Conclusion

Conclusion

A

THE ESTHETIC WRITING

WHY THE BEGINNING WAS MADE WITH ESTHETIC WRITING, OR WHAT THIS WRITING, UNDERSTOOD IN THE TOTALITY,* SIGNIFIES

§1

“Christendom” Is an Enormous Illusion

Everyone who in earnest and also with some clarity of vision considers what is called Christendom, or the condition in a so-called Christian country, must without any doubt immediately have serious misgivings. What does it mean, after all, that all these thousands and thousands as a matter of course call themselves Christians! These many, many people, of whom by far the great majority, according to everything that can be discerned, have their lives in entirely different categories, something one [XIII 530] can ascertain by the simplest observation! People who perhaps never once go to church, never think about God, never name his name except when they curse! People to whom it has never occurred that their lives should have some duty to God, people who either maintain that a certain civil impunity is the highest or do not find even this to be entirely necessary! Yet all these people, even those who insist that there is no God, they all are Christians, call themselves Christians, are recognized as Christians by the state, are buried as Christians by the Church, are discharged as Christians to eternity!

That there must be an enormous underlying confusion here, a dreadful illusion, of that there can surely be no doubt. But to touch on this! Yes, I am well aware of the objection! There surely are this one and that one who understand what I mean but who then with a certain good-naturedness would pat me on the shoulder and say, “My dear friend, you are still rather young—and then to want to begin such a project, a project that, if it is to have any success at all, would require at least a dozen well-trained missionaries, a project that amounts to neither more nor less than wanting to introduce Christianity again—into Christendom. No, dear friend, let us be human beings; such a project is beyond both your power and mine. This project is just as insanely grandiose as wanting to reform ‘the crowd,’ which no sensible person gets involved with but lets it be what it is. To begin on such a thing is sure disaster.” Perhaps, but even if it is or would be sure disaster, it is also certain that the objection has not been learned from Christianity, because when Christianity entered into the world it was even more decidedly sure disaster to begin on it—yet it was begun; and it is also certain that this objection was not learned from Socrates, because he involved himself with “the crowd” and wanted to reform it.

This is just about the way things are. Every once in a while a pastor makes a little fuss in the pulpit about there being something not quite right with all these many Christians—but all those who hear him and who are present there, consequently all those he is speaking to, are Christians, and of course he is not speaking to those he is speaking about. This is most appropriately called simulated motion. —Every once in a while a religious enthusiast appears. He makes an assault on Christendom; he [XIII 531] makes a big noise, denounces nearly all as not being Christians—and he accomplishes nothing. He does not take into account that an illusion is not so easy to remove. If it is the case that most people are under an illusion when they call themselves Christians, what do they do about an enthusiast like that? First and foremost, they pay no attention to him at all, do not read his book but promptly lay it ad acta [aside]; or if he makes use of the Living Word,22 they go around on another street and do not listen to him at all. Then by means of a definition they smuggle him outside and settle down quite securely in their illusion. They make him out to be a fanatic and his Christianity to be an exaggeration—in the end he becomes the only one, or one of the few, who is not a Christian in earnest (since exaggeration, after all, is a lack of earnestness); the others are all earnest Christians.

No, an illusion can never be removed directly, and basically only indirectly. If it is an illusion that all are Christians, and if something is to be done, it must be done indirectly, not by someone who loudly declares himself to be an extraordinary Christian, but by someone who, better informed, even declares himself not to be a Christian.* That is, one who is under an illusion must be approached from behind. Instead of wanting to have for oneself the advantage of being the rare Christian, one must let the one ensnared have the advantage that he is a Christian, and then oneself have sufficient resignation to be the one who is far behind him—otherwise one will surely fail to extricate him from the illusion; it can be difficult enough anyway.

If, then, according to the assumption, most people in Christendom are Christians only in imagination, in what categories do they live? They live in esthetic or, at most, esthetic-ethical categories.

On the assumption, then, that a religious author has from the ground up become aware of this illusion, Christendom, and to the limit of his ability with, note well, the help of God, wants to stamp it out—what is he to do then? Well, first and foremost, no impatience. If he becomes impatient, then he makes a direct assault and accomplishes—nothing. By a direct attack he only strengthens a person in the illusion and also infuriates him. Generally speaking, there is nothing that requires as gentle a treatment as the removal of an illusion. If one in any way causes the [XIII 532] one ensnared to be antagonized, then all is lost. And this one does by a direct attack, which in addition also contains the presumptuousness of demanding that another person confess to one or face-to-face with one make the confession that actually is most beneficial when the person concerned makes it to himself secretly. The latter is achieved by the indirect method, which in the service of the love of truth dialectically arranges everything for the one ensnared and then, modest as love always is, avoids being witness to the confession that he makes alone before God, the confession that he has been living in an illusion.

Therefore the religious author first of all must try to establish rapport with people. That is, he must begin with an esthetic piece. This is earnest money. The more brilliant the piece is, the better it is for him. Next, he must be sure of himself, or rather he must in fear and trembling relate himself to God (the surest and the only surety), lest the opposite happen, so that he does not become the one who gives the others a start but the others become the ones who get power over him and then he ends up becoming stuck in the esthetic himself. Therefore he must have everything prepared in order, yet without any impatience, to bring forth the religious as swiftly as possible as soon as he has gained their attention, so that with the momentum of being engrossed in the esthetic the same people come face-to-face with the religious.

The point is to introduce the religious neither too speedily nor too slowly. If too long a time intervenes, there immediately arises the illusion that now the esthetic author has become older and therefore religious. If it comes too swiftly, the effect is not strong enough.

On the assumption that it is an enormous illusion that all these many people call themselves and are regarded as being Christians, there is no judgment and condemnation in this approach. It is a true Christian invention, cannot be practiced without fear and trembling, only in true self-denial. The helper is precisely the one who carries all the responsibility and has all the strain. But that is why this approach has intrinsic worth. Ordinarily it holds true that an approach has worth only in proportion to what is achieved by it. One judges and condemns, makes a big noise—this has no intrinsic worth, but one reckons on achieving a great deal thereby. It is different with the approach described here. Assume that a person had devoted his whole life to using it, [XIII 533] assume that he had practiced it all his life, and assume that he had achieved nothing—he nevertheless has by no means lived in vain, because his life was true self-denial.

§2

If One Is Truly to Succeed in Leading a Person to a Specific Place, One Must First and Foremost Take Care to Find Him Where He Is and Begin There

This is the secret in the entire art of helping. Anyone who cannot do this is himself under a delusion if he thinks he is able to help someone else. In order truly to help someone else, I must understand more than he—but certainly first and foremost understand what he understands. If I do not do that, then my greater understanding does not help him at all. If I nevertheless want to assert my greater understanding, then it is because I am vain or proud, then basically instead of benefiting him I really want to be admired by him. But all true helping begins with a humbling. The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate but to serve, that to help is not to be the most dominating but the most patient, that to help is a willingness for the time being to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands.

Consider a person who is impassioned about something, granted that he actually is in the wrong. If you cannot begin with him in such a way that it seems as if it is he who should teach you, and if you cannot do this in such a way that he, who impatiently refuses to listen to a word from you, is gratified to find in you a willing and attentive listener—if you cannot do that, then you cannot help him either. Consider an infatuated person who became unhappy in love; assume that it is actually indefensible, sinful, and unchristian to surrender to his passion as he does. If you cannot begin in such a way with him that he finds genuine alleviation in speaking with you about his suffering, in such a way that you, in what you add concerning his suffering, almost enrich him with a poetical view, you who still do not share the passion and specifically want to have him out of it—if you cannot do that, you cannot help him either. He shuts himself off from you, shuts himself up in his innermost being—and then you merely preach to him. Perhaps by personal power you will be [XIII 534] able to force him to confess to you that he is in the wrong. Ah, my dear fellow, the very next moment he sneaks around by another path, a secret path, to a rendezvous with the secret passion, for which he now longs all the more; yes, he has almost become afraid that it would have lost some of its seductive fervor—for now by your behavior you have helped him to fall in love once again, namely, with his unhappy passion—and then you only preach!

So it is also with becoming a Christian, under the assumption that it is a delusion on the part of the multitude in Christendom who call themselves Christian. Denounce the bewitchery of the esthetic—well, there have been times when you thereby might have succeeded in coercing people. Yes, to what end?—to love in their secret heart that bewitchery even more fanatically with clandestine passion. No, let it come forward—and you earnest, rigorous man, remember that if you cannot humble yourself you are not the earnest one either—be the astonished listener who sits and listens to what delights that other person, whom it delights even more that you listen in that way. But above all do not forget one thing, the number carried [Mente24] that you have, that it is the religious that you are to have come forward. Or, if you are able to do so, portray the esthetic with all its bewitching charm, if possible captivate the other person, portray it with the kind of passionateness whereby it appeals particularly to him, hilariously to the hilarious, sadly to the sad, wittily to the witty, etc.—but above all do not forget one thing, the number carried that you have, that it is the religious that is to come forward. Just do it; do not fear to do it, for truly it can be done only in much fear and trembling.

If you can do it, if you can very accurately find the place where the other person is and begin there, then you can perhaps have the good fortune of leading him to the place where you are.

To be a teacher is not to say: This is the way it is, nor is it to assign lessons and the like. No, to be a teacher is truly to be the learner. Instruction begins with this, that you, the teacher, learn from the learner, place yourself in what he has understood and how he has understood it, if you yourself have not understood it previously, or that you, if you have understood it, then let him examine you, as it were, so that he can be sure that you know your lesson. This is the introduction; then the beginning can be made in another sense.

This is why I continually have inwardly raised an objection to a certain party of the orthodox here, that they band together in [XIII 535] a little circle and strengthen one another in thinking that they are the only Christians—and thus do not know anything else to do with all Christendom than to declare that they are not Christians. If it is true that there actually are so few true Christians in Christendom, then these are eo ipso [precisely thereby] obliged to be missionaries, even though a missionary in Christendom will always look different from a missionary in paganism. It is obvious that this objection quite properly comes from behind, because it takes for granted the admission or assumption that these orthodox actually are true Christians, the only true Christians in Christendom.

Consequently, in Christendom the religious author, whose total thought is what it means to become a Christian, properly starts out with being an esthetic author. For a time let it be an open question whether Christendom is an enormous illusion, whether it is a delusion on the part of the multitude who call themselves Christian. Let the opposite be assumed—well, then, this beginning is a redundancy based on something that does not exist, but that does no damage. The damage is far greater, or rather this is the damage, when someone who is not Christian pretends to be that. The damage is not so great, however, if one who is a Christian gives the appearance of not being that—on the assumption that all are true Christians, it can then at most only encourage them even more in being that.

§3

The Illusion That Religion and Christianity Are Something to Which One Turns Only When One Becomes Older

The esthetic always overrates youth and that moment of eternity; it cannot reconcile itself with the earnestness of the years, nor with the earnestness of eternity. Therefore the esthetic has always had a suspicion about the religious person, that he either has never had a sense for the esthetic or that basically he nevertheless would rather have continued belonging to it, but time exercised its deteriorating power, he became older, and then he turned to the religious. One divides life into two ages: the age of youth is the age of the esthetic; the older age is the age of religiousness—but to tell the truth we all would surely prefer to have continued to be young.

How can this illusion be removed—whether it will succeed is [XIII 536] something else, but it can be removed by concurrent esthetic and religious works. Here no dubiousness is possible, because the esthetic production testifies that youth is present—then the concurrent religious work cannot be explained on some incidental basis.

On the assumption that Christendom is an enormous illusion, that it is a delusion on the part of the multitude who call themselves Christians, in all probability the illusion we are discussing here is very common. But in turn this illusion is worsened by the very delusion that one is a Christian. One goes on living one’s life in esthetic categories, and if at some time a person comes to think about Christianity, he dismisses the matter until he becomes older and sufficiently reassures himself—since, he says to himself, I am after all basically a Christian. It cannot be denied that there are those in Christendom who live just as sensately as any pagan ever did—indeed, even more sensately, because they have this confounded security that basically they are Christians. But the decision to become a Christian is shoved off as long as possible—indeed, an additional obstacle has been acquired, because one takes pride in being young as long as possible—and only when one becomes old does one turn to Christianity and religiousness. One is so reluctant to make the admission that one has become old—but only when one becomes old does one turn to Christianity and religiousness.

If, therefore, one could continually stay young, one would not need either Christianity or religiousness.

For all true religiousness this is an extremely pernicious error that has its basis in our confusing becoming older in the sense of time with becoming older in the sense of eternity. It certainly cannot be denied that we more often see the scarcely upbuilding spectacle of a youthfulness that with blazing passion was the interpreter of the esthetic and then, when the time of youth was over, changed into a religiousness, in one sense too relaxed, in another sense too high-strung, that had all the faults of old age. Nor can it be denied either that many who portray the religious, out of fear that it will not be earnest enough, make it both too rigorous and too morose. This and much else can contribute to making that illusion more common and establishing it more firmly—but what good does that do? What will help is precisely that which could contribute to removing the illusion.

If, then, a religious author wants to touch on that illusion, he must in one swoop begin with simultaneously being an esthetic and a religious author. But one thing above all he must not forget, the number carried, which is which, that it is the religious that is to come forward decisively. The esthetic writing becomes [XIII 537] a means of communication and, for the person who may need it (on the assumption that Christendom is an enormous illusion, there are many of these), evidence that the religious writing cannot possibly be explained by the author’s having become older, because it is indeed concurrent—and one certainly has not become older concurrently.

Perhaps it will not succeed at all in this way, perhaps; the damage cannot be great. At most the damage can be that one does not really believe in the religiousness of such a communicator. Well, then! Often enough a communicator of the religious can be too anxious about being regarded as religious himself. If so, this simply shows that he is not in truth religious. This is similar to the situation of someone who wants to be a teacher and is too much occupied with the thought of what those he wants to teach will judge of him and his teaching, his knowledge, etc. Such a teacher really has no elbowroom at all in teaching. Suppose, for example, that for the sake of the learner he thought it most appropriate to say he did not understand something he really did understand. Heaven forbid! Out of fear that the learner would actually believe that he did not understand it, he would not dare—that is, he is really not fit to be a teacher. Although calling himself a teacher, he is so far from being one that he really aspires to be cited for excellence—by the learner. Or it is similar to the situation of a preacher of penitence who wants to castigate rigorously the vices of the age—but is very much occupied with how the age he is castigating judges of him—he is so far from being a preacher of repentance that he is more a New Year’s Day caller who merely makes himself a bit interesting by wearing an outfit rather odd for a New Year’s Day caller. So also with that religious person who, if worst comes to worst, could not endure being regarded as the only one who was not religious. To be able to endure this is in reflection the most accurate definition of essential religiousness.

§4

Even Though a Person Refuses to Go Along to the Place to Which One Is Endeavoring to Lead Him, There Is Still One Thing That Can Be Done for Him: Compel Him to Become Aware

A person may have the good fortune of doing a great deal for another, may have the good fortune of leading him to the place to which he desires to lead him and, to hold to what in essence [XIII 538] is continually under discussion here, may have the good fortune of helping that person to become a Christian. But this is not in my power; it depends upon very many things and above all upon whether he himself is willing. Compel a person to an opinion, a conviction, a belief—in all eternity, that I cannot do. But one thing I can do, in one sense the first thing (since it is the condition for the next thing: to accept this view, conviction, belief), in another sense the last thing if he refuses the next: I can compel him to become aware.

That this is a good deed, there is no doubt, but neither must it be forgotten that this is a daring venture. By compelling him to become aware, I succeed in compelling him to judge. Now he judges. But what he judges is not in my power. Perhaps he judges the very opposite of what I desire. Furthermore, that he was compelled to judge perhaps makes him infuriated, ragingly infuriated—infuriated with the cause, with me—and perhaps I become the victim of my daring venture.

To compel people to become aware and judge is namely the law for true martyrdom. A true martyr has never used power but has contended by means of powerlessness. He compelled people to become aware. Indeed, God knows, they did become aware—they put him to death. Yet he was willing to have that happen. He did not think that his death halted him in his work; he understood that his death was part of it—that the momentum of his work began precisely with his death. Truly, those who had put him to death did indeed become aware; they began to think once again about the cause and in quite another way, and what the one living was not able to do the one dead was able to do: he won to his cause those who had become aware.

The objection I have repeatedly made privately against those who ordinarily proclaim Christianity in Christendom is that they, themselves surrounded and safeguarded by all too many illusions, do not have the courage to make people aware. That is, they do not have sufficient self-denial in relation to their cause. They are eager to win adherents, but they want to win them—because this strengthens their cause—and therefore are not scrupulously careful about whether they in truth become adherents or not. This in turn means that in a deeper sense they have no cause; they relate themselves selfishly to the cause they do have. Therefore they do not actually risk going out among the people or abandoning illusions in order to make a genuine idea-impression, because they have a dim notion that it is truly a [XIII 539] dangerous matter to make people aware. Mendaciously to make them aware, that is, to bow and scrape before them, to flatter them, to ask for their attention and lenient judgment, to submit—the truth—to balloting well, this involves no danger, at least not here in the world, where on the contrary it involves every advantage; but yet it perhaps does involve the danger of eventually failing in eternity.

This, then, is the way it stands with what has been assumed, that it is indeed a delusion on the part of the multitude who call themselves Christians. If, then, a person lives in this delusion, consequently lives in completely different, in completely esthetic categories—if, then, one is able to win and capture him completely by means of an esthetic portrayal and now knows how to introduce the religious so swiftly that with this momentum of attachment he runs straight into the most decisive categories of the religious—what then? Well, then he must become aware. Yet what follows from this no one can predict, but he must become aware. It is possible that he actually comes to sober reflection on what it was supposed to mean that he has called himself a Christian. It is possible that he becomes enraged with the person who has ventured to do this to him; but he has become aware, he is beginning to judge. In order to retrieve himself, he perhaps judges the other person to be a hypocrite, a charlatan, a half lunatic—it is of no avail, he must judge, he has become aware.

Ordinarily the relationship is reversed, and the relationship was truly reversed when Christianity came in contact with paganism. What is entirely overlooked, however, is how altered the situation is, that the category Christendom sets all relationships into reflection. Ordinarily, also in Christendom, the person who is striving to lead people to become Christians employs everything in order to establish securely that he himself is a Christian; he gives assurances and assurances. He fails to note that from the beginning there is an enormous confusion here, since, after all, those whom he is addressing are Christians. But if he is addressing Christians, what then does it mean to get them to become Christians? If, however, in his opinion they are not Christians although they still call themselves Christians, the very fact that they call themselves Christians makes manifest, of course, that here is a reflection-category. Thus we are in a situation in the sphere of reflection, but then also the entire strategy must be changed.

Here I cannot now develop further how that which Christendom [XIII 540] needs first and foremost is a totally new science of arms; it is a science of arms that is completely permeated by reflection. In several of my books I have provided the crucial elements in regard to this. The whole thing can be stated in one phrase, the whole thing, which can indeed take days and years of work to develop, the most vigilant attention night and day, incessant scale finger-exercising in the dialectical every day, and a never-slumbering fear and trembling—the method must become indirect. In the communication of Christianity, when the situation is Christendom, there is not a direct relation, there is first of all a delusion to remove. The entire old science of arms, all the apologetics and everything belonging to it, serves instead, to put it bluntly, to betray the cause of Christianity. At every point and at every moment, the strategy must be constituted on the basis of having to contend with a delusion, an illusion.

So when in Christendom a religious author whose total thought is the task of becoming a Christian wants to make it possible to make people aware (whether it will succeed is of course something else), he must begin as an esthetic author and to a certain point he must maintain this possibility. But there must be a limit, since it is being done, after all, in order to make aware. And one thing the author must not forget, the number carried, which is which, the religious the crucial, the esthetic the incognito—lest the dialectical interaction end up in babbling.

§5

All the Esthetic Writing Seen in the Totality of the Writing Is a Deception, but Understood in a Singular Way

If someone wanted to consider the esthetic writing as the totality and from its point of view and on this assumption consider the religious writing, he would have to regard the latter as a defection, a decline. That the presupposition of this observation is wrong I have shown in the preceding, where it was substantiated that from the beginning and over my signature signs were provided that telegraphed, concurrently with the pseudonymous writing, in the direction of the religious.

But from the total point of view of my whole work as an author, the esthetic writing is a deception, and herein is the deeper significance of the pseudonymity. But a deception, that is indeed something rather ugly. To that I would answer: Do not [XIII 541] be deceived by the word deception. One can deceive a person out of what is true, and—to recall old Socrates—one can deceive a person into what is true. Yes, in only this way can a deluded person actually be brought into what is true—by deceiving him.

The one who is of another opinion thereby betrays that he simply is not much of a dialectician, which is precisely what is necessary in order to operate in this way. In other words there is a great difference, that is, the dialectical difference, or the difference of the dialectical, between these two situations: one who is ignorant and must be given some knowledge, and therefore he is like the empty vessel that must be filled or like the blank sheet of paper that must be written upon—and one who is under a delusion that must first be taken away. Likewise, there is also a difference between writing on a blank piece of paper and bringing out by means of chemicals some writing that is hidden under other writing. Now, on the assumption that someone is under a delusion and consequently the first step, properly understood, is to remove the delusion—if I do not begin by deceiving, I begin with direct communication. But direct communication presupposes that the recipient’s ability to receive is entirely in order, but here that is simply not the case—indeed, here a delusion is an obstacle. That means a corrosive must first be used, but this corrosive is the negative, but the negative in connection with communicating is precisely to deceive.

What, then, does it mean “to deceive”? It means that one does not begin directly with what one wishes to communicate but begins by taking the other’s delusion at face value. Thus one does not begin (to hold to what essentially is the theme of this book) in this way: I am Christian, you are not a Christian—but this way: You are a Christian, I am not Christian. Or one does not begin in this way: It is Christianity that I am proclaiming, and you are living in purely esthetic categories. No, one begins this way: Let us talk about the esthetic. The deception consists in one’s speaking this way precisely in order to arrive at the religious. But according to the assumption the other person is in fact under the delusion that the esthetic is the essentially Christian, since he thinks he is a Christian and yet he is living in esthetic categories.

Even if ever so many pastors will find it indefensible, even if equally as many will be incapable of getting it into their heads—although all of them otherwise, according to their own statements, are accustomed to using the Socratic method—in this respect I calmly stick to Socrates. True, he was no Christian, that [XIII 542] I know, although I also definitely remain convinced that he has become one. But he was a dialectician and understood everything in reflection. And the question here is purely dialectical—it is the question of the use of reflection in Christendom. Qualitatively two altogether different magnitudes are involved here, but formally I can very well call Socrates my teacher—whereas I have believed and believe in only one, the Lord Jesus Christ.

B

CONCLUDING POSTSCRIPT

forms, to repeat again, the turning point in the whole authorship. It poses the issue: becoming a Christian. After first having appropriated all the pseudonymous esthetic writing as a description of one way along which one may go to becoming a Christian—back from the esthetic to becoming a Christian, the book describes the second way—back from the system, the speculative, etc. to becoming a Christian.

C

THE RELIGIOUS WRITING

As early as Concluding Postscript, I could be very brief when the point of view for all the work as an author is that the author is a religious author; what needed explanation there was how the esthetic writing is to be interpreted on this assumption. And what needs no explanation at all on this assumption is of course the latter part, the purely religious writing, which specifically provides the point of view.

CONCLUSION [XIII 543]

And what does all this mean when the reader now gathers together the elements developed in the various sections? It means: this is an authorship of which the total thought is the task of becoming a Christian. But it is an authorship that from the beginning has understood, with dialectical consistency has pursued, what the implications of this are that the situation is Christendom, which is a category of reflection, and therefore has cast all the Christian relationships into reflection. In Christendom—to become a Christian is either to become what one is (the inwardness of reflection or the reflection of inward deepening), or it is first of all to be wrested out of a delusion, which again is a category of reflection. Here there is no vacillation, no ambiguity of the usual sort, that one does not know and cannot ascertain whether the situation is in paganism, whether the pastor in this sense is a missionary, or where one is. Here one does not lack what is usually lacking, a decisive categorical definition and a decisive expression for the situation: to proclaim Christianity—in Christendom. Everything is cast into reflection. The communication is in reflection—therefore is indirect communication. The communicator is defined in reflection, therefore negatively, not one who claims to be an extraordinary Christian or even claims to have revelations (all of which is commensurate with immediacy and direct communication) but the opposite, one who even claims not to be Christian—in other words, the communicator is in the background, helping negatively, since whether he succeeds in helping someone is indeed something else. The issue itself is one belonging to reflection: to become a Christian when in a way one is a Christian.

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