ABSTRACT
Peter Michael Stilling (1812-69) belonged to Søren Kierkegaard’s generation. He was, like Adolph Peter Adler (1812-69), one of the Danish right Hegelians of the same generation, who, after first having been a follower of Hans Lassen Martensen (1808-84), then of Rasmus Nielsen (1809-84), ultimately followed the latter into the Kierkegaardian camp. Kierkegaard had a greater personal sympathy for Stilling than what he nourished for Rasmus Nielsen, whom he stood in a closer relation with than he ever did with Stilling. Even in 1849-50 Kierkegaard indicated that Nielsen, if he had changed his course, could be his successor, and continued: “Which, by the way, also Mag. Stilling seems to look promising for; he is undeniably a possibility, under whom there is already a fire, or who is skating on such a thin ice that he has an idea of the ‘current.’ ”2 To have an idea of “the current” meant, for Kierkegaard, to know that in Christianity God demands sacrifice and suffering from the human being, that is, the imitation of Christ.3
