Soerates’s way of life
1851
. . . Christianity, then, did not so much come in order to develop heroic virtues in the individual as to take away egoism, and put love in its place, “let us love one another.” Time and energy are used not in perfecting oneself up to a certain maximum—which can too easily become egoism —but in working for others.
. . . I have therefore always urged that Christianity is really for the poor, who perhaps toil and moil the whole day long and hardly get a living. The more advantages the more difficult it is to become a Christian, for reflection can so easily take a wrong turn.
It was always my wish to preach to the common man. But when the vulgar press did everything in order to make me seem mad in the eyes of the common man I was obliged for a time to give up that wish, but I shall come back to it again.
The meaning of my existence in the present time
Neither church, nor doctrine is to be reformed. If anything is to be done—then it is the reformation of us all. That is what my existence expresses.
I am, humanly speaking, the most advanced existence we have. And what have I learnt? That I hardly dare call myself a Christian—so how should I dare to wish to reform the Church or concern myself with such things.
In the same way that other young men travel abroad and then bring home news of the habits and customs of foreign countries—I too have lived abroad for many years, in the company of ideals where it is such happiness to be, where everything is gentle and mild, if only one is unassuming and humble.
. . . The doctrine of the established Church, its organisation, are both very good. Oh, but our lives—believe me, they are indeed wretched. . . .
Just as one talks of being elf-shot so I should like to say: wounded by ideas.
Grundtvig—and I
Grundtvig came before the world with his probational sermon: Why is the word of God gone from the House of God?
I could never say a thing like that. I should have to say: why has the power gone from the preaching of the word of God?
For in my opinion it is the word of God which is heard about the country—the misfortune simply is that we do not follow it. Very little satisfies me, a few words from the Bible is enough—and I immediately ask myself: have you done that?
That is why I can listen to any parson or lay preacher. Almost from the beginning Grundtvig was reduced to listening to nobody but himself. And that continual dwelling upon Christianity as a doctrine, dogmas—and then that “universal history.”
The proper tactics against tribulation
James iv, 7: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
These are therefore the tactics. Not the reverse, not to fly the devil; that can only be the tactics in temptation.
From which it may also be learnt that tribulation is a whole quality above temptation. Humanly speaking it is always a relief to know that there is the possibility of salvation in flying from danger. But where tribulation is concerned that is not so. That is precisely what, for a time, gives birth to new tribulation, because it will seem to the one who is thus spiritually tried as though he had been too sure of himself, as though he ought to have looked about for a way of escape. This again is tribulation. Spiritual tribulation can only be fought with the foolhardiness of faith, which attacks directly. But in his weak moments the believer grows afraid of the foolhardiness of faith itself, as though perhaps it were to tempt God, which once again is tribulation.
Rousseau
The fourth volume of his Confessions (Les promenades) is admirable, the fifth promenade aesthetically unequalled.
As for the rest, here is an example of what it means not to be well read in Christianity.
There are analogies in Rousseau’s life with the truly Christian conflicts (to do good and suffer for it, to do good and thereby make oneself and others unhappy). That is what he cannot endure; he complains that it paralyses him so terribly. How it would have strengthened him had it been really clear to him that such is the properly Christian conflict.
But as he is completely ignorant of Christianity he is paralysed on the one hand, and on the other falls into the conceit that he is the only man who has ever suffered in this way.
The establishment—and me
If I come into conflict with the establishment it will be entirely Mynster’s fault. My whole endeavour is a defence of the established order, the only one that can honestly be made. Everything has been done to make things as gentle as possible for Mynster. But if he ends by obstinately maintaining that all his questionable preaching of Christianity, which has made Christianity into a theatrical amusement, is wisdom and Christianity, then it is he who made my attitude into something different.
Religion—Doubt
Official preaching has falsely represented religion, Christianity, as nothing but consolation, happiness etc. And consequently doubt has the advantage of being able to say in a superior way: I do not wish to be made happy by an illusion.
If Christianity were truthfully presented as suffering, ever greater as one advances further in it: doubt would have been disarmed, and in any case there would have been no opportunity for being superior—where it was a matter of avoiding—pain.
Humanism
It is incredible how impertinently many people nowadays urge the purely human as opposed to Christianity.
And what is it we now call “Humanism” ? It is a vaporised Christianity, a culture-consciousness, the dregs of Christianity. . . . One ought to say to the humanists: produce “undiluted humanism”—for the humanism we now have is really Christianity’s, though it will not own it; but you cannot, with justice, call it yours in opposition to Christianity.
Mynster—and I
Imagine for a moment a knot. Some people wish to untie it. That is what Mynster desires least of all. Then along I come and say: just let me pull the knot a little tighter. But no, he is also afraid of that, nobody must touch it, and that in spite of the fact that it is so loose that it cannot hold together unless it is tightened.
Soerates’s way of life
. . . Now if Socrates had had to live the life of an ascetic, alone in the country, it is doubtful whether he could have endured it.
Precisely because he stopped at the infinite negative—he had to be among crowds, needed men, for ever new men, like a fisherman fish, in order to make his experiments on them.
That filled his life, perfectly true, but one might also ask whether he did not use it in order to fill his life.
I began with the socratic method; but I nevertheless recognised my inferiority profoundly, for I had means and, to that extent, a great help towards independence from others. In so far as I now strive to attract people more directly towards me or towards the Idea, I look upon it as an abatement, in a sense an accommodation, but also as a movement in the direction of Christianity. In the meantime I do not talk nonsense and say that my method is superior to the socratic. No, no; besides, it does not tend towards the socratic method but towards proclaiming grace, though of course infinitely lower than the apostolic.