1
MY POSITION
Copenhagen, November 1850.
Never have I fought in such a way that I have said: I am the true Christian; the others are not Christians, or probably even hypocrites and the like. No, I have fought in this way: I know what Christianity is; I myself acknowledge my defects as a Christian—but I do know what Christianity is. And to come to know this thoroughly seems to me to be in the interest of every human being, whether one is now a Christian or a non-Christian, whether one’s intention is to accept Christianity or to abandon it. But I have attacked no one, saying that he is not a Christian; I have passed judgment on no one. Indeed, the pseudonymous writer Johannes Climacus, who poses the issue of “becoming a Christian,” does even the opposite, denies being a Christian37 and accords this to the others—surely the greatest possible distance from passing judgment on others! And I myself have from the start enjoined and again and again repeated stereotypically: I am “without authority.” Finally, in the last book by Anti-Climacus38 (who has tried to disturb the illusions, especially in No. I, with the aid of the poetical that dares to say everything and the dialectical that shuns no consequences), again no one, not one, is judged. The only person mentioned by name, on whom the judgment falls that in the striving for ideality (see the thrice-repeated preface39) he is only a very defective Christian, the only person judged is myself—to which I willingly submit, since it is of infinite concern to me that the requirements of ideality at least be heard. But this, again, is surely the greatest distance possible from passing judgment on others.
For a long time the strategy employed was to utilize everything to get as many as possible, everyone if possible, to accept [XIII 506] Christianity—but then not to be so very scrupulous about whether what one got them to accept actually was Christianity. My strategy was: with the help of God to utilize everything to make clear what in truth Christianity’s requirement is—even if not one single person would accept it, even if I myself might have to give up being a Christian, which in that case I would have felt obliged to acknowledge publicly. From the other side this was my strategy: instead of even in the remotest manner suggesting that Christianity is nevertheless beset by such difficulties that a defense is necessary if we human beings are to enter into it, instead of that, to present it, which is the truth, as something so infinitely high that the defense lies somewhere else, is up to us, so that we dare to call ourselves Christians, or changes into a contrite confession, that we thank God if we only dare to regard ourselves as Christians.
But this must not be forgotten either. Christianity is just as gentle as it is rigorous, just as gentle, that is, infinitely gentle. When the infinite requirement is heard and affirmed, is heard and affirmed in all its infinitude, then grace is offered, or grace offers itself, to which the single individual, each one individually, can then have recourse as I do; and then it works out all right. Yet it certainly is no exaggeration for infinity’s requirement, the infinite requirement, to be presented—infinitely (it is indeed also in the very interest of grace). In another sense, it is an exaggeration only when the requirement alone is presented and grace is not introduced at all. Christianity is taken in vain, however, when the infinite requirement is either made finite (perhaps in view of the opinion that “this won’t do at all in practical life”—something that together with their practice presumably must be able to impress both God in heaven and Christianity and the apostles and martyrs and truth-witnesses and the fathers) or it is even left out completely and grace is introduced as a matter of course, which, after all, means that it is taken in vain.40
But never, not even in the remotest way, have I made any move or attempt to carry the matter into pietistic rigor, something that is foreign to my soul and being, or to overtax the lives of people, something that would grieve the spirit in me. No. What I have wanted has been to contribute, with the aid of confessions, to bringing, if possible, into these incomplete lives as we lead them a little more truth (in the direction of being persons of ethical and ethical-religious character, of renouncing worldly sagacity, of being willing to suffer for the truth, etc.), which indeed is always something and in any case is the first condition for beginning to exist more capably. What I have wanted to prevent is that someone, confining himself to and contented with the easier and lower, thereupon goes further, abolishes the higher, goes further, sets the lower in the place of the higher, goes further, makes the higher into fantasticality and ludicrous exaggeration, the lower into wisdom and true earnestness; I have wanted to prevent people in “Christendom” from existentially taking in vain Luther and the significance of Luther’s life—I have wished, if possible, to contribute to preventing this.
What was needed, among other things, was a godly satire. [XIII 507] This I have represented, especially with the help of pseudonymous writers, who did not let me get off unscathed either. But lest any confusion could occur, lest this satire could be confused with what all too readily wants to pass itself off as satire—the profane revolt of the most deeply sunken profane powers—then I, who have represented this godly satire, then I was the very one who hurled myself against and exposed myself to that mob-revolt’s profane satire.41 In this way I have devoutly striven from the very beginning to be honest. Furthermore, even if the presentations have a sting of truth, the whole thing is nevertheless done as gently as possible inasmuch as it is only a matter of admissions and confessions, admissions and confessions that are left up to each individual to make by oneself before God. Yet perhaps this very gentleness is in another sense an inconvenience to some people; it would be much easier to dispose of the whole thing if the author were an addlepate who at every point exaggerated both the indictment and the requirement. Now, since this is not the case, presumably someone or other could get it into his head to spread the story that this is the case. Yet by the help of God the attempt will surely come to naught. Yes, if I were a strong ethical-religious character—alas, instead of being hardly anything but a poet!—and therefore justified and duty-bound in proceeding more rigorously on behalf of the truth, it would no doubt be possible that I would only encounter opposition instead of finding access to my contemporaries. But since I am not that strong, I will surely succeed in finding access to my contemporaries, therefore not on the basis of my perfection, a confession I think I owe to the truth.
With regard to an “established order,” I have consistently—since my position has indeed been the single individual, with polemical aim at the numerical, the crowd, etc.—always done the very opposite of attacking. I have never been or been along with the “opposition” that wants to do away with “government” but have always provided what is called a corrective, which for God’s sake wishes that there might be governing by those who are officially appointed and called, that fearing God they might stand firm, willing only one thing—the good.42 I have thereby managed to have a falling out with the opposition and the public; yes, at times I have in addition even had to put up with disapproval by some perhaps less informed public official. —Provided an ecclesiastical established order understands itself, it will to the same degree understand the latest book, Practice in Christianity, as an attempt to find, ideally, a basis for an established order. I was not immediately willing to state this (which, incidentally, the preface expresses directly by stating how I understand the book) as directly* as I do here, in order, in the interest of truth, not to spare [XIII 508] myself with regard to what, reasonably or unreasonably, was still a possibility, in order not to evade the difficulties and dangers that could arise if the established order had taken it upon itself to change the communication into opposition, which would have opened an alarming glimpse into the religious condition of the established order, but, praise God, this did not happen. It was, however, possible that the trivial, the comical, could still happen, that some well-informed public official, for whom it alone is enough that I am not a public official, comes rushing to defend and protect the established order against this—yes, against what at present is certainly the potential defense for an established order if it understands itself.43
In the year 184844 the threads of sagacity broke; the shriek that announces chaos was heard!45 “It was the year 1848; it was a step forward.” Well, yes, if “government” is achieved for which not a single new official is needed or the dismissal of any older official,46 but perhaps an internal transformation in the direction of becoming steadfast by fearing God. Certainly the mistake from above was that on the whole the strength throughout the government from top to bottom was essentially secular sagacity, which essentially is precisely the lack of strength. The fault from below was to want to do away with all government. The punishment, since the mode of the sin is always the mode of the punishment, the punishment is: that which comes to be most bitterly missed is precisely—government. Never as in our century have any generation and the individuals within it (the ruler and those ruled, the superiors and the subordinates, the teachers and those taught, etc.) been so emancipated as now from all the inconvenience, if you will, of something standing and necessarily standing unconditionally firm. Never have “opinions” (the most diverse and in the most various spheres), “in freedom, equality, and fraternity,” felt so unconstrained and so blissfully happy with the free pass “to a certain degree”; never will a generation so deeply come to sense that what it and every individual in it needs is that something stands and must stand unconditionally firm, needs what the deity, divine love in love, invented—the unconditional, for which humankind, sagacious to its own corruption, in self-admiration substituted this much-admired “to a certain degree.”
Command the seaman to sail without ballast—he capsizes; let the generation, let every individual in it try to exist without the unconditional—it is and remains a vortex. In the intervening period, for a longer or shorter time, it may seem otherwise, that there is steadfastness and security—fundamentally it is and remains a vortex. Even the greatest events and the most strenuous lives are nevertheless a vortex or like sewing without fastening the end47—until the end is once again fastened by the application of the unconditional, or by the single individual’s relating himself to an unconditional, even though at ever so great a distance. To live only in the unconditional, to breathe [indaande] only the unconditional—the human being cannot do this; he perishes [XIII 509] like the fish that must live in the air. But on the other hand a human being cannot in the deeper sense live without relating himself to the unconditional; he expires [udaande], that is, perhaps goes on living, but spiritlessly [aandløst]. If—to stick to my subject, the religious—if the generation, or a great number of individuals in the generation, has outgrown the childishness that another human being is the one who represents the unconditional for them—well, nevertheless one cannot thereby do without the unconditional; rather, one can all the less do without it. Thus the single individual must personally relate himself to the unconditional. This is what I to the best of my ability and with maximum effort and much sacrifice have fought for, fighting against every tyranny, also the tyranny of the numerical. This endeavor of mine has incurred opprobrium as enormous pride and arrogance—I believed, and48 I do believe, that this is Christianity and love for “the neighbor.”49