May 24. Søren Kierkegaard. The problem began with Søren’s father. Once when Dad was a shepherd boy hard at work in the harsh weather, he cursed God, and even when he was grown, he was convinced that because of that curse all seven of his children would die before they reached the age of 34. This might explain why Søren wrote so prolifically before his 34th birthday. He published close to 40 works, including poetry, fiction, philosophical treatises, theological pieces, social critiques, and works that defy labelling
In many ways, he was like the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates. Neither philosopher was satisfied with traditional answers to moral questions, and both pushed people to think for themselves and to take responsibility for what they believed and how they lived in the light of that belief. Both philosophers drew criticism from the establishment.
The main question that occupied Søren was how to “become a Christian in Christendom.” On this date in 1855, he published one of his final works: The Instant: On Beginnings, which addresses the idea of becoming one’s true self. Here’s his story.
Battling the enemy’s lies demands that every man examine what he believes.
And the air was thick with lies during the mid-1800s Søren Kierkegaard’s time. Denmark’s church faced a deadly enemy.
It wasn’t anything loud or violent; it was a lie nobody questioned. People just accepted it.
This enemy-lie taught that a person could be born into Christianity. If your parents were Christians, then automatically you were, too.
But the philosopher Kierkegaard knew that God had sent had His Son to pay the price for sin to ransom people who entrusted their lives to Him. But the gift of salvation was not a birthright of anyone; it could be had only through faith.
In 1855, Kierkegaard realized it was his duty to fight the lie. With nothing but a pen and a mindset of self-examination, Kierkegaard strode into battle.
In the middle of this battle, Søren’s brother Peter visited. He was a theologian of the Danish church, and he thought Søren was as eccentric as ever: his light hair high above his forehead, his thin frame supported on legs of uneven lengths, and his eyes with a “quiet glow of love.”
Søren paced his apartment thoughtfully, where a few different rooms were heated and lit at once, and a pen and paper lay in each area to allow him to capture a thought any moment it took shape.
Feeling sympathy and respect for his brother, while at the same time disagreeing with what Soren wrote, Peter casually suggested Søren travel a while and take a break.
Soren rested his gaze on his well-meaning brother and responded bluntly: “Is this the time to travel?”
Seeing the determination and conviction behind this question, Peter realized that “to some extent [Søren] was justified in saying this…it must have appeared to be a counsel to flee from battle.” Peter left, unsettled, and Søren went back to writing.
In the next few months Søren managed to write, edit, and publish 64 articles, which spoke out against commonly accepted state Christendom.
But the exhaustion and stress of Søren’s task overwhelmed his body, and he passed away from illness in the late fall of 1855.
When Peter spoke at the funeral, he looked out at the great crowd and recognized the impact his brother’s writing had. There were those whom his brother had brought to spiritual awakening, those who began to wrestle with what they really believed, those who had learned to test and weigh commonly accepted practices against God’s Word, and even those who realized that what they possessed was not true faith. In each of these people, Søren Kierkegaard had asked only what he had asked of himself: to examine and test what he presumed to know and believe.
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5, ESV).
When you examine your heart in light of what the bible says are you living out your faith? Battling the enemy’s lies demands that every man examine what he believes.
McDonald, William. “Søren Kierkegaard.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. SEP. Updated Nov. 10, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/
Kirmmse, Bruce. Encounters with Kierkegaard: A Life as Seen by His Contemporaries. Princeton University Press, 1996.
Storm, Dan. “Articles from The Fatherland.” D. Anthony Storm’s Commentary on Kierkegaard, http://sorenkierkegaard.org/the-moment.html. Accessed 19 November 2018.
Storm, Dan. “The Moment.” D. Anthony Storm’s Commentary on Kierkegaard, http://sorenkierkegaard.org/themoment.html. Accessed 19 November 2018.
Story read by Daniel Carpenter