A change in the preaching of Christianity answering to the position of the clergy
1850
A true sentence of Hugo de St. Victor (Helfferich: Mystik, Vol. I, 368).
“In things which are above reason faith is not really supported by reason, because reason cannot grasp what faith believes; but there is also a something here as a result of which reason is determined, or which determines reason to honour faith which it cannot perfectly understand.”
That is what I explained (e.g. in the Final Postscript); not every absurdity is “the absurd“ or the paradox. The effect of reason is in fact to know the paradox negatively —but not more.
Victor Hugo indeed! Accustomed of course for years past to the kind of debauchery indulged in by novel writers who are always “carrying on“ poetically with feelings which are the very reverse of what their lives express; and now he attacks the clerical party in a “brilliant speech.”
One can imagine the voluptuous pleasure he got from the situation, thinking of himself as a “witness to the truth“ and being praised, honoured, and admired.
I am beholden to the clerical party—its cause is in the minority; and the natural sciences much admired. And now he turns up. Nobody denies that natural science had its martyrs; but Victor Hugo seems to have forgotten entirely that latterly that is as far as possible from being the case since, on the contrary, it is science which is everywhere triumphant.
And which tyrant, which idol is it that he serves with that speech of his? It is “the masses,” “votes for all” and the rest of it. And has it called for no martyrs? It called for Christ and Socrates and the “host of martyrs.”
As for the examples of what true religiousness is? The fool, for wanting to talk about things he knows nothing about. The examples he gives are ordinary great and good actions, in no sense specifically religious, not to say specifically Christian; paganism has just the same examples. Those great and good actions are honoured in the world—but Christ and his followers were, if it comes to that, just as practised in noble actions, but they were persecuted and put to death for them.
If I had my way, Victor Hugo would be put to read about Christianity for six months!
But what a chance for a “poet” ! One can imagine the other poets being quite envious of him, not being members of the Chamber. Just think of Eugène Sue, who has written himself into a millionaire—by describing poverty and misery: Yes, he was capable of giving Rd. 50 to the poor for having been the fortunate man to whom the envious opportunity was given—of playing the hero, the witness to the truth, with applause and laurel-leaves.
Real self-reduplication without a third factor, which is eternal and compels one, is an impossibility and makes any such existence into an illusion or an experiment.
Kant held that man was his own law (autonomy), i.e. bound himself under the law which he gave himself. In a deeper sense that means to say: lawlessness or experimentation. It is no harder than the thwacks which Sancho Panza applied to his own bottom. I can no more be really stricter in A than I am, or than I wish myself to be in B. There must be some compulsion, if it is to be a serious matter. If I am not bound by anything higher than myself, and if I am to bind myself, where am I to acquire the severity as A by which, as B, I am to be bound, so long as A and B are the same.
This can be seen best of all in religious matters. The transformation which really lies in changing from immediacy to spirituality, that mortification is not serious, becomes in fact an illusion, a form of experimentation if there is not some third and compelling factor, which is not the individual himself.
That too is why all outstanding individualities, the real “instruments,” are compelled.
Not only is the law which I give myself as maximum not a law; but there is a law which is given to me by one higher than I. And not only that; but that lawgiver takes the liberty of joining in at the same time in the character of educator, and applies the compulsion.
Now if during the whole course of his life a man never acts in so decisive a way that the educator can get a hold on him: well, then the man is certainly allowed to live on complacently in a state of illusion, imagination, experimentation—but that also connotes: the greatest lack of grace.
A man may be so severe with himself that he understands: all my severity is nothing, I must have another to help me, who can be severity itself, even though he is gentleness itself.
But to enter into relations with this other does not mean to make assurances, and assurances and more assurances; it means: to act.
Once a man acts in a decisive sense and comes out into reality, existence can get a grip on him and providence educate him.
It is perfectly true that however much a man may protect himself it may all the same occur to providence to put him to school. But it does not like that, that is almost anger. It wishes a man to believe, and believe in it. Providence is no friend of that effeminate attitude whereby a man wishes to play at being autodidact, when there lives at the same time a teacher so outstanding as Our Lord, to whom he can turn.
But as a rule in human affairs to be put to school and to try to go to school means that I go wherever the teacher lives. Spiritually it means that I act decisively: there, at once, is the teacher. For what is it that I desire, I desire to be educated spiritually—and yet I do not desire to act decisively? Nonsense.
In this respect, too, I have not been understood at all. All the profounder thinkers (Hegel, Daub—and to name one less famous but most worthy of respect: Julius Müller) are agreed in placing evil in isolated subjectivity—objectivity being the saving factor.
Now that is already a platitude; and every student knows that I am an isolated individuality—ergo I am all but evil, “pure negativity, not serious, etc.”
Oh, depths of confusion. No, the whole concept of objectivity, which has been made into our salvation, is merely the food of sickness, and the fact that it is admired as the cure simply proves how fundamentally irreligious our age is, for that saving factor is really a return to paganism.
No, in order to put an end to subjectivity, in so far as it is untruth we must, on the contrary, go right through to “the individual”—before God.
But people do not know what religion is. They do not even suspect that Christ and all the heroes of the faith were in a sense isolated individualities—and they belonged absolutely to God.
Take Socrates for instance! In those days one sophist after another came forward and showed that the misfortune was the lack of sufficient knowledge, more and more research was necessary, the evil was ignorance—and then along came old father Socrates saying: no, it is precisely ignorance which is our salvation.
Now exactly the same thing happened to Socrates in his day as has happened to me. He was looked upon as representing evil; for, in the eyes of that age, ignorance was evil—and yet Socrates was indeed the doctor.
It requires a fortunate genius (or an infinite profundity and a perfect ear, in order that all the demoniacal phenomena should, always understood à rebours, themselves proclaim what they need) in order not to make a mistake in those spheres. I do not praise myself for anything.
It is perfectly true, isolated subjectivity is, in the opinion of the age, evil; but “objectivity” as a cure is not one whit better.
The only salvation is subjectivity, i.e. God, as infinite compelling subjectivity.
The dialectic of becoming a Christian
Socrates did not first of all get together some proofs of the immortality of the soul in order then to live in that belief, on the strength of the proofs. The very reverse is the case; he said: the possibility of there being an immortality occupies me to such a degree that I unquestionably stake my whole life upon it as though it were the most certain of all things. And so he lived—and his life is a proof of the immortality of the soul. He did not believe merely on the strength of the proofs and then live: no, his life is the proof, and only with his martyr’s death is the proof complete.—That, you see, is spirit; it is a little awkward for those who repeat him and for all those who live second-hand, or tenth-hand lives, and those who chase after results, and for cowardly, effeminate natures.
Carefully used that may be adapted to the problem of becoming a Christian.
First of all there is, quite rightly, the doubt (Lessing’s) whether one can base eternal happiness upon something historical.
And consequently here is something historical, the story of Jesus Christ.
But now is the historical fact quite certain? To this one must answer: even though it were the most certain of all historical facts it would be of no help, there cannot be any direct transition from an historical fact to the foundation upon it of an eternal happiness. That is something qualitatively new.
How then do we proceed? Thus. A man says to himself, à la Socrates: here is an historical fact which teaches me that in regard to my eternal happiness I must have recourse to Jesus Christ. Now I must certainly preserve myself from taking the wrong turning into scientific enquiry and research, as to whether it is quite certainly historical; for it is historical right enough: and if it were ten times as certain in all its details it would still be no help: for directly I cannot be helped.
And so I say to myself: I choose; that historical fact means so much to me that I decide to stake my whole life upon that if.* Then he lives; lives entirely full of the idea, risking his life for it: and his life is the proof that he believes. He did not have a few proofs, and so believed and then began to live. No, the very reverse.
That is called risking; and without risk faith is an impossibility. To be related to spirit means to undergo a test;†
in the margin.* That occurs, too, in Christ’s words39: if anyone will follow my teaching, i.e. live according to it, i.e. act according to it, he shall see etc. That means to say, there are no proofs beforehand—nor is he satisfied that the acceptance of his teaching should mean: I assure you.
in the margin.† That is because man is a synthesis of body-soul and spirit. But “spirit” sows dissension—whereas effeminate men always want to include what is lower in every relationship, and to have its consent. Hence the dread of “risking.” The unspiritual man always desires “probability.” But “spirit” will never grant it, for “spirit” is the test: do you wish to avoid probability, do you wish to deny yourself, give up the world etc.
to believe, to wish to believe, is to change one’s life into a trial; daily test is the trial of faith.—Yet one can preach on that score till doomsday to cowardly, effeminate unspiritual natures, they do not understand it, they do not really want to understand it. It seems to them that it is good enough if someone else takes the risk, and then they follow him—giving their assurance. But take the risk themselves—no thank you.
But where becoming a Christian is concerned there is, as compared with Socrates, a dialectical difference which must be remembered. Namely, where immortality is concerned man is only related to himself and to the idea, no further. But when a man chooses all at once to believe in Christ, i.e. chooses to stake his life upon him, he is allowed to have immediate (direct) recourse to Christ in prayer. Thus the historical is the cause, yet the object of faith.
But all unspiritual natures turn the question round. They say: to stake everything upon an if, that is a sort of scepticism, it is quite fantastic, not positive. That is because they will not take the “risk.” And that is the crumb of unspirituality which Christianity has carried along with it and which has, in the end, done away with Christianity.
About myself
Nevertheless it is fortunate, indeed it is an inestimable blessing to have been melancholy as I was. Had I been a happy nature—and had then experienced what I did experience as an author; I believe it would have sent a man mad. But within me, where I really suffered I knew more frightful tortures still.
And so what happened? Oh, the marvel, even though it has not yet quite happened, nevertheless it has happened to a certain degree and, as I believe, will continue to happen more and more: this marvel: that those outward spectacles have lured my melancholy from its hiding place, and to a certain extent have already saved me from it; which will continue to happen still more completely!
O depths of the riches of God, O, how unsearchable are Thy ways O God,40 but in all things fatherly and grace-giving.
How often have I shown that fundamentally Hegel makes men into heathens, into a race of animals gifted with reason. For in the animal world “the individual” is always less important than the race. But it is the peculiarity of the human race that just because the individual is created in the image of God “the individual” is above the race.
This can be wrongly understood and terribly misused: concedo. But that is Christianity. And that is where the battle must be fought.
What a curious, yet profound turn of phrase which makes it possible to say: in this case there is no question of a choice—I choose this and this. To continue: Christianity says to a man: you shall choose the one essential thing but in such a way that there is no question of a choice—if you drivel on any longer then you do not in fact choose the one essential thing; like the Kingdom of God it must be chosen first.
So there is consequently something in regard to which there may not be, and in thought cannot be a choice, and nevertheless it is a choice. Consequently, the very fact that in this case there is no choice expresses the tremendous passion or intensity with which it must be chosen. Could there be a clearer expression of the fact that the liberty of choice is only a qualified form of freedom? . . . However astonishing it may seem, one is therefore obliged to say that only “fear and trembling,” only constraint, can help a man to freedom. Because “fear and trembling” and compulsion can master him in such a way that there is no longer any question of choice—and then one chooses the right thing. At the hour of death most people choose the right thing.
Now how are the sciences to help? Simply not at all, in no way whatsoever. They reduce everything to calm and objective observation—with the result that freedom is an inexplicable something. Scientifically Spinoza is the only one who is consistent.
The problem is the same as with belief and speculation, and as Johannes Climacus has said, it is like sawing: in one case it means making oneself objectively light, in the other case making oneself subjectively heavy—and people want to saw in and out at the same time. Freedom really only exists because the same instant it (freedom of choice) exists it rushes with infinite speed to bind itself unconditionally by choosing resignation, the choice of which it is true that in it there is no question of a choice.
The inconceivable marvel of the omnipotence of love is that God can really grant so much to man, that almost like a lover41 he can say of himself: “will you have me or not,” and so wait one second for the answer.
But alas, man is not so purely spirit. It seems to him that since the choice is left to him he can take time and first of all think the matter over seriously. What a miserable anticlimax. “Seriousness” simply means to choose God at once and “first.” In that way man is left juggling with a phantom: freedom of choice—with the question whether he does or does not possess it etc. And it even becomes scientific. He does not notice that he has thus suffered the loss of his freedom. For a time perhaps he delights in the thought of freedom until it changes again, and he becomes doubtful whether he is free or not. Then he loses his freedom of choice. He confuses everything by his faulty tactics (militarily speaking). By directing his mind towards “freedom of choice” instead of choosing he loses both freedom and freedom of choice. Nor can he ever recover it by the use of thought alone. If he is to recover his freedom it can only be through an intensified “fear and trembling” brought forth by the thought of having lost it.
The most tremendous thing which has been granted to man is: the choice, freedom. And if you desire to save it and preserve it there is only one way: in the very same second unconditionally and in complete resignation to give it back to God, and yourself with it. If the sight of what is granted to you tempts you, and if you give way to the temptation and look with egoistic desire upon the freedom of choice, then you lose your freedom. And your punishment is: to go on in a kind of confusion priding yourself on having—freedom of choice, but woe upon you, that is your judgment: You have freedom of choice, you say, and still you have not chosen God. Then you will grow ill, freedom of choice will become your idée fixe, till at last you will be like the rich man who imagines that he is poor, and will die of want: you sigh that you have lost your freedom of choice—and your fault is only that you do not grieve deeply enough or you would find it again.
Christianity begins more or less where Hegel leaves off: the misunderstanding is simply that that is the point at which Hegel thought he had finished with Christianity, and even thought he had gone beyond it.
I simply cannot help laughing when I think of Hegel’s conception of Christianity, it is so utterly inconceivable. And what I have always maintained is true: Hegel was a don, a professor of philosophy, not a thinker; and moreover he must have been very insignificant as a person, making no real impression—but as a professor quite exceptional, that I do not deny.
The day will certainly come when the idea “Don” will stand for a comic person. Only think of Christianity! How altered since the times when it had inflexible confessors—and now that it has only got professors who are willing to agree in all casibus.
Which is harder: to be executed, or to suffer that prolonged agony which consists in being trampled to death by geese.
The greatest danger for a child, where religion is concerned.
The greatest danger is not that his father or tutor should be a free-thinker, not even his being a hypocrite. No, the danger lies in his being a pious, God-fearing man, and in the child being convinced thereof, but that he should nevertheless notice that deep in his soul there lies hidden an unrest which, consequently, not even the fear of God and piety could calm. The danger is that the child in that situation is almost provoked to draw a conclusion about God, that God is not infinite love.
What asad—How
What makes the difference in life is not what is said, but how it is said. As for the “what,” the same thing has already been said perhaps many times before—and so the old saying is true: there is nothing new under the sun, the old saying which is always new. . . .
In contradistinction to the Middle Ages and those periods with all their discussion of possession, of particular men giving themselves to evil, I should like to write a book:
On diabolic possession in modern times
and show how mankind en masse gives itself up to evil, how nowadays it happens en masse. That is why people flock together, in order that natural and animal hysteria should get hold of them, in order to feel themselves stimulated, inflamed and ausser sich. The scenes on the Blocksberg are the absolute pendants to this demoniacal pleasure, where the pleasure consists in losing oneself in order to be volatilised into a higher potency, where being outside oneself one hardly knows what one is doing or saying, or who or what is speaking through one, while the blood courses faster, the eyes are bright and staring, the passions and lust seething.
O, depths of confusion and depravity, when it is at the same time valued as the seriousness of life, warm-heartedness, love, yes even—Christianity.
The railway mania is in every sense a second Babel. It belongs to the end of a period of culture, it is the final spurt. Unfortunately the new one began more or less at the same time, 1848. The railways are related as a heightened potency to the idea of centralisation. And the new period is related to dispersion into disjecta membra.
Centralisation will probably also be the financial ruin of Europe.
The difference between “popular” and “philosophical” is the amount of time a thing takes. Ask a man: do you know this, or do you not know it—if he answers immediately then the answer is popular, he is an undergraduate. If it takes ten years for the answer to come, and if it comes in the form of a system, if it is not quite clear whether he knows it or not: then it is a philosophical answer and the man a professor of philosophy—at least that is what he ought to be.
During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is : not to take the risk. When once the risk has been really taken then the greatest danger is to risk too much. By not risking at first one turns aside and serves trivialities; in the second case, by risking too much, one turns aside to the fantastic, and perhaps to presumption.
May 19. To-day, Whitsunday, Mynster preached against monks and hermits—Good God, to want to play that tune in the 19th century, in order to be rewarded with applause. He did not attack a single one of the forms of evil prevalent in our day—ugh. God forbid, that might easily have become all too serious, no, he preached against—the monasteries.
Perfect Love
Perfect love means to love the one through whom one became unhappy. But no man has the right to demand to be thus loved.
God can demand it; that is infinite majesty. And it is true of the man of religion, in the strictest sense of the word, that in loving God he is loving him through whom he became unhappy, humanly speaking, for this life—although blessed.
I have not got the strength to understand it in that way; at the same time I am very afraid of being caught in the most dangerous of all snares: of becoming meritorious in my own eyes. In the meanwhile that danger is one which a truly religious man has already overcome.
“The Fatherland”
Everyone who knew anything about the state of affairs, knew how The Fatherland suffered from the vulgar press, which quite took the wind out of its sails.
I acted: Gjødwad stood impatiently at my side waiting for the article in which I demanded to be abused.42
One of two things: either they had to maintain that the paper should be ignored—and so not have accepted my article, even though I begged them to; or (and this would have been right) have recognised that their position was so desperate and the state of affairs so topsy-turvy that something had to be done—in which case they ought to have supported my action, which only required a few words of acknowledgment.
They did nothing, they betrayed me. At last they gave up taking The Corsair, as though that were something. In the course of conversation, where they seemed to be asking me whether they ought to do anything (without the question ever coming out directly) I always said: do nothing at all. Indeed, if people do not feel more than that for a just cause, I am not the one to beg them.
The Fatherland is perhaps more guilty, where I am concerned, than Goldschmidt. And in any case they are guilty of never having tried to point the way, even in a few words. To tell me privately that my actions are so exceptional that no one can take upon himself to write them up is merely a joke. They could of course, have said that publicly—and not kept silence while the mob alone spoke.
I note all this down for the following reason in particular. My time will come. Then it will suit The Fatherland to throw some guilt on Heiberg,43 and particularly upon Mynster for not having borne witness in my favour—and The Fatherland will in that way make itself appear quite innocent. But I will not tolerate that.
Personally I call Gjødwad my friend, and in the last three or four years have spoken with him every mortal afternoon and found him to be, what I knew, a lovable man. If he had not been a journalist I should have found in him the person whom I could most nearly have made a real friend. But The Fatherland is another question. I readily admit that at the time it was a difficult situation in which to act; but then that is the real test.
There was some truth in what Goldschmidt said to me (which I recognised at the time, but I had other reasons which determined me) when, immediately after the first article had appeared, and so even before he had begun the attack, when he said: that he could not understand why I insisted on doing so much for The Fatherland, for Plough, after all, was no better than he was. He said the same thing about Gjødwad; but I dismissed that with the words: Gjødwad is my friend. . . .
. . . Thus it is really terrible to have anything to do with God who neither can nor will give one direct certainty or a legal relationship—and yet it is blessed; blessed to be, as it were, nothing in his hand, who is and ever will be love, however things may go. This is all I have known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love, that I believe, and whoever believes that is not mistaken. If I have made a mistake it will be plain enough; so I repent —and God is love. He is love, not he was love, nor: he will be love, oh no, even that future was too slow for me, he is love. Oh, how wonderful. Sometimes, perhaps, my repentance does not come at once, and so there is a future —But God keeps no man waiting, he is love. Like spring-water which keeps the same temperature summer and winter—so is God’s love. But sometimes a spring runs dry —no, no, how shall I praise him, there is no other praise than the expression which perfectly fits him whom we speak of, “God be praised!”—and so, God be praised, God’s love is not of such a kind. His love is a spring which never runs dry.
My home
If one lives alone as I do one is thrown back much more on one’s home and all one’s little comforts.
And what is it like now! I suffered unspeakably from the smells last summer in the tanner’s house. I dared not risk remaining there another summer, and then it was too expensive. Where I am living now I suffer so much from the reflection of the sun in the afternoon that at first I was afraid of going blind.
On top of everything there is trouble with Strube. That the man whom I depend upon more than any one, whom I inherited from father, have known for twenty years, whom I looked upon as one of those strong, healthy, tireless workers—that he should become eccentric, have to go to the hospital, want to reform the whole world, that all this should happen just when he is with me. If one does intellectual work on the scale I work on one wants someone about of the sort I had imagined Strube to be. And now all the worry with him, the feeling that he is suffering, although they have succeeded in calming him somewhat; the thought that it may return again, and then, because it all happens in my house, become an important event which will be discussed in the papers, while on the other hand I fear that if I were to try to get rid of him now it would react too violently upon him, and God knows he is still the best natured fellow I have ever known, or one of the best, and where I am concerned, care itself; but I saw, at the time, how vehement he could be and how obstinate.
And then from another point of view Not long ago (while I was still living at the tanner’s), once on returning home I found that somebody must have been at my desk, and at my only chest, the mahogany one. Possibly I forgot to lock up when I went out, although that is almost unthinkable, but all the same most uncomfortable. Things like that can make one’s home most uncomfortable, even if one has, as I have, the most faithful household. It made me feel very uncomfortable for Anders’ sake.
And when one comes home so tired to it all, often made so uncomfortable by the rudeness to which I am exposed every day: oh, to proclaim Christianity in that way is very different from being a parson.
And then not to be able to produce any new books; for when I am working I forget everything.
R. Nielsen and I
I am certainly no Socrates and Nielsen no Plato but the relation has nevertheless some analogy.
Now take Plato! There is undoubtedly a quite paramount number of thoughts which belong to Plato himself; but he never minded attributing them to Socrates in order to preserve the purity of the source, he was never afraid of people growing tired of it always being Socrates, Socrates.
Oh, but Nielsen took the thoughts, and concealed the source; finally he gave his source, but concealed the scale on which he had used it, item that I had privately done an unusual amount to initiate him into my matter.
I have done nothing, but left everything in the hands of providence.
About myself
Christianity is as good as done away with. But first a poet’s heart must break, or a poet must be torn in two in such a way as to close the way to all deceptions.
That is the check; and in our limited sphere that is my task.
June 9. What infinite confidence there is in Martensen! He always speaks on such a vast scale, about the whole church, the Apostolic age, the doctrine of the first three centuries, mediaeval doctrine, the doctrine of the Reformation period, the whole chain of doctors of the Church—and Christ says: will there be faith on earth at my second coming.
Such things do not bother Martensen; he is objective.
Humour
If it were not in one sense madness it would be a good example of humour if a man were to say to God: although I was strictly brought up as a Christian I was, as you know, born in the 19th century and so have my share of the universal superstitious belief in reason etc. The humour lies in the “as you know.”
An excellent saying of Stilipo’s
A man asked Stilipo whether the gods were pleased with our adoration and our offerings. Stilipo answered: “You are very hasty about it: let us go to one side if you want to talk about it.”
I remember having given the situation a similar turn myself. It was up at Gjødwad’s. There were several people there and among others Martin Hammerich who spoke in that free and easy way about Christianity. I answered: “What you are saying sounds all very well here where we are all together; if there were a few more people it would sound even better—but if, on the contrary, you will go into the room next door, where we should be alone, you will find that it will sound pretty poor.”
As for the rest Stilipo’s intention was rather different.
. . . Mynster bears a certain resemblance to Louis Philippe: he is without inspiration or pathos, but makes a clever use of little means and understands that what really rules the world is the question of a living, and that the person who has livings in his gift rules quite securely.
Nullum unquam exstitit magnum ingenium sine aliqua dementia
The explanation is perfectly simple. In order really to be a great genius a man must be the exception. But in order that his being exceptional should be a serious matter he himself must be unfree, forced into the position. There lies the importance of his dementia. There is a definite point at which he suffers; it is impossible for him to run with the herd. That is his torture. Perhaps his dementia has nothing whatsoever to do with his real genius, but it is the pain by which he is nailed out in isolation—and he must be isolated if he is to be great; and no man can freely isolate himself; he must be compelled if it is to be a serious matter.
Concerning bashfulness in relation to sex
Montaigne says somewhere that it is extraordinary that what we all owe our existence to should be something despised. He means that bashfulness, in this case, is really prudery. And indeed many great minds have held the same view.
But to this it should be replied. It is only true in one respect that man owes his existence to the act of procreation; there is also an act of creation to be included which must be attributed to God. It is not true of the human race, as of animals, that every individual is only an example. The man who really becomes spirit, for which he was intended, takes over his whole being (by choosing himself, as it is put in Either-Or) and reduces propagation to nothing but the lowest side of human nature.
What wonder then that there is bashfulness in relation to sex! Procreation only represents the lower side, just as in the act of procreation man is qualified by the lower part of his nature, or at the extreme end of the synthesis in the direction away from spirit. It is the very fact of the direction being away from spirit which is bashfulness, spirit is bashfulness, or the fact that a man is defined as spirit is bashfulness. Animals have no bashfulness, neither has bestiality, and the less spirit the less bashfulness.
A disingenuous turn which may perhaps be given to my matter
People will make it appear that I wanted to introduce pietism, little, pusillanimous self-abnegations in matters of no consequence.
No thank you, I never wanted that in the very slightest degree. What I want is to spur people on to becoming moral characters, witnesses to the truth, to be willing to suffer for the truth, and ready to give up worldly wisdom.
Mynster’s importance for my whole work as an author
My task has been to bring a corrective where the establishment is concerned, not to bring anything new which might subvert or supersede it.
Now, had I overlooked that from the beginning and had Mynster not existed, then I should have had to create someone or other to represent the establishment and then buttress him up.
But I did not understand my task so clearly from the beginning; that would certainly have escaped my notice and everything would have been difficult and perhaps unsuccessful.
But Mynster stood there as the representative of the establishment. It followed quite naturally that I venerated Mynster and did everything to express the fact.
In that way I was given my correct position. Here is another example of my good fortune! From a purely personal point of view my veneration for Mynster was essential to me—but it is only long after that I see how very important it was for my task, and so that I should be quite correctly situated.
Faith
It is clear that in my writings I have given a further definition of the concept faith, which did not exist until now.
A remark of Abelard’s
. . . Abelard . . . considered it a proof of the decline of faith and the secularisation of Christianity that no more miracles occurred. “And,” he adds, “at the present time miracles are really even more necessary than at the doctrine’s first appearance, now that a dead faith dominates everywhere.”
To this Neander cannot forbear saying that it is easy to see that Abelard is merely looking for arguments against his opponents, since it is quite a different thing to require miracles at the first appearance of the doctrine, and that moreover a dead faith holds most of all to miracles.
Oh no, oh no, Abelard is right. Of course it requires even more miracles to drag a people out of the deception that they have the faith; for the terms of the fight and the task are far more difficult than when Christianity has to deal with paganism. And further, as to a dead faith clinging most of all to miracles, that is only true of miracles at an historical distance. A dead faith dares not have anything to do with contemporary miracles.
Nov. 13. . . . No, instead of wishing, like the young man, to tear away the veil from divinity, I wish to tear the veil from human twaddle and from the conceited self-complacency with which men try to convince themselves and others that man really wants to know the truth. No, every man is more or less afraid of the truth; and that is what is human, for truth is related to being “spirit”—and that is very hard for flesh and blood and the physical lust for knowledge to bear. Between man and truth lies mortification—you see why we are all more or less afraid.
Epictetus
The thing I hold most against him is that one sees at once that he was a slave. The frightful thought of knowing oneself to be a slave, and the question thus decided for ever, put such a weight of despair upon him that he discovered the pride of Stoicism.
But we were not brought up like that, we did not begin with such terrors.
It is perfectly true that only terror to the point of despair develops a man to his utmost—though of course many succumb during the cure; but it is also useful for a man to be handled as roughly as all that.
Even in the very first words of Epictetus: some things are in our power, others are not in our power—even there I can already hear the slave; and thus understood those cold words conceal a frightful passion; one hears the slave sighing in chains, or one hears the sigh from the time when, as a slave, he learnt that, learnt to make that distinction.
The distinction is correct, but the passion with which it is made quite another matter.
There is no doubt that nowadays we are a lot of old women compared with antiquity, and the misfortune no doubt lies, to a great extent, in our not being effectually unhappy—the pressure from outside is so gentle and we have not got character enough to make ourselves unhappy —but nevertheless character too can be bought too dear; character can, in one sense, be bought at the cost of character.
. . . Le Moine’s book: La devotion aisée, comfortable piety, Paris, 1652, a Jesuit. Here sophistry and indulgence are reduced to a system, and mediocrity is legitimised.
The whole book deserves to be quoted, for it is exactly like the sermons now in use. And if one were to do so without giving the title or saying that its author was a Jesuit, the average run of parson would find it was true Christianity.
. . . I too have a heart and I have tried to preserve it, and therefore made every effort to keep it in the proper place, so as not to have it on my lips at one moment, and on my sleeve at the next, and never in the proper place, and not to confuse having a heart with sentimental twaddle.
Has a man the right to talk to any other man on the highest matters?
That one may talk to him about the weather I know quite well.
But the other thought has occupied me my whole life long, and to such an extent that I do not know whether I ought to say: has a man the right etc. for at the same moment I should really have broken that relation to God which is silence.
There is a God; his will is made known to me in Holy Scripture and in my conscience. This God wishes to intervene in the world. But how is he to do so except with the help of, i.e. per man? Now one can say, we can all say: yes, that is of course what he does, but not per me: no one of us wishes to be that individual; for if God is to intervene in the world it must be through the individual.
And how does a man become that individual? Well, unless he has to do with God alone, where the highest matters are concerned, and says: now I weigh the matter as best I can, act upon it that you, O God, may be able to seize hold of me, and I therefore speak to nobody at all, I dare not do so—unless he does that he cannot become the individual. The moment I talk to another man about my highest concerns, of what God wills for me, in that very moment God has less power over me. How many are there who are able to grasp God’s priority of claim on a man, so that the permission to talk to another man about one’s highest concerns is an indulgence, a concession which one must pray for, because no mere man can endure being the individual absolutely.
Religion—Politics
Everything depends upon “how” a thing is put into practice, on the reduplication of the proposition in working form in relation to the proposition: of that I am ever more certain.
In fact one may say, in two words, that the difference between politics and religion is that no politics wishes to have anything to do with reduplication, for that it is too busy, too earthly, too worldly.
For reduplication is the longest operation of all, is really that of eternity.
When Luther introduced the idea of the Reformation, what happened? Even he, the great reformer, became impatient, he did not reduplicate strongly enough—he accepted the help of the princes, i.e. he really became a politician, to whom victory is more important than “how” one is victorious; for religiously the one important thing is the “how,” just because the religious person is infinitely certain that he or his matter will be victorious, indeed that it has already won—he has therefore only to watch out for the “how,” i.e. to reduplicate.
The Abolition of Confession
the joint action of priest and congregation. The congregation were afraid of going to confession, the confessional-box made it all too real. The priests were afraid of hearing confession, it became much too serious a matter.
A change in the preaching of Christianity answering to the position of the clergy
As long as the clergy were exalted, sacrosanct in the eyes of men, Christianity continued to be preached in all its severity. For even if the clergy did not take it too strictly, people dared not argue with the clergy, and they could quite well lay on the burden and dare to be severe.
But gradually, as the nimbus faded away, the clergy got into the position of themselves being controlled. So there was nothing to do but to water down Christianity. And so they continued to water it down till in the end they achieved perfect conformity with an ordinary worldly run of ideas—which were proclaimed as Christianity. That is more or less Protestantism as it is now.
The good thing is that it is no longer possible to be severe to others if one is not so towards oneself. Only someone who is really strict with himself can dare nowadays to proclaim Christianity in its severity, and even then things may go badly for him.