ABSTRACT
The dialectic of law and grace in Kierkegaard’s thought is well known.2 Christianity, as Kierkegaard articulates it, holds apparent opposites in dialectical tension: strenuousness and leniency, grace and law, conviction and consolation. These inherent tensions do not, however, rule out their “fusion” in the context of actuality.3 According to Kierkegaard’s observations, Denmark’s official Christianity had insidiously eased the tension by emphasizing grace to the exclusion of works. Thus the biblical passages that conferred leniency and consolation were readily
1 SKS 13, 53 / FSE, 25. 2 Cf., for example, For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, ed. by Robert L. Perkins, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 2002 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 21). See especially the articles by David Cain, Lee Barrett, Craig Hinkson, Murray Rae, and Martin Andic on the law-gospel dialectic and the role of the prototype as the ideal in the Christian life. 3 Paul Plass describes the relationship between absolute human responsibility and absolute divine grace as a “fusion.” For Plass, the subjective and objective elements presented in Scripture are to be seen as “antinomies” which are cancelled out when action takes precedence over conceptual understanding. This does not, for Plass, cause Kierkegaard to collapse into a mere subjectivism, but nor does it offer certainty of knowledge in the objective realm. Rather, it exchanges the less certain category of objective truth (in which only probability is possible) with the more certain category of subjective truth (in which one’s action enables the actualization of truth in one’s personal existence). I would add that for Kierkegaard the latter category is more certain also because the finitude and fallenness of humanity entail that a supernatural revelation and a covenantal relationship are required for humanity to have any confidence at all regarding the nature and content of essential truth. Cf. Theologische Zeitschrift, vol. 42, 1986,
appropriated both by the average Christian and by the cleric, while the imperatives of the New Testament were rationalized away. Kierkegaard writes:
“Christendom” falsely appropriates the words of consolation and encouragement-and in the long run still never uses them. For in the world of the spirit everything hangs together: if I truly were to use such a prodigiously exalted consolation, the first effect the consolation would have would be to make my life more strenuous. The first thing the consolation does is to give me strenuousness.4
