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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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Ad Fontes: Kierkegaard and MacDonald on “Original Christianity”

This year is the bicentenary of the birth of George MacDonald. There were a number of conferences held to celebrate this auspicious event. I was fortunate to be able to attend two of them. I wrote earlier about the first conference that took place at Wheaton College last summer. This post is about a conference that took place at Yale University on the 13th and 14th of December. 

I discovered by accident that Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has the largest collection of MacDonal materials of any library in the world. That knowledge encouraged in me the hope that Yale might be willing to host a conference on MacDonald, so I “cold-called” several members of the faculty at Yale to see if there was any possibility that my hope might be realized. I didn’t have to wait long, David Mahan, of Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music responded almost immediately that the ISM could provide us with a venu. He couldn’t promise any financial support, however, so I turned to Drexel in the hope that they might be willing to provide the money we needed. They did! 

Drexel, or more specifically, David Brown, dean of Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, and former Drexel President John Fry, very generously agreed to cover all the costs associated with the conference. That promise was absolutely crucial in making the conference the success that it was because quite a few of the speakers could not count on institutional support to cover their costs. I will forever be indebted to Drexel for their generosity in what are hard times for pretty much every institution of higher education.

The conference was absolutely wonderful. We were treated to a tour of some of the MacDonald materials in the library, and encouraged to apply for the numerous fellowships the library has to support scholars doing research on their collections. There was a truly impressive list of presenters, as well, including Malcolm Guite and Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson, president and co-chair respectively of the George MacDonald Society, Julie Canlis, Kerry Magrudder, Trevor Hart, and many more. A full list of speakers can be found on the program. 

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, there are lots of similarities between Kierkegaard’s and MacDonald’s thought. Mine was the only paper, however, comparing the two. There is talk of all the papers presented in celebration of MacDonald’s bicentenary being published, so I won’t give you the whole paper here. The paper, “Ad Fontes: Kierkegaard and MacDonald on ‘Original Christianity,’” argues that “Kierkegaard and MacDonald share a reverence for the original Christian texts and a healthy skepticism for the official Christian tradition and its tendency to lapse into dogmatism and authoritarianism, that was unusual both for their own time and for ours and that this reverence and skepticism reveals a deep affinity in their thought concerning the true message of Christianity and the nature of Christian life.” Both Kierkegaard and MacDonald, I observe in the paper, had extensive knowledge of ancient Greek and used this knowledge to correct what they felt to be errors in the interpretation of the Christian message. Again, I’m not going to present my entire argument here. I will, however, give you a little taste of the nature of my argument. The paper begins…

“Ad fontes, or “to the sources,” was one of the rallying cries of the Protestant Reformation. It appears in Psalm 41 of the Latin Vulgate (Psalm 42 in most other versions), which reads “As the hart panteth after the water brooks,(desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum) so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” 

The sources, or fonts, as we say in English, of Christian faith are first and foremost the earliest Christian writings, and to access these requires considerable knowledge of ancient Greek. It is not merely the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament that were written in Greek, but also the works of the earliest of the Church Fathers.”

The paper gives a number of example where both Kierkegaard and MacDonald use their knowledge of ancient Greek to defend their own interpretations of the true message of Christianity. The paper, as a whole, is yet another argument in support of the view that Kierkegaard, like MacDonald, was a universalist, and while I didn’t have the space to develop the argument in the detail I would like, I think I made a fairly convincing case, drawing not merely on texts from the works of both thinkers but also on the impressive scholarship of Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, whose co-authored book Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and Aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts makes a very compelling argument that there are few if any references to eternal damnation anywhere in the New Testament. This fact has been obscured by church history which, from the period of at least Augustine onward, has arguably systematically misinterpreted the meanings of these terms. Scholars well-versed in ancient Greek, however, as both Kierkegaard and MacDonald were, would certainly have been aware of the paucity of references to eternal damnation in the New Testament as well as of the fact that the church appears to have labored mightily to obscure this. This fact could actually be one of the reasons that both thinkers exhibit such a healthy skepticism for the authority of various thinkers throughout church history. Interesting, eh?

The Yale MacDonald conference was such a success, that we are hoping to be able to make it a regular event every two, or perhaps three years. So there is time for you Kierkegaard scholars to familiarize yourself with MacDonald’s thought before the next conference!

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Kierkegaard, MacDonald, and Universalism

SK Universalism quote

I wrote earlier about how I had recently discovered a thinker, George MacDonald (1824-1905), whose views were very similar to Kierkegaard’s. What I don’t know is whether MacDonald was familiar with Kierkegaard’s work, and if so, to what extent. My post on Kierkegaard’s early reception in Germany provides evidence to support that MacDonald likely had at least some exposure to Kierkegaard’s works, both in German translation and via reviews and responses to those translations in German theological journals. 

I still haven’t had time to do any research on the extent of MacDonald’s exposure to Kierkegaard. That would require tracking down which books MacDonald personally owned, which books and periodicals would have been available to him in the libraries he used, and going through all his correspondence in search of any mention of Kierkegaard. I did, however, stumble across a reference in the second volume of MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons that I believe provides further support for the view that MacDonald may have been influenced by Kierkegaard. The sermon in question is entitled “The Word of Jesus on Prayer.” “Convince me,” protests MacDonald’s imaginary interlocutor, “that prayer is heard, and I shall know. Why should the question admit of doubt? Why should it require to be reasoned about? We know that the wind blows: why should we not know that God answers prayer?’ 

MacDonald replies, “What if God does not care to have you know it at second hand?”

Kierkegaard scholars will immediately recognize not merely the expression, “at second hand,” but also the precise sense in which MacDonald uses it here, as identical to Kierkegaard’s use of it in Philosophical Crumbs and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.  

My first thought, actually, was that this philosophical-theological use of the expression “at second hand” might actually have a biblical origin. I did a word search on both the King James Version and the Revised Version (to which MacDonald makes frequent reference in his writings) of the Bible, but could not find it in either version. That doesn’t preclude, of course, that both Kierkegaard and MacDonald got the expression from some third source independently of each other, so if any reader knows of such a source, I would be very much in your debt if you would share it with me. 

The question of the relation between Kierkegaard and MacDonald raises another interesting issue. MacDonald was a universalist. Was Kierkegaard? I don’t mean to suggest that MacDonald would have gotten his universalism from Kierkegaard, because if Kierkegaard was a universalist, that is far from obvious. There are scholars who appear to think he was, and there are places in Kierkegaard’s works that suggest he may have had universalist leanings. Kierkegaard famously says, for example, in Crumbs that if a person did not receive the condition for understanding the truth from the god (i.e., Christ) in this life, “[i]f they met each other in another life, this teacher would again be able to give the condition” (Crumbs, p. 95). Since the “condition” in question is faith, the implication is that those who lack faith, for whatever reason, are not damned to hell for eternity, but will have multiple chances to attain it. Kierkegaard may even have believed that the faithless would continue to be presented with such chances until, finally, they did receive it.

The difficulty with this interpretation, apart from its apparent reliance on the doctrine of reincarnation, is that the passage in question continues “[b]ut one who had once received it [but lost it again] would be a stranger to him,” because “[t]he condition was something entrusted, for which the receiver would always be required to give an account” (Crumbs, p. 95). That doesn’t mean that someone who had not had faith in this life would be damned to hell, but it does have ominous implications for those who had faith in this life and then lost it. 

There are multiple references to hell in Kierkegaard’s writings (though, interestingly, exponentially more references to hell in the commentaries on Kierkegaard’s writings in the new Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter than in the writings themselves). Even that doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that Kierkegaard believed in eternal damnation because MacDonald also refers occasionally to hell, though as a place of corrective rather than retributive punishment. 

A casual search I did on the online edition of Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter was not encouraging for those of us who would like to think of Kierkegaard as a universalist. 

I discovered a place in Kierkegaard’s journals where he says: “The NT [i.e., New Testament] is clearly based on the view that there is eternal damnation” (JN vol. 9, p. 262).

It’s possible, of course, to argue that Kierkegaard did not feel compelled to agree with everything in the New Testament.

“In an article in Nordisk Kirketidende,” Kierkegaard writes, “Fenger from Slotsbjergbye wrote affirming the eternity of punishment in hell and scoffing at the Christians who imagine themselves to be Christian without having heaven-hell. From a Christian point of view he is right” (JN vol. 11: Part 2, p. 345, emphasis added.)

The rest of the entry goes on to argue that there is insufficient concern among Christians for the situation of those who may be damned to hell for eternity and that Fenger was himself among those whose concern seemed insufficient. It is conceivable, of course, that Kierkegaard was simply pointing out that, if there were a hell to which God damned anyone eternally, as so many Christians believe, then Christians should be far more concerned with the spiritual situation of their fellow man than they tend to be.

I’m sympathetic to such attempts to preserve the possibility that Kierkegaard was a universalist. It’s not only more morally appealing than the view that some people would be damned to hell forever, it actually seems to cohere better with the basic tenets of Christianity. I’m inclined to agree with Keith DeRose, Allison Foundation Professor of Philosophy at Yale who writes 

Universalism is far from a mere doctrine of barren theology; many, like Paul, find great joy in the belief. Part of the joy some find is in the thought that not only they, but their fellow humans, will, eventually at least, experience everlasting life with Christ. But, like Paul, you may find the joy is focused rather on God, and on how wondrous and complete a victory will be won by the God “who desires everyone to be saved” (I Timothy 2:4). And, on the other side, the non-universalist picture may come to look strangely dim, not exclusively because of the awful fate that awaits some of your fellows on this picture, but because God is deprived of such a complete victory, and, in winning only a partial victory, his desire that everyone be saved will ultimately be frustrated.

(“Universalism and The Bible”).

That is, not only does the idea of eternal damnation fail, I would argue, to cohere with the idea that God is love, it also fails to cohere with the idea that God is omnipotent. God desires that everyone should be saved, but then everyone isn’t saved? So God doesn’t get what God wants? If God truly desires that everyone should be saved as I Timothy 2:4 (among other biblical passages) suggests, but everyone isn’t saved, then God is outright defeated, which suggests that he isn’t omnipotent. 

But if Kierkegaard was a universalist what is one to make of passages such as the two above, as well as the one in Works of Love where Kierkegaard asserts that Christianity “discovered” (opdagede) what the world found ludicrous — the idea of “eternal damnation” (evig Fortabelse)”? Is it possible that such passages were simply hyperbole? Kierkegaard was always concerned with the effect his writings would have on others. Is it possible that he thought the idea of universal salvation just wouldn’t be very helpful to people in that it would incline them to take Christianity less seriously if they felt everyone would eventually be saved? 

There is an intriguing passage in the Hongs’ translation of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers that suggests that may in fact have been the motivation for his references to eternal damnation (though the fact that some of these references are in his journals and papers poses problems for such a thesis). The passage in question makes a pretty unequivocal statement in favor of the idea of universal salvation. It reads: 

“[W]at the old bishop once said to me is not true — namely, that I spoke as if others were going to hell. No, if I can be said to speak at all of going to hell, then I am going along with them. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that we will all be saved, I too, and this awakens my deepest wonder” (JP vol. 6, p. 557).

The problem is, I could not find this passage in the new Journals and Notebooks (2007-2019). Nor could I find it in the new Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (1997-2013) I did find it, however, in Vol. 11, Tome 3, p. 57 of the purportedly superseded Søren Kierkegaards Papirer (1909-1948). Since that provided me with the actual wording of the original Danish I plugged the wording into the search function of the online edition of SKS.

Nothing! 

I will leave open the question of whether the omission of what appears to be an absolutely essential passage from Kierkegaard’s papers from both the new Danish and English editions of Kierkegaard’s journals and papers, editions that purport to be complete, is part of a conspiracy to conceal from the public that Kierkegaard subscribed to a doctrine that most denominations of Christianity (and the Danish Lutheran Church in particular) consider heretical.

One thing is clear, however, both the new Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter and the new Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks are deeply flawed, as one might guess by comparing how few years were put into their production relative to how many years were put into the production of the older Papirer The new Skrifter was produced in only 16 years and the  Journals and Notebooks, which was based on the Skrifter, was cranked out in only 12 years, as opposed to almost forty years that was put into the production of the Papirer. 

Serious Kierkegaard scholars will need to continue to use the earlier Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers and Søren Kierkegaards Papirer. Fortunately, it is still possible to get your hands on these invaluable works. I found a copy of the Journals and Papers on Ebay for $125.00 for the whole set, and another on abebooks.com for $495.00. I also found a set of the Papirer for 660 euros, and sets do occasionally appear for sale by Danish antiquarians. Both the Journals and Papers and the Papirer will become increasingly hard to find, though, so if you are serious about Kierkegaard scholarship and you do not already own these works, I urge you to buy them now!