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Lee Barrett on Kierkegaard and Universalism

I promised in my last post that I would give my readers a little smags prøve, or taste, of the excellent paper on universalism that Lee Barrett presented at the inaugural session of the Society for the Study of Christian Universalism at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Boston last November. Barrett’s paper actually looked at universalism in three thinkers, Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Kierkegaard. I’m going to present only the material on Kierkegaard, though, and not even all of that, because the paper really deserves to be published in full. 

What I love about Barrett’s paper is that, as I mentioned in my last post, Barrett makes a convincing case that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist without referring to the explicitly universalist passage from Kierkegaard’s journals. “That is, Barrett argues that universalism can actually be inferred from various passages in Works of Love.”

So here is a little smags prøve, of Barrett’s excellent paper!

“It probably seems strange to discuss Kierkegaard in the context of universalism. But his literature contains a recessive and often subterranean trajectory that gestures toward the universal salvation of individuals. … Works of Love, and other texts, contain remarks that implicitly suggest that no one will be excluded from God’s love, which is his definition of eternal blessedness. This becomes clear if we start with Kierkegaard’s account of the characteristics of human love, and then apply them to the divine font of love briefly sketched at the beginning of the Works of Love. My assumption is that what is most essentially true of the visible stream of human loving works must also be true of their invisible source.

Although Kierkegaard protests that this is not a book about God’s love, but about human works of love, the volume’s opening nevertheless spotlights divine love. In a mood of thankfulness Kierkegaard writes, “How could one speak properly about love if you were forgotten, you God of love, source of all love in heaven and on earth…so that one who loves is what he is only by being in you…Savior and Redeemer who gave yourself in order to save all” (WOL, 3). Human love cannot be understood unless the reader realizes that it has its source and origin in the individual’s innermost being, where God’s love resides (WOL, 9). He writes, “Just as a quiet lake originates deep down in a hidden spring, so also does a person’s love originate even more deeply in God’s love” (WOL, 9). The hidden life of God’s love is made known and is recognizable by its fruits (WOL, 7-8). This entails that what is said about the human works can be transferred to God’s love, for the human works are generated by God’s love. What is true of the manifestation must be true of the source.

Let us consider the chapter “Love Believes All Things” (WOL, 225-245). Kierkegaard’s main point is that the reader should believe the best of others and refrain from judging them negatively. The basis for Kierkegaard’s advocacy of a hermeneutics of charity is his claim that the way we judge others manifests the spiritual and moral qualities that are in us. The decision to judge or not judge reveals whether there is self-protective mistrust or risk-taking and generous love in an individual. 

Genuine love does not remain intentionally ignorant of the unworthiness of its objects (WOL, 241). True love is cognizant of the ignoble nature of its objects, or their possible viciousness, but “hides” that unworthiness; love does not dwell upon it. A hope for an eschatologically postponed judgement, in which all the unloving scoundrels would receive their due condemnation, would be unloving; it would not be a hiding of unworthiness.

This “love believes all things” theme has profound consequences for the nature of God. If the loving thing for humans to do is to believe all good things about the other, and if God’s love is the font of human love, then this hermeneutics of charity must be the fruit of God’s love. God must overlook the unworthiness of the objects of God’s love, and those objects are all of us.

God takes no delight in exposing hidden sins, but hides them, puts them behind God’s back. Kierkegaard asserts that any type of love that is contingent upon a positive assessment of the other is false love. This does open the possibility that in eternity a hermeneutics of charity reigns universally.

The chapter, “Love Hopes All Things,” extends this trajectory (WOL, 246-263). Again the purpose of the chapter is to warn the reader to resist the worldly temptation to condemn others and, more emphatically, to never despair about the salvation of another person. Kierkegaard insists that hoping for the good of others, including the eternal blessedness of others, is a work of love, for it is an essential dimension of dealing lovingly with others (WOL, 253). One should never unlovingly give up on another person, never stop hoping for their salvation. Kierkegaard’s concern here is for the character of the lover.  If the individual were to give up on someone as hopelessly lost, she would demonstrate that her love was not an enduring disposition. He warns, “Woe to the one who has given up hope and possibility with regard to another person; woe to him, because he himself has thereby lost love” (WOL, 260). 

This hope includes the hope that God will be merciful to those who seem to be incorrigible reprobates (WOL, 262). One must not hope that divine vengeance will fall on the seemingly depraved other. Kierkegaard warns that the reader must never try to imagine God as a collaborator in vindictive hating. The cultivation of one’s own loving capacities requires that one preserves one’s hope for the divine forgiveness of everyone’s sins and for their becoming blessed.

But what about hope for the salvation of unloving people even after their demise? Kierkegaard raises this issue explicitly, asking if it is possible for someone to be eternally lost (WOL, 262). Changing the ending of the story of the prodigal son so that the prodigal does not repent and return home to his father, Kierkegaard asks if there is hope for the prodigal beyond the grave. Kierkegaard does not answer this directly; he does not speculate about the prodigal son’s post-mortem state. Rather, he shifts attention to the fact that the father continues to hope. Hoping for the blessedness of the departed, even those who seem to have been spiritual and moral failures, is a work of love (WOL, 248).  

The chapter “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” elaborates a cognate theme (WOL, 280-299). Love does not just overlook sin or ignore sin; it “removes” it. Kierkegaard even claims that it “believes away” what is seen. Kierkegaard then roots this more generally in God’s love. More particularly, the human imperative to not see evil is rooted in the fact that human evil is hidden behind God’s back (WOL, 295). Of course, God is not ignorant of the evil, but God refuses to see it; God forgets it. Kierkegaard dares to call God’s forgetting an act of decreation. Kierkegaard writes, “Forgetting, when God does it in relation to sin, is the opposite of creation, since to create is to bring forth from nothing, but to forget is to take back into nothing” (WOL, 296).”

There is more to Barrett’s paper than this, but to include even the entirety of the section on Kierkegaard, would make it too long for this post. Plus, as I said, I really think the paper deserves to be published, so I don’t want to put so much of it up on this blog that it would diminish Barrett’s chances of publishing it elsewhere.

I should also put in a plug for Barrett’s book Kierkegaard’s Two Ages, A Literary Review. The book is part of the Cambridge Elements series on Kierkegaard, and though I have not read it yet, I’m familiar with Barrett’s work, so I know it will be good!

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Kierkegaard, MacDonald, and Universalism at the 2025 AAR

As usual, this year’s annual meeting of the American Academy of religion was rich with Kierkegaard sessions. I will say more about those sessions in a later post. The point of this post is to describe what were, for me, the highlights of the conference. 

I don’t know whether I mentioned this in any earlier posts, but I’m a member of an Anglo-Catholic church here in Philadelphia called S. Clement’s. It is a wonderful community of generally politically progressive, but liturgically conservative, Christians and it has the most beautiful services I’ve ever attended. Michael Glass, a Kierkegaard scholar who recently received his Ph.D. from Temple is also a member of S. Clement’s.

So anyway, my husband, Brian Foley decided we should try to attend the High Mass at an Anglo Catholic church while we were in Boston for the AAR meeting. I can’t remember whether I directed him to The Church of the Advent (which I had somehow learned the Kierkegaard scholar Jeff Hanson had been affiliated with at one time), or whether he found it on his own. Jeff was there, of course, that Sunday and we were able to chat briefly with him after the service. The highlight of the service, though, was a bell chorus and the flamboyant “Queen Anne’s” incense move shown in the video that accompanies this post. 

Wild, eh? 

The church was wonderful. The incense, unfortunately, set off the smoke alarm so everyone, congregation, choir, etc., etc. had to file out into the cold and conclude the services in the street. Everyone was very good natured about it, though, and when we received the all-clear, we headed downstairs for a sumptuous coffee hour and a trip to the little bookstore in the basement.

We’ll definitely be visiting The Church of the Advent again!

The second highlight of the conference for me was a special session on adoption of the Scriptural Reasoning Unit of the AAR. I presented a paper at that session entitled “The Dark Side of Adoption” that defended George MacDonald’s argument that Paul’s υίοθεσία (cf., e.g., Romans 8:15) should not be translated as “adoption.” I was surprised at how positive was the reception of my defense of MacDonald on this point. People often become very wedded to the precise wording of the writings they hold sacred, so I expected some pushback, but there was virtually none. I was also very fortunate to have MacDonald scholar Laurie Wilson present in the audience and she graciously helped me out with a couple of questions that stumped me. (I’ll say more about Wilson, who had earlier presented a paper at the joint session of the Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Unit and the Nineteenth Century Theology Unit, in a later post.) 

MacDonald was a genius at, among other things, interpreting the Greek of the New Testament. He argued in a sermon entitled “Creation in Christ,” from Unspoken Sermons Series Three (published in 1889), that Biblical translators had mistranslated the beginning of the Gospel of John. As I mentioned, people often become very wedded to the precise wording of the writings they hold sacred, so it took a full one hundred years for MacDonald’s insight to be incorporated into any English translation of the Bible. It was finally incorporated, though, into the New Revised Standard Version (published in 1989) (I’m indebted to Ben White for pointing this out to me), so perhaps one day MacDonald’s point about the proper translation of υίοθεσία will be incorporated into an English translation of Romans.

The real highlight of the conference for me, though, was a special session that Lee Barrett, Robin Parry, and I organized on universalism. Parry, the author of the best-selling The Evangelical Universalist (published under the pseudonym Gregory MacDonald), chaired the session, Barrett, of Moravian Seminary, and Tom Greggs, of The Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton, were the presenters, and I served as a respondent after Thomas Talbott was forced to withdraw as a speaker for family reasons. 

I had no idea what to expect in terms of attendance. The session was what is called an “Other Event” at the AAR, meaning that it was not sponsored by an existing AAR unit. It was listed in the conference program, and the Søren Kierkegaard Society had generously promoted it to its members, but I had no idea how many people would actually read the program that closely, or how many Kierkegaard people would be interested in universalism. We’d discussed ordering refreshments for the session, but had decided against it out of fear that there might not be enough people to justify spending the money.

How wrong we were! The venue, albeit small, was packed. There was literally standing room only. The papers were excellent and the discussion was exceptionally lively. There was a palpable energy among those present, even my husband, who showed up only as the session was concluding, remarked on it. Parry explained that the session organizers were in the process of establishing a new scholarly organization, the Society for the Study of Christian Universalism, and requested that anyone interested in joining the society should put their name and contact info on a sheet that would be passed around the audience. We got more than twenty names! (Several of the names and email addresses were undecipherable, though, and my guesses as to what they were were unsuccessful, so if you had put your name on the list, but have not yet heard from me, please email me at mgpiety@drexel.edu and tell me that you want to be added to the list. Or if you were not present at the AAR session but you are reading this post and would like to be added to the list, just let me know and I will add you.)

I was also able to become more closely acquainted with Kierkegaard scholar Casey Spinks who was in the audience and whom I spoke with briefly after the end of the session. I learned in that conversation that Spinks (whose Kierkegaard’s Ontology is forthcoming from Bloomsbury) had also been at The Church of the Advent that morning. There appears to be something in Anglo-Catholicism that is particularly appealing to Kierkegaard scholars. Perhaps it is the combination of deep spirituality of the Roman Catholic tradition and the anti-authoritarianism of the English Reformation. I’d be interested to hear from readers whether they are aware of any other Anglo-Catholic Kierkegaard scholars. 

I began this post with the objective of giving you a little smags prøve (or taste) of Barrett’s paper from the universalism session because that paper looked at universalism in the thought of Schleiermacher, Hegel, and, of course, Kierkegaard. I particularly liked the section on Kierkegaard because Barrett makes a very convincing case that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, without ever actually referring to the explicitly universalist passage from Kierkegaard’s journals. That is, Barrett argues that universalism can actually be inferred from various passages in Works of Love. I’ve decided, however, that that issue deserves a post of its own, so stay tuned. I should have it up in a few more days.

In the meantime, Happy New Year!

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Do We Choose to Believe Things According to Kierkegaard?

This post concerns two types of belief, or faith according to Kierkegaard: ordinary, everyday beliefs and specifically Christian faith. There is only one word in Danish for both types of belief: Tro. 

A journal entry from 1852 exhibits the concept that most scholars have in mind when talking about Kierkegaard’s views on Christian faith.

πιστισ—επιστημμη

So here we have it πιστισ as it is used in good Greek (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) is regarded as signifying something somewhat lower than επιστημμη. πιστισ relates to what is probable. Therefore πιστισ, to produce faith, according the the classics, is the orator’s task.

Christianity now comes and brings up the concept of faith in an entirely different sense, precisely in relation to the paradox (that is, improbability), but then again as signifying the highest certainty [Vished] (see the definitions in Hebrews), consciousness of the eternal, the most passionate certainty that causes a per[son] to sacrifice everything, life itself, for this faith.” (KJN 9, 81.)

The Danish for this passage is:

See der har vi det. πιστις saaledes som det bruges i godt Græsk (Plato, Aristoteles o: s: v:) ansees for at betegne noget langt lavere end επιστημη. πιστις forholder sig nemlig til det Sandsynlige. Derfor er  πιστις at frembring Tro, ogsaa efter Clasikkernes Mening, Talernes Opgave.

Nu kommer Christendommen og bringer Begrebet Tro op, i en ganske anden Forstand, Tro just som forholdende sig til det Paradoxe (altsaa det Usandsynlige) men saa igjen betegnende den høieste Vished (cfr. Definitionen i Hebræerbrevet) Evigheds-Bevidstheden, den meest lidenskabelige Vished, der lader et Msk. offre Alt, Livet med for denne Tro.

It’s important to appreciate Kierkegaard’s observation that the task of the orator, according to classical philosophers, was to “produce” [frembringe, which literally means “to bring forth] faith. That is, faith, or belief in the ordinary sense, is for Kierkegaard, as for classical philosophers, a passion, or an essentially passive thing. It appears to be something that happens to a person, rather than something that person does. Orators “produce” faith. They do not incite their listeners to make decisions that what they are saying is correct, they persuade, or produce belief by making what they are saying appear more probable than alternative views. No rational person, when presented with a multiplicity of views will adopt one that appears less probable to them over one that appears more probable. 

Kierkegaard appears to believe that convictions evolve naturally in people as apparent probability increases. Some people are less credulous than other people, and hence require more persuading, but credulity is arguably the default state of human beings. Kierkegaard was well aware of this. That, I believe, is where the “leap” comes in. People form beliefs based on their perceptions of probability and are generally unaware of the fact that probability is very different from formal certainty. To form beliefs is to go just a little bit beyond the evidence on which they are based, because that evidence (outside mathematics anyway) is always only probabilisitic and probabilities are not proofs in the strict sense. That is, beliefs are underdetermined by the evidence on which they are based.

I described this dynamic in “Kierkegaard on Rationality” where I explain that we appear “compelled” to make judgments based on their perceptions of probability, or improbability “simply by virtue of the kind of creatures we are.” I did speak there about “choosing between” different interpretations of existence, but I believe now that I was wrong. I was less familiar with Kierkegaard’s thought then than I am now (that was actually a paper I wrote in graduate school) and I was making an argument against Alasdair MacIntyre’s claim in After Virtue that “Kierkegaard considered moral commitment to be ‘the expression of a criterionless choice,” or “a choice for which no rational justification can be given” (After Virtue, 38). That is, I was more concerned to refute the idea that there was no rational justification for the movement from one interpretation of existence to another, than I was with the issue of whether that movement was the expression of a choice. 

In fact, Kierkegaard does not describe the movement from an aesthetic interpretation of existence to an ethical one as a choice. What he says there is that the aesthetic view of existence sees suffering as a result of misfortune. The more misfortune, the more suffering. Hence the aesthete who experiences persistent suffering, starts to view the aesthetic interpretation of existence as less plausible than the ethical interpretation because the latter sees suffering as essential to human existence. If an aesthete experiences persistent suffering, asserts Kierkegaard, “he despairs, whereby immediacy ends, and the transition to another understanding of misfortune is made possible, that is, to comprehending suffering, an understanding that does not merely comprehend this or that misfortune, but essentially comprehends suffering” (CUP, 434 emphasis added).

The Danish for this passage is “fortvivler han, hvorved Umiddelbarheden hører op og Overgangen er gjort muligt til en anden Forstaaelse a Ulykken: til at fatte Lidelsen, en Forstaaelse der ikke blot fatter denne eller hiin Ulykke, men væsentligen fatter Lidelse.” (SKS 7, 394.) 

The expression that is translated as “comprehend” is fatte, and this translation is indeed correct. To fatte something means literally “to catch it,” and figuratively to “apprehend,” or “comprehend” (see Ferrall-Repp). Persistent suffering facilitates a more accurate understanding of the true nature of suffering. The sufferer doesn’t chose a better understanding of suffering. That is, they don’t chose an ethical interpretation of existence over an aesthetic one. Their persistent suffering helps them to get a better grasp of suffering, of its place in human existence, and hence of the nature of human existence. It is more like an act of perception than like a choice. 

That said, there is some element of volition here. Kierkegaard says that persistent suffering makes the transition to another understanding of existence possible, not that it forces this understanding on the sufferer.  The suffer can chose to persist in despair, can chose to continue to doubt what now seems increasingly plausible to him. That is, one can refuse to assent to the truth of a perception. That’s a negative expression of volition, though, rather than the positive expression we would generally associate with a choice.

This highlights how unlike the secular existentialists Kierkegaard is. We cannot make meaning out of nothing. There are objective truths about reality.  We cannot chose to believe whatever we want about reality. Reality impresses itself upon us and our choices are limited to either accepting or rejecting these impressions, or to inquiring further into whether they are correct. That is, our impressions concerning the true nature of some particular aspect of reality, do not appear to be free choices, according to Kierkegaard, but something produced in us independently of our will. 

The will does have a role, however, in belief formation, even with respect to objective reality, to the extent that we can decide the extent to which we want to inquire into the truth of a particular proposition. We sometimes have conflicting impressions relative to the probability of the truth of a particular proposition. If the majority of the scientific community subscribes to a particular theory, that will likely give rise to the impression that that theory is correct. On the other hand, if we are personally acquainted with a scientist whom we respect, who argues persuasively (in the loose sense of persuasive) that that theory is incorrect, then we may well be torn concerning whether to accept the theory as true. In instances such as these, which are likely many, we don’t generally decide what to believe, we simply keep looking into the issue until it seems to us that we have identified the view that is most likely correct, and we determine this, when, after some period of investigation, we find ourselves believing one or the other of the two views about which were were originally torn. 

This goes against what I said in Ways of Knowing, where I asserted that Kierkegaard was 

aware that the impression created in the scholar, or scientist, by the direction in which a particular set of data is tending can be so great that we would seem to have little choice but to accept the data as conclusive and he is not, for the most part, concerned to preclude such acceptance. Indeed, he recognizes full well, unlike the Pyrrhonist to whom he is so indebted, that a life without beliefs is impossible. His concern is rather to expose the nature of such acceptance, that it is a choice, no matter how well-founded or reasonable is may appear relative to alternative choices. (Ways of Knowing, 93.)

But again, I believe I was wrong in that I don’t think Kierkegaard was concerned to expose that the acceptance of one view of empirical reality, or one scholarly theory, over another was a choice, but rather that such acceptance was undetermined by the evidence that led to the acceptance. That is, I think he was concerned to point out that we cannot have certainty in any discipline outside of mathematics. Such an appreciation is important, because it highlights that the will does have some role in the search for scholarly and scientific knowledge. But that role, I believe now, is restricted to the decision of whether to continue collecting evidence rather than to accepting or rejecting a particular theory. 

I realize that this is an extremely fine distinction in that that decision is going to be related to how strong has become the impression that one theory is more probably correct than another. But I think it is none-the-less an important distinction because not only does it make sense of the actual language he uses when describing the transition from an aesthetic interpretation of existence to an ethical one, it coheres with the fact that Kierkegaard clearly believed that there was an objective reality that would impinge upon the perceptions, both literal and figurative of the observer, or subject. 

There are passages in Kierkegaard’s works that might appear to go against the view I’m presenting here, such as in the second volume of Either-Or where Judge Wilhelm refers to the subject’s choice of himself (cf., e.g., EO II, 215), but choosing oneself is a very different sort of choice than choosing to believe something.

Kierkegaard does refer to Troens Valg, i.e., “the choice of faith” (KJN 8, 146) when he observes “Holy Scripture demands ‘faith,’” and for precisely this reason there must be inconsistencies, so that there can be a choice of faith, or so that faith becomes a choice.”

That is the only place, however, in the entire Kierkegaard corpus (at least according to the online edition of SKS) where he uses that expression. He uses similar expressions in other places, but always, according to my cursory research, with respect to Christian faith, never (at least according to the online edition of SKS) with respect to any other sort of belief. That is, I did a search on vælge at tro (chose to believe) and on beslutte at tro (or decide to believe) and there were no hits whatever for either phrase in the entirety of the Kierkegaard corpus. 

Before I proceed with my argument, I want to caution against starting with word searches of that sort. I’ve been reading Kierkegaard for more than forty years. I feel that I know how he thinks. That’s a dangerous assumption, of course, but I have so far, anyway, generally been proved right in what I’ve assumed was his position on a particular issue. I don’t do word searches on SKS to learn what Kierkegaard’s views on a particular subject are. I go looking for passages to cite to support what I believe to be his views, and also occasionally, as in this instance, to see if I might be wrong, if there are perhaps passages that suggest Kierkegaard held some view other than the one I’m inclined to attribute to him, or that might appear to suggest this and hence be used by scholars less familiar with Kierkegaard’s thought to support erroneous interpretations of it. 

Word searches on SKS are a dangerous place to start in trying to understand Kierkegaard’s views because the hits will take the searcher to passages in works where the context of the occurrence of the term in question will be crucial to understanding what Kierkegaard is talking about. Kierkegaard uses the term Tro, for example, like he uses so many other terms, in a variety of ways. Sometimes it refers to the faith that is a momentary phenomenon (pun intended), and other times to Christian doctrine, and still other times diachronically to the life of a Christian who strives to continually renew the faith that is experienced in “the moment.” One needs to know the context in which the word, or expression, occurs to understand the meaning it has in that context, to say nothing of in the authorship as a whole.

But back to the issue of this post. One has to chose the believe the truth of Christianity, according to Kierkegaard, precisely because belief in that truth cannot form naturally, as do other beliefs. It is important to appreciate, however, that while this choice is necessary to Christian faith, it is not sufficient. Faith is what Kierkegaard in Philosophical Crumbs, calls “the condition for understanding the truth,” and that is given to the believer by Christ in the believer’s encounter with Christ, or, as he expresses it in Crumbs, with “the god in time.”

Kierkegaard asserts in Crumbs that “the conclusion of belief [Slutning] is not an inference but a decision [Beslutning]” (Crumbs, 150/SKS 4, 283) where he is not obviously talking about Christian faith or belief. The context of this reference, however, is a grasp of becoming as such and this is not an ordinary epistemological activity. Historians are generally concerned with what historical facts were rather than with how they came about. That is, historians are concerned with determining what happened in the past, not whether it happened freely or was the product of deterministic forces.  And becoming is never an issue in the natural sciences because the only “becoming,” in Kierkegaard’s technical sense, that can be attributed to nature is restricted to the moment of its creation. The changes that subsequently characterize nature do not represent becoming in the genuine sense.

“Becoming” appears to be a specifically Christian concept, according to Kierkegaard. What he refers to in Crumbs as the “Socratic” perspective, which he appears, at least there, to consider the only possible alternative to the Christian, makes time unreal. The changes that characterize temporal phenomenal existence from the “Socratic” perspective are like the changes Kierkegaard says characterize nature. They do not involve genuine becoming. So when Kierkegaard is talking about the “conclusion of belief [Tro]” being a decision, he is likely talking specifically, if indirectly, about Christian faith and not about belief in a more generic sense. 

So ordinary beliefs are formed in us more or less independently of our wills. The will can have a role, according to Kierkegaard, but it appears that role is restricted to deciding whether to keep investigating the truth of some candidate for belief or to give in to the impression that the object of the belief is true. What distinguishes Christian faith, or belief, from ordinary faith, or belief, for Kierkegaard, is that it is not the natural product of an impression of the increasing probability that Christianity is true, but an antidote to the anguish of the consciousness of sin, the importance of which increases in proportion to the increase in that anguish. The more desperate the need of the sinner for forgiveness, the greater the attraction of Christianity. But the attraction is not the product of an impression of the increasing probability of the truth of forgiveness. Quite the contrary. The greater the sinner’s anguish, the less credible to him will be the claim that his sins are forgiven. 

That, I would argue, is the true paradox of Christianity. The believer believes against probability, or the impression of probability, in contrast to every other belief, he or she might have, but out of need. That is, the Christian must decide to believe the truth of Christianity in a sense in which they do not actually decide to believe anything else, precisely because the belief will not form naturally in them. That is why, I believe, Kierkegaard argues that “Christianity now comes and brings up the concept of faith in an entirely different sense, precisely in relation to the paradox (that is, improbability).”