to accuse someone
before God he will be merciful towards you.
Let me illuminate this with an example. There was once a
criminal who had stolen some money, including a hundred-
dollar bill. He wanted to get this changed into smaller bills and so
he turned to another criminal to help him. The second criminal
took the money, went into the next room as if to make change,
then came out again and acted as if nothing ever happened. In
short, he swindled the first criminal out of the hundred-dollar
bill. The first man became so embittered over this that he
brought the case to the authorities and reported how shame
fully he had been deceived. Naturally the second man was im
prisoned on the charge of fraud. Alas, in the trial the first
question the authorities raised was: how did the accuser get the
money in the first place? And so there were two trials. Thus it is
with respect to God. When you accuse another person, there are
immediately two cases; just because you come and reported an
other person before God, God happens to think of how it also
involves you.
Like-for-like. Yes, Christ is so rigorous that he even affirms a
radical inequality. He says, “Why do you see the speck that is in
your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own
eye?” (Mt. 7:3). And even if you do not see the log, even if no
one else sees it – God sees it. Is this not rigorousness, this which
makes a gnat into an elephant? But if you truly understand how
God is continually present in everything, then you will indeed
be able to understand this rigorousness, you will understand
that seeing the speck in your brother’s eye is always high trea
son. God is always present, and if he is present, he also sees you!
How rigorous is this Christian like-for-like! The world’s like-
for-like is: see to it that in the long run you do to others what
others have done to you. But the Christian like-for-like is: as
you do to others, God does to you in the very same mode.
Christianly understood, what others do to you should not con
cern you. You should concern yourself with what you do to oth
ers and with the way you receive what others do to you. The
direction is inwards; essentially you have only to do with your
self before God. To love human beings is to love God and to
love God is to love human beings. What you do to others you do
to God, and therefore what you do to others God does to you.
If you are embittered towards those who do you wrong, you
are really embittered towards God, for ultimately it is God who
permits wrong to be done to you. If, however, you gratefully
take wrongs as if from God’s hand, “as a good and perfect gift,”
you will not become resentful. If you will not forgive, you es
sentially want something else, you want to make God hard
hearted. How, then, should this hard-hearted God forgive you?
If you cannot bear the offenses of those against you, how
should God bear your sins against him? No, like-for-like.
God is himself the pure rendition of how you yourself are. If
there is wrath in you, then God is wrath in you; if there is mild
ness and mercifulness in you, then God is mercifulness in you.
You know well enough that echo which dwells in solitude. It
corresponds exactly, oh, so exactly, to every sound, to the slight
est sound, and duplicates it, oh, so exactly. If there is a word you
prefer not be said to you, then watch your saying of it. Watch
lest it slip out of you in solitude, for the echo duplicates it im
mediately and says it to you. If you have never been solitary, you
have also never discovered that God exists. But if you have been
truly solitary, then you have learned that everything you say and
do to other human beings God simply repeats. He repeats it
with the intensification of infinity.
32 Love Abides – Forever!
The one who truly loves never falls away from love.
He can never reach the breaking-point. Yet, is it always possible
to prevent a break in a relationship between two persons, espe
cially when the other has given up? One would certainly not
think so. Is not one of the two enough to break the relationship?
In a certain sense it is so. But if the lover is determined to not
fall away from love, he can prevent the break, he can perform
this miracle; for if he perseveres, a total break can never really
come to be.
By abiding, the one who loves transcends the power of the
past. He transforms the break into a possible new relationship, a
future possibility. The lover who abides belongs to the future, to
the eternal. From the angle of the future, the break is not really a
break, but rather a possibility. But the powers of the eternal are
needed for this. The lover must abide in love, otherwise the
heartache of the past still has the power to keep alive the break.
How shall I describe this work of love; this work that trans
forms the past into the future? Oh, that I might be inexhaustible
in describing what is so indescribably joyous and so edifying to
reflect upon!
Let us consider the following. The breaking point between
two lovers is reached. It was a misunderstanding; one of them
broke the relationship. But the lover says, “I will abide” – there
fore there still is no final break. Imagine a compound word
which lacks the last word. There is only the first word and the
hyphen. Imagine, then, the first word and the hyphen of a com
pound word. What will you say? You will say that the word is
incomplete, that it lacks something. It is the same with the one
who loves. The lover understands that the relationship which
the other considers broken is a relationship which has not yet
been completed. Although it lacks something, it is still not a to
tal break. The whole thing depends upon how the relationship
is regarded, and the lover – he abides.
Again, a relationship comes to the breaking point. There is
an argument which separates the two. One breaks it off and
says: “It is all over between us.” But the lover abides: “No, all is
not over between us. We are still midway in the sentence; it is
only the sentence which is not complete.” Is it not so? What a
difference there is between an unfinished sentence and some
thing we call a fragment because we know that nothing more is
to come. If one does not know this, he says that the sentence is
not yet completed. True, from the perspective of the past, one
might well say, “It is a broken fragment.” From the vantage
point of the future, however, we await the next part, and say,
“The sentence is not complete; it still lacks something.”
Perhaps it is disharmony, a cooling-off, or indifference that
separates the two. One makes the break saying, “I no longer
speak to that person. I never see him anymore.” But the one
who loves says: “I abide. We shall yet speak with one another,
because silence also belongs to conversation at times.” Is this
not so? Even if it is three years since they last spoke together, it
doesn’t make any difference. If you saw two people sitting si
lently together and you knew nothing more, would you thereby
conclude that it was three years since they spoke to each other?
Can anyone determine how long a silence must be in order to
say, now there is no more conversation? Does the dance cease
because one dancer has gone away? In a certain sense, yes. But if
32 Love Abides – Forever
the other still remains standing in the posture that expresses a
turning towards the one who has left, and if you know nothing
about the past, then you will say, “Now the dance will begin just
as soon as the other comes.” Put the past out of the way; drown
it in the forgiveness of the eternal by abiding in love. Then the
end is the beginning and there is no break!
And so a relationship comes to a breaking-point, and one
severs the relationship. It was terrible; hate, eternal and irrecon
cilable hate fills the other’s soul.“I will never see that person any
more. Our paths are forever separated; the abysmal depth of
hate lies between us.” To him the world is too small to house
them both; to him it is agony to breathe in the same world
where the hated one breathes. He shudders at the thought that
eternity will house them both. But the one who loves abides. “I
will abide,” he says. “Therefore we are still on the path of life to
gether.” And is this not so? When two balls collide in such a way
that the one, simply by repulsion, carries the other along in its
path, are they not on the path together? That it happens
through repulsion cannot be seen; for that is something past
which must be known. But the one who truly loves moves be
yond the past. He abides, he even abides on the path with the
one who hates him. There is thus no break.
What marvelous strength love has! The most powerful word
that has ever been said, God’s creative word, is: “Be.” But the
most powerful word any human being has ever said is,“I abide.”
Reconciled to himself and to his conscience, the one who loves
goes without defense into the most dangerous battle. He only
says: “I abide.” But he will conquer, conquer by his abiding.
There is no misunderstanding that cannot be conquered by his
abiding, no hate that can ultimately hold up to his abiding – in
eternity if not sooner. If time cannot, at least the eternal shall
wrench away the other’s hate. Yes, the eternal will open his eyes
for love. In this way love never fails – it abides.
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