Part 1

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 Christcentered 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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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

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

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

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

38 Consider the Lilies 39 Behold the Birds of the Air 40 The Royal Coachman 41 The Invitation

34 Nebuchadnezzar 35 The War Within 36 Sickness Unto Death 37 The Dynamics of Despair

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

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

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

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

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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

Introduction

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.

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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:

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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 Godfearing, 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.

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Introduction

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,

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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

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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,

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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.

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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

Introduction

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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 archenemy 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

1 Dare to Decide

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

1 Dare to Decide

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

2 Either/Or

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

3 Under the Spell of Good Intentions

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.

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