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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: New Explorations in Theology
- Sprache: Englisch
Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was not afraid to express his opinions. Living amid what he perceived to be a culturally lukewarm Christianity, he was often critical of his contemporary church. But that does not mean Kierkegaard rejected traditional Christian theology. Indeed, at a time when many of his contemporaries were questioning the classical doctrine of God, Kierkegaard swam against the stream by maintaining orthodox Christian beliefs. In this volume in IVP Academic's New Explorations in Theology series, Craig A. Hefner explores Kierkegaard's reading of Scripture and his theology to argue not only that the great Dane was a modern defender of the doctrine of divine immutability (or God's changelessness) in response to the disintegration of the self, but that his theology can be a surprising resource today. Even as the church continues to be beset by "shifting shadows" (James 1:17), Kierkegaard can remind us of the good and perfect gifts that come from an unchanging God.
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NEW EXPLORATIONS IN THEOLOGY
Kierkegaard and the Changelessnessof God
A Modern Defense of Classical Immutability
Foreword by Daniel J. Treier
To Rachel
Contents
Foreword
DANIEL J. TREIER
CRAIG HEFNER’S STUDY OFSøren Kierkegaard on divine immutability offers both historical and theological enrichment. When Hefner creatively proposed the language of “retrieval” for this project, it was initially jarring. Theology’s recent burst of retrieval projects has typically focused on patristic or at least “premodern” figures.1 Often these projects have celebrated “classical” approaches to God and the gospel, perhaps even “Christian Platonism” or “sacramental” ontology. By contrast, not only was Kierkegaard a post-Enlightenment figure; he was no straightforward advocate of substance metaphysics. Can and should we “retrieve” this “modern” thinker? Counterintuitive as it seemed, Hefner provided the historical and theological evidence for a favorable answer.
Historically, Hefner shows that Kierkegaard was not exactly who many thought he was. Over the past few decades, evangelicals have moved from being dismissive and inaccurate readers (at best) to becoming insightfully engaged, even influential, in scholarship on the melancholy Dane. Much of this scholarly leadership has come from philosophers such as the stalwart C. Stephen Evans. While contributing theological insight along the way, “evangelical” engagements with Kierkegaard have still focused more on questions of faith and implications for life than on Christian doctrine as such. Hefner’s project, then, addresses a neglected aspect of Kierkegaard’s thought, detailing what periodic readers or survey teachers (and perhaps some specialists!) might not have realized: Kierkegaard was indebted to the likes of Saint Augustine and Martin Luther in his reading of the Scriptures, and thus he maintained a strong doctrine of divine immutability in the face of modern change.
Hence, theologically, if Kierkegaard maintained this doctrine that modernity finds so existentially problematic, it is worth special notice that he did so for existentially oriented reasons. The very factor on which modernity tends to rest its case against a traditional doctrine of divine immutability—the import of change for authentic human existence in the world—actually raises important objections against contemporary assumptions. Thus, Hefner’s retrieval of Kierkegaard’s rationale may both deepen our account of God’s immutability and expand our appreciation for this traditional doctrine. Kierkegaard prompts us to see Scripture passages like James 1 in a new light. Entrusting ourselves to the “Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,” who gives “every good and perfect gift,” may be essential to “considering it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2, 17). Kierkegaard’s immutable God may enable “double-minded and unstable” modern people to persevere anew so as to receive the crown of life (James 1:8, 12).
Can and should we retrieve a modern thinker’s traditional definition of divine immutability? In asking this question, Craig Hefner enriches our formal understanding of the potential scope of retrieval theology—evoking our historical recognition that traditional roots may persist in unexpected modern places. In answering this retrieval question affirmatively, Hefner enriches our material understanding of divine immutability—evoking our theological appreciation of the biblical roots and existential rest given by an unchangeable God.
Acknowledgments
THEOLOGY IS NEVER THE PRODUCT of an isolated, single individual. As I complete this project, it joyfully brings to mind the family, friends, teachers, and colleagues who have supported me and made this book possible.
I am particularly grateful to Dan Treier, who has routinely gone beyond the reasonable expectations of a doctoral advisor. This project has benefited directly from his insight to keep always in view the task of interpreting Scripture. I am honored and grateful for his willingness to write the foreword to this book. I am thankful also for Marc Cortez, who offered critical input on every chapter and always pushed this study toward greater clarity and precision. I’m indebted to C. Stephen Evans both for his thoughtful engagement with this project and for his scholarly influence on the study of Kierkegaard’s theology.
There are many teachers and mentors who influenced this project before a single word had been written. I will always credit Ryan Peterson with inspiring in me the very desire to take on the study of theology. I am thankful also to David Luy, in whose course on modern theology I read Kierkegaard for the first time.
I conducted early stages of research at the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College. I owe a special thank you to the Summer Fellows of 2016 and to Gordon Marino and Eileen Shimota for their hospitability and ongoing support of the Summer Fellows Program.
I have also benefited from great friends and colleagues in the Wheaton College PhD program. Here, I wish to recognize Cooper Smith, Ryan Clevenger, Michelle Knight, Chris Smith, Ty Kieser, Benjamin Smith, and Justin Zahraee. I am also grateful for Ryan Kemp, Doug Moo, David Moser, Kent Eilers, and Kyle Strobel for feedback on this book. I am thankful for Matthew Levering, whose course on Augustine was a major impetus for this study and whose kind words have always been a great encouragement.
I am thankful to the community of Covenant School, including the Board of Directors, teachers, and staff, where I completed the final stages of this book. I owe a debt of gratitude to Jonathon Wylie who offered constant encouragement and thoughtful feedback.
I am thankful to the editors at InterVarsity Press, especially David McNutt, for their diligent work in bringing this project to publication. I am grateful to Princeton University Press for permission to reprint quotations from their excellent translation of Kierkegaard’s Writings. In addition, I am grateful for permission to use revised material from my article “The Existential Doctrine of God’s Immutability in Augustine and Kierkegaard” (International Journal of Systematic Theology 20, no. 1 [2018]: 65-83).
Finally, this project would not be possible without the loving care of my family. I want to thank my in-laws, Steve and Angela Harris, for their gracious support and encouragement. I am grateful for my parents, Mark and Beth Hefner, who have practically and lovingly supported me through many years of education. Finally, I wish to express gratitude above all for my best friend and wife, Rachel, and my two sons, Elliott and Adler. Rachel has supported me in innumerable practical ways. She is a source of constancy and joy in my life, and with gratitude I dedicate this work to her.
List of Abbreviations
BZ
Biblische Zeitschrift
CD
Church Dogmatics
CDis
Christian Discourses
CUP1
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Vol. 1
CUP2
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Vol. 2
Enc
Encounter
EO1
Either/Or. Vol. 1
EO2
Either/Or. Vol. 2
ET
Evangelische Theologie
EUD
Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses
FSE/JFY
For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!
FT/R
Fear and Trembling and Repetition
HeyJ
Heythrop Journal
IJPR
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
IJST
International Journal of Systematic Theology
Inq
Inquiry
IPC
International Philosophical Quarterly
JP
Journals and Papers. 7 vols.
JR
Journal of Religion
JRE
Journal of Religious Ethics
JTS
Journal of Theological Studies
KD
Kergyma und Dogma
KSY
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
M
The Moment and Late Writings
ModTheo
Modern Theology
NT
Novum Testamentum
NTS
New Testament Studies
PC
Practice in Christianity
PE
Pro Ecclesia
PF
Philosophical Fragments
PV
The Point of View
REAug
Revue d’études Augustiniennes Et Patristiques
RM
The Review of Metaphysics
RS
Religious Studies
SE
Studia Evangelica
SJCP
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality
SJT
Scottish Journal of Theology
ST
Summa Theologiae
SUD
The Sickness unto Death
UDVS
Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits
WL
Works of Love
WTJ
Westminster Theological Journal
1
Retrieving Kierkegaard
But you are the same, and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall dwell secure.
God is unchanging. But this changelessness is not that chilling indifference, that devastating loftiness, that ambiguous distance, which the callous understanding lauded. No, on the contrary, this changelessness is intimate and warm and everywhere present; it is a changelessness in being concerned for a person.1
INTRODUCTION
For a defense of the doctrine of God’s immutability, the nineteenth century might seem to be a strange place to look. At best, the intellectual developments of this century called for radical revision to the classical theist’s conception of God. F. W. J. von Schelling captured the spirit of this age when he wrote in a letter to G. W. F. Hegel, “For you the question has surely long since been decided. For us as well [as for Lessing] the orthodox concepts of God are no more.”2 At worst, the philosophical revolutions of the nineteenth century were really a covert form of pantheism or atheism, as Heinrich Heine confessed in his history of German philosophy: “No one says it, but everyone knows it; pantheism is the open secret of Germany. Indeed, we have outgrown deism.”3 In such a context, the classical theist belief in a strong doctrine of divine immutability, which had been the traditional belief from the church fathers through the Reformation, seems to have faded away.4
Yet we find in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, a spirited and passionate belief in God’s complete changelessness. Kierkegaard’s final publication in 1855 was a discourse titled, “The Changelessness of God,” which he preached as a sermon on May 18, 1851.5 Kierkegaard even declared James 1:17, the locus classicus for the doctrine of God’s immutability, to be his “first love” and favorite biblical text.6 Even more surprising, Kierkegaard’s belief in God’s immutability cannot be easily removed from the architecture of his thought. His belief in God’s immutability was not simply a naïvely traditional concept that he should have recognized as ultimately incompatible with his otherwise modern point of view. As this study will go on to show, the doctrine of God’s immutability stands near the center of Kierkegaard’s thought—and for characteristically modern reasons.
Kierkegaard’s surprising and passionate belief in God’s immutability calls for further theological investigation. This study approaches the subject matter of Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability in the mode of retrieval theology.7 There are good reasons for approaching the topic in this mode, which I will explain later. But for now, it is important to identify the basic goal of this study: this study proposes to retrieve Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability in order to offer a biblical and characteristically modern case for a classical definition of this doctrine.
Before going too far, it is necessary to define both a “characteristically modern” case and a “classical definition” of the doctrine of God’s immutability. This Kierkegaardian case is “characteristically modern” in two ways. First, this case makes the positive claim that the self’s existence and coherence through change depends on the possibility of a relation with the immutable God. Apart from this relation to the immutable God, change disintegrates the self in such a way that the self is given over to disintegration or sheer flux. This concern for how the doctrine of divine immutability impacts the self is a characteristically modern question. According to Kevin W. Hector, the concept of “mineness” becomes a particularly central concern for modern theology, where “mineness” refers to the sense in which one’s life counts as mine “insofar as it hangs together in such a way that one can identify with it.”8 Kierkegaard clearly shares this characteristically modern interest in questions of mineness and the self’s coherence, but he grounds the possibility of a coherent self in the relation to the immutable God. This case is also characteristically modern in a second sense. This case makes the more negative claim that this Kierkegaardian account offers a defense of a classical definition of God’s immutability “without metaphysics.”9 I am using “metaphysical” here to refer narrowly to a way of gaining knowledge of God, where one begins “from below” with the nature and properties of created being and then reasons by abstraction to the attributes of God. In other words, a metaphysical account is one that depends on a certain kind of natural theology, where the doctrine of God’s immutability is derived through a philosophical analysis of nature. This claim will require further unpacking, but for now it is worth noting that this account is not anti-metaphysical. This account claims only to be a sufficient case for a classical definition of God’s immutability without metaphysics in this specific sense, and it makes no judgment about the possibility of other accounts, whether metaphysical or non-metaphysical. In doing so, this case takes into account as much as possible the modern suspicion of metaphysics—not by simply rejecting metaphysics all together but rather by addressing immutability on other grounds.10
This study then offers a characteristically modern case for a classical definition of God’s immutability. But in the spirit of retrieval theologies this study does not consequently take modernity to impose “a new and inescapable set of conditions on theological work.”11 In other words, this Kierkegaardian account should not be taken as a defense of a doctrine of God’s immutability strictly “under the conditions of modernity.”12 Rather, in the mode of retrieval theology this account presents a doctrine of God’s immutability within the context of modernity but not for that reason simply within limits set by modernity.13 The conviction of this study is that Kierkegaard’s writings help us to articulate a biblical doctrine of God’s immutability in a modern context. By extension, this study applies also to a postmodern context, where the trajectories of thought on the nature of the self are not altogether different but rather an intensified version of modernity and in some cases the natural conclusion. Modernism, for instance, rejects divine immutability but aspires to a unified and coherent self. The postmodern belief that a unified and coherent self is illusory is really an intensified rejection of divine immutability by carrying this rejection to its natural conclusion. And so, while this study offers a characteristically modern case for a classical doctrine of immutability, these trajectories of thought are not limited to modernity but also help us speak of God’s changelessness in the postmodern context.
Having clarified the sense in which this study is “characteristically modern,” we can now identify the meaning of what I am calling a “classical definition” of the doctrine of God’s immutability. Simply put, I will take a classical definition of God’s immutability to refer to the belief that God cannot change in any way.14 Put more philosophically, a classical definition of this doctrine denies the possibility of any movement from potentiality to actuality in God because the possibility of movement requires potentiality, parts, and a lack of perfection. Because God does not have potentiality, parts, or lack of perfection, it follows that God cannot change in any way. This absolute changelessness applies to God’s essence, knowledge, will, and place.15 In short, according to the classical definition, God is changeless in every way.
Unfortunately, in his writings Kierkegaard never explicitly offered his own definition of this doctrine. Kierkegaard was preoccupied almost exclusively with the question of how the self relates to the immutable God, not what immutability is. That being said, there are good reasons to assume that Kierkegaard took for granted something very close to a classical definition of God’s immutability. When he declared James 1:17 to be his favorite biblical text, Kierkegaard was surely aware of the long history of citing James 1:17 in defense of this classic doctrine.16
Further, Kierkegaard seems to deny a real ontological relation between God and creation that might make God suspectable to real change, strongly implying a classical definition of God’s immutability.17 Kierkegaard speaks of the dogmatic discovery, similar to Copernicus’s discovery in astronomy, that “God is not the one who changes (God could neither become gentle nor angry), but that man changes his position in relationship to God—in other words: the sun does not go around the earth, but the earth goes around the sun.”18 In his discourse on “The Changelessness of God” Kierkegaard also asserts that neither the act of creation nor the incarnation change God in any way.19 Kierkegaard is aware that these claims about creation and the incarnation involving no change in God are complex and highly debated. Kierkegaard’s insistence that God does not change at all in the face of these challenging theological objections seems to indicate again that Kierkegaard held to a strong classical definition of the doctrine of God’s immutability, even if he never explicitly defines it in this way. But we can do more than rely on these underdetermined statements. This study will go on to argue that, whether he intended it or not, Kierkegaard’s account does in the end require a classical definition of this doctrine.
Still, what is also essential to our study is that even though Kierkegaard held to a classical definition of this doctrine, he affirmed this doctrine for very different reasons than traditional accounts. At this point, it is important to differentiate clearly a classical definition from a classical account of God’s immutability. Kierkegaard at least implicitly affirms a classical definition of this doctrine, which once again is the belief that there is no possibility of movement from potentiality to actuality in God. God cannot change in any way. By contrast, a classical “account” not only affirms this definition but also arrives at it by traditional arguments, which will primarily be metaphysical. In Thomas Aquinas, for a paradigmatic example, there can be no movement in God because the possibility of movement requires potentiality, parts, and a lack of perfection.20 It follows that God cannot change in any way. We do not find these or similar classical arguments for the doctrine in Kierkegaard’s writings. Instead, Kierkegaard’s reasons for a classical definition are more existential and based on his interpretation of James 1:17.21 Thus, when I say that this Kierkegaardian account offers a case for a classical definition, I do not imply that Kierkegaard affirms this definition for classical reasons. To the contrary, Kierkegaard’s case is characteristically modern, so throughout this study it will be important to keep in mind the distinction between a classical definition and a classical account.
I also intend to show that this characteristically modern case for a classical definition has biblical warrant. This Kierkegaardian case is not characteristically modern merely for the sake of being characteristically modern. Instead, it is better to understand this case as retrieving a set of legitimately biblical themes that are especially emphasized in modern thought. Throughout this study, then, I regularly note Kierkegaard’s use of Scripture, and in particular I concentrate attention on his use of James 1:17. Further, I not only highlight Kierkegaard’s use of that text, but I also defend his interpretation on exegetical grounds. In doing so, I move beyond simply historical recovery of this Kierkegaardian case and into the realm of retrieval theology.
KIERKEGAARD AND RETRIEVAL THEOLOGY
I have located this study within the broad realm of retrieval theologies, and so it is important now to define this approach to theology and identify how it shapes my approach to Kierkegaard’s writings. David Buschart and Kent Eilers provide a clear definition of retrieval theology: “As we use the term, retrieval names a mode or style of theological discernment that looks back in order to move forward. It is a particular way of carrying out theological work . . . in which resources from the past are found distinctly advantageous for the present situation.”22 This study of Kierkegaard largely adopts a retrieval approach to theology, looking back to Kierkegaard’s writings as a distinctly advantageous resource for thinking of God’s immutability in the context of modernity.
For a number of reasons, Kierkegaard’s writings have rarely been the target of a retrieval theology. For one, theologies of retrieval have tended to privilege classic and premodern resources.23 Yet, given the basic approach of retrieval theology, there seems to be no reason to reject outright the possibility and usefulness of retrieving an early-modern thinker. In fact, retrieving the theology of a thinker like Kierkegaard makes possible a particular sort of argument, one that engages modernity internally and not just externally. For instance, this Kierkegaardian case defends a classical definition of God’s immutability for characteristically modern reasons, bringing to light the way that ideas and emphases internal to modernity can be theologically useful for the present situation.
A second reason that Kierkegaard has rarely been the target of a retrieval theology is that his writings seem to be a part of the very problem to which retrieval theology is a response. Thus, retrieving Kierkegaard’s theology could be an inherently self-defeating project. Especially problematic for theologies of retrieval, Kierkegaard’s theology has on several occasions been interpreted in radically anti-realist terms according to which Kierkegaard’s theological language does not refer to anything objective or real but only to his own psychological experience or his ideals of human subjectivity. However, such anti-realist interpretations have been seriously called into question. David Gouwens, for instance, has suggested that “Kierkegaard is a thinker for whom the religious and Christian concepts provide the governing concepts for his psychological reflection.”24 Still, even if Kierkegaard’s theology is not strongly anti-realist, some have seen his writings as perpetuating theological problems that are opposed to the attitudes and modes of retrieval theology. For instance, Karl Barth at first saw Kierkegaard as an ally for his theological project, but later came to see Kierkegaard’s writings as part of the problem. Barth worried that Kierkegaard placed too much emphasis on human subjectivity at the expense of the objective revelation of God.25 Kierkegaard’s theology was consequently seen by Barth to be reductive to the conditions and interests of the modern subject. Whether Kierkegaard was guilty of this reduction or not, it might be said from a Kierkegaardian point of view that Barth’s tendency could be to overreact in the opposite direction, failing to speak about the self and its existence.26
Still, despite these objections there are good reasons to consider Kierkegaard’s writings in the mode of retrieval theology. As we have noted, against anti-realist interpretations there is now a well-established realist and theological approach to reading Kierkegaard’s writings. Further, at least with reference to our current study, it is likely that Kierkegaard himself was engaging in something like retrieval theology. Kierkegaard’s existential emphasis on the doctrine of God’s immutability has precedent at least in the biblical book of James and in Augustine’s writings. Kierkegaard’s knowledge and use of Augustine was limited by prevailing nineteenth-century caricatures.27 But it still seems that Augustine’s influence stands behind Kierkegaard’s well-known formula of the self without despair as a self that “rests transparently in the power that established it.”28
A comparative study between Augustine and Kierkegaard on the doctrine of God’s immutability will also find significant points of agreement between the two thinkers. Like Kierkegaard, Augustine sees God’s eternity and immutability as a condition to preserve the existential integrity of the human creature across the vicissitudes of time and change. Augustine develops these themes in book 11 of the Confessions, where he contrasts a fallen experience of time with a redeemed experience of time. For Augustine, the redeemed experience of time occurs only when the human person participates in God’s changelessness and in doing so stabilizes their mutable existence in time.
We find similar themes in the biblical book of James, which this study will later develop in detail. James 1:17 speaks of God’s changelessness, but as we will see this affirmation is also connected to existential themes in the book. On a Kierkegaardian reading, in James the self’s friendship with the immutable God makes possible a reintegrated existence through change, an existence that is no longer double-minded but rather reintegrated and pure in heart. In this way Kierkegaard’s account of God’s immutability is itself already engaged in the mode of retrieval theology. Kierkegaard draws on Augustinian themes and the book of James as resources that are distinctly advantageous for his present situation. This study continues the same pattern by bringing Kierkegaard’s theology forward to address the doctrine of God’s immutability—but now in the context of later modern theology.
Interpreting Kierkegaard in the mode of retrieval theology shapes the content and goals of this study. As a project of retrieval theology, this study goes beyond mere repetition of Kierkegaard’s ideas. So this study is not primarily historical in the sense of simply aiming to describe and identify what Kierkegaard said. This study does analyze Kierkegaard’s writings closely, but it also aims as much as possible to present Kierkegaard’s arguments as theologically coherent and compelling. Thus, this study will at times construct Kierkegaardian arguments that go beyond a mere description of his view, and on occasion it will involve other thinkers in order to present Kierkegaard’s case in the best possible light. That being said, this study also is not a straightforward and unrestricted constructive argument. The themes and major claims of this study emerge from what Kierkegaard’s approach enables us to say. This tension is admittedly ambiguous, perhaps making it difficult on occasion to parse out where descriptive work ends and constructive work begins. But this ambiguity is characteristic of theologies of retrieval, and in my judgment despite such ambiguity this mode of engagement can be historically responsible and remains useful for the task of theology.
THE WARRANT FOR RETRIEVING KIERKEGAARD
The method and aims of retrieval theology involve both historical and theological concerns. The warrant for a retrieval theology, then, is also both historical and theological. In what follows, then, I put forth a twofold warrant for this retrieval of Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability.
The historical warrant for this study is simply that the doctrine of God’s immutability remains an insufficiently examined concept in Kierkegaard’s writings. It is recognized on occasion that Kierkegaard affirmed this doctrine, but there is not an extended and focused study on the doctrine of God’s immutability in Kierkegaard.29 This study then addresses a gap in research on Kierkegaard’s writings by giving focused attention to Kierkegaard’s understanding and use of this doctrine. As it turns out, the doctrine of God’s immutability is a widespread and critical concept for Kierkegaard’s overall thought.
It is often recognized, for instance, that the theme of change and the task of becoming a self through change are central and distinctly Kierkegaardian emphases.30 In an influential study, Mark C. Taylor has argued that the self’s relation to time unites at least the pseudonymous works of Kierkegaard. To this end, Taylor argues that the aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages of existence characterize different ways of relating to time.31 There are many who agree that the self’s relation to time or change is a widespread and important concern in Kierkegaard’s writings. But it is not often sufficiently recognized that Kierkegaard’s interest in these existential concepts goes along with his account of God’s immutability.32 As this study will show, for Kierkegaard the self can only become itself through change or time through its relation to the immutable God. In light of this gap in research, this study is warranted in part by the lack of direct and focused attention on the concept of God’s immutability in Kierkegaard’s writings.
Interestingly, those who have implicitly recognized the importance of God’s immutability in Kierkegaard’s thought are those most intent on secularizing Kierkegaard’s ideas. For instance, Kierkegaard developed a concept that he called “repetition,” and this concept has enjoyed major influence and acceptance in broadly existentialist and postmodern conceptions of the self, where the self is taken not to be an essence but a repeated act of becoming. Yet much of the use of these Kierkegaardian ideas tends toward an interpretation of the self’s existence as absurd and groundless.33 Ironically though unintentionally, these thinkers take for granted a central premise of this study: the immutable God is the ground for the self’s existence through change. If one denies the existence of an immutable God, then on Kierkegaard’s account the self’s existence would be adrift and tend toward complete disintegration. Kierkegaard of course believes in the possibility of a reintegrated and non-despairing existence through change, but his reasons for thinking so are resolutely theological. Kierkegaard’s writings take for granted the belief in an immutable God and also the possibility of the self being in relation with this immutable God. Such beliefs cannot be easily proven on existential grounds alone and this study will not attempt to do so, but following Kierkegaard we can and should say that these beliefs have existential import.
In addition to these historical questions of interpreting Kierkegaard, there is also theological warrant for this study. At the most obvious level, this study is warranted theologically because recent debates on the doctrine of God’s immutability have largely neglected Kierkegaard’s potentially unique contributions. This oversight is not without consequences: specifically, recent debates overlook the possibility of characteristically modern reasons for a classical definition of God’s immutability.
It is noteworthy that many recent theologians have thought it necessary to revise or reject the doctrine of God’s immutability for characteristically modern reasons. Among those who reject or revise the doctrine, God’s immutability is thought to be existentially deficient because it portrays God at a distance from human experiences of suffering and change.34 Further, a classical definition of God’s immutability is thought to be founded on a metaphysics of being. In place of this static view of God, modern thought prefers dynamic concepts and the notion of becoming.35 Kierkegaard clearly shares some of these characteristically modern values, privileging the self’s existence and the task of becoming. Yet it is for these same characteristically modern reasons that Kierkegaard strongly affirms a classical definition of God’s immutability.
Kierkegaard habitually brought together existential themes and the doctrine of God, and this tendency was actually in step with his philosophical milieu. Kierkegaard was surely aware of the debates over J. G. Fichte’s doctrine of God and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s charge that Fichte’s theology entailed nihilism.36 What is noteworthy about this debate for our purposes is the precedent for linking doctrines of God with existential concerns. Interestingly, Jacobi’s response to Fichte is not that his concept of God lacks perfection or is inadequate to explain the cause of finite being. Instead, Jacobi moves immediately to the existential charge of nihilism. According to Jacobi, Fichte’s subjective idealism will mean that everything outside of the psyche will be a mere projection and a nothingness. So Jacobi writes, “Everything outside her [the psyche] is nothing, and she is itself a phantom—not just a phantom of something, but a phantom in itself, a real nothingness, a nothingness of reality.”37
According to George Pattison, Kierkegaard’s analysis and critique of Fichte is an extension of Jacobi’s charge of nihilism. As Pattison puts it, Kierkegaard’s argument is that regardless of the coherence of Fichte’s ideas, “it is disastrous when it is adopted as a principle by which to live.”38 This study is not directly concerned with whether Jacobi’s and Kierkegaard’s critiques of Fichte are valid. Instead, our goal here is to point out the tendency among nineteenth-century thinkers to argue for or against a particular doctrine of God in light of its anthropological or existential consequences. Our concern is not Fichte’s doctrine of God and its possible atheism but the notion that God might be changeable in some way. Like the debates with Fichte, a Kierkegaardian account allows us to bring forward existential concerns over belief in a mutable God. By retrieving Kierkegaard’s case for the doctrine of God’s immutability, we attempt to bring forward some of these characteristically nineteenth-century concerns for contemporary consideration.
A retrieval of Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability is theologically warranted because it offers a uniquely modern and existential case for the doctrine. Such an argument is timely, given the widespread tendency to reject the doctrine of God’s immutability for modern reasons. By retrieving Kierkegaard’s case for this doctrine we invert the logic and make a surprising case for a classical definition of God’s immutability.
INTERPRETING KIERKEGAARD
Any interpreter of Kierkegaard immediately encounters a number of complex hermeneutical considerations, and this is no less true for a retrieval of Kierkegaard’s theology. It is difficult to reconstruct Kierkegaardian arguments in any straightforward way. The difficulty of describing his ideas generally has to do with Kierkegaard’s distinct strategy of indirect communication. Because he preferred indirect communication, Kierkegaard also developed a highly sophisticated use of pseudonyms. In Kierkegaard’s view, indirect communication is one of the best ways to communicate subjective truth, which refers to the sort of truth that demands existential appropriation. Indirect communication is what enabled Kierkegaard to play the role of a Socrates. Like Socrates, Kierkegaard’s goal was not to communicate straightforward theories or doctrines but instead to implant the truth within his readers in a more subjective and existential way.
This complex communication style and the use of pseudonyms make Kierkegaard’s writings more enjoyable to read but at the same time more difficult to interpret. Because this study intends to retrieve Kierkegaardian ideas, it will be necessary to make a few judgments on how to approach these complexities in his corpus. Kierkegaard commented directly on the complexity of his writings in two key places: at the end of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and in the posthumously published The Point of View for My Work as an Author.39
In the Postscript, Kierkegaard takes credit for several pseudonymous works but then he declares, “In the pseudonymous books there is not a single word by me.”40 So in one sense Kierkegaard admits to being the author behind the pseudonyms but at the same time he distances his own view from theirs. This is a complex issue, but in my view there are at least two extremes that should be avoided. On the one hand, it is a mistake to ignore the pseudonyms and attribute their thoughts directly to Kierkegaard. On the other hand, it is also a mistake to take Kierkegaard’s statement in the Postscript too literally, as if the pseudonyms do not express Kierkegaard’s own view in any way.41 The right approach lies somewhere between these extremes, recognizing that above all the purpose of the pseudonyms is to help Kierkegaard communicate indirectly. Even in those pseudonymous works that seem the farthest from Kierkegaard’s own view, there is in my view generally something that Kierkegaard himself wishes to communicate, albeit indirectly. Given this complexity, I do not follow any straightforward rule or program for interpreting the pseudonyms. At times I will quote the pseudonyms as if they more or less directly correspond to Kierkegaard’s own view. In other places, I may acknowledge a distinction between Kierkegaard’s point of view and that of a particular pseudonymous author. The complexity of Kierkegaard’s use of indirect communication and pseudonyms demands flexibility and is in my judgment best handled on a case-by-case basis.
Another complex but related issue is how much unity we should expect to find across Kierkegaard’s writings. In The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard himself finds a great amount of unity throughout what he calls “the authorship,” and he traces a sort of movement from various pseudonymous works through others to some of his upbuilding discourses, attributing this unity in part to the work of divine governance.42 Kierkegaard goes on to suggest that his “whole authorship pertains to Christianity, to the issue: becoming a Christian.”43 Kierkegaard, it seems, found a general pattern of unity across his writings, despite the complexities of the pseudonymous and indirect communication. Still, some have found reason to doubt Kierkegaard’s evaluation of his own authorship and see his self-evaluation as an imposed and implausible unity.44 On the whole, this study finds more unity than disunity across his authorship, though it does not simply take this unity for granted at the outset. But on the subject of God’s changelessness, Kierkegaard’s authorship is generally unified. The early pseudonymous works do not address the topic directly, but they do indirectly point to the self’s need for its relation to the immutable God. Either/Or and Repetition, for instance, demonstrate the self’s need for a relation to the immutable God by showing us the inability of the self to repeat or become itself through change apart from this relation. Thus, without making any judgment about other themes and concepts in Kierkegaard, this study will trace Kierkegaard’s account of God’s immutability as a coherent and basically unified idea in Kierkegaard’s authorship.
OUTLINE OF THIS STUDY
Having clarified the approach of retrieval theology and some difficulties about Kierkegaard’s authorship, we can now outline the shape of this study. Its goal, once again, is to retrieve Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability in order to offer a biblical and characteristically modern case for a classical definition of this doctrine. To this end, the study unfolds in four major chapters.
Chapter 2, “The Disintegrated Self,” examines the existential problem of change at three key places in Kierkegaard’s authorship. We will see first that Repetition introduces the problem of change to Kierkegaard’s early authorship against the background of the debates in Denmark over the logic of Hegelian mediation. Second, we examine some of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses, which provide three key philosophical arguments for how change disrupts the self’s efforts at existential coherence or reintegration in terms of the self’s narrative, teleology, and intention. Third, we consider The Sickness unto Death, where Kierkegaard interprets theologically his analysis of change with the criterion of the self being “before God.”45 These arguments in Kierkegaard’s authorship combine to introduce an existential worry over the belief in divine mediation or changeability. In short, on Kierkegaard’s account, if God were changeable, then the self’s disintegration and despair would be unavoidable.
Still, Kierkegaard’s case for the doctrine of God’s immutability involves more than a critique of conceptions of God as changeable. In chapter 3, “The Reintegrated Self,” I examine Kierkegaard’s positive case that the self can reintegrate across change through its relation with the immutable God. For Kierkegaard, the self reintegrates when it practices the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Recalling the forms of disintegration in the previous chapter, we can understand these virtues as the corresponding solutions. And so, we will see that faith reintegrates the self’s narrative, hope reintegrates the self’s teleology, and love reintegrates the self’s intention. To examine the reintegrated self, then, we consider first Kierkegaard’s reflections on the three virtues of faith, hope, and love, and we see how the practice of these virtues reintegrate the self. And second, we see that for Kierkegaard these virtues reintegrate the self because they involve a relation with the immutable God, in which the self finds rest through change.
In chapter 4, “Returning Again to James 1:17,” I turn to identify and assess the biblical origins of Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability. To this end, I will argue that Kierkegaard derives his doctrine of God’s immutability in particular from his interpretation of the book of James, especially James 1:17, the Christian locus classicus for the doctrine of God’s immutability. In this chapter, I trace Kierkegaard’s interpretation of James 1:17, according to which the gifts that come down “from above” establish the immutable God as the object of the self’s faith, hope, and love. Afterward, I defend this interpretation by making an exegetical case that the theme of James 1:17 is friendship with the immutable God. Finally, I conclude by suggesting that this Kierkegaardian interpretation offers biblical warrant for a classical definition of the doctrine of God’s immutability, and it does so in a way that is more textually sensitive to the logic and themes of James 1:17 than some classical tendencies.
In chapter 5, “Immutability without Metaphysics,” I argue that a Kierkegaardian account offers a non-metaphysical case for a classical definition of God’s immutability. To this end, I survey the two most prominent positions in the recent debates on the doctrine of God’s immutability. These debates leave us with what seems like an unavoidable dilemma: either secure a classical definition of God’s immutability by means of metaphysics or reject this definition in favor of a more christocentric and anti-metaphysical approach. Ironically, both predominant positions share a key assumption: that a classical definition of divine immutability must be derived metaphysically. In contrast to both of these positions, I offer a Kierkegaardian case for a classical definition of God’s immutability but without metaphysics.
Together these chapters retrieve Kierkegaard’s doctrine of God’s immutability in order to make a biblical and characteristically modern case for a classical definition of this doctrine. This case is characteristically modern because it links the doctrine of God’s immutability with existential concerns for the self’s coherence through change and it develops this doctrine without metaphysics. This case is also biblical because it shows that James 1:17 offers warrant for this Kierkegaardian doctrine of God’s immutability. For these reasons, there is promise in retrieving the doctrine of God’s immutability in Kierkegaard’s authorship. By looking back to Kierkegaard’s authorship as a resource, this study intends to bring forward Kierkegaard’s passionate commitment to the doctrine of God’s changelessness in a modern context and in fact for characteristically modern reasons.
2
The Disintegrated Self
For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. . . . He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Can you think of anything more appalling than having it all end with the disintegration of your essence into a multiplicity?1
INTRODUCTION
Our study begins with a description of the way that change disintegrates the self in Kierkegaard’s authorship. We will see that for Kierkegaard the self’s experience of change, apart from a relation to the immutable God, inevitably results in self-disintegration and despair. In chapter 3 we will examine how God’s changelessness overcomes the disintegrating experience of change for the self, but the present chapter focuses solely on the negative side of this argument. Kierkegaard’s provocative analysis of change is a direct response to the idea that change might apply to God. And Kierkegaard’s argument against the possibility of divine changeability involves in part an examination of its existential entailments. A changeable God is unable to reintegrate the self, and so the self’s disintegration into a meaningless multiplicity is the inevitable outcome of existence.
In defense of this interpretation, we will examine the problem of change across three parts of Kierkegaard’s authorship. First, Repetition introduces the problem of change to Kierkegaard’s early authorship and sets this analysis against the background of the debate over whether change applies to God. Second, we examine some of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses, which provide three philosophical arguments for how change disrupts the self’s efforts at reintegration in terms of the self’s narrative, teleology, and intention. Third, we consider The Sickness unto Death, where Kierkegaard theologically reinterprets his analysis of change with the criterion as the self being “before God.” This analysis will not treat exhaustively the problem of change for the self in Kierkegaard, which is a widespread theme in his authorship. Instead, we examine the theme of change in order to reconstruct sufficiently a Kierkegaardian argument for why change apart from the immutable God disintegrates the self. Further, in light of Kierkegaard’s discourse on God’s changelessness, we can anticipate the connection between the problem of change and its solution in God’s changelessness. We will see that the problem of change not only unites major portions of Kierkegaard’s authorship, but it also anticipates a theological solution: the self reintegrates through its relation with the immutable God.
REPETITION: BECOMING AND DISINTEGRATION
We begin our examination of change and self-disintegration in Kierkegaard by considering Kierkegaard’s early authorship. Specifically, we examine the enigmatic novel, Repetition, which Kierkegaard published in 1843 and which can be taken as representative of Kierkegaard’s early thought on change and the disintegration of the self.2 In terms of our present argument, Repetition reflects Kierkegaard’s early musings on the concept of change, but quite significantly it does so over against the backdrop of the debate in Denmark on the possibility of divine mediation or change.
Repetition and the Debate in Denmark on Divine Mutability. The debate in Denmark over the logic of Hegelian mediation forms the backdrop to much of Kierkegaard’s early authorship, including Repetition. Hegelian mediation is a system of logic that denies a traditionally Aristotelian form of logic. Aristotelian logic depends on commitments to ideas such as the law of the excluded middle, the foundational idea to traditional logic that a proposition is either true or false. Instead, the logic of mediation affirms that knowledge is achieved when something is understood in relation to something else. The logic of mediation leads one to view rigid either/or arguments with great suspicion, preferring instead the ideal of a synthesis toward a higher truth through the ongoing cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The debates on logic and mediation in Denmark take place mostly during the 1830s and early 1840s, and in 1843 Kierkegaard publishes Either/Or, Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and nine of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses.3 Perhaps the most obvious connection between Kierkegaard’s authorship and the debate over mediation is the use of the Latin expression aut/aut (either/or). Jakob Peter Mynster utilizes the expression, aut/aut, as a short hand reference to the law of the excluded middle in opposition to the logic of Hegelian mediation.4 Consequently, during the 1830s and 1840s the expression “aut/aut” becomes a rallying cry for those who affirm traditional Aristotelian logic against Hegel’s logic of mediation. When Kierkegaard uses the expression Either/Or as the very title of his first work in 1843, he is undoubtedly referring to this ongoing debate.5
The high point of the debate over the logic of mediation took place through a series of published articles between Peter Jakob Mynster and Hans Lassen Martensen. At first glance, the debate appears to be strictly philosophical, considering Hegel’s critique of Aristotelian logic, especially the law of the excluded middle. Mynster defends traditional Aristotelian logic, where Martensen follows Hegel’s critique of this traditional logic. However, on closer examination of these texts we see that at least in Denmark this debate was not merely about logic but also, and perhaps primarily, a theological debate about the conception of God. In his summary of this debate, Jon Stewart makes the same point: “At first glance the debate merely concerns Hegel’s criticism of the laws of Aristotelian logic and above all the law of excluded middle; however, this issue was understood primarily in terms of its implications for the fields of theology and the philosophy of religion. In that context the question became one about the very nature of Christianity.”6 Specifically, the debate over the logic of mediation turns out to be a debate about whether change can be applied to the divine nature.
Mynster initiates the debate when he responds to a review in which the author, Johan Alfred Bornemann, boldly takes for granted that the logic of mediation is to be accepted as true. Mynster begins his article, “Rationalism, Supernaturalism,” with a quote from Bornemann’s review: “The author says, ‘In Theology both rationalism and supernaturalism are antiquated standpoints, which belong to an age which has disappeared.’”7 According to Mynster, Bornemann’s quote assumes that the theological positions of rationalism and supernaturalism have now been synthesized or mediated in modern thought.8 In response, Mynster develops an extended argument that seeks to define rationalism and supernaturalism, and then show that these concepts form an unavoidable either/or. At this point in the debate, Mynster responds as if logic is the key issue, but Martensen recognizes that behind the debate over logic is, in fact, a theological issue.
Martensen responds to Mynster’s short treatise with his own article, “Rationalism, Supernaturalism and the principium exclusi medii.” Martensen now brings into focus the way that this debate impacts the concept of God. Martensen disagrees with Mynster, but he puts forward theological motivations for his position. Martensen’s goal is to show that “Christian metaphysics cannot remain in an either/or, but that it must find its truth in the third that this law excludes.”9 Martensen goes on to contrast this specifically Christian metaphysic with the metaphysic of the Jewish religion. Martensen describes the Jewish religion as “pure, unmediated supernaturalism, which can conceive God only in a distant infinity beyond the world and human consciousness.”10 Martensen argues that this Jewish concept of God disallows from the outset the possibility of the incarnation since such a rejection of mediation cannot conceive of contradicting predicates, such as humanity and divinity, as existing in same subject. In other words, Martensen asserts that Hegelian mediation is theologically useful or even necessary to make sense of Christian doctrine. The Christian church teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, which he suggests implies a rejection of the logic that either there are three gods or a pure unity. For the Christian church there is a third, which is mediated in the doctrine of the Trinity.11 Likewise, Martensen argues that if we are to comprehend the doctrine of the incarnation, it requires the logic of mediation. As a result, Martensen praises the recent philosophical development of mediation because it enables a fuller comprehension of the truth of the Trinity, the incarnation, and creation. It is clear, then, that Martensen defends the logic of mediation against Mynster, but he does so for specifically theological reasons. For Martensen, the logic of mediation helps Christian philosophy to comprehend all at once the core doctrines of the Trinity, incarnation, and creation.
Mynster then responds directly to Martensen, but now his theological concerns are also primary. In his first treatise, “On the Laws of Logic,” Mynster attempts to reject the logic of mediation entirely, but in his second treatise Mynster instead seeks more modestly to limit its applicability. Mynster states his thesis: “There are manifold cases where there cannot or should not be mediation, and attempting it only occasions confusion. This is true primarily within the sphere of concepts.”12 This more modest thesis is clearly motivated by theological concerns. Instead of rejecting mediation all together, Mynster attempts to the limit its applicability, especially from theological concepts such as the nature of God. To this end, Mynster attacks Martensen’s assumption that Judaism conceives of God as pure infinity who is entirely beyond the world. In direct response, Mynster cites a number of Old Testament texts that speak of the immanence of God.13 Mynster suggests that Martensen’s concerns for the apparently Jewish focus on God’s transcendence derive from Martensen’s implicit commitment to pantheism. Mynster is convinced that Hegelian mediation leads to pantheism according to which there is no transcendence at all because God’s existence is so mutable that it has merged with the creation itself.14 Though the debate on mediation contains a wide set of implications, it is worth noting that it specifically involves the issue of the changeability of God. Martensen is trying to make logical sense of the doctrines of the Trinity, incarnation, and creation by conceiving of these doctrines as involving change or mediation to the divine nature. In contrast, Mynster rejects the logic of mediation in order to preserve God’s transcendence and with it his changelessness. With Martensen’s pantheism in mind, Mynster states his strong and now clearly theological conclusion: “This is a doctrine then that Christian theology should abolish, and with which it should not make a compromise: Aut/aut; there is no third.15
Kierkegaard began publishing in 1843, and he was undoubtedly aware of the ongoing and very public debate over Hegelian mediation and its theological implications. The title of Kierkegaard’s first book, Either/Or, indicates that he generally takes Mynster’s side in the debate. But unlike Mynster, Kierkegaard enters this debate in Either/Or with a novel strategy by concentrating on the existential implications of the logic of mediation. The aesthete parodies the existential implications of mediation because he remains entirely indifferent to making choices: “Do it or don’t do it, you’ll regret it either way.”16
Kierkegaard builds on this theme in Repetition, but in this novel Kierkegaard focuses especially on the problem of change for the self and the possibility of a coherent identity through change. Unlike Mynster’s treatises, Kierkegaard does not directly consider whether mediation, and therefore change, should be applied to the concept of God. Instead, Kierkegaard’s strategy is to examine the existential implications of mediation for the self.
We will see that Repetition explores various failed attempts at constituting identity across change, when such attempts are made without reference to God. In defense of this interpretation of Repetition, we make three observations: (1) the concept of repetition refers, among other things, to a successful and coherent constitution of self-identity through change; (2) Constantin Constantius and the young man, the main subjects of Repetition, represent two inadequate ways of becoming a self through change; and (3) a successful repetition can occur only if the self relates to God and if God is himself changeless. This third point connects Kierkegaard’s Repetition back to the debate over the logic of mediation by anticipating Kierkegaard’s theological solution. If mediation and therefore change applies to God, as Martensen suggests, then Kierkegaard argues that a consequence would be that a repetition for the self becomes an impossibility, and so the self would be doomed to a disintegrated existence. We will consider each observation in further detail.
Change and the Concept of Repetition. First, for Kierkegaard a condition of a successful repetition is the self’s becoming coherent through change. The concept of “repetition” remains one of the most difficult to define in Kierkegaard’s authorship. The ambiguity arises in part because, as Ryan Kemp notes, the work Repetition “fails to offer anything like a straightforward definition of the term.”17 Nonetheless, some progress has been achieved at loosely defining repetition as minimally referring to a successful constitution of a self-identity.18
For the purposes of this study, we focus specifically on the way that change becomes an obstacle to the self’s identity or repetition. The theme of change, then, is not an imposition on the text of Repetition. Rather, we have good reasons to consider change as what Kierkegaard takes to be one of the central obstacles to a successful repetition. The main character of Repetition, Constantin Constantius, repeatedly draws our attention to the problem of change for the self. We will consider three key instances.
First, the book opens with an enigmatic reference to the pre-Socratic debates regarding the existence of motion.19 Constantius goes on to offer his new concept, “repetition,” as the solution to the relation between the Eleatics and Heraclitus—respectively, the view that change is an illusion; and the view that change is the fundamental feature of reality. Constantius reports that the Greeks resolved this tension with recollection, but modern thought has mistakenly turned to mediation.20 From the outset, Constantius shows less interest in the theoretical debate over the concepts of mediation and motion. His interest is focused on the issue of human happiness since “repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy.”21 By concentrating on the issue of human happiness, we see that Repetition does not merely explore the theoretical solution to the philosophical problem of motion. Rather, the concept of repetition turns on this question: can the self repeatedly exist across change and motion in a way that preserves one’s happiness?22
Second, Constantius describes the one who fails to experience repetition in terms of lacking continuity through change: “Indeed what would life be if there were no repetition? Who could want to be a tablet on which time writes something new every instant or to be a memorial volume of the past? Who could want to be susceptible to every fleeting thing, the novel, which always enervatingly diverts the soul anew?”23 In these words, Constantius unmistakably connects repetition with the integrity of the self through time and change. To put his point in terms of the Greek debates of motion, the self either represents Heraclitus, in which case the self becomes something new every moment. Or the self represents the Eleatics’s point of view, and it remains motionless like a memorial to the past. In both cases, this self fails to achieve personal identity and happiness across time and change. When Constantius claims that repetition offers a modern explanation to the relation between Eleatics and Heraclitus, it is clear again that he has in mind the solution to the problem of personal identity and happiness through time and change.
Third, we see a focus on change in Repetition
